Can God love?

[Drich]

Rob maybe read this slowly a few more times...

Emjay you've hit the nail on the head.

Think of Agape' to start with as the 'respect' one has for very valued employee.. then image how that relationship changes over time and the employee becomes like a son, and respect and love develops over time sometimes even strong than a father son mother daughter relationship could ever, because these two being elect to serve and honor one another. one looking out for the other. sadly not every paternal relationship works out this way. now imagine a life time of serving the same man/family or rather look at how joseph (coat of many colors ) served pharaoh by interpreting his dreams and helped egypt through feast times and famine to the point egypt became the most wealthy buying out other countries riches for the grain joseph had them store up. then at the end of all that look at how Joseph was rewarded for his service. he was placed in charge of all of egypt. the only one who had say over joseph was pharaoh himself. but it was joseph who was sat on the throne and ruled the nation of egypt.

The respect given to joseph by pharaoh was a form of agape love. in how agape is manifest pharaoh could literally not give joseph any more and still be pharaoh. God offers the same thing based on our understanding and our talents and abilities. God's agape is to form a life tailor made for you and to suit your strengths and challenge your weaknesses to bring you up to a standard so that when you pass on you can continue to serve in the most satisfying and perfect way.

I believe all other forms of 'love' are secondary or substitutes for agape. because once you experience true agape you will know that is what we were orginally designed for. that agape is what is missing in all of our lives. Pure agape can only be sourced by God. in this life we get a vibe or strong feeling of love from God from time to time, but never get to feel the all encomassing submersion.. the closest is baptism in a day to day believer's life. (which don't get me wrong is extremely strong sense of love) it's just God has so much more to give.

The problem is, that's not the impression I'm getting about what agape is from what I'm reading (but as I said, so far). Ie as I understand it, it's not a love based on attachment... because attachment implies fear of/aversion to abandonment/loss... ie attachment is the 'eternal good' part. So a relationship developing over time and resulting in closer bonds as you describe smacks to me of 'erosic' love rather than agapic love. And respect as you describe it for an employer/employee relationship still implies a value-judgement to me; ie if I employ someone, I'll respect their autonomy but only up to a point; if they start being disruptive I may fire them and conversely if they work well I may promote them. So the standard of measure... value... in that case is whether they're a good employee or not.

So as I understand it, if God's agape is not based on merit (ie value)... ie the righteous and sinners are equally 'agaped' simply on account that their acts, whether good or bad, are not a factor in this love... then it is hard to see what agape means in any meaningful and relatable sense to humanly experienced love or how there could be any kind of deepening relationship between the two. In other words, it seems a highly impersonal form of love.

you are only looking at one side of the examle. you even said that if an employee did wrong you would fire them. agape is not about rewards as much as it is about commitment it is about sticking with a person thick thin good or bad, because you've made the commitment to do so. 1 cor 13 paul give his person break down of agape.
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have aprophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, bso as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 cIf I give away all I have, and dif I deliver up my body to be burned,1 but have not love, I gain nothing.

4 eLove is patient and fkind; love gdoes not envy or boast; it his not arrogant 5 or rude. It idoes not insist on its own way; it jis not irritable or resentful;2 6 it kdoes not rejoice at wrongdoing, but lrejoices with the truth. 7 mLove bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, eendures all things.

8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For nwe know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but owhen the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For pnow we see in a mirror dimly, but qthen face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as rI have been fully known.

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

In the description of love you do see reward but you also see alot of self sacrifice. Something required on both sides of the relationship.
In the employee senserio the agape is the patients to train up the employee in a position he would stand to benefit from. it's not the reward or benefical nature of the position that is the expression of love but the loss the owner or job provider will endure while the employee gets up to speed/learns the job. And over time it is the commitment to stick with this employee if he messes up alot. God does this when we convert and have nothing but good intentions but make mistakes just because we do not know the job, and agape covers us when later we becme luke warm ish and begin to back slide till we finally mature and fill the position as God intended. That is agape. it is not merrit based as more than likly we will not be able to live long enogh to 'make god money' in our application of the jobs we have. Yet God rewards us anyway. That is the difference between the agape I'm trying to describe and your recounting of it.

For instance, if God 'wants' your company in heaven and/or would feel 'sorrow' at the loss of your (as in anyone's) soul to hell, then that implies (to me) erosic love...

Yes revelation tells us once the door to hell is closed there will be a great morning for all who are lost. However the more we know/the more mature we become the less that feeling of loss can hold us. I know it is of little consolation now, but it would be like loosing your fav toy when you were 4 and loosing your favorite pen now. when you were four your fav toy could have been akin to loosing a friend or even limb. and now while yes you may really liked that pen and you may think about it from time to time you understand the nature of loosing things and can and will except it is gone. Especially if said pen were scientiant and choose to be separated from you and the world you chose to live in.

that would be an example of attachment or an 'eternal good' relative to God if he sought that, that God would lack if separated from your soul by it being in hell. But the only alternative I see is an 'attitude' more akin to 'meh'; eg agape as I understand it would be something like this; God: "meh, I love all you guys and respect your autonomy (ie free will) because I created you... I'm putting this offer of salvation out there, but I'm meh as to whether you take it or not. Indiscriminately I'll offer you all help in achieving that goal if you ask for it, but that should not be taken as favour or a personal attachment relationship, because ultimately I do not care whether you take it or not and I make the same offer to all." Is that what you mean by agape? If so it's not a deepening personal relationship as such and more akin... in the workplace... to the offer by employers of 'opportunities for career advancement' (as well as a code of conduct as grounds for dismissal). Respect but not attachment.

If i never read the bible and tried to peice together the nature of God and salvation this would be close to what I think I might have come up with n my own.

The bible however describes it several different ways. often time as a God being a rich man and us being servants/slaes or even as a richman who son is to be married and us as equals..

This is a combination of several parables.

Imagine God to be a very wealthy man who has rules for living on his land, but at the same time said enforcement of said rules would not come till you moved off the land, and no matter what at some point everyone would have to move off his land, and deal with the land owner privately to settle up.

Now the purpose of this was to gauge or prove to the people the nature of their own hearts. meaning the land owner wanted to prove to the people whether they loved him and all he provided, or if the loved themselves and took advantage when they thought he was not looking.

Now because all the people who live on the grace of the rich land owner never saw the immediate lash of the whip they all over time began to steal and break the rick land owners laws, and taught their children to also do so.

So the land owner sent several servant to speak on his behalf telling the people right from wrong, and the people revolted and beat and killed the servants/prophets.

Then the land owner sent his one and only son. Here is where the Agape' comes in. Knowing what they would do, to the son. the land owner took their evil intent and used the blood split for good. AS they both knew the land owner and son knew that only the blood of the son would be enough to cover the laws broken by the servants living on the land. That way the law ceased being the measure of whether or not people were rewarded/punished after they moved off the land. and it became about whether or not they chose to serve in this life and the next. they only caveat was you pay homage to the son's sacrifice, and to forgive as you have been forgiven.

There is no Meh when it costs a life to make the arrangements for the choice provided.

For God Agape is providing the choice and sticking with you when someone better could easily take your place. Agape is also extended to those who love their sin more, and God like the rest will lament on that day when all are sealed into the pit. but that's it because a choice was made. either serve God in His creation or serve self.