[535] LECTURE XLI, March 29, 1956 You remember the three levels in which I tried to describe the relationship of religion and ethics^a from the point of view of content. In the first lecture we had described it from the point of view of form, namely from the unconditional^b character of the moral demand, whichever the contents may be. Then the last lecture we started to discuss the problem of content. In doing so, I tried to show that the ethical relativism^c which is rooted in the fact that the contents of ethics are derived from culture and its changing historical reality, that we need a principle which has BOTH the character of unconditional imperative and, on the other hand, the character of concreteness which changes in the realities of the cultural life. Then I said that this principle is the principle of love^d predominantly, according to its agapē quality, but including also its eros quality, and to be defined as the urge for the reunion of the separated, whereby the emotional element is a companion, so to speak, but not the reality itself. From this I distinguished a third level, to which I jump immediately, namely the kairos

element, the element of the concrete moment^e and the concrete situation, the here-and-now. And this here-and-now element in every moral act is in correlation to the principle of love^f. What does this moment mean? It means that there are no two moments in reality, in every human relation, in social life, in the history of mankind, in the development of the individual soul, which are identical. And since there is always a variation, even if it is a small variation, no abstract law of morals ever would fit. Every abstract law misses the concreteness of the here and now. Now you understand why I said the ultimate principle is not a law, but the ultimate principle is love, because love has just this character: to be unconditional^g itself, as moral imperative^h; and at the same time, to be concrete

in the concrete situation and able to adapt itself to the DEMAND of the situation. A friend of mine, a famous psychologist, always used to say: "Things cry"---they have a DEMAND on us. And I take this up and say: situations cry, and we must listen to them. The concrete situation has