Can God love?

[Angrboda]

It's typical of the Christian conception of God that "God is love," that God is the alpha and the Omega when it comes to love. Indeed, in the New Testament, his two greatest commandments are to love God (love here being the Greek concept of agape), and to love thy neighbor. So it would appear that love is in some sense fundamental to the Christian God. Moreover, if God is perfect, that seems to imply that God loves and experiences love to the fullest extent possible.

Unfortunately, there appear to be some serious obstacles in his way. First, he is a solitary being, and only knows relationships through the trinitarian godhead, or with beings that are inferior to him. The trinitarian godhead offers some escape from the question, but presents other problems. In the trinity, God meets his equal, but he does so with omniscience and concurrence of act, if not thought. The whole question of trust as it relates to intimacy seems to disappear as a result. Moreover, there's the specter of self-interest in that ultimately God would be in love with himself, which would seem to undermine the whole enterprise in many ways. Is self-love even comparable to romantic love, filial love, brotherly love, platonic love, or agape? I think the trinity by its nature presents as many obstacles to the full expression of love as it does offer potential avenues of resolution. At the very least, it offers God experience of one or two types of love to the exclusion of others. And that brings us to the question of the forms of love embodied in romantic love, amour, and that embodied by friendship or platonic love. The first obvious problem being the question of equality of standing. The trinity doesn't so much resolve this as sidestep it. Perhaps the question of equality is necessarily bound up in the nature of trust and intimacy. Relationships as we experience them are a curious blend of both certainty, in the faith one has in the other, with uncertainty, in never knowing completely where and how things are going to turn. It seems that love without this blend of certainty and contingency would be a far different creature than what we currently understand as love.

So, given the obstacles in his path, can God love fully and completely?

[vorlon13]

Ezekiel 6 (KJV)
12 He that is far off shall die of the pestilence; and he that is near shall fall by the sword; and he that remaineth and is besieged shall die by the famine: thus will I accomplish my fury upon them.

Nahum 1 (KJV)
2 God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth; the Lord revengeth, and is furious; the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies.

Nahum 1  (KJV)
6 Who can stand before his indignation? and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? his fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him.

2 Samuel 22  (KJV)
7 In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried to my God: and he did hear my voice out of his temple, and my cry did enter into his ears.
8 Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations of heaven moved and shook, because he was wroth.

Exodus 4 (KJV)
11 And the Lord said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the Lord?

Isaiah 42 (KJV)
13 The Lord shall go forth as a mighty man, he shall stir up jealousy like a man of war: he shall cry, yea, roar; he shall prevail against his enemies.

Numbers 25  (KJV)
4 And the Lord said unto Moses, Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the Lord against the sun, that the fierce anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel.

Isaiah 14  (KJV)
21 Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers; that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities.

Exodus 20  (KJV)
5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

Leviticus 26 (KJV)
22 I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number; and your high ways shall be desolate.

Ezekiel 5 (KJV)
8 Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I, even I, am against thee, and will execute judgments in the midst of thee in the sight of the nations.
9 And I will do in thee that which I have not done, and whereunto I will not do any more the like, because of all thine abominations.
10 Therefore the fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of thee, and the sons shall eat their fathers; and I will execute judgments in thee, and the whole remnant of thee will I scatter into all the winds.

Jeremiah 19  (KJV)
9 And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege and straitness, wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their lives, shall straiten them.

Leviticus 26 (KJV)
29 And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat.

Seems pretty unloving to me . . . .

[brewer]

god can love as much as Superman can. 

Well, maybe not as much.

[Chad32]

Depends on your definition of love. One of the most famous verses in the bible says "For god so loved the world", and yet he seems to hate just about everything about us that makes us unique. He created us to have a relationship with us, but that relationship entails fawning praise and absolute obedience. It's not for no reason that this relationship has been compared to domestic abuse. Can a man love a woman, even as he tells her that she's a piece of trash, and the only way she'll be allowed to get anywhere in life is doing only what he tells her to do? Our greatest achievements are as dirty rags to god, and we need to be cleaned up before he'll even allow us in his presence.

[Whateverist]

Probably depends on the god and what that god turns out to be. Possibly It is capable but it probably is different in kind from what we likely mean by “love”. But I seriously doubt any god is such a wuss as Jesus and I doubt that any god worth its salt requires the kind of undecerning, uncritical love xtians expect, nor do I think what god there may be much cares if we are exceptionally morally accomplished. God is in the moment if It is anywhere at all.

[SteveII]

It's typical of the Christian conception of God that "God is love," that God is the alpha and the Omega when it comes to love.  Indeed, in the New Testament, his two greatest commandments are to love God (love here being the Greek concept of agape), and to love thy neighbor.  So it would appear that love is in some sense fundamental to the Christian God.  Moreover, if God is perfect, that seems to imply that God loves and experiences love to the fullest extent possible.

Unfortunately, there appear to be some serious obstacles in his way.  First, he is a solitary being, and only knows relationships through the trinitarian godhead, or with beings that are inferior to him.  The trinitarian godhead offers some escape from the question, but presents other problems.  In the trinity, God meets his equal, but he does so with omniscience and concurrence of act, if not thought.  The whole question of trust as it relates to intimacy seems to disappear as a result.  Moreover, there's the specter of self-interest in that ultimately God would be in love with himself, which would seem to undermine the whole enterprise in many ways.  Is self-love even comparable to romantic love, filial love, brotherly love, platonic love, or agape?  I think the trinity by its nature presents as many obstacles to the full expression of love as it does offer potential avenues of resolution.  At the very least, it offers God experience of one or two types of love to the exclusion of others.  And that brings us to the question of the forms of love embodied in romantic love, amour, and that embodied by friendship or platonic love.  The first obvious problem being the question of equality of standing.  The trinity doesn't so much resolve this as sidestep it.  Perhaps the question of equality is necessarily bound up in the nature of trust and intimacy.  Relationships as we experience them are a curious blend of both certainty, in the faith one has in the other, with uncertainty, in never knowing completely where and how things are going to turn.  It seems that love without this blend of certainty and contingency would be a far different creature than what we currently understand as love.

So, given the obstacles in his path, can God love fully and completely?

Not in the sense you are describing.  It makes sense to say that God can love (agape) perfectly. That is all that it needed for the doctrine. You add in 'completely' so you can then discuss human-based love--additional elements of love only available to non-omniscient, flawed, inherently selfish creatures. Missing those elements don't make God imperfect any more than not experiencing what it's like to be me (something else God lacks) does not make his knowledge imperfect.

[The Grand Nudger]

Missing those things about love that a "non-omniscient, flawed, inherently selfish creature" can access does seem like it might be a bit of an imperfection. I;d have gone another way with it, personally. God incarnate as jesus was a man for 30 years. He might have learned a bit about his creation and how we experience love..in that time.

[Anomalocaris]

The Christian moron resorts ever so easily to doggerel.

[Drich]

It's typical of the Christian conception of God that "God is love," that God is the alpha and the Omega when it comes to love.  Indeed, in the New Testament, his two greatest commandments are to love God (love here being the Greek concept of agape), and to love thy neighbor.  So it would appear that love is in some sense fundamental to the Christian God.  Moreover, if God is perfect, that seems to imply that God loves and experiences love to the fullest extent possible.

Unfortunately, there appear to be some serious obstacles in his way.  First, he is a solitary being, and only knows relationships through the trinitarian godhead, or with beings that are inferior to him.  The trinitarian godhead offers some escape from the question, but presents other problems.  In the trinity, God meets his equal, but he does so with omniscience and concurrence of act, if not thought.  The whole question of trust as it relates to intimacy seems to disappear as a result.  Moreover, there's the specter of self-interest in that ultimately God would be in love with himself, which would seem to undermine the whole enterprise in many ways.  Is self-love even comparable to romantic love, filial love, brotherly love, platonic love, or agape?  I think the trinity by its nature presents as many obstacles to the full expression of love as it does offer potential avenues of resolution.  At the very least, it offers God experience of one or two types of love to the exclusion of others.  And that brings us to the question of the forms of love embodied in romantic love, amour, and that embodied by friendship or platonic love.  The first obvious problem being the question of equality of standing.  The trinity doesn't so much resolve this as sidestep it.  Perhaps the question of equality is necessarily bound up in the nature of trust and intimacy.  Relationships as we experience them are a curious blend of both certainty, in the faith one has in the other, with uncertainty, in never knowing completely where and how things are going to turn.  It seems that love without this blend of certainty and contingency would be a far different creature than what we currently understand as love.

So, given the obstacles in his path, can God love fully and completely?

I thik you hit the nail on the head, but lost yourself driving another point.

God can Love wholly and Completely. or rather God can Agape' wholly and completely. Remember Agape' is not to Eros or to ludus, Phillia ,nor to Storge.

God's love is all contained with in the word Agape, from that perspective it is complete and whole.

If God wishes to share a deeper love obviously He has the ablity to do so, but in truth Agape' is what is offered not the post card idea of love most of us desmand.

[Minimalist]

If there was a god he could go fuck himself.