UNLOCKING LOVE WORDS PART 2

This writing may not resonate with everyone. But if you choose to read on, you may find a glimmer of truth that is new to you. In my last blog, I wrote about various words used for love in the Romance languages. I mentioned the noetic love, which is so much purer than the lower levels of love. "Noetic" comes from the Greek word noēsis, meaning “understanding” or “intellect.” In modern usage, it refers to anything related to inner knowing, intellectual insight, or direct apprehension of truth, particularly knowledge that is not gained solely through logical reasoning or sensory or physical experience. While I wholeheartedly believe in the validity of the "logos" or logic associated with thought, I do not believe it is the deepest avenue of understanding, as we understand the word.

In psychology and philosophy, noetic experiences are moments of deep intuitive insight or profound understanding that feel immediately meaningful and truthful, often described as a “felt sense” of knowing. William James famously used the term when studying mystical experiences, defining noetic states as those that “carry with them a curious sense of authority” (Barnard, 1997). We who walk in the spirit may refer to it as the state of anointing. These states provide seemingly profound truths, even if they are difficult to articulate or empirically verify.

Noetic love transcends the everyday understanding of affection or romance. It's a form of knowing, a "scientia intuitiva," as Spinoza might call it, where love becomes a pathway to profound insight (Wilson, 2017). Unlike abstract reasoning, which can feel detached and "over there," noetic love is intimately "right here" and "right now.".

Consider Spinoza's insight when he said, "God does not have abstract thoughts." He was saying that true participation in the divine (or that which is ultimate reality) requires binding our identity to truth through love. If truth remains merely abstract, we fail to become fully rational or virtuous beings. Noetic love, then, is this binding in a contemplative knowing that resembles being in a state of awe by beholding beauty. John the Revelator said that when he saw the Alpha and Omega in His splendor, being overwhelmed, he fell at His feet as though he were dead (Revelation 1:17). It's the shape of reason as "logos", which in this perspective is not just cold logic but a living, relational intelligence.

In practical terms, noetic love manifests in various forms that I previously discussed, utilizing "eros" (passionate desire), "philia" (friendship), and "agape" (selfless love). Each shapes the soul toward the real. As Schindler argues in "The Catholicity of Reason" (2013), beauty is the primacy that motivates reason's quest, a foretaste of what truly being is. Without it, our aspirational drive fails. John said it like this: "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see Him as He is." Does that mean there will be an instantaneous transition when He appears to us? Probably the culmination of our transcendence. But does that mean there is no understanding of the noetic until that moment? Or shall we "... with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord?" (2 Corinthians 3:18).

At the heart of noetic love is "reciprocal opening," which is a mutual unfolding where we realize another person (or reality) and allow them to realize themselves through us. This cannot be a passive position.  It's transformative. When you deeply love someone, you dwell in them, and they in you. This is a "reciprocal indwelling," as some phrase it. It's like carrying your partner in your mind all day as an integral part of your being. When your partner is with you internally, and temptation comes knocking, it is easy to ask yourself, "How would I feel if my partner gave in to this temptation?"

This "integration" creates a sacred connectedness, an antidote to the "dis-ease" of this world's sin. When we read of a Pharaoh who knew not Joseph, it speaks to the human condition of not being thankful (Exodus 1:8). How could a people who are known thousands of years later for their skill in building monuments to their dead "forget" the man who was used to save their country and way of life? They were never "connected" to him. They never grieved for him when he was taken from them. Grief isn't just sadness over loss. It's the closing of a doorway between one's soul and the person one was so connected with. That doorway, which was opened through love, connects us profoundly to reality. Losing it tears at the very fabric of our identity.

Sadly, love isn't all about just expansion. There's also "reciprocal narrowing." This is the focused commitment that balances the opening. In relationships, we narrow our attention to honor the beauty of the bond itself, beyond just the individual. In other words, "You should love the relationship, as well as loving the person." This commitment sustains us when personal feelings waver. It's why infidelity hurts not only the partner but also the sacred entity of the relationship. Is this what John is referring to when he speaks of the "sin unto death" (5:16-17)? In the Johannine context, the emphasis is not on cataloging specific acts but rather on a pattern of hardened unbelief that places a person beyond restoration, as repentance has been decisively rejected, leading to the death of the relationship's love and the subsequent breaking of the connection.

This aligns with 1 John’s larger theme that true life remains only in abiding fellowship with Christ (1 John 2:19; 5:11–12). This is why James wrote, “Blessed is the (person) who endures temptation; for when he has been tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to them that love Him” (James 1:12). James is teaching that temptation itself is not sin, for Jesus was tempted in all points as we were, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15). The blessing comes from enduring it without giving in. James positions perseverance as an active virtue rather than passive patience. He sees enduring temptation as a reflection of the character shaped by trials, where testing produces steadfastness (hypomonē in Greek). The end of the verse in James 1:12 shows that the person who truly "loves God" will stand up to that which would attempt to break the relationship because the connection is loved more than that which attempts to undermine the marriage of the two. For is that not how the Bible describes the ultimate culmination between human and God, the marriage of the Lamb?

The pattern was laid down by God at the very beginning when He created man and woman. He said, “Therefore shall a man (note who leaves) leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). Jesus echoed the pattern verbatim in the Gospels in Matthew 19:5 and Mark 10:8 and then added further emphasis in the next verse, “Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” (Matthew 19:6).

Being one with another echoes the Neoplatonic idea of beauty as the "community of being." Could that community be the New Jerusalem and the Heaven to come? Note that the word "community" can be seen as a "common unity" where the parts and the whole interpenetrate. In love, this oneness isn't a merger or loss of oneself. It is participation in something greater. The whole exists within the part, and the part exists within the whole, facilitating "anagoge," which refers to the ascent to wisdom and a fuller existence.

Anagoge means “a leading upward” or “ascent.” Think about Jacob and the ladder dream. Anagoge refers to a method of interpretation that moves beyond the literal meaning of a text toward a higher, spiritual, or ultimate meaning. I often think about Jesus' words when He said, "Search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, for they are they which speak of me" (John 5:39). Could He be saying there is something deeper than the surface text? Is He saying that the ultimate goal is for the reader of the text to come to a full and ascending relationship with the one being read about?  

This theme of oneness, or coming into "common unity" or "relationship," finds a sacred parallel in the Bible, most particularly in John 14:10. "Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works." Here, Jesus describes a reciprocal indwelling with God, a noetic union where divine love flows through human action. In my opinion, this verse mirrors a reciprocal opening. Just as we dwell in loved ones and they in us, so too does the divine interpenetrate our being. It's not some ethereal, abstract theology, but a lived participation that shapes us toward the logos and virtue. In the context of noetic love, it invites us to "fall in love with being" again, not nostalgically or ideologically, but through practices (action, not passivity) that transform consciousness and character.

Barnard, G. W. (1997). Exploring unseen worlds: William James and the philosophy of mysticism. State University of New York Press.

Schindler, D. C. (2013). The catholicity of reason. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing.

Vervaeke, J., & Mastropietro, C. (2021). Dialectic into Dialogos and the Pragmatics of No-thingness in a Time of Crisis. Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture, 5(2), 58-77.

Wilson, M. D. (2017). Infinite Understanding, Scientia Intuitiva, and Ethics 1.16. In Spinoza (pp. 187-197). Routledge.