Bernard of Clairvaux and Erich

Bernard of Clairvaux and Erich Fromm

Bernard of Clairvaux was one of the most revered monks of his time. Born in the medieval ages, in 1090, he lived up to the year 1153. He is even today considered to be the most honored medieval monk, by both Protestants as well as Catholics. When an official from Rome questioned the monk, the answer to the question was the 'Four Stages of Love' that, according to him, are the following: man will always love himself for his own sake, that man generally loves God in order to gain an advantage for himself, that man loves God for God's sake, and finally, that man loves himself for the sake of God. (Factoids from Church History: The Stages of Love)

Bernard was one of the dominating figures of the twelfth century, in which Christian thoughts and ideals of Christianity and faith all played a major part in the daily lives of the people. Bernard entered the monastery of Citeaux when he was 22 years old, and so very handsome that he turned the head of many a young lady. Bernard himself, however, was not interested in matters of the world; he, when he entered the monastery, persuaded about thirty-two other nobles to leave the world and enter into monastic life with him. At this time, the monastery at Citeaux was dying a slow death, but things began to improve rapidly with the new blood that had entered, and soon Citeaux was able to regain some of its lost glory. At the age of twenty-five, Bernard became an abbot of the Cistercian Monastery of Clairvaux, and it was from this advantage of position that he was able to become the spokesman for the monastic ideals, and an advocate for Cistercian reforms, and a great influence on the abbeys of Cluney. However, the intentions of Bernard to leave the world did not in fact succeed, because he became more and more involved in the disputes of the outside world, and tried to sort them out. He was considered by many to be a saint, and this was one of the reasons that his thoughts are relevant, even today. (Chapter V: Monastic Thought: Part 111, the Twelfth Century)

Reverend James Love, in one of his sermons, had this to say: the very center of love and faith is the love that has been shown to us by Jesus Christ. He says that most Christians need a simple affirmation of this truth, and this is why songs such as 'Jesus loves me I know, because the Bible tells me so'. This is a simple wisdom that had been spoken of by Bernard of Clairvaux in the twelfth century, wherein the first stage of loving is that of loving one's own self that is the phenomenon of looking out for oneself, as some would describe it today. The second stage of loving is that of the love of God for the sake of the self. In other words, this can be taken to describe one's own thinking and assumptions about life on earth, and of the ascent into Heaven. It can be explained like this: I love God because I would want to go to Heaven when I die. (Sermon: Ephesians: 3:14-21)

The next and the third stage as described by Bernard of Clairvaux are that of self-discovery as well as discovery of God. This is the stage when an individual generally discovers that God is in fact real, and is hard at work in the real world. Therefore, God can and must be loved for what He is in the real world. The fourth stage is when one discovers to love oneself again, fully and completely, but just in the same way as God would love us. Therefore, this naturally means that the individual or the believer has been able to enter into a relationship with God in his faith and belief. In other words, the individual ultimately and eventually discovers that even when he was at a stage of self-absorption or at a stage when he did not believe in God fully or partially, Gods' love and faith were in fact seeking him out. (Sermon: Ephesians: 3:14-21)

This is the reason that Christians comprehend God and faith in God as the Holy Trinity, that is, a Three in One concept, which also means that there are three persons but one single God, in other words, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. While many other religions all over the world may also believe in monotheism or in the existence of one God, it is a unique concept that exists in Christianity that God Himself has shown and demonstrated to the believer that He is not alone in being One, but that He exists in a relationship with Man, who is His own creation. Therefore, it is clear that man is always in a relationship with God, and that the relationship also exists with creation in general too. (Sermon: Ephesians: 3:14-21)

As there are two sides to the same coin, in the same way there are two sides to an opinion. While Reverend James Love was full of praise for the Four Stages of Love as described by Bernard of Clairvaux in his treatise 'On Loving God', Jeanie Burton, in the sermon on 'Love' does not agree. She says that she feels that the Love that was taught by Jesus Christ is extremely difficult to follow, because of the fact that it is quite radical and also sacrificial to a large extent, and therefore, very difficult to follow, especially today, in these difficult times. For example, she questions, is it easy any more for any body to actually think of blessing 'those who persecute you' and 'turn the other cheek' to the person who is hurting you? However, all Christians advocate 'love' today, and also in the yester years, like for example by Bernard of Clairvaux in his four stages of 'Loving God'. She feels that the first stage of love as described by Bernard as 'loving ourselves for our own sake' is rather well understood by all Christians. (Love Grows Up)

Everyone in the world starts off by loving oneself before loving others. For example, a baby cries when he is hungry because he loves himself and his stomach and wants someone to give him something for his stomach, and immediately. During this stage, states the author, the human being finds that he is the center of the Universe, and that everything revolves around him and nobody else. Though the idea shows that human beings are indeed primitive creatures who put the basic idea of 'survival' first, it also demonstrates the idea behind Bernard's description of the first stage of Love. During the second stage of Love, an individual becomes aware of the realities in the world, apart from the love that one has been enjoying for one's own self over the years. This is the stage of loving God for one's own sake. Though at this stage an individual becomes aware of reality, he still has as his primary focus the love of himself, that is, God becomes a means to an end for the individual. The self is grateful to God, but at the same time grateful only because God is able to do something of some sort for us. (Love Grows Up)

Jeanie, the author, states that it is indeed an issue of great sadness that many Christians remain in this stage for most of their lives, where they cannot see behind the selfishness in which they are mired. That is to say, to say that Jesus Christ is the Savior and the Lord Almighty just so that one is ensured a sure place in Heaven is nothing but selfishness and self-centeredness. Therefore, to use Jesus Christ as a means to gain some personal benefits may be a part of one stage in everyone's lives, but it goes without saying that one must be able to move beyond this stage into one where one can focus more on God for what He is rather than what He can do for us. According to Bernard, the third stage of the love of God was the loving of God for God's own sake and for no other innate reason. This is a very important stage because this is when one can love God completely and whole-heartedly for His own sake, and at the same time come to realize the value of God in an individual's life. Therefore, at this stage one realizes that the relationship that he has with God need not be ruled by what He can do for him and go beyond this to what God means and also what God actually is.

At this stage of loving God, one can love God just for what He is, and worship Him for his own needs rather than think about how one can gain something from the relationship that one shares with God. Thus God can be glorified, even if and when one realizes that one may not gain anything out of worshipping Him or praising Him out of the bottom of one's heart. One touching simile described by Jeanie Burton in this sermon is that of a child coming into her father's room and climbing onto his lap. When the father asked the child what he could do for her, the child merely says, nothing, I just wanted to feel close to you, father. This is exactly what one will feel for God at this stage of loving Him. This shows one's ability to get out of one's own self in order to love God just for what He is. (Love Grows Up)

The fourth stage of love as described by Bernard in his 'On Loving God' is that of love of one's self for the sake of God. This is an extremely surprising and radical viewpoint, and the fact that a theologian discovered it in the twelfth century is in itself quite amazing. Jeanie Burton, the preacher of this sermon, stated that this was a truth that man would be able to discover, as he grew older and gained in maturity and understanding. The most important aspect of this type of mature love is the fact that one would be able to love oneself not out of neediness or out of any other reason but out of a simple understanding of God's love that includes all fellow human beings, and also oneself. When one was to contemplate on these issues: who is the person whom we generally find the most difficult to love and also to accept, and who is the person whom we find extremely tough to embrace and accept, the answer would most definitely be 'Me'.

When one cannot accept oneself with all the defects and faults that are inherent within one, then one would always work towards ways and means in which to make up for such failures. This would lead to an insistence on one's own way in going about things, since this is the only way that one's own self-worth can be proven. But, if one were to love oneself for the sake of God, one would be able to see everything from the perspective and viewpoint of God. This would automatically mean that one would be able to become extremely close and linked with God in such a way that the hunger that is present in all human hearts would be well satisfied. This also means that the individual becomes so very free from the boundaries of human limits that one would be able to 'turn the other cheek' or 'bless those who persecute' without the feeling of being taken advantage of. (Love Grows Up)

Therefore, the most important thing that one can do is to immerse oneself in God so completely that one would be able to feel the love of God everyday, though every single activity, and through every single thought. This is the fourth stage of the love of God as explained by Bernard, and this means that when one reaches this stage, one would be a total believer of God and all His goodness. (Love Grows Up) Erich Fromm in his 'Art of Loving' also talks about loving God, but in a manner that is different from Bernard's. When he wrote the book in the early 1950's, he was able to talk directly to a large audience, and influence them greatly. However, even though this book was in fact a bestseller, Erich Fromm remained, for the most part unrecognized and unappreciated. (The two voices of Erich Fromm, the Prophetic and the Analytic)

Born in the year 1900 in Germany, Erich Fromm was the son of a businessman and a depressed mother. His childhood was an unhappy one, and his family was rooted in the orthodox traditions of Jews. The sensitive Erich became what he called an 'atheistic mystic' in his later years, when he started to form opinions of his own, based on the principles of psychoanalysis. (Erich Fromm, 1900 to 1980) There occurred two main events in his life that set him upon his chosen path of mysticism. One was the incident of a young girl who was always seen with her aged father. One day the young Erich heard the news that the old man had died, and the girl committed suicide immediately thereafter, and stipulated in her will that she be buried along with her father, Erich was 12 years old at the time, and he was completely shocked and asked himself, 'why' this had to happen. This led him to search for answers, which he later found in the works of Freud. The second incident was when Erich was a young 14 years old, which was when the First World War happened.

Erich Fromm saw for himself the extremes to which nationalism could possibly reach. He could not comprehend the irrationality of War, and he tried to arrive at conclusions of his own through reading the works of Karl Marx. The young Erich Fromm trained to be a psychotherapist, and formulated quite a few theories in the process of training and afterwards. Almost all his theories are reportedly a blend of the theories of Freud and of Karl Marx. While it is a well-known fact that Freud felt that it was biology that determined the innate character of man, Karl Marx defined man as a being that was shaped by the society in which he lived and by the economic system that was being followed in his place at that time. Erich Fromm, however, added to these existing theories one of his own formulation, which was that the very essential central characteristic of man was his 'freedom'. (Erich Fromm, 1900 to 1980)