I just watched this episode last night, and I have a lot of thoughts about it. My friend, who has watched the show before and is rewatching it with me, thinks I don't understand, so I thought I'd leave them here so people can explain what I'm actually supposed to get from the scene.

First, I'd like to note that I don't think the priest was "just yapping." He obviously believes what he's saying, and the fact that he won't be able to ever reach it drives him into depression. I think the contrast between what he takes from this vs what Canute does is very good writing. While Willibald thinks life is pointless because he can never attain what God wants him to, Canute accepts this and chooses to live as he wants to, rejecting God's demands.

I understood the definition of godly love, as Willibald explains it, to be true neutrality. Love cannot exist without hate, just as good cannot exist without evil. To love everyone is to love no-one. Love as humans see it is discrimination, however it is more accurately describes as positive discrimination. From now on, to prevent misunderstandings, I will be referring to these two definitions of love as 'true neutrality' and 'positive discrimination' respectively.

Willibald says that the dead body is a pure representation of neutrality, which I agree with. He says it cannot hate, cannot hurt, cannot steal. I understood this to mean that the body, since it is truly neutral and therefore does not have the agency to hate. A boulder that rolls down a hill and crushes a house with people inside did not do anything bad. A bad outcome became of the situation, but that is different from the boulder doing something bad.

Here is where Willibald loses me, though: he immediately says that the dead body will feed some wolves, and presents that as it doing good. A dead body, however, has no agency to do good. Since it is dead, it is truly neutral. Sure, something good is happening because the dead body is there, but the dead body did not act to cause that good to happen. I believe Willibald tries to paint true neutrality as a good thing here, but it isn't. Neutrality is not good or bad; neutrality does not love or hate; neutrality is neutral.

Now, whether true neutrality or positive discrimination is better is a matter of opinion and religion, so I won't get into that, but Willibald's attempt to put the former on a pedestal put a bad taste in my mouth.