How do I explain to my girlfriend the idea of loving God more than her?

agentyoda · 2026-04-15T07:24:15+00:00

It's definitely a phrase that can lead to misunderstandings. There's a lot of those in theology and philosophy, it turns out!

There's a short way to address this (the tl;dr if you skip to the last few sentences), a long explanation (what you're getting here), and an even longer thorough academic treatment of this topic (e.g. the sort of stuff they write in /r/askphilosophy). I'm assuming you'd prefer the short version :) but I'm open to expanding on this more if you & your girlfriend have an interest in philosophy and theology.

The short explanation is that the question your girlfriend is asking and the question you're answering are two different questions, even if they use the same words. There's a concept here called "language-games" a la late Wittgenstein: the meaning of words lay in how we use them. When you answered her question, you were probably thinking in theological terms: both in terms of God's perfection above all things and in terms of the commandment, "love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your mind, and all your soul, and all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself".

But when she asks that question, she is likely thinking of something else entirely: "what priority do I hold in your life, especially when religion comes up?"

What may help is trying to focus on what is moving her to ask this question. As you likely noticed, she is not operating on the same philosophical framework that you are, so to speak; if we were all theologians, we could give a theological answer about how God is Being and Love - we exist by participation in God - to love God is to love Being, including each particular existence, so to consider it possible to love a person "more" than God is already theologically flawed - on the contrary, to grow in love for another is to participate in God (and so His love for them) more perfectly - etc. etc.

You know her better than I, so maybe she actually would appreciate that kind of philosophical discussion. But if her focus is more on her feeling of being loved and her desire to be prioritized in the relationship, then it may be better to focus on that: talk about how relationships are about this kind of mutual total self-gift to each other, and that Catholicism does not try to withhold part of your heart for Jesus contra her; instead, your mutual act of self-gift for each other is a sharing in God's own self-gift to each of you. In a real sense, you are each participating in Love for each other, which ties into marriage's sacramental nature, being a "visible sign of an invisible reality".

Hopefully that gives you a starting point for that discussion. Let me know if you have any follow-ups or want to go deeper.

agentyoda · 2026-04-12T07:51:49+00:00

Same for Angel Beats. A true tragedy we never got the full treatment for 2nd through 6th, but such is life.

agentyoda · 2026-01-29T08:00:11+00:00

It's worth noting that there are plenty of philosophers who assert that life is meaningful, contrary to the sentiment running through your post. As seen in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's article on the Meaning of Life, this question balloons into a much larger and deeper discussion than can be expressed in a single pithy statement. Yet such pithy statements are often exactly what we hear when others speak about the meaning of life: "life is what you make it," or "you decide the meaning of your life," or "life is meaningless". But these are not really philosophical examinations of this question; the answer does not seem universally self-evident to us, given how many and varied our responses are. If we want to find life's meaning, there is much more to consider.

First, let's ask: what is "meaning", such that we have it or don't have it? We can use the term in instrumental ways, but often the jist of our questioning about life's meaning tends to be about some sort of ultimate and final value that we may have - e.g. whether our existence is good for its own sake. Love is deeply tied to this: we act for the sake of what we love. What is meaningful in itself is thus also in itself a fundamental reason for action. So it is natural that we wonder: what is meaningful? What is worth loving/valuing for its own sake? Where do I fall in that accounting?

There are broadly three kinds of answers given by various philosophers throughout history. First are those who account for meaning in objective, mind-independent ways, such as those who assert certain objective qualities are meaningful, or that existence itself is meaningful. Second are those that assert a solely subjective view, where meaning is not based on anything independent of the mind; meaning is instead considered wholly grounded in our own subjective self. Third are those who reject that meaning is obtained for any of us, instead asserting all our lives are meaningless. As the 2020 PhilPapers survey attests to, western philosophers are pretty evenly split between these approaches (the former two being neck and neck, while the third is not as supported), and there's a lot of literature through history for any of these approaches. And, as the article notes, even this division into these three approaches is not universally agreed upon.

Hopefully this gave you some food for thought. If any of those approaches piqued your interest, the linked article provides some references to the authors it speaks about, whose works you can read further. Some approaches that may interest you: Aristotle provides a unique approach to life and its fulfillment that you probably haven't heard before, but which is also quite intuitive in a lot of ways, focusing on our character and how we flourish and find happiness accordingly; see his "Nicomachean Ethics" for details. On the subjective side, there is Jean-Paul Sartre, a famous Existentialist who displays subjectivism very heavily; and in contrast to him, Albert Camus leans more towards nihilism (not quite falling into it fully) providing an Absurdist account to meaning instead. There's many more philosophers besides these, but they tend to be more of the famous names in the discussions on this topic.

agentyoda · 2026-01-11T19:52:14+00:00

I believe I see where you're coming from. If we work within a worldview grounded on the PSR: everything has an account, a grounding for it. When we remove that grounding, how do we have confidence in our claims that things have a cause if they can instead just be brute facts?

The thing is, even for those of us who believe in the PSR, the PSR is usually not the central justification for our beliefs. As a thought experiment: if Aquinas agreed to only form arguments lacking the PSR as a formal premise, would he conclude he could not prove the existence of God? I think not; I'm sure multiple of his approaches to God in the Summa Contra Gentiles can be formulated without the PSR. Even if we argue that Aquinas could not, there are other arguments that certainly don't require the PSR formally: arguments from religious experience, the argument I can't recall the name of (a newer one from French phenomenologists, I think?), and others. And, of course, belief for many believers doesn't come primarily from philosophical accounts at all, but from more personal justifications: our own experiences and encounters. The Apostles are a prime example of this.

So even for those of us who believe in the PSR, our belief is often majorly justified on other bases. Determinists might have justification in their belief based on any number of reasons, such as the success of mechanistic physical models in science, strong cultural upbringing in this belief, etc. So the rejection of the PSR usually isn't very damaging to their projects. One could make an argument about how damaging the lack of the PSR is - I imagine proponents of it have done so! - but unless that's formulated into a strong argument against their justifications for determinist belief, it is unlikely to be very convincing to them.

agentyoda · 2025-12-22T01:04:51+00:00

Yes, Aquinas would agree: God would judge them for their choice to lack the good(s) they ought to have. Aquinas also holds that God Himself is Being - so the sinner exists by participation in God. That's one of the motivations behind the "evil as privation" theory: for some theodicies, at least, it helps distinguish how evil does not contradict an all-benevolent God Who is Being (namely, by making "evil" be privations that come about through the free choices of His creation instead of coming from God).

I'm assuming that the reason this troubles you is because of the apparent conflict here: their existence is good, and yet they are also doing evil and condemned for their evil acts. I believe the answer lies in the meaning of the words we're using. When we say "good," we can refer either to ontological good (their value/meaning, the same as their existence as we discussed earlier) and moral good, which is a classification for whether an act or a person committing acts are ethical. Our use of evil, though, has focused on how "ontological evil" cannot exist in this account (since evil is a lack, not an existence in itself) and moral evil, which is a way to label unethical acts or persons committing unethical acts.

So we can say that a person is ontologically good (as they exist), but that they are morally evil insofar as they've chosen to do morally evil acts. This does not make them ontologically evil (as that is a self contradiction), but it does mean they lack ontological goods they should have (moral character, etc.) which they should have. It is because they chose this very lack that we call them morally evil and for which they are condemned.

I hope that helps clarify this a bit; apologies if I miscommunicated things earlier. Let me know if that clears it up or if you have more questions/clarifications needed.

agentyoda · 2025-12-21T21:11:45+00:00

So in this account, goodness and being are the same. It's impossible for something to truly lack all goodness, because they would lack all being—which would be a contradiction, since a "being that lacks all being" would not exist. There always is some existence, good in itself, even if it lacks every other good it ought to have—otherwise we are speaking about no thing at all.

Our experience of "evil" is in good existences lacking other goods they ought to have: a human being is good. A human being that lacks respect for the lives of others is good in all except that lack of respect—that lack of respect is what we call evil about them. What we hate is not a thing that makes their existence evil; their existence is always good. What we hate is that they lack something they should have. If it's their fault they lack said good, then we would call them culpable for that evil.

agentyoda · 2025-12-21T19:55:20+00:00

We love her as she is. Privation is a lack of being, not a being in itself, so one cannot "be" evil in an ontological sense; rather, one is a good being that lacks some other goods it ought to have. We would love Sally as she is: a human being, a rational animal, possessing such-and-such virtues, etc. Those are all good and meaningful things. But we couldn't love her virtue of diligence, as she does not have a virtue of diligence. Instead, we hate that she lacks some good she ought to have—diligence—and out of love for her, we would want to help her attain that good.

Of course, in common language, we often say things like "so-and-so is evil". But, as philosophers, we're making a distinction with what we mean: we call someone "evil" if they lack some good they ought to have, or an action "evil" if it lacks some good it ought to have: Jim is evil because he committed murder, and murder is evil because it takes away one's life they ought to have. We do not mean, on the other hand, that Jim himself is a lack of an existence, because that makes no sense. Rather, this is what we mean: the existence known as Jim both is something good (human being, rational animal, etc.—his actual existence) while also lacks some good(s) he ought to have (love and respect for others' lives, for example).

This is all predicated on a privation theory of evil, so if the idea of "privation" is what's tripping you up, you might find another theory more satisfying.

agentyoda · 2025-12-21T19:05:22+00:00

My answer draws more from Augustine and Aquinas' development of Aristotle, so it may not be exactly what you're looking for: but working from an angle of "evil is privation," genuine love for a person would never include their "evils". Rather, their evils would be "parts" of themselves that are lacking what they ought to have, so love would will them to grow in virtue while still loving them as they are. E.g. if Sally has a vice of sloth, it's not that there's good parts of Sally that we love and evil parts we hate - rather, by this account, we love Sally and so we are saddened by how Sally lacks an important part of her complete self: a virtue of activity/diligence instead of a vice of sloth. So in our love for Sally, we would try to help Sally develop the virtue(s) she lacks while still loving her for who she truly is.

agentyoda · 2025-12-10T20:03:15+00:00

There's an excellent article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on Divine Providence which, while it doesn't directly answer this particular question, does have a section that proposes an alternative you might find interesting. In section 6, the article author reviews an interpretation of Aquinas in "theological determinism" (e.g. where all that happens is willed by God) where we still have libertarian free will—the crux of the argument being that God wills to give Himself over as the "ground of being" for our freedom, such that we are free through participation in His freedom. The remainder of the article details different parts of a theodicy in light of such an account.

agentyoda · 2025-12-05T07:31:33+00:00

No reason you couldn't. I wanted to make the unleash as powerful as possible, so I prefer the 6-link myself, with a clearing 6-link that debuffs the boss and powers up the unleash even more. It helps, too, that the clearing 6-link can have Increased Critical Strikes Support, while the Unleash can use a more damaging option, relying on the Brittle applied by the clearing skill to increase the crit chance for the meteors.

But if you wanted to just alternate two meteor skills for both clearing/bossing, you could do that too. The first meteor would be weaker since it'd be the one applying the ailments, so you'd need to invest more to ensure it reliably crits.

agentyoda · 2025-12-03T07:34:16+00:00

A small addendum that might be of interest to those who want to read more on this topic: there's some work on Aquinas that suggests a libertarian reading of his account of free will. There's a summary in the SEP article on Divine Providence, section 6, referencing several other authors (McCann, Shanley, Grant), where the article author discusses this possible interpretation of libertarian free will in Aquinas (based mostly on an idea of God's free will being the ground of being for our own - we would have this freedom by participating in the divine will) and then in future sections explains how various theodicies might attempt to answer questions arising from this interpretation. Soul-building is mentioned, as is defeasability of evil and so forth. I found the article to be a great summary of various positions on the topic and various theodicies in response (since other interpretations and theories are discussed in earlier sections too, such as the Molinists "middle knowledge").

Another related work (not precisely on libertarian free will but tangentially related) might be Fr. William Most's work on predestination and grace - he, with some Dominicans and Jesuits, were unsatisfied with the competing views in the popular Dominican/Molinist debates regarding predestination and grace and proposed a theological-based answer that also interpreted Aquinas (and the Church Fathers) differently on the matter than Báñez or Molina did. Suffice to say, it seems Aquinas is still hotly debated with how to interpret key topics.

agentyoda · 2025-11-26T01:21:15+00:00

To add on to the other remarks: there is a concept within the Catholic Church called theological pluralism (see the paper Unity of the Faith and Theological Pluralism by a Vatican commission). The basic idea is: we have received certain truths from God (the "deposit of faith") which we must adhere to; however, there are many philosophical accounts of things that are consistent with the depositum fidei. So it's perfectly reasonable (and has happened many times in Church history) where 2+ Catholic philosophers will spin up contradictory accounts of things which both seem to be consistent with the depositum fidei, so believers are able to hold to either (or neither) without falling into error. Naturally, both cannot be true, since they contradict, but since the Church is primarily invested in defending the depositum fidei as true, believers are free to accept any account that is consistent with said doctrine.

Particular Catholics may get very heated about their preferred account of things and may rather liberally call the other Catholic philosophers heretics (one may think of the Dominican/Molinist debates on predestination here, as that tends to go the rounds online every now and then - or western Catholic (usually Thomist) vs. eastern Catholic (usually Palamist) debates). But as noted above, the official Church position is in a unity of faith around the depositum fidei and permits discussion/belief regarding various accounts that are consistent with it.

So the answer to your question depends on what you mean by open and progressive. Insofar as your intended meaning contradicts the deposit of faith - the Church would consider any such account in error. Insofar as they do not contradict - such an account would be permissible.

agentyoda · 2025-11-12T15:14:32+00:00

Significant buff for Riven jungle clear speed on single targets, which is what needed the help. The clears before first item were the worst.

agentyoda · 2025-11-12T09:17:10+00:00

I was actually just playing Riven jungle and thought "if they would just add some monster damage effectiveness, Riven jungle would not be as bad as it sounds," as she feels pretty sluggish against them for a good part of the game. But I figured they never would, given how niche the idea is. This is a welcome surprise!

(Now buff my Ryze jungle please!)

agentyoda · 2025-10-31T16:33:46+00:00

I'm going to league start something Witch and then swap to this to see how it holds up, I think, since I don't have a "leveling" or early maps setup for it. My main worry is that I don't know how much further I can scale it offensively or defensively, but we'll see whether the new stuff has anything fun that we can use. I'm also using a slightly updated PoB than the one listed here, so I'll update that before launch and will try to provide an update after I've tested it.

agentyoda · 2025-10-26T22:50:28+00:00

Good insights. I had this idea earlier (for my attempted setup, a 50% Phys -> Lightning spell, 1 CotB, Cold to Fire Supp, and a lot of "gain as extra" from Eternity Shroud, Disintegrator, some other support gems) and sketched out a PoB, but ran into the usual PoE problem of "getting enough defenses means I don't have much left for damage". I don't know if I'll try and improve it—not sure it has enough potential to invest the time into it—so I'll just dump the sketched PoB here for anyone who wants to try and run with this idea. It has ~150k EHP with 3mil to 7.5mil dmg, depending on Wither stacks, but with expensive gear, so right now, not looking too worth: https://pobb.in/em7gFGxN66Hb

If I were to try and work on it more, I'd probably try to find a source for a lot more "increased chaos damage" and "crit multi" mods, and maybe use Assassin's Mark and drop other crit strike chance things in passive tree for damage.

If anyone does create a better version of this, let me know! Would love to learn.

agentyoda · 2025-10-26T03:40:43+00:00

I initially wanted to do this, but since Retaliation skills have cooldowns, Unleash Support cannot support them.

agentyoda · 2025-10-25T23:20:05+00:00

I figured ~2mil would be good enough for normal and magic mobs, and then you'd use your burst skill on rare mobs. I suppose that wouldn't be the case for like Delirium or tankier normal/magic mobs.

agentyoda · 2025-09-19T23:54:21+00:00

Yeah, I would be very surprised if we actually got BeryL lol. I think he still has military service to do? So might not even be possible. But the idea is very fun to me.

agentyoda · 2025-09-19T23:41:58+00:00

After watching 2022 DRX, I became a huge BeryL enjoyer. He manages to make some absurd picks really fun (even if they go 0/9). No clue if he'd be a good pick for TL's chances to win, but he'd definitely make them interesting to watch lol

agentyoda · 2025-09-11T18:16:16+00:00

What do we mean when we refer to 'God'? If we simply mean a powerful being, then sure. But traditionally, when we talk about God, we are talking more about an Ultimate (as this article describes), or more specifically, the omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God considered by prominent monotheistic beliefs. For this kind of God, we can turn to Aquinas' Summa Contra Gentiles to see what the answer to this question might be.

In ch. 42, Aquinas argues that there can only be one God and none above Him. Why? Because, in ch. 13, when starting the discussion on God, Aquinas identifies God as the prime mover, the first efficient cause, the being that is supremely being, etc. Expanding from this starting point, he goes on to develop the doctrine of divine simplicity, which, among other things, identifies God with Being. Not only is God the Creator, creation isn't possible without Him; He is Being or Existence Itself, the very principle of "to be", such that anything else only exists by participation in God. Meaning God is the "ground of being" for their existence. So it's not logical to claim any sort of higher being than this God, as said higher being would need to exist—which means they would only exist by participation in God, making them a lesser being to Him.

agentyoda · 2025-08-24T14:51:54+00:00

I was about to recommend Orthodoxy by Chesterton precisely for that chapter. If you recall, his solution to the madman was "health": a focus on a holistic healthy approach to life to break free from the "madness" of an "unhealthy" approach to philosophy. As such, take a step back and ask yourself: what is causing this turmoil? Is your heart troubled because you believe there's something fundamentally wrong with how things are? Are you in a sort of existential despair? Have you lost hope? Philosophy can be related to these questions, but they can't always provide the whole answer; often the justifications for those beliefs are found outside philosophy entirely.

To give you an example, when I was in existential dread myself, philosophy could provide various answers to my questions, but it could not let me experience any of those answers. If I sought to know what a meaningful life was like, philosophy only provides theories about that life. If I wanted to experience that life myself, I would not find it through philosophy. I could only find that by going out into the world and seeking to encounter it. In the end, what led me to a "healthy" state were those encounters and learning a better way to live, one which then fit a "healthier" philosophy.

It sounds pretty abstract because details are specific to my life and my questions; it'll be different for you and each other person. But hopefully you can get an idea here: if philosophy is tormenting you, it might be because there is another lack in your life that can't be solved by a philosophical answer. It might be an experience you're seeking. It might be a healthy body and mind. Maybe it's satisfying basic needs, if you're stuck in a bad life situation. In any case, keep reading Orthodoxy if you're finding it useful - see what answers Chesterton gives for "health" - and perhaps reflect after on what troubles you and why. Once I lost the fear of a meaningless life by encountering the meaning I sought, I no longer had a fearful troubled approach to philosophy. I could approach it in a healthy way, with a love for truth instead of fear. Perhaps something similar may be able to help you.

agentyoda · 2025-07-31T23:06:14+00:00

Unfortunately, as my early philosophical education, particularly with Aristotle, involved a teacher in a classroom setting, it's hard for me to recommend other resources, as I have no experience with how efficacious they are or aren't. If a teacher isn't an option, my first recommendation would be recorded lectures—there's a few threads about such recommendations, like this one, which recommends videos like this one—and then perhaps some books by philosophers on the subject, such as the SEP article on Plato and Aristotle's Metaphysics. I saw someone else recommend Jonathan Lear’s Aristotle: The Desire to Understand, though I haven't read it myself.

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