RE: God is love. God is just. God is merciful.
October 4, 2014 at 4:02 pm
(This post was last modified: October 4, 2014 at 4:07 pm by Mudhammam.)
(October 4, 2014 at 5:27 am)Michael B Wrote: I think when we talk about love, justice and mercy, then those words should have a consistency when we use them, whether we are talking about God or a person. So I would say the love of God reflects God's desire for goodness for us, God's justice reflects fair judgement of our actions, and God's mercy allows for justice to be tempered in response to genuine contrition by the guilty. For the Christian, we see and experience these attributes most clearly through walking in faith in the person and teachings of Jesus Christ, the clearest 'avatar' of God."God's desire for goodness for us." Which is what? Happiness? Intellectual satisfaction with the degree to which our beliefs correspond to the totality of empirical reality? If so, it seems like an atheist is equally, and perhaps more, capable of fulfilling "God's desire" as the person guided by reason, self-introspection, and honesty cannot, if they're being true to their values, consistently find any degree of fulfillment or comfort in faith.
"God's justice reflects fair judgement of our actions." Fair judgment? Again, which is...? ...Not to be found in any Scripture that condemns all of humanity on account of their born natures and an unintelligible conception of free will.
"God's mercy allows for justice to be tempered in response to genuine contrition by the guilty." And to the believer, "genuine contrition" is tantamount to "belief that sins are forgiven on the basis of gullibility or one's disposition towards belief in ideas that have no definite meaning or evidential basis." In other words, an idea that has nothing to with genuineness or contrition to the actual object of wrong action.
I think you completely failed to offer any viable answer to Chad's OP.
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza