The Meaning of Love – 5th Annual CCT Conference

A week from today I will be over at Biola’s campus for their 5th Annual Center for Christian Thought conference.

This year’s topic is “The Meaning of Love.” The conference will be exploring questions like:

• What is love?
• What are the ethical implications of Jesus’s love commands?
• What should be made of the Christian notion of enemy love?
• What can be learned from recent scientific work on love about intentional practices likely to conduce to a loving character?
• What light do ethical theories shed on the moral dimensions of love?
• What is the relationship between love and justice?

To top things off they have a great line up of keynote speakers including:

1. George Hunsinger – “Agape and the Long Defeat”
2. Nicholas Wolterstorff – “Love and Justice – and Beauty Too”
3. Thomas Jay Oord – “Love’s Essential Aspects and Diverse Forms”
4. Lynn G. Underwood – “Perspectives on Compassionate Love: Science, Spirituality, and the Arts”

Hunsinger’s paper looks to be especially interesting. He will be comparing Karl Barth’s work to J.R.R. Tolkien’s work. In this paper he will be comparing Tolkien’s Nazgul’s to Barth’s concept of das Nichtige (the power of nothingness). Sounds fun!

In addition to the keynote speakers there are over 30 breakout sessions. These include papers by friends of mine, Thomas Ward and Jordan Wessling. Thomas was my T.A. in my medieval philosophy class when I was a sophomore at UCLA. Jordan is one of two post-docs on our Analytic Theology team at Fuller. And of course, yours truly, will be presenting a paper titled: Amo ut Intelligam (I Love so That I May Understand): The Role of Love in Religious Epistemology. Its a riff on “I believe so that I may understand.”

Overall the conference looks like a lot of fun. So if you are free next Friday and Saturday come down to Biola’s beautiful campus for what seems to be the makings of a really interesting conference. Register here.