A Logical Understanding of the Greatest Commandments

[jochoa]

I want to experience the greatest peace, happiness, and energy possible. The solution to my desire is gracefully found in the Greatest Commandments as stated by Jesus Christ. Please share your critiques to help heighten my understanding of God’s Word and my ability to share God’s Word and ultimately to help me grow closer to God and hopefully, experience the greatest peace, happiness, and energy.

The Greatest Commandments
Mark 12:29-31
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

The Purpose of the Commandments
To provide the fundamental principles of how to achieve the greatest peace, happiness, and energy as an individual and/or society, given interactive free-willed beings.

Purpose of Helping Us
God wants others to share in the experience of the greatest peace, happiness, and energy.

What is Love?
Love is patience and kindness. Therefore, whatever state of being is the pinnacle of patience and kindness is God’s state of being.

Love God, neighbors, and self
God, neighbors, and the self are the recipients of patience and kindness and objects of motivation. Patience, kindness, and motivation are the driving forces of, respectively, peace, happiness, and energy.

Your heart, mind, strength and soul
These aspects of being represent, respectively, parts of the body, various thoughts, various interactions, and the essence of self. Each aspect of being is distinct and separate, yet necessary to complete the being. Every part of the body, instance of thought, and instance of interaction is exactly of the essence of self. Humans share God’s Image and likeness, therefore, The Father is the thoughts, Jesus Christ is the body, The Holy Spirit is the interactions, and God is the essence of the Holy Trinity.

Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength
Every thought and interaction of yours and every part of your body and essence should be patient and kind and motivated for God.

Love God with everything, all the time
The only object of motivation that is inexhaustible in and of itself is God. The being that is fully considerate of peace, happiness, and energy for the self, others, and itself is of God. Therefore, if you are always motivated for something inexhaustible, thinking about patience and kindness, and interacting with patience and kindness, your heart will have an inexhaustible driving force for energy, your mind will become fully considerate of peace, happiness, and energy for yourself, others, and God, and your strength will also spread peace, happiness, and energy to others.

Always love God with everything…then, love all others
To love God first, while loving all others, one should be motivated for God while being patient and kind towards others.

Evaluating personal practice of the Commandments
If you are experiencing a loss or yearn for peace, happiness, or energy, within your self or relationships, answer the following: “How, Where, and/or Why am I not being patient, kind, and/or motivated for God?”

Thank you very much for your time and consideration! I look forward to hearing your thoughts. May peace be with you and have a good day!

 

[fred_conty]

Just be more like Jesus.

 

[jochoa]

Just be more like Jesus.

Definitely, and thank you for sharing your thoughts!

 

[Shike]

I want to experience the greatest peace, happiness, and energy possible.

Sounds good. But it might be good to define your terms. Happiness today is usually defined as subjective contentment. Your way to God must lead through the cross and suffering, which usually is the very opposite of subjective contentment. After reading your post it seemed like you treated peace, happiness, and energy as absolutes, and, therefore, I was tempted to capitalize them all; they seemed to stand as different names for God.

Each aspect of being is distinct and separate, yet necessary to complete the being. Every part of the body, instance of thought, and instance of interaction is exactly of the essence of self. Humans share God’s Image and likeness, therefore, The Father is the thoughts, Jesus Christ is the body, The Holy Spirit is the interactions, and God is the essence of the Holy Trinity.

And with regards to the Holy Trinity. When applied to God, if what you say is metaphor or analogy, then you should probably be more explicit. But right now it seems like strict identity and is therefore heretical. And if you are saying we are a unity because God is a Unity, then it might be better to just skip to this instead.

Also, what about bringing the beatitudes into the discussion?

 

[jochoa]

Thank you very much, Shike, for sharing your thoughts and considerations!

Sounds good. But it might be good to define your terms. Happiness today is usually defined as subjective contentment. Your way to God must lead through the cross and suffering, which usually is the very opposite of subjective contentment. After reading your post it seemed like you treated peace, happiness, and energy as absolutes, and, therefore, I was tempted to capitalize them all; they seemed to stand as different names for God.

I am using these terms as absolutes, hence “greatest”, (although I do not and cannot comprehend the full magnitude of each): Peace is the state of being free from disturbance all the time, Happiness is the state of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy all the time, Energy is always having the strength and vitality required for sustained physical or mental activity, and God’s state of being is definitely of all three in their greatest being.

And with regards to the Holy Trinity. When applied to God, if what you say is metaphor or analogy, then you should probably be more explicit. But right now it seems like strict identity and is therefore heretical. And if you are saying we are a unity because God is a Unity, then it might be better to just skip to this instead.

You are correct, and I should have stated more clearly, this is a personal understanding, and therefore is an analogous understanding of the Mystery. Although I think I can justify alignment in this understanding of the Holy Trinity with the teachings of the Church and Scripture, if you are interested.

Also, what about bringing the beatitudes into the discussion?

I am very glad you directed me to consider the Beatitudes. I was having trouble identifying where I came to the conclusion of “The purpose of the Commandments.”
Therefore, Here is my (initial) personal understanding of the Beatitudes: Although they are not officially ordered and can be intertwined, I find a level-based system of Peace/Patience and Happiness/Kindness in the Beatitudes that can quite often be applied to the Agnostic-Catholic/Christian Convert.
A. Initiating factors to seek God/Peace and Happiness

1. If a person is always content with the material things of this world, they will never seek nor desire God. Therefore, being poor in spirit (state of being out of peace)is an initial step to seeking God/Peace.
2. If a person is always happy with the material things of this world, they will not seek something greater. Therefore, mourning (a state of being out of happiness) is an initial step to seeking God/Happiness.
   B. Levels of Patience and Kindness
3. Be Meek. An early step in patience and kindness is full obedience without question.
4. Seek Righteousness. Consideration and seeking to Understand God’s Love is also an earlier step in spreading God’s Word.
5. Be Merciful. Upon growing in understanding of God’s Love, one learns greater compassion, therefore will grow in forgiveness.
6. Be Pure in Heart. The Greatest Commandment states to Love with all Heart first. The body could be said to be the foundation of life (it is the first to form), therefore making the body of all patience and kindness and motivated for God, is required to genuinely purify the soul, mind, and strength.
7. Spread Peace. Use the body, mind, and strength to spread God/Peace.
8. Persecution of Righteous. When the heart, mind, and strength are of great patience and kindness, earthly persecutors will attempt to stop/abuse righteousness, and this is a great test.

Thank you very much for the excellent considerations! I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

 

[Shike]

Peace is the state of being free from disturbance all the time, Happiness is the state of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy all the time, Energy is always having the strength and vitality required for sustained physical or mental activity, and God’s state of being is definitely of all three in their greatest being.

If these are your definitions then I don’t see how embracing the greatest commandment will guarantee the greatest amount of each. I say this because doing God’s will eventually leads to intense suffering, as shown by Jesus on the Cross.

And if you want to reply by saying, ‘Well, that’s just in the short term, in the long term doing God’s will leads to the greatest amount of happiness in heaven’, then I think it is a bit misleading. I think it is misleading because I think in that case the joy we possess in heaven will be much deeper than some mere subjective contentment.

This all reminds me of the “health and wealth Gospel”; just do God’s will and be good and you’ll have all the abundant pleasures you could ever desire.

And I disagree with the implied motivation for doing God’s will, namely, that it will bring you happiness. Doing God’s will should be motivated out of love.

That said, I think you are on to something, that these commandments are for our benefit and should not be treated as mere burdens given by an authoritarian god.

ciao,
Michael

 

[FurtherSuntime]

This is a very nice thread. Heres what I do, or try to do.

Once all the information we attribute to the nature of God and ourselves including God and society is in view, I try to reduce the whole picture so that a certain disposition is in focus and can be readily landed upon. Its interesting when you think about it as atheists claim that the whole idea is a leap of faith. Its interesting because we all leap in life as un-certainty in absolute physical knowledge, is somewhat without. We leap with our parachute in God comfort, atheists leap and have no parachute but a forever drop in a collapsed illogical meaning in self coincidence only…which leaves all close to heart giving meaning in life , defenseless as mere coincidence.

So…back to the thread theme, in gathering the justification for the good life I find that if its
recognized that God is a non-stop quantity of available positive acceptance ,the thought of God can be transformed into a continuous shower of this available acceptance-love. I find this works well and is in keeping with the irreducible nature of ultimate God that we have come to know…

The self can be then drenched with this God-acceptance and can do nothing but extend the experience outward… In other words the self becomes familiar with…acceptence fully and other inclination or fear based motives or what have you become strange to self. It is then within self to be as one knows …all acceptance, non judge mental, non fear all go out with the dust-bin.

So the flow of the God love wheel…can become what is known to be how the whole concept of real communication operates The trials , the self reflected worries, the buried guilt, social rejection of one way or another are all lost in the…flow. This way your truth in being, extended communication is un-obstructed, as Gods love flow would certainly be…un-obstructed.

I think this above un-obstructed existence is the …good in Gods will or cannot be otherwise
personification of the source of creation. In this regard I believe the cross of the believer
is far lighter than the alternative. The cross of course represents the human nature, difficulties and so on, we all drop it and pick it back up hopefully… otherwise we would not be human.
So basically I think its important to fully understand a positive flow of general cheerfulness rather than self distraction obsession style approach on our faulty nature… is the over-all plan or idea…
.If we think on our negative nature in a theme like idea…we will act on it eventually, as the suggestion to the mind is something which must be recognized as a real player in basic individualistic mode for behavior. So enjoyed reading and expressing a thought. In a bit of a rush here

 

[jochoa]

My Friend, Shike,
I greatly appreciate your time and consideration. I have been consumed in great thought over your reply, and I genuinely appreciate the thoughts and perspectives you share!

If these are your definitions then I don’t see how embracing the greatest commandment will guarantee the greatest amount of each. I say this because doing God’s will eventually leads to intense suffering, as shown by Jesus on the Cross.

And if you want to reply by saying, ‘Well, that’s just in the short term, in the long term doing God’s will leads to the greatest amount of happiness in heaven’, then I think it is a bit misleading. I think it is misleading because I think in that case the joy we possess in heaven will be much deeper than some mere subjective contentment.

Please consider this simplified understanding of eventual earthly suffering: During His Intense Suffering on the Cross, Jesus never lost Peace while Loving God with All of His Being.
Regarding subjective contentment, perhaps an objective contentment is a contentment that is impossible to destroy. To achieve this, one must be content throughout the body, soul, mind, and strength in something immaterial and eternal, AKA God.

This all reminds me of the “health and wealth Gospel”; just do God’s will and be good and you’ll have all the abundant pleasures you could ever desire.

I agree there is alignment, however I am trying to achieve greater definition.

And I disagree with the implied motivation for doing God’s will, namely, that it will bring you happiness. Doing God’s will should be motivated out of love.

I agree that ultimately, Saints love God selflessly. However, I also think initially finding and accepting God as Personal Lord through selfish desires of understanding, peace, happiness, and energy is not only acceptable, but is also most often the case.

That said, I think you are on to something, that these commandments are for our benefit and should not be treated as mere burdens given by an authoritarian god.

ciao,
Michael

Once again, I thank you very much for your consideration. I have grown greatly in perspective from our discussion. I look forward to hearing more of your thoughts, if you have the time!

 

[Shike]

Please consider this simplified understanding of eventual earthly suffering: During His Intense Suffering on the Cross, Jesus never lost Peace while Loving God with All of His Being.
Regarding subjective contentment, perhaps an objective contentment is a contentment that is impossible to destroy. To achieve this, one must be content throughout the body, soul, mind, and strength in something immaterial and eternal, AKA God.

Sounds good to me!

Some thoughts about language:
“objective contentment” doesn’t seem like “contentment” anymore but something much deeper, like the “joy that comes from God”. And if that is the case, is it right to say that we “achieve” it? This might go beyond our discussion and get into the whole grace and free-will debate. For my part, I think that we both achieve it and receive it as a free gift, working out our salvation in fear and trembling.

I agree that ultimately, Saints love God selflessly. However, I also think initially finding and accepting God as Personal Lord through selfish desires of understanding, peace, happiness, and energy is not only acceptable, but is also most often the case.

Hmm, that is probably the case.

 

[Eric_Hyom]

Could it possibly be that Jesus loved each and every one of his neighbours as he loved himself? Could Jesus do anything greater than the greatest commandments?

Is this how God the Father loves us too?

 

[kdbueno]

Loving God pre-supposes for us an integrity of love. Love cannot be procedurally in error, nor its oriental meaning is void.

 

[mikekle]

If these are your definitions then I don’t see how embracing the greatest commandment will guarantee the greatest amount of each. I say this because doing God’s will eventually leads to intense suffering, as shown by Jesus on the Cross.

And if you want to reply by saying, ‘Well, that’s just in the short term, in the long term doing God’s will leads to the greatest amount of happiness in heaven’, then I think it is a bit misleading. I think it is misleading because I think in that case the joy we possess in heaven will be much deeper than some mere subjective contentment.

This all reminds me of the “health and wealth Gospel”; just do God’s will and be good and you’ll have all the abundant pleasures you could ever desire.

And I disagree with the implied motivation for doing God’s will, namely, that it will bring you happiness. Doing God’s will should be motivated out of love.

That said, I think you are on to something, that these commandments are for our benefit and should not be treated as mere burdens given by an authoritarian god.

ciao,
Michael

You are right about the fact that, if we as christians strive to abide by Gods laws as much as possible, of course the secular world will hate us even more, Jesus even said they will hate you as they hated me, so we should not really expect to have comfortable or easy earthly lives, in fact, if we are truly doing what we should, it will be the exact opposite!

I worry about this myself, as my ‘secular life’ does not appear to be too difficult, so Im concerned maybe Im not actually doing all Im supposed to be doing, or following his laws to the degree I should.

One other thing Ive noticed, I think majority of people go to church, join the church, is mainly to avoid any possible suffering or punishment in the afterlife, not because they truly love and seek God, its more about doing what they should to avoid repercussions, Like how many parents will jokingly tell their kids, " you dont want to go to hell for missing mass, do you", we are encouraged to be religious mainly to ensure we have a comfortable afterlife.

So the question becomes, do I really love and strive to live like he desires or am I just doing what Im supposed to do so I do not get punished later?