Is God "Love"?

[PetersKeys]

So many people in the New age movement and other modenrist errors tend to give the vague “God is love” statement.

But theologically is God’s substance really all love? Or is love a form of charity that proceeds forth from God? How does one answer the elementary “God is Love” statement.

 

[fellowChristian]

God is love

**218 **
In the course of its history, Israel was able to discover that God had only one reason to reveal himself to them, a single motive for choosing them from among all peoples as his special possession: his sheer gratuitous love.38 And thanks to the prophets Israel understood that it was again out of love that God never stopped saving them and pardoning their unfaithfulness and sins.39

**219 **
God’s love for Israel is compared to a father’s love for his son. His love for his people is stronger than a mother’s for her children. God loves his people more than a bridegroom his beloved; his love will be victorious over even the worst infidelities and will extend to his most precious gift: "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son."40

**220 **
God’s love is “everlasting”:41 "For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you."42 Through Jeremiah, God declares to his people, "I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you."43

**221 **
But St. John goes even further when he affirms that “God is love”:44 God’s very being is love. By sending his only Son and the Spirit of Love in the fullness of time, God has revealed his innermost secret:45 God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange.

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church
CHAPTER ONE
I BELIEVE IN GOD THE FATHER
usccb.org/catechism/text/pt1sect2chpt1.shtml#art1p1

 

[Dolphincrc]

**
221 **
God’s very being is love. By sending his only Son and the Spirit of Love in the fullness of time, God has revealed his innermost secret:45 God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange.

This nails it beautifully. “God is love” is not just a vague concept as in the New Age movement, which basically denies a transcendent, personal, loving God. This “eternal exchange of love” cannot be separated from Christ’s saving work:

“The way we came to know love was that he laid down his life for us” 1 John 3:16

Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life- through whom alone we share in the life of the Trinity. I doubt you will find many new agers that will affirm this.

 

[Howie01]

So many people in the New age movement and other modenrist errors tend to give the vague “God is love” statement.

But theologically is God’s substance really all love? Or is love a form of charity that proceeds forth from God? How does one answer the elementary “God is Love” statement.

**1 John 4:8

The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.**

 

[Joe_5859]

Also, let us not forget 1 John 4:

7 Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.
8 Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.
9 In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him.
10 In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another.
12 No one has ever seen God. Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us.

13 This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us, that he has given us of his Spirit.
14 Moreover, we have seen and testify that the Father sent his Son as savior of the world.
15 Whoever acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him and he in God.
16 We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us. God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him.
17 In this is love brought to perfection among us, that we have confidence on the day of judgment because as he is, so are we in this world.
18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love.
19 We love because he first loved us.
20 If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
21 This is the commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

 

[mpernot]

But theologically is God’s substance really all love? Or is love a form of charity that proceeds forth from God? How does one answer the elementary “God is Love” statement.

You can’t really nail it any more definitively than the supplied quotes from the Catechism and Scripture.

I just wanted to add that this is a huge portion of Pope John Paul II’s teachings on the Theology of the Body as well. At an extremely high level, the meaning of our bodies is that God created us in His likeness and image, and since God is love, we are created in the image and likeness of love. A sort of corollary is that, since we were created by God for God, we were created for love. In the version for teens by Jason and Cystallina Evert, establishment of this very thing takes up pretty much the entire first lesson.

I am not aware if this definition is explicitly spelled out in the Catechism, but I’ve heard from more than a few good Catholics that the Holy Spirit actually exists as the love between the Father and the Son. From this perspective, God as the Holy Spirit (and by definition the rest of the Trinity) would indeed be the definition of love.

 

[thistle]

So many people in the New age movement and other modenrist errors tend to give the vague “God is love” statement.

But theologically is God’s substance really all love? Or is love a form of charity that proceeds forth from God? How does one answer the elementary “God is Love” statement.

Yes. God is love.

 

[Joe_5859]

How could I forget? Also take a look at Pope Benedict XVI’s first encyclical: Deus Caritas Est (which is Latin for, you guessed it, “God is Love”).

 

[John7]

1 John 4:8 & 16, God is love

but also,
John 4:24 "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him
must worship him in spirit and in truth.

1 John 1:5 "This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
so, God is: a Spirit, Love, & Light

don’t know how the three relate to one another.

 

[YACatholic]

“God is Love”. I’ve seen this line used and abused. I’ve heard it used to describe God is every accurate and inaccurate way possible.

It bothers me when I hear, “‘God is love’, so he loves me no matter what I do.” While true, it doesn’t give us an accurate vision of what happens to someone who does whatever they please.

I liken the statement “God is love”, to the love of a perfect parent. God, Our Father, loves us completely no matter what we do. However, because he loves us so much, he does not allow us to be rewarded for disobeying him. When I acted out, my father punished me. When we act out, our Father will punish us…because he loves us.

Heres to hoping we all make it to our Father’s house.

God Bless,

YACatholic

 

[Ora_et_Labora_1]

I have heard in certain Catholic venues that God can only do what Love can do. What is that supposed to mean? At first glance it seems to imply that God is NOT, in fact, all powerful. Any one care to help explaining this? Oh, and btw, I heard it in Jesuit circles.

 

[Mintaka]

God “cannot do” evil.

But evil really isn’t anything in itself; it’s an extremely broken and imperfect form of love, rapidly approaching being nothing at all.

God can do anything. He will not do anything less than perfectly, because that’s not His nature. So He “cannot do” nothing stuff, like evil or unlovingness.