Patient-Universalism and the Commandment of Love: A Psychological Bottom-Up Account

Abstract

This article examines potential approaches to the Commandment of Love, a central ethical principle in Christianity, assessing how plausibly these approaches explain its adoption and enactment as the patient-universal foundation for moral attitudes. Three approaches are distinguished: a top-down approach and two varieties of bottom-up approaches: logical and psychological. It is argued that the psychological bottom-up approach finds support in the textual evidence from Scripture and aligns more closely with the natural mechanisms underlying moral judgments, as identified by social psychologists and evolutionary biologists. This approach suggests that the natural moral sense serves as a prerequisite for recognizing and internalizing the Commandment of Love—an instinct that is refined and elevated through a person's love for God, rather than being suppressed or abandoned. In this context, disciplines such as psychology, biology, anthropology, etc., are rendered as auxiliary branches of moral theology.