Dorothy Day

Abstract

In the book Agape and Eros, Anders Nygren proposes a way to understand and analyze Christian love in four “dimensions.” He writes: Love expresses a relation between a subject who loves and an object that is loved. If we turn our attention to the object, and confine ourselves to personal objects, love will be seen to take four different forms, which we shall here describe as the ‘dimensions' of love. These are (1) God's love for man, (2) man's love for God, (3) man's love for his fellow-man, and (4) man's self-love. Throughout the course of her writing, Dorothy Day addresses each of these “dimensions of love” and proposes that none can exist properly in isolation from the other three. How did Dorothy Day understand the proper relationship between these four dimensions? Is her description of the integration of these four dimensions of love appropriate to Christian theology and ethics, and is she consistent in her theology? I argue that Day's writing reveals a harmonious and proper integration of these four dimensions of love, and that she does so properly within the framework of Christian theology. I will do so in the following steps: I will begin by examining Day's understanding of God's love for humanity (Part I), our love for God (Part II), proper love for neighbor (Part III), and proper love for self (Part IV). I will then present a counter-argument (Part VI), and will conclude with an explanation of Day's integration of the four dimensions of love (Part V).