"The radical and essential pre-destination implied in the condition of Son (identical to his Arch-generation) is what constitutes the principle of the Christian ethic, the Commandment. John perceives this Commandment in its original form, in Godâs phenomenological life and identical with it. He calls it Godâs love. Godâs love is the first and only Commandment of the ethic. âThe commandments âDo not commit adultery,â âDo not murder,â âDo not steal,â âDo not covet,â and whatever other commandments there may be, are summed up in this one rule: âLove your neighbor as yourselfââ (Romans 13:9). [âŠ] The Commandment is only a Commandment of love because Life is love. Life is love because it experiences itself infinitely and eternally. Because it is Life, âGod is love,â as John says (1 John 4:8). It is because God (as absolute Life) is love that he commands Love. He commands it of all the living by giving them life, by generating them in himself as his Sons, those who, feeling themselves in infinite Lifeâs experience of self and its eternal love, love themselves with an infinite and eternal love, loving themselves inasmuch as they are Sons and feeling themselves to be such â in the same way that they love others, inasmuch as they are themselves Sons and inasmuch as they feel themselves to be such. If the Commandment only prescribes love because the One who commands is himself love, it is because far from resulting from the Commandment, love is on the contrary the presupposition of it."
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Michel Henry, I am the Truth. Toward a Philosophy of Christianity, translated by Susan Emanuel, Stanford University Press, 2003, p. 185-186
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michel_Henry
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Michel Henry
Michel Henry (10 January 1922 – 3 July 2002) was a French philosopher, phenomenologist and novelist. He wrote five novels and numerous philosophical works. He also lectured at universities in France, Belgium, the United States, and Japan.
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