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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 8/4/2003 4:47 PM (GMT -6) |   | quote:
Originally posted by MephEternal
The topic speaks for itself. I'm beginning to think that I'm crazy. Why? Because this whole thing seems so simple to me. Unconditional love. God unconditionally loving all sentient beings. This including Satan. All of it. It makes sense to me. But I'm getting some serious resistence to saying that God loves Satan. And by extension, that ANYONE should love Satan.
So, I just want to open up to correction. It is very possible that I have a very messed up understanding of UNCONDITIONAL LOVE. So I want it fixed. I'm not going to debate here. Just listen. This is open to anyone to put the most persuasive arguments on the table about why my understanding of unconditional love (and the conclusions that come from it about loving Satan) are very wrong.
I'm open. So help me out. Why shouldn't God (and I) love Satan, in the way I've described on other threads.
Meph, when you take an uncooperative mass of clay, spinning on a wheel, and push it all towards the center, it all comes into order. Its centered. The following was my first five-second response to your post. Hit or miss...here it is.
What ever you are saying should also be true of loving other persons; so it seems by the trajectory of how your post just seems. There is such a thing as "loving" another person that is not God-centered. Then there is love that "knoweth God."
Same...same.
Center.
THAT love might be "cheritable," or it may be judgement.
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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 8/4/2003 5:00 PM (GMT -6) | | Mephi: Why shouldn't God (and I) love Satan, in the way I've described on other threads.
Tom: In the way you've described? That is, simply mourning the loss of what could have been? No problem. Don't stop doing it. I mourn with you. I just don't call it "loving Satan." So in my book we're just disagreeing on what to call our grief (or perhaps on what such grief implies), but if that's it, go for it. You're not crazy!
But if you were, I'd love you anyway.
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John Earp
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Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1715
| Posted 8/4/2003 5:12 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Laika
quote:
Originally posted by John Earp
I really don't see God's love as revealed in the Bible as anything if not conditional in some way.
"while we were yet sinners Christ died for us"
John, I think it's unconditional for awhile but eventually game over. Unrequited love does not last forever. If it did it'd become psychotic. For love to flow it eventually needs a willing receptacle.
If it's unconditional for a while, then by definition it is not unconditional.
"He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me: and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him...If a man love Me, he will keep My words: and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him." -- John 14:21-23
It seems to me that God desires to fully love all people (in the sense of intimate relationship). The roadblock to one's receiving God's love is one's own willful rebellion against the love of God.
"The Discovery of new truth will modify old views and opinions, and there is perhaps no end to this process with finite minds in any world." Charles G. Finney, Systematic Theology.
revivaltheology.net
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Electra
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Date Joined Feb 2002
Total Posts : 611
| Posted 8/4/2003 6:21 PM (GMT -6) | | Ok. Let me ask a corrolary question:
What is at stake for saying that God loves all sentient beings, including Satan? What gets lost by saying this?
I think that will help too. | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 8/4/2003 6:44 PM (GMT -6) | | I have to speak up on this one…
Iconoclast:
quote:
It seems to me that most people's deep intution is that God does NOT love Satan.
John takes issue with your major premise.
Most others take issue with your minor premise.
and…
quote:
The issue in my opinion is NOT with your notion of unconditional love. It is with the deep intuition that most seem to have that Satan is NOT really like a person.
I think that you are dead on the money. But that’s what’s confusing me. Outside of saying what you say (that Satan is not a real sentient being), I don’t see HOW someone can say this. All attempts to “depersonalize” Satan seem to falter gravely, unless one does what you (Iconoclast) do and say that Satan is NOT a being.
Maybe that’s the question. How is Satan NOT LIKE a person if Satan:
--is self-aware
--can think
--can deliberate
--can have emotion (Satan hates God)
The "Satan as a personal being" idea must be taken as a whole or not at all, in my mind.
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Starkman
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747
| Posted 8/5/2003 3:24 AM (GMT -6) | | I posted this under the thread Meph's Attempt to Describe "LOVE," but, man, I killed the post in doing so!  Here goes again.
You know, besides the different aspects of the word "love" (horribly unprecise in English), what makes it so hard to "define" love, as is the case with evil, is that love isn't something you can pick up and say, "Wow, look: a piece of love." So what we end up doing is never truly defining love, but rather we define its actions as exhibited, at least agape love.
With regard to the Who Loves Satan question (what a question! I mean, like the Trident gum commercial "Who wants gum" ... "I do, I do!"), Does God love Satan with phileo love? No! Does He love Satan with erotic love? No. Does He love Satan with Agape love? Well, if God doesn't love Satan with those other kinds of "love", why must he do so with with agape love
Must God eternally love every sentient being He creates? Is it possible that a being can be created who thereafter may not possess the receptical to receive God's love--"agape love" being an action expressing worth or value based upon agape love, since we're not talking here about any other kind of love? In other words, can a sentient being loose the capacity to receive agape love? If so, is God still required (or would it be in His nature) to express love toward this being when said love will never penetrate? Further, is God still required (or would it in be His nature) to eternally love this being when it is eternally fruitless to do so?
What is the expression of agape love? It does not require feeling and emotion. It is something like justice: rendering to someone what they rightly deserve; whether one feels or does not feel like doing so is irrelevant. Agape love is a disposition, and it starts from a framework, not a vacuum or a situational ethic. Agape love is not its own ground or framework; it stems from someone--a person. God is always in the proper position relative to what He has created. He never changes in this regard, so His own grounding for expressing agape is unchanging. But ONLY the grounding, and not the demand to express agape, is unchanging.
Automotons or non-sentient beings neither need nor require agape love. They may require maintenance if they are to continue functioning--something that could be yet another kind of "love" ("I just love my car," therefore I take care of it). And neither would we insist that God must agape-love these creations. Sentient beings--at least those made in the same image as their creator--require and need agape love; they are created to know and experience the receiving and giving of worth and value, both for themselves others. Little more need be said about that.
But what of Satan, a sentient being now epitomized as one who no longer has capacity to recieve agape love? What is God's "position" on this matter? What is God's "way" of exhibiting Himself toward a sentient being who formerly was capable of receiving agape love? What is the unchangable grounding and framework that defines not love, but the One who epitomizes the meaning of agape love? What will God consistently do in this situation? To me, this is really the essence of "defining" agape love: understanding the unchangable framework in which God dwells.
Once Satan became the epitome of one who no longer has the capacity to recieve love, the question is two-fold: what will God exhibit toward this being and what will God not exhibit toward this being. Certianly we can say that God will not become vicious, spiteful, unjust, irrational and impure in any actions he does to Satan. So what, then, is left for God to do that God would always do? God both knows (in all aspects of knowing and understanding) what Satan was before he fell and what he has become since he fell. God will not change who He is as He deals with Satan, either before or after he banishes Satan for eternity. God is, and always will be, fair and just, NOT because others are worth it, but because it is not of the character of God to do otherwise--that is the unchanging grounding and framework. Satan is in no different of a position than anyone else when it comes to God exhibiting something about Himself. We change, God does not.
Finally, I think, then, that agape love is somewhat the right word but somewhat the wrong word to confine all of God's ways of dealing with defining love. Unless "agape love" is to include the meaning of God's unchangable character, and not just respecting someone's worth or value, then the definition of agape love falls short. If, however, we understand what drives agape love--the unchangableness of the one Who exhibits Himself--and bring that concept concommitantly with agape, we may find a fuller understanding of what it means to love another.
Wish I had time to edit this better, but I don't!
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Laika
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Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 2433
| Posted 8/5/2003 3:33 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 8/5/2003 6:43 AM (GMT -6) | | Ok. Let’s try this again.
What Meph is saying:
God’s giving of love has no external conditions. The ONLY REASONS that God gives love to people are twofold:
1) God is love in God’s essential existence
2) There are people to love.
1 and 2 work out such that God unconditionally loves all sentient beings.
This unconditional love for all person does NOT necessarily entail:
--salvation for all people
--the absence of judgment (Judgment is a FORM of love)
--the absence of hatred (Love HATES anti-love)
--the absence of SELECTION (Covenants CAN be conditional!)
--the absence of MOURNING (Mourning a person’s loss is a form of love)
I’m saying this again to all the people that seem to think that saying that “God’s love is conditional” is necessary to reconcile any of the things above. It is NOT.
I would agree that:
--the RECEIVING of God’s love is conditional (by time limit of probationary period or self-soldification)
--entering into conscious relationship with God is conditional.
--being in mutually influential covenant with God is conditional. (Note: This has to be qualified by "mutually influential" because it is possible to have a UNILATERAL covenant binding upon only ONE person. Remember God's covenant with Abraham with the death walk?)
The list that I placed earlier is what others HAVE to end up saying:
quote:
God IS love (perfect love, I suppose), in such a way that…
--God can choose to hate people.
--God is the only authoritative, justified, and consummate hater of persons.
--We are commanded to love our enemies, but God doesn’t have to.
--God only loves conditionally, not unconditionally.
--God’s love has a time limit.
This is in opposition to God loving all sentient beings unconditionally.
This seems problematic. But NONE of this has to be said, nor do the untenable things in the first list have to be affirmed IF we say that the GIVING of God’s love is without conditions.
Someone please reflect back to me what you hear me saying.
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 8/5/2003 7:04 AM (GMT -6) | | What's the difference? One has the DIGNITY of choice whereas the other did not. Regardless of WHAT choices were made, God obviously thought that the sentient will was important enough to contextualize this entire universe for it.
Though one can CHOOSE freely not to receive God's love, it is that ability to choose wherein the dignity lies that inanimate objects will NEVER have. | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 8/5/2003 7:31 AM (GMT -6) | | Oh, this is easy.
First of all, this is incorrect:
"What do you mean by 'love'?"
"Love means I'll do anything for you, Wanda. ANYTHING." you exude.
Love doesn’t do “anything” for someone. Check my definition. But let’s go on…
quote:
"Well then, LEAVE ME ALONE. Pretend I don't exist. I want NOTHING to do with you." she replies.
So now what do you do? You "love" Wanda, you think. Do you leave her alone? Forget about her?
What kind of relationship can you have with her? To her you don't exist.
Let’s see now..
1) I know that she exists and on that basis, not only do I ascribe positive worth to her, but I also have a benevolent disposition towards her. I can do this whether she recognizes my existence or not.
2) I have shared myself with her in a felt way to her. Yet, she wants nothing to do with me. But I can continue to hold my benevolent disposition towards her, truly investing myself in her…even though she doesn’t recognize my existence.
3) Let’s be thorough and say that there is NO WAY POSSIBLE that I can empower her to become a better person without her acknowledging my existence. Oh well. This one is OPTIONAL, anyway. The first two are essential.
Thus, by my definition of love, I can unconditionally love here…even AS I allow her to ignore me.
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Starkman
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747
| Posted 8/5/2003 9:21 AM (GMT -6) | | Meph,quote:
Possessing unconditional love for someone is NOT the negation of holding that other person to a standard of justice. For God to have unconditional love for Satan or anyone else does NOT negate God being holy and just.
I think you misunderstood (only) an analogy I was trying to make. Here's the orginal quote: What is the expression of agape love? It does not require feeling and emotion. It is something like justice: rendering to someone what they rightly deserve; whether one feels or does not feel like doing so is irrelevant.
The issue here was the static position of that which drives love: the character of God; similar to that which drives justice--no feelings or emotion involved, but what is rightly due a person. This, too, is grounded in the character of God. That was as far as the analogy was to be carried. It wasn't meant to commentary on love itself.
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Starkman
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747
| Posted 8/5/2003 9:41 AM (GMT -6) | | Laika,
You asked, "If both the inanimate object and the being are unreceptive, what's the difference?
If I can pick up with where this question leaves off, I'd say very little differentiates this being from an inanimate object. I want to be careful here not to be misunderstood as saying that this being is of no value or worth, or this being is to be treated the same as an inanimate object. That's not my point. The differentiation is in regard to the results of the action of love expressed to this being, not the being him/herself.
Once a being will no longer receive or is no longer able to receive love, a prohibition then exists which stifles the the capacity it takes to make the expression of love toward that being mean anything. Kind of like Laika's issue about loving someone who says, "If you really love me, leave me alone." All the "love" in the world for the non-receiver is meaningless, if we're going to try and capture "love" ontologically.
Similarly, if person A is in a coma (almost wrote comma, which would mean they only pause for a moment!), that person cannot (directly or cognitively) receive the love person B expresses to person A; there is a prohibition in force which stifles the process. Person A's value and worth are still intact, but the lines of communication for direct love are stopped.
When we step back and understand that the framework for love (agape love, at least) is within the very character of God, then it isn't hard at all to make sense of the continual "love" of God toward even a being like Satan. God doesn't change; His character will always be an expression of respect for the value and worth of sentient beings. God will never act unjustly, irrationally or spitefully towards any sentient being. This, then, must either broaden the meaning of agape love or run concommitantly with it. But one can never arrive at a satisfactory definition of love if said definition is an ontological definition we are after.
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