> I have heard this claim, that "real love is not able
> to be coerced from someone
> through the use of force or threats. Neither is it a
> mere automatic or robotic
> response resulting from some sort of previous
> programming," on many occasions.
> However, I have never heard a well thought out
> explanation of this. About the best
> I've heard is "How could it be any other way?" which
> is no explanation at all. I'd be
> curious to hear yours.
A couple of off-the-top-of-the-head, non-cited points.
First, real love requires freewill on some level, so
if the response is a robotic response, over which you
have no choice, you are not choosing to love. It
seems to me for any response, love or hate or
whatever, to be meaningful, there has to be some
element of freewill in making that response or it
means nothing in an objective sense. However, as you
point out, you can be coerced into making certain
"freewill" choices, and I think think the research
that I recall having read suggests that this does not
work for the following reasons.
The first part of the answer has to do with what kind
of response do we want here. And the answer seems to
me, from a Christian standpoint, to be a change of
heart, rather than merely a certain type of behavior.
The OT and NT are full of passages that discuss this
dichotomy between outward appearances of piety or
actions and the internal condition of a person, with
the latter, not the former being the important part.
How then does one achieve an inward turning of the
heart, especially if that turning is supposed to be a
turning out of freewill?
It seems to me that there is a good deal of research
(thanks to the dominance of the behavioral paradigm
for several decades in the social sciences) on
attempts to influence behavior, the efficacy of
therapy, and other related attempts to modify
behavior. In the studies of humans (you can't survey
animals for their subjective sense of things so those
studies are off the board for our discussion), I have
not seen any data that suggests that outwardly
coercive behavior (e.g., electrical shocks, opprobium,
etc.)by themselves causes an internal changing of
one's views. I suppose the closest one would get is
to the "Stockholm Syndrome", where despite the
life-threatening situation imposed by the hostage
takers the kindness of the hostage takers is what
figures prominently in the response of the hostages in
identifying with the hostage takers (a persuasive love
of sorts, in a coercive environment). I do not think
there is any good data supporting the idea that
compelled behavior by itself leads to internal changes
in people's views regarding that behavior. For
example, in addiction situations, interventions and
imposed treatments are ineffective in and of
themselves, recovery requires an inward change in the
view of the addict rather than in the enforced program
of detoxification, etc.
The seminal message of popular books on therapy, such
as "If You Meet Buddha on the Road, Kill Him," is that
the teacher/therapist can only assist the
student/patient in finding resources that they already
have and assisting them in developing those resources.
They cannot dictate what the person should do or how
they think, they can only persuade them, if you will,
to think in new ways based on the resources the
students already have.
So, I find the argument for persuasive as opposed to
coerced love very compelling. Coercive action may
result in outward behavior modification, but I do not
believe that it changes hearts or minds. In fact, I
think good data exist to support the opposite, that it
breeds anger and resentment in many cases. I think
one can see this in therapy situations where the goal
often is to help the person see things in a different
way so that they can transform how they think.
It seems to me that the inward working of the Holy
Spirit within people's lives exemplify how persuasive,
rather than coercive love can allow amazing
transformations of how people live and what they
consider important. I do not see this working of the
Holy Spirit as coercive at all, but entirely
persuasive.
Anyway, that's why I find the argument about
persuasive love pretty compelling based on Christian
tradition and data from a lot of social science
research.
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