Is there really such a thing as “self-love”? Is it really a meaningful concept? and if so, how is it to be understood? When we search the Bible for an answer to this question, we are immediately confronted with apparently contradictory replies.
We are told, on the one hand, that “…those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the Gospel, will save it” (Mk 8:35). On the other hand, we are admonished that we must love our neighbor “as ourself”. But that means that self-love, the affirmation of one’s own being, also determines the form and degree of our love of neighbor.
In other words, self-love is both natural and necessary; without it, love of neighbor would have no foundation. But how do we discern the inner unity of these two texts? …We men are called to salvation -everyone of us. We are willed and loved by God and it is our greatest duty to respond to this love. We dare not hate what God loves. We dare not destroy what is destined for eternity.
To be called to the love of God is to be called to happiness. To become happy is a “duty” that is as natural for mankind as it is supernatural. When Jesus speaks of self-abnegation, of losing one’s own life, and so forth, he is pointing out the way of genuine self-affirmation (“self-love”), which always requires us to open ourselves, to transcend ourselves. But this necessity of going out from ourselves, of going away from ourselves, does not exclude true self-affirmation; on the contrary, it is the way in which we must find ourselves and “love” ourselves.
From: Auf Christus schauen, pp 96-97
