Does God love me?

[James_Tyler]

To paraphrase: God doesn’t annihilate you, therefore he loves you. Maybe I’m not seeing something you’re seeing. ?]

Hey. I was just returning to this thread I made and reading through it and I saw where you were having trouble with not connecting with God directly face to face. I thought I would give you my perspective in case it may help reconcile why you have not heard from him yet.

When Jesus walked the earth he said “For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken.” John 12:49. Even Jesus’s apostles did not hear God the Father directly. We hear God’s words through Jesus who walked among them 2 millennium ago. His words are recorded in the bible and passed on through the generations.

God is the ruler of all creation. Even the rulers and leader’s of the nations who have great responsibilities do not communicate with him on a face to face basis. As far as I know, even the Pope does not have a direct line, so to speak.

Now God has chosen people to communicate with directly. These are his prophets. Also there was Abraham who God chose out of all the world to speak with, to father the nation of Israel, which would be the root from which Jesus would be born.

One of God’s titles is “The Most High”. His plans encompass centuries and millennium, at the least. Actually, his plans encompass time. Another title is the “Lord of Hosts”. He has many angels and people. It may be so, probably likely, that somewhere in eternity, you may have your place at Jesus’s right or left at dinner, for the first time. Perhaps all those that are a part of his kingdom will have their first dinner with him. Indeed, in eternity you may meet him countless times, but there may be great spans of time between. But don’t despair, you will meet many people. All of them, perhaps, in his eternal kingdom.

 

[ready]

But wouldn’t we really think of “love” in this sense as being significantly different than what we normally mean by the term. Consider any sentence we might normally use to express love, and into that substitute instead the phrase “would not annihilate you any more than I would annihilate brain parasites or hemorrhoids.” It would not exactly warm our hearts or console us in our moments of self-doubt or fear, right?

True love is true love and God’s holding us in existence and sustaining us manifests true love on His part. If I did not love someone/something I wouldn’t care about him/her/it and could care less if it left existence; but I do not feel this way about people, I know that I love them … they mean something to me, I see them as God does, with some goodness about them, e.g. their being made in His image, their being his children, etc… The original poster doubts God’s love for him, and all I’m trying to do is to get him to see is that if God did not truly love him, as he wrongfully thinks, then he would not be sustained or held in existence by God … he’d be annihilated. God bless you.

 

[Neoplatonist]

Hey. I was just returning to this thread I made and reading through it and I saw where you were having trouble with not connecting with God directly face to face. I thought I would give you my perspective in case it may help reconcile why you have not heard from him yet.

When Jesus walked the earth he said “For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken.” John 12:49. Even Jesus’s apostles did not hear God the Father directly. We hear God’s words through Jesus who walked among them 2 millennium ago. His words are recorded in the bible and passed on through the generations.

God is the ruler of all creation. Even the rulers and leader’s of the nations who have great responsibilities do not communicate with him on a face to face basis. As far as I know, even the Pope does not have a direct line, so to speak.

Now God has chosen people to communicate with directly. These are his prophets. Also there was Abraham who God chose out of all the world to speak with, to father the nation of Israel, which would be the root from which Jesus would be born.

One of God’s titles is “The Most High”. His plans encompass centuries and millennium, at the least. Actually, his plans encompass time. Another title is the “Lord of Hosts”. He has many angels and people. It may be so, probably likely, that somewhere in eternity, you may have your place at Jesus’s right or left at dinner, for the first time. Perhaps all those that are a part of his kingdom will have their first dinner with him. Indeed, in eternity you may meet him countless times, but there may be great spans of time between. But don’t despair, you will meet many people. All of them, perhaps, in his eternal kingdom.

Some nice points. I’m totally down with not seeing God face-to-face as, you point out, not even the apostles did. There is a vast array of options between there and the seeming silence in which I stand. Surely my guardian angel is less busy than God, he could appear to me, right? Either of them (God or the angel) could tell me something in a dream that I could not possibly have known on my own. So many examples we could come up with all along the scale of improbability…

As for my odds in an infinite amount of time: I can certainly grasp how it might be possible, but that’s hardly sufficient for hope and optimism at an emotional level any more than the far, far higher odds of me being struck by lightning or killed by an airplane falling on my house (or run over by a drunk driver on my way to the store - higher still) are sufficient to provoke fear (that is, being significant enough to register emotionally).

 

[James_Tyler]

LOL. So now the spiritual dryness is my fault? In my copy of the catechism it says that faith is a gift from God infused by the Holy Spirit, and that matches what I’ve always been taught. ?]

I don’t know that you are spiritually dry, but I will add this. What you seek is paradise, both inner and outer. It is what we all crave, but this is not that time. You may well be in God’s kingdom already, but this is not paradise. You and all of God’s people are challenged by the powers of evil and hate which prevails among many people. I believe that the lovelessness does not come from God, but from those people and fallen angels who have succumbed to evil. It is the from the world that the feelings of wrath, jealousy, hate, lovelessness, and wickedness come. You are like a man surrounded by lovers and haters, those that walk the straight path and those that have taken the path to destruction. You will not feel as if in paradise in these circumstances. But the work of the Lord is salvation. He had not rendered final judgment on those who have taken the wide path but has given them their span of time and intercedes on behalf of all those that he can. As we are asked to do. We are not to step back in judgment but to pray for them. We are not crying babes yearning for the mother’s tit. We are full grown people. God does not want us to weep at his feet asking for comfort, though he understands what we face, he wants us to gather with him from those that are being lost.

It is not God that destroys people, it is sin. It is sin that brings a person down.

John 5:8-14
Jesus said to him, “Get up, pick up your pallet and walk.” Immediately the man became well, and picked up his pallet and began to walk. Now it was the Sabbath on that day. So the Jews were saying to the man who was cured, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not permissible for you to carry your pallet.” But he answered them, “He who made me well was the one who said to me, ‘Pick up your pallet and walk.’” They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, 'Pick up your pallet and walk '?” But the man who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away while there was a crowd in that place. Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.”

See. It is sin that is the enemy. Sin does not only separate us from the personhood of God, it separates us from the qualities of God. One cannot maliciously murder another person with love. No, the heart is malicious. But in God, there is no maliciousness. So if your heart becomes malicious and filled with murder you do not grow closer to God, you grow closer to Satan. Satan is already condemned. It is well known what his fate will be. Inner paradise cannot be sustained in those that take up his ways and to put him in outer paradise will only cause those that wish to serve the Almighty to be persecuted. That is what is taking place upon the earth. So why not just get rid of evil demons? What do we know about God’s justice concerning Satan? Were we there at his creation? Do we know what has passed between Lucifer and Almighty God? Do we know what is just in his case? For all we know, that ancient Angel, once called the Light Bearer, is receiving God’s justice, which does not included swift execution, by human standards. We must be patient and endure until God’s plans and justice are fulfilled.

 

[clem456]

That has the same logic as saying: “God must be radioactive, otherwise where does radioactivity come from?”

Yes it is the same logic.

You are warm. How did you get warm? Are you warm because you are the source of all energy, producing your own heat? I’m not talking about your own metabolism, but the source of the warmth that you possess.
So by this logic, if you don’t receive the rays of the sun, how can you be warm? How can you survive without the source of warmth?

You can see. How can you see? Do you produce your own light, manufacture your own seeing? No, there is a source of light outside yourself without which you cannot engage in sight.

So it is with love. If you do not know the source of love, you cannot pass it on.
Now, you could have a long discussion about what it means to “know” the source of love. And along those same lines, you could point out that people who do not explicitly know God still sacrifice and love one another. But still, they are not the source of this themselves. It is of God who is the source of it.

God pours out love. Because God is an outpouring, he creates us from nothing. There was a time when you did not exist, correct? Now you do exist. At one time you were nothing, now you are alive and are someone. Love is creative. It has a source, a lover and creator, and a beloved. We can love because we have been loved into existence ourselves, and we can then return it and pass it on.

 

[Neoplatonist]

What you seek is paradise, both inner and outer. It is what we all crave, but this is not that time.

We are not crying babes yearning for the mother’s tit. We are full grown people. God does not want us to weep at his feet asking for comfort, though he understands what we face, he wants us to gather with him from those that are being lost.

Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.”

1. No, just a concrete show of affection to sustain me in this world or good and bad, as you put it. The mother sees her child surrounded by (a few) friends and (many) enemies, and she stands strong and silent?
2. Full grown adults in comparison to God? We are far more like helpless infants compared to him than literal human infants are compared to human adults. What is more, if we are not as infants, why is the Bible filled with the imperative to cry out to him to save us all the time?
3. So it is within our power to sin no more? Seriously? It’s not a function of us receiving his grace in response to our unending cries of guilt and grief and begging for his help?

 

[Neoplatonist]

Yes it is the same logic.

You are warm. How did you get warm? Are you warm because you are the source of all energy, producing your own heat? I’m not talking about your own metabolism, but the source of the warmth that you possess.
So by this logic, if you don’t receive the rays of the sun, how can you be warm? How can you survive without the source of warmth?

You can see. How can you see? Do you produce your own light, manufacture your own seeing? No, there is a source of light outside yourself without which you cannot engage in sight.

So it is with love. If you do not know the source of love, you cannot pass it on.
Now, you could have a long discussion about what it means to “know” the source of love. And along those same lines, you could point out that people who do not explicitly know God still sacrifice and love one another. But still, they are not the source of this themselves. It is of God who is the source of it.

God pours out love. Because God is an outpouring, he creates us from nothing. There was a time when you did not exist, correct? Now you do exist. At one time you were nothing, now you are alive and are someone. Love is creative. It has a source, a lover and creator, and a beloved. We can love because we have been loved into existence ourselves, and we can then return it and pass it on.

Right. But what if I don’t feel warm? That’s the point. Listening to scientists drone on about the nature of sunlight will not warm someone on a cold winter night. Nor will people saying over and over that the sun just oozes warmth.

Can someone who is freezing still make others warm? Sure, in lots of ways. Doesn’t make them believe some story about an invisible sun that sends out warmth to all things.

 

[James_Tyler]

1. No, just a concrete show of affection to sustain me in this world or good and bad, as you put it. The mother sees her child surrounded by (a few) friends and (many) enemies, and she stands strong and silent?
2. Full grown adults in comparison to God? We are far more like helpless infants compared to him than literal human infants are compared to human adults. What is more, if we are not as infants, why is the Bible filled with the imperative to cry out to him to save us all the time?
3. So it is within our power to sin no more? Seriously? It’s not a function of us receiving his grace in response to our unending cries of guilt and grief and begging for his help?

Your points are very strong and I can’t claim to have them all worked out. After all, it was me, just a short time ago that posted the OP, asking, “Does God love me?” I seek answers as well. But I can tell you this. Look at the faces of the people. In many of them you can see the qualities of God. Love, charity, kindness, humbleness, hope, and joy are some of these.

James 3:9
With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness.

So look at my face. I am not perfect but I am in his likeness. I have some capacity for what you seek and you have the capacity for what I seek. In time though, I believe that you will look upon the face of perfect love.

 

[clem456]

1. No, just a concrete show of affection to sustain me in this world or good and bad, as you put it. The mother sees her child surrounded by (a few) friends and (many) enemies, and she stands strong and silent?

Affection is available in many ways and places and with many different people.
Maybe in addition to affection we need to know “Who am I?”

For example, my wife and I have been in a relationship and had years of affection between one another. That affection has helped sustain the two of us over the years. But that affection becomes less frequent and less fulfilling with age.

Now that it cannot be had in the same way, what am I to do? Am I simply a person who has feelings, sexual, emotional, etc…? Or is there something deeper and more fundamental to sustain me?

I identify with your image of the cold and sterile mother. Sometimes it feels that way when our needs are not met.
Is that all there is? Am I just a bundle of nerves and feelings? Who are we, beyond mere affection?

1. Full grown adults in comparison to God? We are far more like helpless infants compared to him than literal human infants are compared to human adults. What is more, if we are not as infants, why is the Bible filled with the imperative to cry out to him to save us all the time?

Yes we are infants in comparison to God. We do cry out to him to save us. We are helpless without him. With his help we can be strong.
We didn’t make ourselves. If we recognize this reality with the simplicity of a child, then the one who creates us can complete us to maturity.

1. So it is within our power to sin no more? Seriously? It’s not a function of us receiving his grace in response to our unending cries of guilt and grief and begging for his help?

It is within our power to cooperate with grace. Sometimes that means begging for help. Guilt has not much use in life, we are called to accept that we are redeemed.

 

[Neoplatonist]

Affection is available in many ways and places and with many different people.
Maybe in addition to affection we need to know “Who am I?”

For example, my wife and I have been in a relationship and had years of affection between one another. That affection has helped sustain the two of us over the years. But that affection becomes less frequent and less fulfilling with age.

Now that it cannot be had in the same way, what am I to do? Am I simply a person who has feelings, sexual, emotional, etc…? Or is there something deeper and more fundamental to sustain me?

But now consider the case where you have amnesia from injury during a house fire, so you don’t retain memories or other evidence of any of those years of affection with your wife. Let her, instead, seem to you a stranger. What would it mean, then, to ask “Who am I?” and “Why would I think she loves me?” Would it really suffice to hear from some other complete stranger you never met to have written in a letter that they sent you 20 years ago to say he talked to her and she said she loved you?

To strengthen the parallel, she is not speaking to you, or holding you. Perhaps she is in the ICU from the house fire. You have no feelings (general compassion for another human being suffering, of course), you have no memories, you have no pictures, she can give you no words or signs. You cannot see the twinkle in her eye when she looks at you, or her smile. In fact, your eyes were damaged, so you cannot even look directly at her face.

Let us really consider the comparison at a level of sincere engagement, then think about what it would mean to be comforted or inspired by her.

 

[clem456]

But now consider the case where you have amnesia from injury during a house fire, so you don’t retain memories or other evidence of any of those years of affection with your wife. Let her, instead, seem to you a stranger. What would it mean, then, to ask “Who am I?” and “Why would I think she loves me?” Would it really suffice to hear from some other complete stranger you never met to have written in a letter that they sent you 20 years ago to say he talked to her and she said she loved you?

To strengthen the parallel, she is not speaking to you, or holding you. Perhaps she is in the ICU from the house fire. You have no feelings (general compassion for another human being suffering, of course), you have no memories, you have no pictures, she can give you no words or signs. You cannot see the twinkle in her eye when she looks at you, or her smile. In fact, your eyes were damaged, so you cannot even look directly at her face.

Let us really consider the comparison at a level of sincere engagement, then think about what it would mean to be comforted or inspired by her.

Right. Your scenario reinforces the point I am trying to make.

 

[Neoplatonist]

Right. Your scenario reinforces the point I am trying to make.

Sorry, I don’t follow you. Obviously we can carry on without feeling loved. How does that reassure us somehow that we are?

 

[The_DNA_Rose]

How can I become certain that God loves me? I know he had infinite love but I suffer from fear that I am excluded and I can’t shake it.

Dude, I just dunno…Sorry

 

[clem456]

Sorry, I don’t follow you. Obviously we can carry on without feeling loved. How does that reassure us somehow that we are?

The point is that love is not just a feeling, not just the sum of all our affections and senses. Our Christian definition of love is frequently proposed as “to will the good of the other, for the sake of the other”. It is a movement of the will of one person to the good of the other.
The fact that you exist is evidence of love.

You did not create yourself. It is not possible. Not one person has ever created himself. We know this fact intuitively, by common sense. There is something (someone) else beside ourselves.

Does that make sense? If you could create yourself, none of this would apply. Since you did not create yourself, your search for love must start with something (someone) that is -not you-.

Something (someone) else had to pour itself out for your to exist. You didn’t create your own substance, your own mind, soul, any of it.

Your scenario of the husband that knows no affection is rather unrealistic to say the least. Who do you know that has complete amnesia and has no contact with anyone?

The affection of another person is an image of God’s love for us. To be sure we frequently don’t image that love very well. People can then have the idea that love does not exist, because their experience of human interaction is so unfulfilling.

 

[The_DNA_Rose]

The point is that love is not just a feeling, not just the sum of all our affections and senses. Our Christian definition of love is frequently proposed as “to will the good of the other, for the sake of the other”. It is a movement of the will of one person to the good of the other.
The fact that you exist is evidence of love.

You did not create yourself. It is not possible. Not one person has ever created himself. We know this fact intuitively, by common sense. There is something (someone) else beside ourselves.

Does that make sense? If you could create yourself, none of this would apply. Since you did not create yourself, your search for love must start with something (someone) that is -not you-.

Something (someone) else had to pour itself out for your to exist. You didn’t create your own substance, your own mind, soul, any of it.

Your scenario of the husband that knows no affection is rather unrealistic to say the least. Who do you know that has complete amnesia and has no contact with anyone?

The affection of another person is an image of God’s love for us. To be sure we frequently don’t image that love very well. People can then have the idea that love does not exist, because their experience of human interaction is so unfulfilling.

Love is a feeling, caused by a cascade of chemicals in the body and brain.

But, hey it’s fun.

 

[Neoplatonist]

The point is that love is not just a feeling, not just the sum of all our affections and senses. Our Christian definition of love is frequently proposed as “to will the good of the other, for the sake of the other”. It is a movement of the will of one person to the good of the other.
The fact that you exist is evidence of love.

You did not create yourself. It is not possible. Not one person has ever created himself. We know this fact intuitively, by common sense. There is something (someone) else beside ourselves.

Does that make sense? If you could create yourself, none of this would apply. Since you did not create yourself, your search for love must start with something (someone) that is -not you-.

Something (someone) else had to pour itself out for your to exist. You didn’t create your own substance, your own mind, soul, any of it.

Your scenario of the husband that knows no affection is rather unrealistic to say the least. Who do you know that has complete amnesia and has no contact with anyone?

The affection of another person is an image of God’s love for us. To be sure we frequently don’t image that love very well. People can then have the idea that love does not exist, because their experience of human interaction is so unfulfilling.

Not amnesia of anyone, just of her.

Believing x or y happens because person A wills my good necessitates an encounter or a connection of some kind with person A, experience leading me to believe A is, indeed, person (-ish), and some reason/experience that would lead me to believe the action was intended toward me and with benevolent intention. The husband can have none of those with the wife in the scenario.

 

[ready]

Love is a feeling, caused by a cascade of chemicals in the body and brain.

But, hey it’s fun.

Love is not just a feeling, but something much more. It is in the will. It is when we will the highest good for someone, like their eternal salvation. It involves commitment and self-sacrifice, not mere feelings. God bless you.

 

[Neoplatonist]

Love is not just a feeling, but something much more. It is in the will. It is when we will the highest good for someone, like their eternal salvation. It involves commitment and self-sacrifice, not mere feelings. God bless you.

We need to distinguish between giving love and receiving love, and we need to distinguish between the cause of loving someone and the effect of loving someone. We do not start loving someone by an act of will, for instance.

 

[The_DNA_Rose]

Love is not just a feeling, but something much more. It is in the will. It is when we will the highest good for someone, like their eternal salvation. It involves commitment and self-sacrifice, not mere feelings. God bless you.

There is a chemical, that can influence every one of those feelings or reactions. When a man reaches such an age, that his testosterone level falls, that he can see past how testosterone governs his feeling, then you will comprehend more. Until then, you are the chemical that loves, and seeks to emulate emotions by words.

All of your chemicals, are produced by the DNA code, of the creator…Who works in life, like bleach works on denim.

 

[James_Tyler]

We need to distinguish between giving love and receiving love, and we need to distinguish between the cause of loving someone and the effect of loving someone. We do not start loving someone by an act of will, for instance.

Here. it’s all been done before.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_words_for_love

The Greek language distinguishes at least four different ways as to how the word love is used. Ancient Greek has four distinct words for love: agápe, éros, philía, and storgē. However, as with other languages, it has been historically difficult to separate the meanings of these words when used outside of their respective contexts. Nonetheless, the senses in which these words were generally used are as follows:

Agápe (ἀγάπη agápē) means “love: esp. brotherly love, charity; the love of God for man and of man for God.” Agape is used in the biblical passage known as the “love chapter,” 1 Corinthians 13, and is described there and throughout the New Testament as brotherly love, affection, good will, love, and benevolence. Whether the love given is returned or not, the person continues to love (even without any self-benefit). Agape is also used in ancient texts to denote feelings for one’s children and the feelings for a spouse, and it was also used to refer to a love feast. It can also be described as the feeling of being content or holding one in high regard. Agape is used by Christians to express the unconditional love of God for his children. This type of love was further explained by Thomas Aquinas as “to will the good of another.”

Éros (ἔρως érōs) means “love, mostly of the sexual passion.” The Modern Greek word “erotas” means “intimate love.” It can also apply to dating relationships as well as marriage. Plato refined his own definition: Although eros is initially felt for a person, with contemplation it becomes an appreciation of the beauty within that person, or even becomes appreciation of beauty itself. Plato does not talk of physical attraction as a necessary part of love, hence the use of the word platonic to mean, “without physical attraction.” In the Symposium, the most famous ancient work on the subject, Plato has Socrates argue that eros helps the soul recall knowledge of beauty, and contributes to an understanding of spiritual truth, the ideal “Form” of youthful beauty that leads us humans to feel erotic desire – thus suggesting that even that sensually based love aspires to the non-corporeal, spiritual plane of existence; that is, finding its truth, just like finding any truth, leads to transcendence. Lovers and philosophers are all inspired to seek truth through the means of eros.

Philia (φιλία philía) means “affectionate regard, friendship,” usually "between equals. "It is a dispassionate virtuous love, a concept developed by Aristotle. In his best-known work on ethics, Nicomachean Ethics, philia is expressed variously as loyalty to friends, family, and community, and requires virtue, equality, and familiarity. Furthermore, in the same text philos denotes a general type of love, used for love between family, between friends, a desire or enjoyment of an activity, as well as between lovers.

Storge (στοργή storgē) means “love, affection” and “especially of parents and children” It is natural affection, like that felt by parents for offspring. Rarely used in ancient works, and then almost exclusively as a descriptor of relationships within the family. It is also known to express mere acceptance or putting up with situations, as in “loving” the tyrant.

Here is something to wonder about. If someone loves you from a long distance, can you feel it?