Can we truly love God whom we cannot begin to conceptualize?

[ynotzap]

To love God, we love Him in Jesus, we seek to please Him, to please Him we do what He desires, what He desires is us to be united to Him, to be united to Him is the work of the Holy Spirit, the work of the Holy Spirit is to sanctify us, we are sanctified by doing His will. Faith, Hope and Charity, and the greatest of these is Charity (love) To know Christ is to love Him, and the more we are transformed into the likeness of Christ, the more the Father’s love is experienced by us.

 

[Frankenfurter]

St. Bernard of Clairvaux is my favorite saint and he says this about the scaffolding that love is and how it enables us to reach places. Please read his works, but I will try to paraphrase.

The first step on the scaffolding is to love others for what they can do for you.

Next we come to loving others for their own sake. (few reach this point and most are stuck at the first).

If you manage to get that far, you can start to contemplate God. At first, you love God for what he can do for you. Even today we see that most people barely even believe in God much less think he can do something for them.

If you can manage that last step (few do) you can reach for the 4th step which is to love God for his own sake. I think those who can simple contemplate God in awe and have great joy in that contemplation are at that point.

But then there is the last step (that only the saints achieve according to Bernard) of the scaffold that you should consider. That is to love others (and creation) for God’s sake. This is the 5th and final step of love.

 

[Brendan]

I often praise and worship God, that’s not a problem, what is a problem is that I feel my true, altruistic love for Him is difficult to feel.

And there is the problem. You are looking for feelings. Love is not a feeling, but a decision.

Have you decided to place the Will of God above your own. Have you decided to seek Him over all other things.

If so, that is the Love of God in it’s entirety.

 

[Robert_Sock]

And there is the problem. You are looking for feelings. Love is not a feeling, but a decision.

Have you decided to place the Will of God above your own. Have you decided to seek Him over all other things.

If so, that is the Love of God in it’s entirety.

I can’t use words to describe how we should love God, but I have the following as what I expect my love for God to be like:

When my master and teacher [R. Schneur Zalman of Liadi] was in a state of d’veikut (lit. “attachment,” a trance-like state of ecstatic cleaving to G-d) he would cry out: “I want nothing at all! I don’t want Your ‘garden of eden,’ I don’t want Your ‘world to come’… I want nothing but You alone.”
– Related by Rabbi Schneur Zalman’s grandson, Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch

 

[Brendan]

I can’t use words to describe how we should love God, but I have the following as what I expect my love for God to be like:

When my master and teacher [R. Schneur Zalman of Liadi] was in a state of d’veikut (lit. “attachment,” a trance-like state of ecstatic cleaving to G-d) he would cry out: “I want nothing at all! I don’t want Your ‘garden of eden,’ I don’t want Your ‘world to come’… I want nothing but You alone.”
– Related by Rabbi Schneur Zalman’s grandson, Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Lubavitch

So what does it mean to want something other than a decision of the intellect to conform the will to that object. The intellect presents the object to be desired, the will seeks it.

What you describe is not a feeling either, it is not emotive. So don’t look there for what you seek.

 

[laocmo]

As usual we Catholics when posed with a dilemma such as how to feel love for a god, whose attributes as recognized by the Church turn Him into something as lovable as a rock, find a solution. We just change the definition of love as understood by 99 % of the population.

“The love that God is looking for from you is not an emotional feeling. It’s simply an act of the will.”

“Love is not an emotion - it’s action.”

“Love is not a feeling, but a decision.”

God may want something from us but it is not the “love” that is the simple emotion we feel for our spouse, our parents, our children, even our dog. Don’t mess with love, we all know what it is and it is near impossible to feel it for the god theologians have defined by his attributes. God does not want love as defined by the great majority of people or he would treat us as those we love treat us. He would interact with us in an unambiguous way. He would not remain hidden so well that people doubt his very existence.

 

[Kurisu35712]

As usual we Catholics when posed with a dilemma such as how to feel love for a god, whose attributes as recognized by the Church turn Him into something as lovable as a rock, find a solution. We just change the definition of love as understood by 99 % of the population.

“The love that God is looking for from you is not an emotional feeling. It’s simply an act of the will.”

“Love is not an emotion - it’s action.”

“Love is not a feeling, but a decision.”

God may want something from us but it is not the “love” that is the simple emotion we feel for our spouse, our parents, our children, even our dog. Don’t mess with love, we all know what it is and it is near impossible to feel it for the god theologians have defined by his attributes. God does not want love as defined by the great majority of people or he would treat us as those we love treat us. He would interact with us in an unambiguous way. He would not remain hidden so well that people doubt his very existence.

False.

You’re confusing the conventional English word love with the Greek term used in the Bible that translates to the same word in English. Agape is the term the Church uses, and it frequently uses the word “charity” in English instead, since “love” tends to carry a sentimental and emotional connotation rather than the word connotating a willful act that the Greek uses.

Don’t mess with love, we all know what it is and it is near impossible to feel it for the god theologians have defined by his attributes.

Obviously we don’t seeing as you aren’t actually using the same term as the other people on this thread. Words can have multiple definitions. If you think it’s impossible to feel actual love (agape not philia or pragma) for God, I would encourage you to read the works of St. Teresa of Avila, St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Thomas Aquinas, and really any other Catholic Saint and theologian with written works. If you’re thinking of God as a series of attributes and Platonic ideals, it’s very evident why you have trouble understanding what we mean when we talk about loving God. He is a Person, and frankly is the *source *of all the people and love you reference in your post, and the reason those people love you in the first place.

God does not want love as defined by the great majority of people or he would treat us as those we love treat us.

I would agree, but only because most people have, at best, an incomplete understanding of what love is and what love entails. I would like to ask you something. Why are you separating the love of those who treat you well from the love of God? Where, precisely, do you think those people came from? The love of our parents is a reflection and a palpable… incarnation, I guess… of God’s love for us. I consider my dog to love me. In my dog’s love for me, I am able to see God’s love for me expressed. Something to think on.

He would interact with us in an unambiguous way. He would not remain hidden so well that people doubt his very existence.

I consider someone asking me if I’m okay and if I need anything when I’m visibly upset to be an unambiguous signal of God’s love. That person isn’t being forced by God to talk to me, but the source of their goodwill ultimately derives from God, whether we ever realize this or not.

This is a pretty good breakdown of the different words for love in Greek.

 

[laocmo]

“Why are you separating the love of those who treat you well from the love of God?
I consider someone asking me if I’m okay and if I need anything when I’m visibly upset to be an unambiguous signal of God’s love. That person isn’t being forced by God to talk to me, but the source of their goodwill ultimately derives from God.”

I would consider that kind act an unambiguous signal of that person’s love for me, not God’s. Human beings can love without the concept of God. Sounds like yours is love by proxy.

I do not believe that the source of all that we consider good is God. Mother Teresa’s goodness came from Mother Teresa.

 

[Kurisu35712]

“Why are you separating the love of those who treat you well from the love of God?
I consider someone asking me if I’m okay and if I need anything when I’m visibly upset to be an unambiguous signal of God’s love. That person isn’t being forced by God to talk to me, but the source of their goodwill ultimately derives from God.”

I would consider that kind act an unambiguous signal of that person’s love for me, not God’s. Human beings can love without the concept of God. Sounds like yours is love by proxy.

I do not believe that the source of all that we consider good is God. Mother Teresa’s goodness came from Mother Teresa.

If you asked Mother Teresa where her goodness came from, she would tell you all that is good comes from God. However, the good that she did required the free will to do good on her part. God can do good without our help, but I’m sure He prefers when we want to do good as well. Her doing good was her acting in accordance with the will of God.

If you consider God to be personally invested in each moment of our lives, His presence is visible everywhere you look. Your issue with what I said lies in thinking I’m saying that nothing good is a result of that person, it’s all from God. That isn’t what I’m saying at all. A person who is acting in accordance with God’s Will, knowingly or not, is doing something good. A person who is doing something good, knowingly or not, is acting in accordance with God’s Will.

But that person’s will is just as necessary in the equation. My parents love me because they choose to do so. Their love is obviously evident, I didn’t think that needed to be said. But their love for me is a reflection of God’s own love for me, which I can see in the love of my parents.

It’s a logical conclusion. God created my parents yes? God created me, my girlfriend, my friends. He gave us the ability to love each other, and the command to love each other as He has loved us. I’m not claiming that my parents don’t love me, only God does. I’m literally just saying that both parties express that at the same time. It’s not God loving me by proxy. God is omnipresent. God loves me independent of my parents. Yet He also loves me through them, the care they take of me, the sacrifices they make for me. Through their selflessness, God makes His presence in my life known, just as they are making their love for me known. I don’t see why you consider these things to be mutually exclusive.

Human beings can certainly love without the concept of God. We were made for this purpose. An atheist doesn’t need to be Christian or Catholic or Hindu or Jewish to be able to love people.

However, love is impossible without God. They don’t have to believe in Him to be able to love others, but that doesn’t mean He is not the reason they are able to do so in the first place. Unless you want to argue that we can somehow exist without God, which is against Catholic doctrine, I don’t see how this doesn’t make sense to you, at least conceptually.

 

[laocmo]

“However, love is impossible without God. They (atheists) don’t have to believe in Him to be able to love others, but that doesn’t mean He is not the reason they are able to do so in the first place.”

I do not see how the way I feel about my wife and children and even my dog depends on the existence of a God. These emotions are inherent in my makeup, probably as an evolved tool to guarantee the survival of my family. Has God programmed me to feel that emotion called love? And could he remove that program? Would I then feel nothing towards them?

 

[Robert_Sock]

So what does it mean to want something other than a decision of the intellect to conform the will to that object. The intellect presents the object to be desired, the will seeks it.

What you describe is not a feeling either, it is not emotive. So don’t look there for what you seek.

How about we define love as a human value, which can sometimes include emotions. Emotional love can be thought of as lower-level form of love, like a child’s love for his or her caretakers.