How Is Love of the Neighbour Possible? A Løgstrupian Response to a Lutheran Critique of Levinas—and Vice Versa

Abstract

Abstract This paper considers how both Levinas and Løgstrup seek to explain how love of the neighbour is possible. It focuses on a criticism of Levinas made by Merold Westphal, which follows Kierkegaard in arguing on Lutheran grounds that such love first requires a relation to God as a “middle term,” but that Levinas cannot appeal to this relation to account for neighbour love, as for him the God relation itself arises through love of the neighbour. In response, the paper explores how Løgstrup, while working in a Lutheran tradition, like Levinas also sees neighbour love as arising without any prior God relation, showing how the accounts that each offer of how this is possible serve to complement each other.