God wants us as His own, and of our volition. All of us!! Yes?
You can’t attribute human emotions to God and have God remain God. You might begin with St. Anselm’s Monologion and Proslogion.
Now that makes sense. The idea of “he sits on a throne” sounds all like man trying to speak of the unspeakable.
The Hebrew word for ‘jealous’ (kana’) is the same as ‘zealous’ or ‘passionate’. When God says He is ‘jealous’ or ‘passionate’, it means He wants exclusive service and loyalty: ‘Look at me - only me - and serve me.’ Yhwh cannot tolerate any rivals; He insists on absolute devotion. It’s like a husband who demands fidelity from his wife.
But can God be passionate? Is that potency or act? Also I would call God as ONEness and in 3 persons YHWH. YHWH is more like a god. When you really get into the captivities and the lists of captives and various picked up “false doctrines”. They got the god YHWH. Just FYI. Those first 2 sentences is what I would like am answer to.
Definitely. He is love. If love is not passionate what is it?
Both. There are no divisions between who God is and what he does.
Ah no. The whole history of the chosen people from Abraham throughout the OT is about the struggle between YHWH demanding total allegiance against Israel’s inclination to worship gods/idols. Isreal didn’t invent a new god. Rather, God revealed himself to them beginning with Abraham–to whom he showed that he was quite different from the gods of the heathens. I’m afraid it’s your idea that is the invention–not Isreal.
I dont think I would, actually if I knew I was ‘god’ then I would be well above those types of almost human like emotions, I think Id also recognize my creations did not see ‘the big picture’ either, so it would not be a surprise to see some of them straying.If you knew for an undeniable fact that you are the real God, the creator and master of the universe, would you feel angry seeing many of your most blessed creatures rejecting you in favor of worshiping dust?
You misunderstand who God is, then. He who made us is owed our total allegiance, whether we see the “big picture” or not. He has made it abundantly clear that he, and only he, can fulfill our needs. We need no other “lover” but our Beloved who loves us with such a fierce love that he died on the cross. Such love is beyond our human understanding, yes, but it does demand we give him our all in return.
That’s problematic. ‘Jealous’, ‘zealous’ and ‘passionate’ all have quite distinct meanings in English. So the interpretation depends on the translator’s choice, it seems.
In my mind ‘insisting’ and ‘demanding’ are at odds with the notion of an all-loving God who allows us free-will.
In justice God has the right to demand our love–just as a spouse has the right to demand love in that relationship. When we remember that love is part of God’s nature, not an emotion, it makes more sense. For instance, marital love is not a mere emotion, either, no matter how many romance stories say otherwise. We can’t always feel romantic, but we can always give our love through good times and bad. How can we claim allegiance to love himself without acknowledging that he has a right to our love? Free will does not release us from our obligation to love him who first loved us.
Exactly. I demand and insist, rightly, that my wife remain loyal and give to me all her spousal love and affection. And she, rightly, demands the same in return from me. It is a legitimate demand of something that is owed to that person.In justice God has the right to demand our love–just as a spouse has the right to demand love in that relationship. When we remember that love is part of God’s nature, not an emotion, it makes more sense. For instance, marital love is not a mere emotion, either, no matter how many romance stories say otherwise. We can’t always feel romantic, but we can always give our love through good times and bad. How can we claim allegiance to love himself without acknowledging that he has a right to our love? Free will does not release us from our obligation to love him who first loved us.
Indeed. There is a big difference between a right and free will to reject that right. When we reject what is a right we sin. We may have sinned of our own free will or not (which goes to culpability), but merely having free will does not give us the right to sin. :yup: