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One Love
Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 10/18/2003 4:16 AM (GMT -6)

In your view of God, how does God love? Does God love NATURALLY...and unchangably so? Does God always actively choose to love us...even though he could choose not to love us? Did God originally have the ability to choose not to love...but gave it up?

What do you think?

"I've been converted three times. The first was to traditional Christianity; the second to honesty and the third was to the Love of God and man (humanity) The third was the real conversion. The first two were preliminary."

--Nels Ferre, a theologian speaking of his spiritual journey with the Triune God

Tigress
Registered Member

Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1252

Posted 10/21/2003 6:32 AM (GMT -6)

Man, I don't even have the guts to try to vote on this! Shock

Tigress

"Name a shrub after me. Preferably one that's prickly and difficult to eradicate."

-Captain Jack Aubrey
"Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World"

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 10/25/2003 3:35 AM (GMT -6)

Meph's question, and the three answers he offered, all are founded on certain presuppositions about what FREEDOM is. And I think THERE is the problem.

So, I won't answer.

I posted the "right" answer many times over several years. Freedom is the capacity to follow one's nature. (E.g., sin make us wacked up, and unable to pursue the "natural" course which is ours, which it to fellowship with God.) When Mary said "be it unto me as you say, she did not deliberate by making a advantages/disadvantages sheet and sleep on it. She responded as God knew she would, from human nature that had been prepared by prayer and devotion to God. She responded FREELY. She freely GAVE OF HERSELF. (That's what Meph should be looking for!) But she did not suffer -- in her nature -- to do so. (Obviously becoming the Mother of God brought with it suffering: "a sword shall pierce your heart. But that is not damaging to her nature.)

Now, THAT is what can be said of creatures. What can be said of creatures can never just be transfered to the creator. It is foolish to do so.

For God, his "nature" is what he choses to do.

Here is something worth thinking about:

quote:
Anyone who does not love is denying his nature. He is destoying his feeling and capacity for knowledge, which is eternity. anyone who does not see himself increasing, as he diminishes and is lost for the sake of another, is in torment. He is condemning himself to an inhuman punishment.
(from page 75, "THe Hymn of Entry", by Archimandrite Vasilios)

And:

quote:
The love of the Trinity expands space into paradise; a paradise of greedom, released from care, fear and hatred. There is no opacity: everything shines like crystal. There is no lack of space caused by impenetrability; everyone has ample room: "What you comanded has been done, and still there is room" (Luke 14:22)
(page 72)

markporter
Fire over Oxford

Date Joined Oct 2003
Total Posts : 263

Posted 10/29/2003 4:46 AM (GMT -6)

well, I voted for the last one, I'm still trying to work out how to understand it, but it's what I believe.

GregBoyd
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818

Posted 10/30/2003 7:49 PM (GMT -6)

The question is ambiguous in that it doesn't specify whether we are talking about God's love ad intra (within himself, the essential trinity) or ad extra (outside himself, the creation). Nor does it specify whether its talking about libertarian or compatiblistic choice (though people familiar with Meph and the debate could guess what he meant). Nor does it specify how God loves, even if we assume libertarian freedom. That is, if one defines love as Calvary, as Scripture does, then voting "no" seems to entail that Calvary was a necessity, given God's essential loving nature. But THAT is a position few would want to accept, I think.

Just my thoughts

Doc

"The responsibility is with the chooser -- God is blameless." Plato, Republic, 10.

John Earp
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1715

Posted 11/1/2003 7:26 PM (GMT -6)

As you might have guessed, I chose #2. I think that the real issue here is that the idea that God could choose to be malevolent is absolutely horrifying to us. Therefore, when teaching or preaching on God's moral agency (or libertarian free will), I always make clear that we can be 100% certain that God will forever continue to choose to be loving, based on the clear testimonies of Scripture, Reason, and Experience. But to make God out to be an automaton of some kind seems far worse than any kind of determinism imaginable; holiness in created beings with freedom to choose otherwise would then be FAR MORE praiseworthy than it ever could be in God.

2c more

"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

Matthew Timothy Short
Huh?

Date Joined Apr 2002
Total Posts : 635

Posted Yesterday 5:40 AM (GMT -6)

1Jo 4:8 . . . God is love.

1Jo 4:16 . . . God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.

1Jo 4:7 . . . for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.

Luk 11:42 But woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye . . . pass over judgment and the love of God:

Jhn 5:42 But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you.

Rom 5:5 . . . the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

2Cr 13:14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, [be] with you all. Amen.

2Th 3:5 And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ.

1Jo 2:5 But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.

1Jo 3:17 But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels [of compassion] from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?

1Jo 4:9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.

1Jo 5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.

Jud 1:21 Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.

2Cr 13:11 Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you.

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