On The Origin Of Humanity’s Superpower

“You’d think that people would have had enough of silly love songs
But I look around me and I see it isn’t so
Some people wanna fill the world with silly love songs
And what’s wrong with that?”

So sang Sir Paul McCartney, and all it takes is a few minutes listening to the radio to prove him right. Same goes for silly rom-coms and royal weddings. For some reason, we humans get a bit silly over love. No matter how scientific our philosophy or cold and calculated our theory of existence, there’s nearly always someone in our lives who holds a mysterious power to break through our rigid shell into the gooey centre of our humanity where love is the unrivalled (and often unruly) ruler.

We love. It’s what humans do. The only real difference between us is where we each choose to direct our love: Some turn it in on themselves, while others turn it outward and upward. Still, the common thread of all humanity is this incredible ability to passionately, forcefully love with every fibre of our being.

It’s our superpower.

Our history, literature, and films have documented its use in detail, even in fantastic hypotheticals. And yet – where is the origin story? What explanation can we give for this fire burning in our blood? If it wasn’t a spider bite or an experiment gone wrong, how did it become so intensely strong that it can drive the most rational creatures on the planet to break our bodies and give our lives for the sake of a beautiful face or the colours on a flag?

If we listen to certain scientists, they calmly explain that what we call “love” is actually the inevitable result of meaningless mutations, chemical reactions, and survival instinct. This would make sense if all we ever loved was ourselves, but it makes utter nonsense of our monuments to strong heroes who sacrificed their lives protecting the weak. Survival of the fittest? This origin story doesn’t make sense of us. Our superpower is not a cold-hearted advantage over others. We have a word for people who use power that way: villain. Heroes are always born of love: For nations, for cities, for friends, for family, for strangers – for others.

In all the world, there is only one origin story that does justice to the strength and centrality of our love: It is the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. The doctrine has certainly been the cause of head-scratching through the centuries as we try to understand how God can be one God in substance and nature, and yet exist in never-ending relationship between the three distinct persons of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But this mystery of the Trinity solves the mystery of us: It shows us that love is central to humanity because love is central to the nature of God. God created us as relational beings because God is a relational being. Why does our passion burn so hot? Because it was kindled in the furnace of God himself. No other concept of God or theory of human beginnings can tell us why it is that we long so desperately to know and be known, to love and be loved. But if the God who made us in his image is himself relational by nature, then he could even be a God whose love is strong enough to cause him to give his life for the sake of humans who rebelled against him. If you want to know why the symbol of the cross is the most common monument on the planet, look no further than this: it is the place where the origin of love became love’s ultimate expression.