RE: Love the Lord your God with all your heart ?
June 19, 2016 at 3:16 pm
(This post was last modified: June 19, 2016 at 3:17 pm by Athene.)
(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"?
Love, in my view, is essentially sacrifice. It's my personal belief that love can easily be determined by the tendency or willingness of one to give up what is of benefit to themselves, for the benefit of another or others. Our love for our children is demonstrated by our willingness to give up or forgo our own dreams and aspirations at times, and even our lives if necessary. One of the more obvious ways such sacrifice is observed towards one's significant other is through fidelity (again, my opinion), as demonstrated by the willingness to forgo nailing other people, even though you absolutely want to. We give the ones we love our time, our resources, and willingly sacrifice our own desires, comforts, and needs at times, in order to make the lives of those we care for more bearable...Blah, blah, blah, so on and so forth.
Bottom line, if one isn't willing to give up anything of significance (whether they actually end up having to or not), I would question if what what is being felt it actually love (by my own definition). At first thought, I would say that the willingness to sacrifice is most certainly a choice, but I suppose people do feel compelled to naturally love and give of themselves to certain individuals, seemingly as an act outside of their will. Parent/child relationships in particular come to mind (though not all of them).
As far as the God angle's concerned, I'm afraid I can't offer much insight. I can't love what I can't see or know to be real. God is just an abstract, imaginary, thing to me; an idea. Giving up/sacrificing anything to an idea seems quite insane to me, but loads of people do it. I suppose it's because they believe they're getting much, much more in return.
*DISCLAIMER: I should probably mention that I am by no means an expert on matters of love.
