Rather, Christian love has focused on two key words: caritas and agape. Caritas (the origin of our word “charity”) is a kind of intense benevolence and good will; agape is a Greek word that refers to a kind of selfless, spiritual love with no sexuality, no clinging to a particular other person. (Of course, Christianity endorses the love of a man and a woman within marriage, but even this love is idealized as the love of Christ for his church—EPHESIANS 5:25) As in Plato, Christian love is love stripped of its essential particularity, its focus on a specific other person. Love is remodeled into
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