If God is love....

[Annemariels]

So, my latest pondering has been this:

God = love

Therefore, when humans have love in their hearts, God is in them. Right?

Wouldn’t that open heaven to everyone regardless of their religion?

I know many people of Christian and non-Christian faiths who are filled with love. That would mean they are filled with God, right?

Also, if Jesus is God, then to know God, even if it’s only knowing him in the form of love, then a person also knows Jesus, right?

 

[TimothyH]

We should think in terms of “Charity” instead of the genieric “Love” which we know in the english language.

Self sacrificing love. The love of Christ on the cross. I think that is what is meant by love.

We only have one word for love and it really doesn’t cover every possiblity.

We can’t have charity toward our neighbor if we don’t know God. It is impossible. We might have it for a short time but it will never be perfect, complete and permanent unless we know God first.

I think knowing God is a prerequisite for charity, not the other way around.

-Tim-

 

[Hail_Linus]

So, my latest pondering has been this:

God = love

Therefore, when humans have love in their hearts, God is in them. Right?

Wouldn’t that open heaven to everyone regardless of their religion?

I know many people of Christian and non-Christian faiths who are filled with love. That would mean they are filled with God, right?

Also, if Jesus is God, then to know God, even if it’s only knowing him in the form of love, then a person also knows Jesus, right?

Your equation requires defining love. Love is very complicated. I refer you to the Catechism which is basically an outline for love in different scenarios.

Many people do things out of what they wrongly consider love. For example, people do often justify euthanasia and abortion out of love. I would also recommend you consider the parable of the sheep and goats. The goats thought they knew about love but they were wrong and suffered the consequences.

However, Jesus did make it “possible” for all to go to Heaven. Keep in mind Catholicism is the “Ordinary” way to Heaven. Nothing prevents God from permitting entrance to Heaven through “Extra-Ordinary” means. I think each case will be decided on a cases by case basis.

 

[JRKH]

So, my latest pondering has been this:

God = love

Therefore, when humans have love in their hearts, God is in them. Right?

Wouldn’t that open heaven to everyone regardless of their religion?

I know many people of Christian and non-Christian faiths who are filled with love. That would mean they are filled with God, right?

Also, if Jesus is God, then to know God, even if it’s only knowing him in the form of love, then a person also knows Jesus, right?

You are on to something here. Yes this is so, for as Jesus states in Mt 22:36-40 Love is the foundation of all the Law and Prophets. Likewise St John records this in his first letter.
7 Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 He who does not love does not know God; for God is love. (1 John 4)
BUT - - - As the poster above states, one cannot simply say “love” and take it at face value. One needs to read the Gospels and the Epistles and see what that love is. How it is expressed and defined.

So - While your statement above is quite true…The next question(s) must be "What is Love (agape), as defined by Scripture?

Peace
James

 

[ndismyhome]

I think that this brings up a question of the mode of presence of God. In other words, if God is ubiquitous, what need do we have of Christ or His presence in the Sacraments? We Lutherans have a distinction between the hidden and revealed God (many other churches and theologians have had similar understandings). While God is present everywhere, or as you said, in all peoples’ love, that God is not known to us fully, truly, or completely. Why? Because sin gets in the way. We confuse God in these things with the things themselves, ourselves, etc. Jesus matters for us because in Him we have the clear, full, knowable expression of God that cuts through our blindness and comes to us, rather than relying on ourselves to find Him. The God in all of creation is veiled by it and our sinful state cannot differentiate between the two, hence the need for Revelation. Can we find something about God in nature or in other religions? Sure. General revelation does exist. However, the fullness of Who God is is only available in the specific revelation of Jesus Christ and without that, we cannot ever truly know God.

 

[ConstantineTG]

So, my latest pondering has been this:

God = love

Therefore, when humans have love in their hearts, God is in them. Right?

Wouldn’t that open heaven to everyone regardless of their religion?

I know many people of Christian and non-Christian faiths who are filled with love. That would mean they are filled with God, right?

Also, if Jesus is God, then to know God, even if it’s only knowing him in the form of love, then a person also knows Jesus, right?

Love is two way. Its a given that God loves everyone. To have eternal life, we must also love God back, and love as God loves, that is to love one another including our enemies.

 

[JRKH]

I think that this brings up a question of the mode of presence of God. In other words, if God is ubiquitous, what need do we have of Christ or His presence in the Sacraments? We Lutherans have a distinction between the hidden and revealed God (many other churches and theologians have had similar understandings). While God is present everywhere, or as you said, in all peoples’ love, that God is not known to us fully, truly, or completely. Why? Because sin gets in the way. We confuse God in these things with the things themselves, ourselves, etc. Jesus matters for us because in Him we have the clear, full, knowable expression of God that cuts through our blindness and comes to us, rather than relying on ourselves to find Him. The God in all of creation is veiled by it and our sinful state cannot differentiate between the two, hence the need for Revelation. Can we find something about God in nature or in other religions? Sure. General revelation does exist. However, the fullness of Who God is is only available in the specific revelation of Jesus Christ and without that, we cannot ever truly know God.

Well said.
This ties nicely into what I was saying as well. In seeking to discern the “Love” referred to we look to Jesus as the Perfect example. All of His teaching and His sacrifice speaks to this Love.
And as Constantine points out, this must be a two way street. God Love us and seeks to draw us toward Him, but we must Love Him back and seek Him out in proper embracing and expression of Love.

Peace
James

 

[onemangang]

I love this clip

youtu.be/hMI4rA4cuiM

 

[grandfather]

Love is two way. Its a given that God loves everyone. To have eternal life, we must also love God back, and love as God loves, that is to love one another including our enemies.

God is love. A person can love in this life, but a person can not be love in this life.

All love is trinitarian. There is a lover, a beloved and the love itself.

All love is given and received. There is a giver and a receiver. The Father gives all of Himself to the Son.

All love is reciprocated or returned. The receiver gives that which is received back, becoming a giver. The Son returns to the Father.

Everyone who loves is of God. We are made in His image and likeness. If we are like Him we do what He does. He is love, but He also loves. In loving we are like God.

Without God no one can love. Jesus says, “Without me you can do nothing”.

The power to love is from God.

The purpose for which God made us is to love and be loved, to participate in the divine nature.

God lowered Himself to participate in human nature to raise us to participate in divine nature, which is heaven.

This participation begins here in this life, but is fulfilled in heaven. Saint John the Evangelist writes that we can not see what we are becoming.

Love is eternal. The love that we know in this life is eternal. If love is eternal then love is more powerful than death. Death has no power over love. Love rose from the grave.

Love conquers death and the grave. Love is alive. Love lives.

Love gives life. Jesus said He is the truth, the resurrection and the life.

In this life there are impediments to love. Living the spiritual life is about overcoming these impediments.

Jesus says He will give a crown to those who overcome.

He commands us to love and says His commandments are not burdensome.

Love and sacrifice go together. It is impossible to love in this life without knowing sacrifice, giving oneself for the beloved.

He commands us to take up our cross and follow Him, an instrument of torture, suffering and death. In this life love is impossible without pain.

The Church is all the baptized. The Church is the Body of Christ.

Our pain and suffering of all kinds embraced out of love are joined to His. He offers it to the Father as acceptable sacrifice for the redemption of the world.

Joy overcomes pain. The pain of acceptable sacrifice is turned to joy.

 

[Annemariels]

Thank you for all of your comments. They were very enlightening and I enjoyed reading and digesting them. I* love* discussions like this!!!

A.M.

 

[DebChris]

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.
[1John 4:16]

 

[Telstar]

It’s ironic that while I was praying last night before going to sleep, I was thinking about the subject of God’s love. I had every intention to start a thread about it, because I think too many people only think about love in human terms. They try to apply that same understanding of love to what they think God’s love must be. I agree with the posters above that said the love of God is very different, because it’s unconditional and isn’t based on whether or not we love Him.

There are some people that think about the love of God, as our Heavenly Father, and try to compare His love with their own earthly father’s love, but that might not always be a good thing to do. If their own father is a good man that truly loves God and everyone else in the proper sense, and also teaches them to love God, by using kindness, gentleness, and forgiveness, then he would be a good example to follow. But, if he’s not a very good man, and doesn’t love everyone as God loves them, then he would not be a good example for anyone to follow. If he wasn’t properly taught about what the love of God really is, or has a distorted view of love and what it means to be a good father, then he’s much more likely to pass that view on to his own children, which would certainly not be a good thing.

If our own father teaches us that love means that we need to fear him as well as God, but he’s overly judgmental of everything we do, or even punishes us for things we didn’t do, just to ‘teach us a lesson’, or if he treats us poorly out of his own anger and frustration about his own lot in life, then we might even learn to hate him, instead of loving him. That would be an example of a human kind of love that’s conditional on circumstances, and only based on personal human feelings, and not on the true love of God. So, his poor example of a “father’s love” can also skew the way we look at God, because we’re taught to see God as our Heavenly Father. If we think that God is just like that distorted example of fatherly love, then we might never want to get to know or love God, at all. If we only judge God by those kinds of poor examples of human beings in general, then we’ll never be able to really understand God, or His love.

God the Father’s love is the same love that Jesus showed to us, as others have already said. He not only loves us for who we are, even with all of our “pimples”, but He was willing to suffer whatever was necessary to protect us from evil, and keep us from becoming lost to sin, anger, and hate. By becoming a mortal man, Jesus suffered every day in ways that God never has to suffer, and we can never fully understand. In the end, Jesus suffered the most painful and humiliating death that’s ever been devised by man, so He could save us from eternal ‘death’ (damnation) and bring us into eternal life with Him in Heaven. That’s true love. That’s the kind of sacrificial love that God has for all of us.

The only thing God asks of us in return, is to love Him and each other, in the same way that He loves us. Human beings tend to only love those people that love them and treat them well. But, when they think someone doesn’t love them anymore, they tend to turn away from them and either become indifferent to them, or they try to find faults in them and blame them for causing their pain. In the end, they begin to hate them, instead. We often find it much too difficult to forgive others for all the pain that they cause us. But, that’s not the way God loves us. He always loves us, even when we reject His love and cause Him pain because of it. But, He’s always willing to forgive us, whenever we decide to turn back to Him. That’s the true unconditional love of God that we need to find in ourselves, if we ever expect to really follow Jesus the way He taught us to.

 

[Annemariels]

I am a substitute teacher in two public school districts and it is very hard for me to believe that God will not embrace the children/adults of different faiths when they die.

My heart swells with love for many of the Indian children I know who are Hindu’s, and if I can love them and would welcome them into my home with open arms, I can’t imagine God wouldn’t do the same. I don’t care that they have different beliefs - they are kind and polite and loving, sometimes naughty, and are so very precious. Their little faces light up when they tell me about some of the goddess’s that their culture believes in. One little kindergartner loves the one who rides on a tiger and the tiger doesn’t hurt her, and a 5th grader loves the one with an elephant head. It reminds me of how we Catholics view saints and the different symbols of our faith.

If God is the creator of all of us, and he is love, could it be that he is present to people in different ways? If the bottom line is love, are we really correct in wagging our fingers at people of different faiths who do love their creator(s) - creators whom we call God but they might call something different?

Also,when I ponder the two-way-love concept, I think about how I love the students I teach, even if they don’t love me back. I would not turn my back on them or refuse them entrance to the shelter of my home because they didn’t love me. God’s love is so much fuller and perfect than mine…

I love Blessed Mother Theresa and wish I could ask her if the people who she cared for made it to heaven despite the fact that they were not Christian. I am a devout practicing cradle Catholic and I feel like God is much bigger than we give him credit for. I am just not sold on the idea that only Christians go to heaven.

Atheists are whole different thing. They deliberately reject any creator so I could see them not gaining entrance to heaven.

What’s your spin on this?

 

[JRKH]

I am a substitute teacher in two public school districts and it is very hard for me to believe that God will not embrace the children/adults of different faiths when they die.

God will accept members of but one faith…Though they may be of many different “religions”…
Remember that Jesus said that the one who attains heaven is the one who does the “Will of the Father”. So - See what the Will of the Father is and view the world in this way.

My heart swells with love for many of the Indian children I know who are Hindu’s, and if I can love them and would welcome them into my home with open arms, I can’t imagine God wouldn’t do the same. I don’t care that they have different beliefs - they are kind and polite and loving, sometimes naughty, and are so very precious. Their little faces light up when they tell me about some of the goddess’s that their culture believes in. One little kindergartner loves the one who rides on a tiger and the tiger doesn’t hurt her, and a 5th grader loves the one with an elephant head. It reminds me of how we Catholics view saints and the different symbols of our faith.

If God is the creator of all of us, and he is love, could it be that he is present to people in different ways? If the bottom line is love, are we really correct in wagging our fingers at people of different faiths who do love their creator(s) - creators whom we call God but they might call something different?

Certainly we should not “wag our finger” at others but be respectful and willing to learn of their beliefs. Likewise we should be willing to share ours with them. It is in listening to others that we can learn what is good in their systems and where there might be error.

Also,when I ponder the two-way-love concept, I think about how I love the students I teach, even if they don’t love me back. I would not turn my back on them or refuse them entrance to the shelter of my home because they didn’t love me. God’s love is so much fuller and perfect than mine…

This is true…But lest me ask this. Would your love prevent you from failing a student who, though amiable, simply refused to do the work assigned?
I assume your answer will be “no”, if the student refused to do the assigned work, justice requires you to fail him/her.
God, being the loving and Just God and father that He is, can do no less.

I love Blessed Mother Theresa and wish I could ask her if the people who she cared for made it to heaven despite the fact that they were not Christian. I am a devout practicing cradle Catholic and I feel like God is much bigger than we give him credit for. I am just not sold on the idea that only Christians go to heaven.

The Church does not teach that only Christians get to heaven. We just have a better instruction manual…

What’s your spin on this?

Now you have my spin…:ballspin:

Peace
James

 

[Eric_Hyom]

When Jesus spent his time on Earth, he would have lived by the greatest commandments,

Jesus loves God the Father with all his heart, mind, soul and strength.
Jesus loves each and every one of us as he loves himself.

Could Jesus love us more than he loves himself?

Blessings

Eric

 

[Oldtimer_7]

TimothyH is on the right track. The Greek* agape* is translated into Latin as caritas, which in English Bibles is charity. The Greeks had four words to describe the idea of love. Patrios was love of country. Philias was brotherly love. Eros was the love of a man and a woman for each other, Agape was God’s love for us.
We are told in the Bible that even pagans love each other, in each sense except agape, since they did not understand their gods as loving mankind, except of the occasional moment of passion such as Leda and the swan or Europa and the bull. Needless to say, this is not the sort of love that humans seek.
A Hindu doctor with whom I have had a number of discussions says that this agape love that he sees in Christians has no equal in Hinduism and for him is the most impressive aspect of Christianity.

 

[DebChris]

TimothyH is on the right track. The Greek* agape* is translated into Latin as caritas, which in English Bibles is charity. The Greeks had four words to describe the idea of love. Patrios was love of country. Philias was brotherly love. Eros was the love of a man and a woman for each other, Agape was God’s love for us.
We are told in the Bible that even pagans love each other, in each sense except agape, since they did not understand their gods as loving mankind, except of the occasional moment of passion such as Leda and the swan or Europa and the bull. Needless to say, this is not the sort of love that humans seek.
A Hindu doctor with whom I have had a number of discussions says that this agape love that he sees in Christians has no equal in Hinduism and for him is the most impressive aspect of Christianity.

“They’ll know we are Christians by our love.”