RE: Love the Lord your God with all your heart ?
June 13, 2016 at 7:08 pm
(This post was last modified: June 13, 2016 at 7:09 pm by Thumpalumpacus.)
(June 12, 2016 at 4:52 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote: Love... perhaps the greatest mystery of all. Is it a feeling, or is it a choice? The greatest commandment says to love God with all your heart. This would seem to imply that love is a choice, that we can choose to love or not love God. Those who advocate that love is a choice talk of choosing to commit to the one you love and engage in loving acts towards the loved one, but do these same choices apply to loving a disembodied spirit? Loving somebody with all your heart and mind and soul seems to speak to love as a feeling. Does the heart or soul choose? Is it possible to choose to "love God with all your heart and soul and mind"?
I don't believe that love is a choice at all. I think it is a compulsion, a human need. When we reach out to others and that resonates with them, its basis is formed. At that point, the emotional exchange can, but doesn't always, grow into love.
I cannot "choose" to love god(s), simply because there's no feedback loop reinforcng the emotions. They never talk back to me.
My faith in love, and it is indeed a faith, relies upon the other returning and resonating my feelings. That is noticeably absent in the context of worship.
