Does love prove the existence of God?

[izzy88]

In addition to any genetic imperatives or what we might call instinct, it seems to me that various species exhibit decision, choice and free will in numerous ways all the time, from choosing which of their species to bond or mate with, to which direction to move (open the gate to allow a flock of sheep to wander and graze, even sheep from the same genetic pool, and they will not all try to go to the same place; frighten the sheep with an unfamiliar and aggressive dog or other predator in their midst, and they will not all scatter in the same direction).

Place five or ten mice, one at a time, at the same starting point within a maze, and they will choose different paths, especially if you neutralize the scent between each mouse's traversal of the maze.

A very interesting perspective, and one that reminds me of an article I read recently that you'd probably enjoy reading, as well.

Do Animals Have Free Will? - The Philosophers' Magazine

 

[Nimos]

I see what you're saying, but we really aren't talking about the same thing because the way you're using the term "love" is not the same way that I am. You're still talking about an emotion, I'm talking about a free act of the will.

Are you saying that our natural instinct is for self-preservation, and self-sacrifice only happens when our emotions cloud our judgement?

We might talk about it differently.

Ultimately, I think love is not really any different from any other emotion, its not free in any way. So talking about it, as if we have full control over it, I think is the wrong way to look at it. (If I understand what you mean when you say "free act of the will").
People don't choose who to love, a mother doesn't decide whether or not they want to love their child, and I think most "good" mothers would sacrifice themselves for their child. So if survival of the individual is the overall goal behind lifeforms, very important to point out that we are talking about individual, because survival as a species to me, is highly different, and doesn't come close to the emotional impact that individual survival has.
A good example of what I mean is, that if we imagine that we have an apocalyptic event on Earth and 99.8% of all humans die, you wont have people caring about the survival of the human race, they will think about survival from an egoistic point of view. So its not like you having survived and is standing there all alone, and then being extremely emotional about whether those in China made it or not, survival will be from your perspective, so you want to find other humans, because it does you good etc.

So if survival is highly individually, something must interfere with it, because we know that a mother or parent will in a lot of cases, sacrifice themself for their child and even other humans in general. But to me, I think its far more likely that a parent will sacrifice themself for their child than some random person. And to me, that is where love plays a huge part, because of the strong bond. But neither of the parents chose this bond, it just sort of happened, because that is how nature works.

In cases where we do not have love as such involved, but other emotions such as being able feel the pain, suffering or desperation of others, I think you will basically take a chance or risk assessment, which is based on your emotions, and if they are strong enough you will take the chance in order to try to save them even though you don't even know them, purely because you can relate to their situation and their emotions.

An example could be that you are walking near a lake during the winter and suddenly you see a child fall through the ice and is yelling for help and in a lot of desperation. You walking out there means that you are likely to fall through and die yourself, so why would you risk it, if its purely about survival? You don't know the child anyway, right?
But for some reason, you react to the child being desperate, scared and in pain. So you can either react with fear and simply be to afraid to go out there to help or you can make a quick judgement that you are willing to take the risk of dying in order to help this child, that you have no clue who is. Now if it were your own child, you would probably skip the judgement part and just go out there and try to help, your love for the child would most likely also highly reduce the fear of loosing your own life, because theirs are more important.

So in the end, love and emotions as I see it, is not really free, so talking about it as an act of freedom is the wrong way to look at it. love is simply an emotion, just like fear, sadness etc. So you might as well talk about the free act of sadness, in my opinion.

 

[izzy88]

evidence that can be persuasive to anyone, including atheists or "strict materialists"?

No; such people hold axiomatically that nothing exists which is not empirically verifiable. They effectively reject the utility of anything beyond science.

Or are you proposing that one can only prove the ideas of any particular religion by using its own "proofs," or see the truth of a particular religion only by believing in that religion first, like seeing fairies only if you believe in them?

Not at all.

As I said, nothing in religion can be "proven" in the sense that you're discussing. We can analyze religious claims logically, and we can prove that something is logically contradictory, but we cannot empirically prove religious claims because religious claims are not empirical.

 

[Samael_Khan]

I watched a great movie recently called The Ninth Configuration, made by William Peter Blatty (of Exorcist fame). I won't give away any spoilers, but one of the topics it explores is whether the existence of love proves the existence of God. The story posits that love cannot be explained naturally, that true love is self-sacrifice, and self-sacrifice goes against our natural instincts.

What are your thoughts? Do you believe this is a convincing line of reasoning? Do you believe love can be explained naturalistically? Or do you believe that love doesn't actually exist?

If love cannot be explained naturally, and we have no other way of explaining it using supporting evidence, that means that we don't know how to explain it.

It certainly doesn't explain the existence of God because we have no evidence linking it to God.

If we don't know how to explain something, we cannot use a fallacy like God of the gaps to explain it without evidence, because that would be nothing more than an assertion and one can equally say that it just appeared out of nowhere or that aliens gave us love.

Love is a description of a combination of human experience, chemical reactions and social interactions which causes us to feel a certain way which causes the bonds between people to grow closer. Self sacrifice does not go against our natural instincts because it supports our social structure by being an expression of our trust in one another and helping us protect one another and protect the survival of our species. Many animal parents sacrifice themselves by protecting their offspring from dangerous predators so that the species survives.

So I wouldn't say that it is a convincing line of reasoning.

 

[Samael_Khan]

Wolves do not have free will, and therefore cannot love in the sense that we're talking about.

As I said in the OP:

"The story posits that love cannot be explained naturally, that true love is self-sacrifice, and self-sacrifice goes against our natural instincts."

What we're talking about is an act of the will, whereby a person voluntarily chooses to place the good of another above their own - even to the point of giving their own life.

Animals cannot do this, because they cannot make choices, because they do not have free will.

But I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you likely reject the very existence of free will - and if so there's really nothing more to discuss on the topic of this thread.

Firstly, animals do have a combination of free will and instinct. That is why pets can choose to do different things or some animals can solve puzzles. Free will is choice, and certainly animals choose to do or not to do certain things.

Secondly how did you come to the conclusion that animals don't willingly sacrifice themselves? Do you know what they are feeling? Maybe they are driven by extreme love to do so.

What we're talking about is an act of the will, whereby a person voluntarily chooses to place the good of another above their own - even to the point of giving their own life.

Maybe the act of will is driven by the feeling of love? Maybe the feeling causes the will?

 

[Samael_Khan]

I'm not talking about an emotion; you're referring to something like fondness or attachment or the pleasure one may feel in relation to a specific person.

By love I mean a voluntary self-sacrifice, where a person consciously chooses to place the good of another individual above their own.



Then why do we also see selfishness? How can both selfishness and selflessness be a product of our nature?



I haven't given an argument at all; I've presented a concept that I thought would make an interesting topic of discussion. I did not post this topic in the religious debates forum, I posted it in the theological concepts forum.

Both selfishness and love serve the same purpose. They are two sides of the same coin. Everybody is selfish and everybody shows love, unless they have a mental problem.

 

[izzy88]

An example could be that you are walking near a lake during the winter and suddenly you see a child fall through the ice and is yelling for help and in a lot of desperation. You walking out there means that you are likely to fall through and die yourself, so why would you risk it, if its purely about survival? You don't know the child anyway, right?
But for some reason, you react to the child being desperate, scared and in pain. So you can either react with fear and simply be to afraid to go out there to help or you can make a quick judgement that you are willing to take the risk of dying in order to help this child, that you have no clue who is. Now if it were your own child, you would probably skip the judgement part and just go out there and try to help, your love for the child would most likely also highly reduce the fear of loosing your own life, because theirs are more important.

To me, such a scenario is proof of the reality of what I'm describing as love (a freely chosen act of self-sacrifice) precisely because our decision doesn't need to be determined by our emotions. There are all kinds of situations where we're fearful, and yet we can choose to act in spite of the fear. Your reasoning seems to be that we will only do this when some other emotion is even stronger than the fear and so overrides it. I simply don't find that to be true, in my own experience. We can choose which of our inclinations to act on, which of our emotions to act on. When we're sad, we can hold back tears or let them flow. When we're angry, we can punch a wall or we can stop and breathe. When we're afraid, we can run away or we can face our fears. These are all choices we make with our will.

 

[randix]

such people hold axiomatically that nothing exists which is not empirically verifiable. They effectively reject the utility of anything beyond science.

I think that idea is increasingly in doubt, as science delves ever more deeply into the quantum realm that seems to defy standard-model physics, into cosmological thought (such as the idea of a multiverse) which we may not be able to prove by (at least current) scientific means, by the seeming paradoxes of black holes, universe-spawning, timeless, spaceless (but with infinite or near-infinite mass) singularities, etc.

I think that those who are particularly scientific-minded, relying on evidence, have for many religious ideas the same regard as for these ideas and theories of scientists and cosmologists for which we do not yet have (and may not be able to get) sufficient evidence. There may be a god of some sort, but we do not yet have sufficient evidence (or evidence that is compelling enough) to say with certainty or with great confidence that there is a god; in contrast, we have more than sufficient evidence to support with confidence our current understanding of the genetic diversification of species developing sequentially, or concurrently over vast amounts of time from common ancestors or genetically-or-physically simpler ancestors (rather than the idea of many different, complex species somehow "coming into existence" all at the same time).

So, both with these unproven and possibly unprovable scientific ideas, as well as many or most religious ideas, it is up to an individual to gauge the likelihood that those ideas represent fact or how closely they conform to reality, and in both cases some kind of evidence is needed to determine that likelihood.

 

[Messianic Israelite]

Love is an emotion. Yes, it happens naturally. Self-sacrifice certainly does NOT go against our 'natural instincts' since, among those instincts are those promoting social behavior, including self-sacrifice.

This is certainly a LONG way from proving the existence of anything like a God.

I disagree. Man was made in in the image of Elohim (Gen 1:26), not just physically, but also was given the same basic emotions that our Creator has. The scriptures tell us that Yahweh is love (1Jo 4:16), and therefore those that show love are showing the most prominent aspect of Yahweh. 1 John 4:8 says "Whoever does not love does not know Yahweh, because Yahweh is love." Creation was done out of love. You can see the love that went in to the design of this earth: flowers, all manner of trees, fruits, vegetables, all the colours and tastes, all the animals and insects...a great deal of love went in to creation. I personally don't know how people are so blind to this. Trees aren't black. Flowers aren't all grey. Everything doesn't all taste the same. I understand, we have scientific reasons for this, but I wish that people would give the glory to Yahweh for His Intelligent Design. We have no idea how long it took to come up with all these beautiful creations, but I can attest that love is what Yahweh is, and His Word is love manifested as it directs us in to a way of life which is beautiful also.

 

[Samael_Khan]

I watched a great movie recently called The Ninth Configuration, made by William Peter Blatty (of Exorcist fame). I won't give away any spoilers, but one of the topics it explores is whether the existence of love proves the existence of God. The story posits that love cannot be explained naturally, that true love is self-sacrifice, and self-sacrifice goes against our natural instincts.

What are your thoughts? Do you believe this is a convincing line of reasoning? Do you believe love can be explained naturalistically? Or do you believe that love doesn't actually exist?

Oh flip!!!! I have another answer!

Indoctrination can cause someone to sacrifice themselves without acting on just a feeling. If a member of an indoctrinated group is indoctrinated enough, they can overcome their fear through a force of will and faith to be self sacrificing to the point of death for their group and leader.

 

[exchemist]

This is not a debate thread, this is a discussion thread.

I don't understand you guys. I was trying to create a philosophical discussion regarding the theological concept of love and how it relates to God. I posted this topic in the theological discussion forum, not the religious debate forum. Why do you need to try to turn everything into a scientific argument?

There is no science involved at all. It is simply a question of the meaning of words and logic.
If a proposition talks of "proof", one expects a rationale to prove the proof, otherwise it is not proof.

 

[Nimos]

To me, such a scenario is proof of the reality of what I'm describing as love (a freely chosen act of self-sacrifice) precisely because our decision doesn't need to be determined by our emotions. There are all kinds of situations where we're fearful, and yet we can choose to act in spite of the fear. Your reasoning seems to be that we will only do this when some other emotion is even stronger than the fear and so overrides it. I simply don't find that to be true, in my own experience. We can choose which of our inclinations to act on, which of our emotions to act on. When we're sad, we can hold back tears or let them flow. When we're angry, we can punch a wall or we can stop and breathe. When we're afraid, we can run away or we can face our fears. These are all choices we make with our will.

I agree you can probably suppress them to some degree, but you can't choose not to be sad or not to fall in love etc. And probably some are better at it than others, also I think you can train it.

Like I would assume that a firefighter is much more calm around fires than the average person and therefore is able to better control their fear. Just as a strong swimmer might be less scared of having to jump in the water. So yeah I do agree that there are varies degrees of this.

 

[osgart]

The existence of virtues have a cause and effect that seems quite Superior to all other ways of living. The goal of virtues is to produce enduring love. As one might discover there are at least 100 words of good character identified.

I suppose the existence of virtues can be compared to a maximumally virtuous being. But that doesn't get to a God as reality is not set up for the maximum ideals of virtues.

However I don't feel that virtues are accidental byproducts of a senseless nature of being. They work quite too well by those effected by virtues. Love leads people to do extraordinary things beyond selfish norms.

So virtues are a code of ethics and morals that one commits to by heart if one is so inclined. Trouble is other inclinations get the better of way too many people.

I would think that religion would be in the pursuit of highest virtues. But that's all sidetracked by dogmatic, and mythological tribal beliefs. I believe religion would be best served to say I don't know where appropriate. There may be and I believe there is superior truthes to be discovered in virtues.

Often the greatest good and the greatest harms comes from science. So we should do our best to improve religion.

Religion latches on to virtues. It's mankind's attempt at achieving the greatest good. So it's worthy to fix it.

 

[QuestioningMind]

I watched a great movie recently called The Ninth Configuration, made by William Peter Blatty (of Exorcist fame). I won't give away any spoilers, but one of the topics it explores is whether the existence of love proves the existence of God. The story posits that love cannot be explained naturally, that true love is self-sacrifice, and self-sacrifice goes against our natural instincts.

What are your thoughts? Do you believe this is a convincing line of reasoning? Do you believe love can be explained naturalistically? Or do you believe that love doesn't actually exist?

I question whether it's true that self-sacrifice goes against our natural instincts. Yes, we do all have a natural instinct to preserve our own lives, but we also have a strong instinct to preserve and perpetuate the species. Since self-sacrifice can be a means of preserving the species it can certainly be seen as a natural instinct.

Furthermore we are a communal species, we require one another to survive. Love is an emotion that fosters unity and cooperation, thus love can be seen as natural means of ensuring the survival of the species. Without such a bonding emotion communities would be less likely and thus our survival threatened.

 

[QuestioningMind]

I'm not talking about an emotion; you're referring to something like fondness or attachment or the pleasure one may feel in relation to a specific person.

By love I mean a voluntary self-sacrifice, where a person consciously chooses to place the good of another individual above their own.



Then why do we also see selfishness? How can both selfishness and selflessness be a product of our nature?



I haven't given an argument at all; I've presented a concept that I thought would make an interesting topic of discussion. I did not post this topic in the religious debates forum, I posted it in the theological concepts forum.

I'm not talking about an emotion; you're referring to something like fondness or attachment or the pleasure one may feel in relation to a specific person.

By love I mean a voluntary self-sacrifice, where a person consciously chooses to place the good of another individual above their own.

Of COURSE you're talking about an emotion. Love is the emotion that prompts people to consciously choose self-sacrifice for the good of another individual. If someone doesn't feel fondness or attraction (love) for another individual then they are not likely to sacrifice their lives for them. That love can be for an individual or it can be for the entire human race. But it's STILL the emotion of love.

 

[izzy88]

but we also have a strong instinct to preserve and perpetuate the species

Do we, though? Do you really feel that you have some instinct to do what's best for the whole human race?

I don't think that's something that actually factors into people's decisions. For example, if you could choose to either give your own life right now for the assurance that the human race would continue on after you died, or get to live a long full life with the people you love and are closest to but know that at the end of it the human race will go extinct, that once everyone alive today dies it will be the end of humanity, which would you choose?

 

[izzy88]

Of COURSE you're talking about an emotion.

But I'm not; and I've made it perfectly clear what I am talking about.

You can disagree that the phenomenon I'm referencing should be called "love", but you cannot tell me that I'm talking about something which I've explicit said that I'm not.

 

[QuestioningMind]

Do we, though? Do you really feel that you have some instinct to do what's best for the whole human race?

I don't think that's something that actually factors into people's decisions. For example, if you could choose to either give your own life right now for the assurance that the human race would continue on after you died, or get to live a long full life with the people you love and are closest to but know that at the end of it the human race will go extinct, that once everyone alive today dies it will be the end of humanity, which would you choose?

Of course it's an instinct. But just like all instincts it's a stronger instinct in some than in others. The desire to stand and fight when confronted with danger is an instinct, The desire to run away when confronted with danger is an instinct. For some people, when confronted with danger they will never fight. Their primary instinct is to run every time. For others the opposite may be true. The instinct to stand and fight will always be dominant over the instinct to flee. The same is true for the instinct for self-preservation and the instinct to ensure the survival of the species. For some the instinct for self-preservation will always prevail. For others the instinct for self-preservation goes out the window when they see someone else in danger.

And if you talk with people who have put their lives in danger to save the lives of others you will RARELY hear them talk about how they stopped to debate the choice. They rarely CHOOSE to put their lives in danger, they simply see someone else in danger and instinctively their first thought is for the safety of another and not themselves. They often say things like: I didn't even think about it. I saw they were in danger and I just acted.

 

[McBell]

Wolves do not have free will, and therefore cannot love in the sense that we're talking about.

As I said in the OP:

"The story posits that love cannot be explained naturally, that true love is self-sacrifice, and self-sacrifice goes against our natural instincts."

What we're talking about is an act of the will, whereby a person voluntarily chooses to place the good of another above their own - even to the point of giving their own life.

Animals cannot do this, because they cannot make choices, because they do not have free will.

But I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you likely reject the very existence of free will - and if so there's really nothing more to discuss on the topic of this thread.

Can you provide proof of this? Or of anything you said? All you did was make a bunch of claims without providing any evidence.

 

[QuestioningMind]

But I'm not; and I've made it perfectly clear what I am talking about.

You can disagree that the phenomenon I'm referencing should be called "love", but you cannot tell me that I'm talking about something which I've explicit said that I'm not.

But I'm not; and I've made it perfectly clear what I am talking about.

You certainly didn't make it clear in your OP nor have you clarified anything in any posts to me. The ONLY claim I've seen you make is that love isn't an emotion, it's somehow proof of god. So please DO tell me... aside from being a sign from god, what exactly IS love, if NOT an emotion?