Is love something we feel or something we do?

Good question.

The majority do seem to recognize their are different senses of love. The traditional view,
Eros – romantic love. Feelings of physically attraction.
Philia/Storge - love and affection of a family member and bonds of friendship.
Agape – unconditional love. Sacrificial love. This is the love God has for us.

Today, many understand love as Eros, one associated with feelings, romance and physically attraction. It is the type of love often fleeting and temporary.

When Jesus told us to love our enemies and love those who actively hurt/persecute us (Luke 6:27-28) he is speaking of agape. The love that prays for the good of the soul of their enemy.

I'd suggest - in proper order, Eros often leads to Philia which leads to Agape. In the sense, a man is physically attracted to a woman. They build a relationship, marry and develop sensual intimacy. They have a family and the bond strengthens with children. They love their children to the point they would give their very lives to protect their child.

All the senses of love are from God’s gift. But the greatest of all is love (agape). (John 15:13)

As BC professor of philosophy Peter Kreeft aptly notes, “The greatest treatise ever written on love (agape) is I Corinthians 13”.

Until the day we die love is worth contemplating. It where we truly find God.

public hermit said:

What do you think? Is love involuntaristic, voluntaristic, or both?

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One may say they don't LOVE a certain individual let's say it's someone who has been unloving towards them. Some might even claim it's impossible. It can be more possible then one might think. If we think of humanity in a right spiritual way such helps. If we consider people that do unkind, unloving things that they're under the control and influence of the Kingdom of darkness. The Bible defines it as being under the control of the rulers of the darkness of this present evil world. Realizing these things opens the door for one to even feel compassion for them or feel sorry for them and we see them as a long lost brother (Luke 11) who need help and be saved.

public hermit said:

We can think of love in two general ways.

1. Love is involuntaristic: In this sense love is a passion, an emotion. As a passion it is not something I have control over. I feel love so long as the feeling is there, and when it is gone there is not much I can do. I can't simply manufacture the feeling of love. If love is involuntaristic, then I can only love those to whom I feel love.

2. Love is voluntaristic: In this sense love is something I do. Specifically, love seeks to bring about what is good for the beloved. I can choose to love, because I can choose to act in a way that is good for others. Moreover, I can choose to love anyone and everyone by always doing what is in their best interests, as far as is reasonably possible.

It might be tempting to say love is both involuntaristic and voluntaristic. I would argue that is not the case, but I'm open to hearing any opinions to the contrary. Or, perhaps, love is something else altogether.

What do you think? Is love involuntaristic, voluntaristic, or both?

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Love is something that I do not think we can understand or feel until someone actually loves us. There have been children who were raised by animals and they were very instinctual, barbaric and difficult to interact with and form close bonds to. They had loyalty to their pack and we're territorial but not loving. There is a girl I know who was raised by her mom and pedophile stepdad who sexually abused her from age 3-13 and she tried to tell her mom but she didn't really believe her or do anything. This girl has no real sense of love and zero love of self. She struggles with prostitution and sees no value in intimacy whatsoever except financial. She said she feels the longing and need for love but when she feels anything remotely close, she pushes it away and does not know how to return the emotion. She honestly does not think she has the capacity to truly love another person unconditionally, and she even has a son. So once we have been shown early on what unconditional love is, we cannot help but give it to our children, animals, our family and our friends. I think it is something that we choose to feel but once we feel it we cannot stop feeling it. Like an ex boyfriend or girlfriend. Where the passion may be gone, and you are not in love anymore, part of you will always love that person for who they were to you when you did love them. Or our kids. We choose to love and nurture our children and they do not immediately return the love. They just lay there and we choose to love them. Time goes by and you cannot help how you feel about this child and could not stop loving them if you tried. We only know love because God loved us first, and I think the love we feel for our own kids is the human version of what God feels for each of us but it is different because God is not human. So He loves us Supernaturally. Imagine what that kind of love is like! That's next level for sure!

Tree of Life said:

A heart with perfect love could even conjure up affection toward an enemy.

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Good thing we are given a "new heart". When I tried loving an enemy as a lost person, it was with extreme effort and much mental focus on that person themselves as also being a victim deserving sympathy, even though they had been also a hurtful 'enemy'. But now a days, it's so much easier than it was then. You should not consider this impossible, because we have the truth said to us: "With God, all things are possible". But it's not without steps, I think: first we have to genuinely forgive, which isn't a small thing. But He helps, if we look to Him.

Dear ones, who are called beloved in Christ Jesus.

This is what we have heard:
And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. -Matthew 22:37
This is the great and first commandment. -Matthew 22:38
And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. -Matthew 22:39
On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." -Matthew 22:40

It is important for us to be found in loving God then we will have the capacity to love our neighbors ! That includes wife, husband, children and others.

Have we found the strength to grasp the steadfast love of God ? Have we been found in the fullness of His love ?

Let us be filled with His love. Then we can bear with those whom we are called to love but who have wronged us, offended us, and distort what we have said and done !

Then we can be like Christ, compassionate and full of loving kindness, humility, gentleness and patience toward to those whom we are called to love.

Yes, when we are afflicted in every way, the love of Christ enable us to bear the sufferings, even those who we are called to love and didn’t respond to the way that we would like.

Whose love we have heard like this ?
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. -1 Corinthians 13:7

Yes, when we are filled with the love of Christ, we can bear all things, believes all things, hope all things, endure all things.

For this is what we have heard:
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? -Romans 8:35

The love of Christ enable us to be overcomer.
We need not concern whether it is voluntary, involuntary or both, but we should be concerned that we are filled with the love of Christ fervently. Why ? Because we owe much love to Christ who loved us and gave Himself for us.

For we have heard ：
In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him. -1 John 4:9

Yes, so that we live through Christ, who is love.

Let the love of God is made manifest among us.
Let the love of God is brought to its goal in us.
Let love God first !

Some years ago I remember reading how some secular scientists claimed to have discovered that love is a natural function of humans because their laboratory tests revealed changes in some of the brain's components.
I thought back to some debate logic which says that the physical brain would definitely be the (element) in which love would dwell and work, but, is it the (agent) at the same time? The brain could not be the element and the agent at the same time. Love is much to complex and involving to make such an absurd claim.
Perhaps this is why the New Testament says that God is Love. It can never be isolated in a laboratory.