Claim. True subject consciousness requires three components — genuine concern for the object partner, active love rather than command-issuing, and proper authority — combined as “strict love with authority” or “authority with love,” modeled on God who is simultaneously a being of love and a being of authority.
Elaboration. Lee specifies three requirements for subject consciousness (B. Subject Position):
(1) Genuine concern at all times. Human alienation results when subjects lack sincere concern for every aspect of the object partner’s life. “A lack of concern means that the subject figure does not assume responsibility for their object partner.”
(2) Active love, not command. “Traditionally, ruling over the object partner, or giving orders to him or her may have been considered the way of showing subject consciousness, but in reality that is not the proper way. True dominion over an object partner is to actively love him or her.” Love is the source of happiness, ideals, joy, and life — when the subject loves, the object becomes loyal and obedient naturally.
(3) Proper authority. Pure leniency fails to establish authority; subordinates lose seriousness. “It is necessary for the subject figure to maintain proper authority while loving the object partner.” Love has a warm aspect (spring) and a strict aspect (winter). Strict love with authority enhances trust, belonging, obedience, and motivation in the object.
The over-authority warning: excessive authority-consciousness drives out love. Object partners become intimidated, unable to exhibit creativity. True authority is calibrated such that subordinates “feel thankful, even when they might be reprimanded by their superiors.”
The theological model is God’s own dual nature: love + authority. Lee cites Genesis 22 (Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac). His reading: when Abraham failed his earlier offering, God ordered Isaac’s sacrifice precisely “since you ignored my authority, I asked you to offer your son as a sacrifice, in order to let you acknowledge it.” God does not want to be treated as merely loving — “He wishes us to fear Him, as He is the God of authority.”
This reading of Abraham/Isaac is striking and contestable — it makes the binding test a corrective for prior authority-disregard rather than a test of pure obedience. The wider claim that genuine love requires authority and genuine authority requires love is a corrective to both authoritarian (authority without love) and permissive (love without authority) parenting/leadership models. Worth a thread on whether this exegesis fits Genesis 22’s narrative arc.
See also. object-consciousness-before-subject-consciousness, downward-love-primary-induces-upward-and-horizontal, three-great-subjects-parents-teacher-leader