Can God love?

[Drich]

to what end?

What am I gaining here?

What do I charge to answer your questions?

Where am I sending converts? to whom are they paying?

The answer is no one. I strive to put you in front of God Himself and let you ask your own question and get your own answers.

Those are great critical thinking questions.  Perhaps you need to delve deeper into philosophy to properly understand.  It's not hard, it's just your cognitive dissonance that prevents you from progressing past your religious mindset.

whoa back up sport... you said sin was a invention by the church to profit from it's followers... I am the church and arguably when we discuss religion/jesus you are apart of the same church so I then ask how is it that I profit from any of this?

You don't get to make such an accusation then deflect when caught with a poorly thought out quip

[The Grand Nudger]

What do you have in your 'morality' that will have you stand up against society and say no that is too far???

You ask this question as though it;s never before happened in the history of man..or, indeed..as though it isn;t happening right now.

Clearly, some of us have something that you can;t even conceive of. That;s your problem, not ours.

[Silver]

whoa back up sport... you said sin was a invention by the church to profit from it's followers... I am the church and arguably when we discuss religion/jesus you are apart of the same church so I then ask how is it that I profit from any of this?

You don't get to make such an accusation then deflect when caught with a poorly thought out quip

The church profits not from its followers, but from spreading untruths of sin in order to reel in the gullible minded through a fictional godly cure.

Religion is to the "sinner" as the snake oil salesman is to the hypochondriac.

[emjay]

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I have no problem with Paul's description of love there. For instance I would define depression as the absence of hope, and without hope, everything is meaningless. Or to be the richest man in the world, but alone and without love or companionship would be its own hell... because no man is an island. Or the power of love to metaphorically move mountains. Or the endurance of love. Or self-sacrificing love...even without hope of self-gain or even acknowledgment by another; to seek good for the other for their sake rather than your own, even at cost to you, and even with no expectation of gratitude, acknowledgment or even knowledge by the other... such as the self-sacrificing love a parent has for their child.

But those things to me are a description of earthly love... human love... not... or at least not necessarily agape. That's what I'm trying to work out here... what agape is in comparison to human love, and where from my position as an atheist as opposed to yours as a theist, agape is theoretical rather than self-evident, hence trying to discover not only what it is but whether it's a coherent concept, just as this thread is. For the sake of argument I'm all putting all kinds of human love... whether egocentric or 'othercentric'... under the heading of eros, because it's as good a theory as any for present purposes, and some interpretations (in the book I'm reading) see no need for it to be entirely egocentric... ie based on personal gain... and I'd agree with that; I'd say the essence of it is seeking the eternal good, whether that be for yourself or someone else. Plato seems a lot more cynical in his approach, essentially saying that the love of a parent for the child is egocentric because the child is the parent's closest thing to achieving immortality, I guess equivalent to arguing the evolutionary reasons for that love. But what does he know (about his own theory)? I prefer the other interpretation, because that sort of self-sacrificial/othercentric love is not just restricted to parent-child. But whether eros is the best description for it or something else, I don't know... time will tell on that... but the point is that by eros I'm referring to human love as we know and understand it (and misunderstand it ).

The book I'm reading... Eros, Agape, and Philia: Readings in the Philosophy of Love (by Alan Soble, 1989)... is very interesting and I'd thoroughly recommend it. Its main purpose is to analyse and define the essence of love... something that we all know what it is but at the same time don't know what it is... primarily using these three classical sources for discussion. It does have quite a theist bent, but then, so does antiquity... so I can forgive that So my perspective and goal in this is understanding love itself, with discussion of agape being incidental rather than my main objective. But whether god exists or agape exists or not, it's still useful in that task if for no other reason than it reveals what our (as in human) ideals might be.

The concern I'm having with what you're saying is that you're describing a reciprocal relationship, but in the cause of understanding agape, if agape resembles human love, then to me it can't be agape. Ie if god wants anything from you or for you... then he's wanting... eros; wanting. Hence suggesting 'meh' as the only alternative that takes out the human love... eros... aspect.


As I said, I'm concentrating on the divine side of this equation, not the human side... trying to discover what agape is as separate from human love... eros... and therefore not including any aspects of eros.


I understand the example you're giving here... but my concern is whether that can be called agape as opposed to a different/higher form of eros on God's part. For instance by personifying god and saying he would lament on that day along with all the rest, that implies wanting/attachment/loss... eros. And with your example of the landowner, the landowner is indeed human... he may have higher status and power than his tenants, he may be aloof and interact with them differently than they do to him, he may be incredibly anal and love his rules and regulations, and respect fairness and equal opportunities... but despite all that, he's human and he still wants something. But for agape to make any sense to me, there can be no want involved, hence the meh example.

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I think the problem lies in your understanding of eros. you define it as wanting or longing.. why wanting and longing are apart of eros that wanting and longing is limited to sexual drive. Eros is passionate seual love.. I hope God is not wanting to share 'eros' with me/us or Heaven can quickly turn to Hell.

Just so we are on the same page

Eros = Sexual lust/love
Agape =  Respect, honor, commitment through a whole host of challenges and trials. the love God has for us.
phillia= bonded brotherly love, as in band of brother war bonds and or deep friendships.

No, no... eros as I'm reading about is much more involved than that; that's one example of it, and what it's most associated with, sure, but that's not all there is to it, and that part is something that Plato would consider one of it's baser forms, mainly on account of its transience. The way I'm understanding it is x loves (seeks to possess) y because y has value to x... but where y can be anything... ie it's value-seeking love. So sexual lust is just one example of it, y in that case being beauty, but y could be anything that has value to you. But where you cannot seek something you already possess, only inasmuch as seeking not to lose it (ie seeking its permanence... eternal-ness), this means you can only seek what you lack. And where in the book, that is contrasted with agape as being a type of love that is not based on seeking value because its source - God - lacks nothing... and is eternal. So, according to the book, agape is not value-seeking, but value-creating, but as I said, that's still a murky concept to me. But fair enough that I may well be misunderstanding things as this is a new subject to me, and it's a complicated read, but just take it that what I meant by eros... even if erroneously... was human love/want in all its forms... with value being anything that you can seek... basically you seek positive experiences, or to maintain existing positive experiences, but those experiences can come in different forms, some more transient than others (eg lusts), some nobler than others, some more selfless than others. As for philia, I haven't really got onto that yet where I'm up to in the book but from what little has been said, I find it harder to understand because Aristotle's writing style is decidedly more cryptic than Plato's But in a one liner earlier in the book it basically said that philia was conceptually mid-way between eros and agape. But yeah, maybe I am getting a bit confused in my definitions, overcomplicating things as I tend to do... I just need to finish reading the book... and then probably reread it a few times

[Jackalope]

Closing to split thread.

[Jackalope]

Actually, never mind. I have no interest in sorting the dreck that needs to be split vs. not.

[Silver]

Actually, never mind. I have no interest in sorting the dreck that needs to be split vs. not.

I don't blame you.

[Astreja]

All we can go on is what you post.  If you want to be seen as something better, then you have to write accordingly.  Give it a try.

Understand turn your world view on it's ear and demand you think for yourself is the biggest reason I am here. because if you learn to actually think for yourself you could find so much more than what you are being told is out there.

This is exactly what I mean, Drich.  You're assuming we don't think for ourselves, simply because we don't find your worldview convincing.  You're not our teacher, and you're coming across as condescending.

[Godscreated]

Steve has given you the answer. Agape has no conditions and I said that at the beginning of the post. I can love and do love many different people but I do not have to like certain things about them to love them, including my wife. Like Steve said, God loves you but He will not allow your sin into His presence. That sin part of your life is what has to change, you being willing and God directing.

GC

 God loves you no matter what you think, you can't change that anymore than you can stop an earth quake. You just find it to hard to believe that the God of the universe could love you, that's your fault not God's.

GC

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This whole idea that God would love me 'if', is, I think, rather beside the point.  If God chooses not to let me near because of some supposed flaw, or whether he cannot, is, I think an irrelevant distinction.  Love, in order to be real, has to actually involve, you know, "loving" the other.  If God neither does actually let me near, regardless of whether he simply won't, or because he can't, then God's love for me is never actualized.  Love that is never tested isn't really love, it's just the idea of love.  We have no idea whether God would or would not embrace me in spite of my flaws because he never actually does.  So this idea that God has agape for me is hollow, empty, and meaningless.  It is like the teenager's "undying love" for her boyfriend that turns out not to be so undying after all.  God's love cuts and runs at the first sign of trouble.  How Christians consider that agape, or anything at all, is beyond me.  That's not love, it's just a romantic notion.  It's the idea that God would love you if he could, but he can't, so he shan't.  It's nothing real, it's just empty words.

Who said God would love you "if," not one Christian here has said that, so why don't you just get on with some response that addresses what we are saying instead of blaming us and God because you do not feel loved.
Supposed flaw, do you mean sin, well breaking news we all sin, God allows those who have accepted Christ as their savior in His presence because we appear sinless. But that doesn't mean God loves Christians more than He does atheist. Coming into the presence of God is what this is all about, man has put himself outside of God's presence and it has to be man's choice to return and God has given us a way to do just that, if you do not accept it that is your fault not God's. God paid a terrible price to redeem man and that price was and is agape love. Because man placed a barrier between himself and God don't you think that it's man's responsibility to tear down that barrier? Here's the problem with that we can't we have no way to make things right between ourselves and our Creator, so God through His undivided love made a way possible for us and if you refuse this gift it's your loss. 

The bold by me. The only reason you can't actualize the love God has for you is simple, you have refused it, acceptance of Christ will open up to you a new world. You are not trying to find God nor His love and you want God to bow down to what you want, you have it backwards and I'm pretty sure you know you do. Look at it this way I could love some lady I've known for many years and yet she would never actualize my love until she responded to it, if you do not respond to God's love then you will never actualize it, never, and it want be God's fault, His love is there waiting upon you to accept it.  

How is it you can define what God's love is and does, you've never wanted it, you also are trying to understand a physical love and God's love isn't like that it goes much deeper, beyond understanding until you accept it. God is not required to embrace you with His love, until you accept it and then it will never leave you. You also can't escape God's love for you because He has done everything to bring you into a relationship with you, acceptance of that love by you is all that's left to do. He want force love on you because forced love is no love at all and a relational love requires two, One has the love and the other seems to be pushing it away, making every excuse to keep it at bay, it's your love that's missing, it is your love that is missing.

GC

[possibletarian]

Who said God would love you "if," not one Christian here has said that, so why don't you just get on with some response that addresses what we are saying instead of blaming us and God because you do not feel loved.

Goodness for someone who has spent so much time on these forums you are are lacking understanding, we are dealing with the concept of god's love if a god exists, we are not blaming either you or your non existent god.  I also don't feel unloved by Odin, or Thor !

man has put himself outside of God's presence and it has to be man's choice to return and God has given us a way to do just that, if you do not accept it that is your fault not God's.

So there is an 'if' after all .. oh and a 'it's your fault'

God paid a terrible price to redeem man and that price was and is agape love.

What a retarded concept for a god who supposedly could simply forgive.

Because man placed a barrier between himself and God don't you think that it's man's responsibility

Another 'if' we do this or that... with a throw in  of 'it's your fault'

we have no way to make things right between ourselves and our Creator, so God through His undivided love made a way possible for us and if you refuse this gift it's your loss.

And yet another 'if' you...  and it's your fault

acceptance of Christ will open up to you a new world.

Another 'if'

You are not trying to find God nor His love and you want God to bow down to what you want,

Another 'if' you.. and it's your fault
(I see a pattern here)

I could love some lady I've known for many years and yet she would never actualize my love until she responded to it, if you do not respond to God's love then you will never actualize it,

Another 'if' you ....
Surely though you would make your love known to her in a discernable real life way before you expect her to respond?

How is it you can define what God's love is and does, you've never wanted it,

Well accepting love from anon existent deity who's presence is exactly the same as no god at all is difficult yes, you will have to forgive for not having the same fantasy as you... and sighs, yet another 'it's your fault'

you also are trying to understand a physical love and God's love isn't like that it goes much deeper, beyond understanding... until you accept it.

So if it's beyond understanding how do you understand it. ?
Isn't that exactly the same as saying 'if you believe, then you will believe'
and yes you got it.. yet another 'if' you...

God is not required to embrace you with His love, until you accept it and then it will never leave you.

Again 'if' you...

You also can't escape God's love for you because He has done everything to bring you into a relationship with you,

Not what you said before, apparently we can escape god's love, unless being in god's love is being tortured for  eternity.

acceptance of that love by you is all that's left to do. He want force love on you because forced love is no love at all and a relational love requires two, One has the love and the other seems to be pushing it away, making every excuse to keep it at bay, it's your love that's missing, it is your love that is missing.

Another 'if' you.. and a very definite 'it's your fault'

Unconditional love is not 'forced' I can choose to be kind and forgive without forcing my love on anyone, the love i have is about me not others. You have a very backward idea of what love is. also I would add threatening people with  eternal torment is pretty much forced love, wouldn't you. ?

Seriously if you start your post with a misunderstanding of the atheist position then the rest is simply gobbleygook, maybe if christians reflected  this unconditional deeper, beyond understanding love to the word then you would give us cause to believe at least in your religion, even if not your non existent god.  I don't even think you realise how much you repeat the same mantra over and over again, classic sign of a cult.

All this is is another brainwashed, deceptive post on why god is exactly the same as no god at all. Christians.. excuse makers for at the last 2,000 years.

*Bold mine*