Love Is Stronger Than Death

"Life is always fatal," writes Boston College philosopher Peter Kreeft in his pro-found little book Love Is Stronger Than Death. "No one gets out of it alive."

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In his introduction to the work he claims that life is either totally meaningful or totally meaningless, and determining which statement is true is only possible by first determining what death is. "We do not know why we die," Kreeft writes, "unless we know why we live."

"Death is the one pathway through which all people at all times raise the question of the absolute, the question of God. The last excuse for not raising the God-question is Thoreau's 'one world at a time.' Death removes this last excuse."

In his book Kreeft argues that death has five "faces," or assumes five different postures as it confronts us, and as we confront it. Death is (1) an enemy, (2) a stranger, (3) a friend, (4) a mother, and (5) a lover.

I hope to take us through some highlights from Love Is Stronger Than Death, so don't touch that dial.