Can God love?

[Angrboda]

Try to keep your eye on the ball, Steve.  The question was not does God love a certain class of people who meet his conditions, but rather does God have agape toward the unbeliever, who, according to you, he is metaphysically unable to approach.  And the answer to that latter question is no, he doesn't have agape toward them, for the reasons outlined.  As for the other class of people, his love toward them is conditional, so that's not agape either, though for different reasons.

For reference: The essence of agape love is goodwill, benevolence, and willful delight in the object of love.

All 3 points I made above are examples of actions/attitudes of God prior to any decision by any person. I also think that your characterization of God cannot love since he is "metaphysically unable to approach" is wrong on two fronts:

1. John 16:7-11 tells one of the Holy Spirit's purpose as one of conviction the world of their sinful condition and driving them to seek God. That alone defeats the "metaphysically unable to approach" idea.
2. Further, I don't think the barrier between God and unrepentant man applies to the question of God's love for the same person. I think it is sufficient to see that God desires, has planned for, physically provided for, prompts (via Holy Spirit) and continually waits for the repair to be made to qualify as love. 

But let's get something else out of the way.  Your God did not die for anybody's sins because your God did not die.  And he knew he wasn't going to die.  That's the same lie that Christians have been telling for 2,000 years and no matter how many times you repeat it, it's still a lie.  Jesus was temporarily inconvenienced for my sins, maybe; but what is that to an eternal God?  Fuck if I know.  Generally when it comes to God's pseudo-sacrifice, the explanation breaks one of two ways.  Either Christ's "death" was merely symbolic in order to facilitate our rapprochement toward God, or it was in some sense metaphysically necessary.  In the first case, it being symbolic, it wasn't necessary, it had no substantive effect upon God's relationship towards man, and was little more than a calculated PR campaign.  In the second sense, Jesus' crucifixion becomes some sort of magic spell, requiring the right physical ingredients and saying the right magic words.   Why God needs a cantrip to forgive someone is never fully explained, it's just an ad hoc supposition required to make sense of the story.  That's not how the rest of the world forgives.  Me, I just will myself to forgive, and it's done.  Apparently, if God wants to forgive someone, he has to sacrifice a goat.  Your God is the most emotionally inept God I've ever heard of.

Jesus most certainly died--in every sense of the word. A couple of points of clarification:

1. It is impossible for man to atone for his own sin. 
2. So God decided to do so.
3. But in order to atone for man's sin, God had to become a man in order to stand in for us. So, the sacrifice was not simply "symbolic" as you put it. 
4. That means that Jesus was truly human. He was still God, so he was not just merely human. He had a unique dual nature. 
5. His human nature endured life, suffering and death. There is another thing that comes up--God turned away from him at the time of his death because he represented the sins of the world. This was apparently a heavy thing to go through. 

You can say 'big deal', he knew in the end he would be fine. Sure, but that point really does not undercut that he loved us enough to provide this way back. 

One last point on this. You mention that you "forgive, and it's done". That is not the same thing as what is happening with the Christ's atonement. Christ's atonement does not forgive, it wipes the slate clean--as if it never happened. This is an important distinction in systematic theology that few ever take note of. 

Regardless, the Christian is always attempting to make disbelief some kind of moral failing for which we are culpable.  It's not, so all the gymnastics attempting to justify God's justice ultimately fail.  At the end of the road is a God who loves some people and not others, specifically because of who they are.  That's not agape, no matter how you slice it.  Since you've abandoned the possibility that God is capable of other kinds of love right out of the gate, the final conclusion is that no, God does not, or cannot, love.

I don't think that your "disbelief" characterization is correct either. Our natural state is one that needs fixing. Being in that state is the failing--not the disbelief itself. If you reject what has been revealed to you about God, that is a moral failing, but it is your natural state that has and will always separate you.

I defended my premise. God's actions shows conclusively that he has and does love all humanity and it is his will that they respond to him prior to or in spite of, a lack of response. Your attempts to undercut the premise are well thought out, but don't prevail once we fill in the systematic theology behind the beliefs.

Before I respond, I'd like to know your beliefs regarding the nature of Christ, so I don't misrepresent you. The traditional doctrine is that Christ was fully human and fully divine, which makes sense to those who, for whatever reason, do not understand the meaning of the word 'fully'. Or was it some split, that, say, Jesus was 60% divine and 40% human? Or were there two Jesuses, one human and one divine? What exactly are your beliefs here?