God is Love

[udontknowmickey]

Thanks for the post NotReady, those are words that I too need to hear and remember.

One thing I'd like to point out for the rest of the board (and I know NotReady knows this)

God is love does not mean love is God. Essentially, God, by His triune nature (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) give us a demonstration of what true love is: Father loving Son, and Spirit connecting them. This does not mean that God is bound by our concept of "love" (in fact, the Biblical definition of love includes a bit of discipline from a loving Father). The Bible also testifies to additional characteristics that God defines: justice is a good example. It is not contradictory for God to be love as well as justice simply because that divine justice was satisfied for the elect on the cross and thus their price is paid.

[udontknowmickey]

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Then why bother to make such a big issue of it?




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I believe evolution is made such a large deal because of it's direct ramifications upon people's worldviews. With evolution come's a naturalistic philosophy (and to espouse "theistic evolution" is not evolution at all, since by it's nature evolution claims that the natural laws and natural forces at work created the complexity of life). With a naturalistic philosophy taken to it's ultimate philosophical conclusion, one comes to a realization that we as humans are just chains on the evolutionary sequence, leaving a life where purpose is just what you make of it, there is no higher accountability, we are here for but a flicker. I could continue.

I will say that I believe evolution is completely contradictory to the Biblical testimony but will also say that there are people who I would affirm as brothers and sisters who do believe in evolution. No one is perfect, especially not me.

[udontknowmickey]

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The God of Sklanskyanity loves too. In fact it is unconditional love.

He doesn't care if you believe in him unless you need to believe to behave in a way that will get you to take the non selfish choice in Prisoner Dillemma and similar situations.



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So your God loves on the condition that we will take the non-selfish choice in the Prisoner Dillemma. Is that correct? He just wants us to be "happy." What if I am happiest when I'm not in jail and want to minimize time spent in there? What is a definition of "selfish" anyways? If it is "concerned chiefly or only with yourself" (Google search), why is this a bad thing? Won't that make me happy?

The Biblical God's love for the elect is also an unconditional love. He loves us before we were born, before we were created.

BUT

To have an unconditional love for all people would compromise justice. God says clearly in Scripture that Jacob I loved, Esau I hated.

Romans 9:11 states regarding those two that, "though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad--in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of his call"

[NotReady]

Good post.

I want to clarify something about evolution. I personally don't think anything beyond the trivial changes within species, which man himself sometimes effects through breeding for instance, has yet been shown.

I think the Catholic church has taken a wise position, however, and no doubt influenced by the Galileo fiasco. The church had accepted Ptolomy and raised his model of the solar system to the level of Scripture. When Galileo showed Ptolomy was wrong, from the church's viewpoint it was almost as if he also showed that Scripture was wrong. The mistake was making a scientific theory (Ptolomy) of the same certainty level as Scripture, and they were badly burned over it. But the Bible nowhere says the earth is the center of anything.

Christians who absolutely deny the possibility of theistic evolution are making the same mistake. The Bible makes no scientific pronouncements of any kind that I'm aware of. In that sense, it is impossible for true science to contradict Scripture. Nowhere does the Bible say God did not cause man to evolve from monkeys. If somehow science conclusively proved this, it would not contradict anything in the Bible.

I'm not a scientist so I don't know for sure about evolution in that sense. My father was from St. Louis, so show me. But since Darwin evolution by chance is virtually assumed to be the topic. And chance is what contradicts the Bible. Science can never prove the existence of chance. So if you want peace and harmony Mr. Scientist, stop telling us you know evolution occurred by chance, or prove it. You're otherwise welcome to have a monkey for an uncle.

[udontknowmickey]

Interesting post, but I must respectfully disagree with your conclusions.

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"1 John 4:
8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love."

...the converse of this is also true. Those who Love, Know God. I believe this is supported by scripture.



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I disagree. The statement says, If A (not love) then B (not know God). This leads to NOT B (know God) then NOT A (love) and not your claim that NOT A (love) then NOT B (know God). I believe knowing God leading to love is what is espoused by Scripture and not the other way around.

You mention that Simon the magician was preaching in favor of Christ. How is that not a sign knowing God? Not with Christ is against, again is an evidence that one who does not with Christ (knowing God) is against.

Additionally we see in scripture that we "love because He first loved us" 1 John 4:19 and not "He loves us because we love."

Now of course, you can bring up the objection that Christians who claim to know God do not love, and to an extent you are right. We, as Christians, believe and affirm that we are sinners and fall short just like everyone else. For those who are unrepentant about this, I would question if they actually knew God in the first place. The problem with the Pharisees wasn't that they knew the law and did not love, it was that they perverted the law, placing traditions of men on top of them (the Sabbath laws are a good example) and thus perverted them, so they did not know the law at all.

You can also bring up the question if "Does one who love necessarily know God?" and I would say that, that one verse does not make it explicit, but the rest of Scripture is pretty clear that we love because He first loved us. We on our own (Romans 3 again) do not do good, no one is righteous, not even one. But when the grace of God appeared and loved His sheep, He granted us the Holy Spirit that we would be able to love others, and above all, obey the greatest commandment: Love God.

So in short: God Loves elect => elect love God => elect demonstrate love to others AND God hates non-elect => non-elect hate God => non-elect cannot love (biblically) others. Now, God does show a general love towards all creation, for he sends rain upon the righteous and wicked and he lets the sun shine upon them, and this is the general love that we must show to our neighbors and enemies, but this is only so that they may continue to condemn themselves and set themselves on a slippery slope to destruction. (Psalm 73, Romans 12)


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This makes Christianity a very accessable religion because nearly everyone has experienced some kind of Love in their life if only the love of their Mother.


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Ummm no, Christianity is not very accessible. Christianity is a very narrow. Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, no one can come to God except through Him.

Matthew 7:14 reads: For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

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The mission of Jesus was to inspire people to make Love their vocation in Life, to follow his example.


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I flatly disagree with you here. Luke 19:10 ) For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. Christ did not come to demonstrate love, but to save His sheep, His elect. He saved them in a grand demonstration of love, yes, but his primary purpose was not to love.

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Basically Scripture is full of myths to try to explain this love


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Fixed your next point. I disagree with this too. If you deny that Scripture was true about Virgin Birth, Trinity, miracles, how can you possibly accept Scripture's truth on Christ being God in flesh? Or Christ loving people?

If you can judge Scripture in one area as false, by what authority are you judging Scripture in another area as true? You can't say that Scripture is infallible now, because you've clearly contradicted that with your decision that Scripture is filled with myths.

PairTheBoard, call me arrogant, call me narrowminded, but if you are going to preach the gospel, preach it from the Word. Yes, it is a Gospel of peace, a gospel of love, of grace. It is the "good news" but if you deny Scripture, the very foundation of this "good news" then how can you possibly have any affirmation that it's true? It could be some made up fancy to you!

[udontknowmickey]

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In general, I'm not a fan of people using Holy Texts to prove to me that their texts are holy. It's begging the question. "I know the bible is right because the bible told me so." Still, the OP was polite, reasonable, and seemed focus on personal experiences & testiment, which is fine by me.


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So if you cannot have holy texts prove themselves as Holy, by what can you prove a text as Holy. By what do you judge your friend's testimony as reliable or unreliable? How do you know the mechanism by which you are judging that testimony is reliable or not? Eventually you have an infinite regress unless you hit something that cannot be wrong, that is right because it testifies to itself. For Christians (and I was tempted to prefix it with the word True because it seems like there are many who disagree with this), that is Scripture. Is yours human reason? Professional human reason? expert human reason?

[udontknowmickey]

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God=Love=Hope


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Not if you're looking at things from a biblical perspective. God is Love, God is Hope, but this does not mean that Love is God, Hope is God, because God by His very nature define what Love and Hope are, but Hope and Love do not define God. God is also the definition giver of: Justice, Mercy, Wrath, Grace, Omnecience, Emmenance, and a whole slew of other terms. None of those are comprehensive for God is infinite, but we do have Scripture to testify to them.

[PairTheBoard]

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so then what is your answer for how the disciples wrote about jesus being the son of god, the savior, afterlife and all that stuff that you apparently believe is hogwash? were the disciples liars or was it the church? from what i understand, these letters from the disciples have to be legitimate because if the church faked them there would be an uproar since they were documented during the age in which the disciples were still alive. so what is their motive?

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Did I say these descriptions were "hogwash"? They were Mystical desriptions using mystical language understood well by people at the time who were emmersed in a Mystical conceptual framework for the world they lived in. It is your Failure if you cannot appreciate the Mystisism on which these descriptions are based and you are turning the sacred into the profane by insisting this mystical language be crammed into modern scientific conceptual frameworks and taken literally.

PairTheBoard

[PairTheBoard]

udontknow -
"So in short: God Loves elect => elect love God => elect demonstrate love to others AND God hates non-elect => non-elect hate God => non-elect cannot love (biblically) others. Now, God does show a general love towards all creation, for he sends rain upon the righteous and wicked and he lets the sun shine upon them, and this is the general love that we must show to our neighbors and enemies, but this is only so that they may continue to condemn themselves and set themselves on a slippery slope to destruction. (Psalm 73, Romans 12)"

Yikes, what a hellacious hateful religion you espouse. You have taken the Temple Jesus Raised in 3 days and turned it into a Den of Thieves.

PairTheBoard

[PairTheBoard]

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But if God is Love shouldn't he be the one who doesn't give up on people, who are are all imperfect sinners anyway?


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John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

He died that we might live. He offers the gift of eternal life. You refuse. Exactly who is giving up on who?

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It's also written that Christ will not come again until his Gospel has been preached to all the world. Just because you preach does not mean the Gospel has been "preached" or communicated. If you preach in a language people can't understand, the gospel has Not been preached. The Gospel is the Gospel of Love and people Do understand the language of Love. However, they cannot reject what they have not heard and if they do not hear the Gospel of Love in the language you speak you need to come up with better language.

PairTheBoard