“God loves you anyway” – does He really?

[dfnj]

I'm no scholar, and I could be wrong about this, but I don't think there's much in the bible to support the notion that the Christian God loves unconditionally. Rather, it seems to me that among the conditions He sets for His love is faith or belief in him, and possibly "good acts", etc. In short, His love is all too conditional, all too human, rather than godlike. That is one of the major reasons I do not find His existence credible.

Regardless of what the Bible says, my faith is in a God of unconditional love. This is my choice. I choose my faith. My faith is stronger than the words in the Bible.

 

[savagewind]

I wouldn't hate them but patience can only stretch so far. If they kept doing wrong things I wouldn't pat them in the back and tell them to go on no matter how much I loved them.

So, according to you, love involves approval?

I didn't know it did.

 

[savagewind]

There is a big difference between not loving someone as opposed to not liking someone. If you love someone you will always love that person; doesn't mean you will always like that person.

I think that love is forever. If you think that you have loved someone, and then you don't, it wasn't love, imo. So, I agree with you.

I actually might take a guess and say, "God doesn't like anyone, but God loves everyone."
Do the math! LOL
What is love, according to The Word of God?

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

Are you @Vee saying that God will stop being that?

 

[savagewind]

Actually, I am proposing that "is not provoked" was originally written, "does not provoke".

If you are right @Vee and God does stop loving a person, that is God being provoked by the person.

 

[metis]

If someone disappoints your beyond your limits that doesn't mean your love will transform into hate. You might just not want anything more to do with them and cut them off from your life.

If you don't "want anything more to do with them and cut them off from your life", then how could you know and accept their repentance if that were to come about?

Jesus taught what many refer to as "the law of love", and I would suggest the this with Jesus was unconditional. But that doesn't mean that we have to accept bad behavior-- quite the reverse, sortofa a "tough love" approach is what Jesus appears to have taught.

Again, "hate the sin, not the sinner", and I honestly feel that this is the best approach.

 

[socharlie]

I think personal responsibility is more important than passively hoping God will take care of us. If we poop in our own bed, it is up to us to clean it up.

it is true but it is another subject. God just exists and set up this system, it does not depend on who we are and what we do.
We have opportunities to repair wrongs when we understand wrongs. This is the purpose of this world.

 

[savagewind]

I am a little riled up by this discussion.
@Vee I believed you are a Jehovah's Witness. Jehovah's Witnesses advertise that their way is God's way. They call themselves "the truth".

Maybe you guys don't understand the simplest math?

God is love. Oh, wait a minute, not always.

No understanding?

If God is love then it is not possible to believe that sometimes God isn't Love.

That's the math.

I have to wonder if this idea that God doesn't always love comes from a Watchtower article?

 

[Fool]

Over the years I’ve heard a number of religious personalities from different so called Christian religions say that God loves everyone, He loves people no matter what. The last time I heard that was very recently.

I understand that from the perspective of people who don’t like to obey anything except their own whims it must be cool to belong to that kind of religion. The ideology of “do whatever you feel like and God will love you anyway” makes things easier, doesn’t it?

this is a belief about self and doesn't consider other's as self, or the golden rule.

But from a Christian perspective, it doesn’t make any sense. Christians base their belief in the Bible, and the Bible contains a number of laws and principles that God himself requires people to follow. If it wasn’t important how people behave, He wouldn’t have bothered in the first place.

Love flows both ways. it has nothing to do with being christian per se.

So, for example, does a person who is violent towards others, a person who steals or someone who commits adultery deserve to be loved by God?

a parent doesn't stop loving it's offspring when they do wrong. they do attempt to correct the behavior to be more inclusive

If they are not obeying God’s commands, then they don’t care about Him, so why would he care about them?

an immature person would think from this polarity. you can still love someone and correct them.

One can talk about forgiveness, which is mentioned frequently in the Bible, but forgiveness applies when people repent and stop doing whatever they were doing wrong. If someone acts against God’s principles, apologizes and then goes back to doing the same thing, would it make any sense for God to overlook their behavior and just love them anyway?

obviously words don't equate to behavior. such would be lip service vs service to all as self.

people who make it personal aren't interested in service to all, or service to other's as self, or god = love.

 

[pearl]

That is true in the case of genuine repentance, not when people take advantage and make a fool of someone else.

Unlike us, God knows the heart, it is God's forgiveness that was the question.
Not only the parable of the Prodigal Son, but also in the OT Hosea, 'My people abides in infidelity; they call upon Baal, but he does not help them. "How can I give you up, O Ephraim! How can I hand you over, O Israel!....My heart turns itself against me, my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger. I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst.'

Christians base their belief in the Bible

Christians base their faith in God through Christ, not in a 'book' about God.

 

[Spiderman]

Jesus was a friend of drunkards, prostitutes, and tax collectors

 

[sun rise]

That is true in the case of genuine repentance, not when people take advantage and make a fool of someone else.
Imagine that you give some money to a banker to invest in your name. Instead of investing it he uses your money to go on vacation. He then apologizes and you accept that's he's sorry and give him more money to invest. This time he buys a new car. The apologizing starts again. How many more times are you willing to believe him before you take your business somewhere else?
When Jesus told his disciples to keep forgiving, he didn't mean they should continuously allow people to profit from their good will. Unfortunately many people spin it that way to make excuses for themselves.

God's love is like the sun which is always there. Clouds or an umbrella, or in this case evil acts stop the rays of the sun from "warming" one. This can and should have consequences such as jail time for crimes and suffering caused by one's deeds. But the love, the sun in my analogy, has not stopped but has been blocked by one's deeds.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

In short, His love is all too conditional, all too human, rather than godlike. That is one of the major reasons I do not find His existence credible.

Finally! Someone I respect knows what godlike love is - a knowledge I've always assumed was wholly out of reach. Count me impressed!

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

Ah, but the point is that you would still love them, right? Why would one hate their own children, especially since they might well repent, as in the case of the Parable of the Prodigal Son?

I think that metaphor only goes so far. Rather, it doesn't go very far at all. If a person or god is jealous or hateful (and we at least know that the god of the bible self-identifies as jealous), there's not a lot of love there - even for their children. My wife's mother was like that, to the point where literally everyone left her. She didn't love her children, she possessed them and expected of them. Or more generally, look at that couple in California; can it be said that they loved their 13 children?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I wouldn't hate them but patience can only stretch so far.

Does your God only have a limited supply of patience?

 

[Father Heathen]

I imagine that an infinitely intelligent being would also be infinitely understanding and infinitely patent. We anthropomorphize god by attributing human emotions, ego, desires, etc. to 'him', but 'he' couldn't be omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent yet still possess a human-like mind.

 

[robocop (actually)]

If I remember correctly the Bible doesn't say "unconditional" with "God" but it does say we have to love unconditionally.

 

[savagewind]

If a person or god is jealous or hateful (and we at least know that the god of the bible self-identifies as jealous),

God is not jealous like humans get jealous. God is jealous for love in that God knows there is one just way for Earth's souls and that is what God is jealous of. The way, the truth, and life are what we should be in imitation of God's jealousy, imo. "Fiercely protective" is the correct definition of God's jealousy. It is a good thing and it is a shame that people are able to pair it with hatred.

 

[Sunstone]

Finally! Someone I respect knows what godlike love is - a knowledge I've always assumed was wholly out of reach. Count me impressed!

Ok...ok...I'm admittedly guessing. But here's what the guess is based on: So far as I believe, there is a kind of experience, which I call "the mystical experience", that is often (but not always) described as an experience of god by people who have undergone it. The same people (sometimes but not always) describe it as involving a sense or feeling of unconditional love. I'm guessing that -- if there really is a god, and the mystical experience really is an experience of that god -- then that "unconditional love" might be god's way of loving. I think you are quite correct that any certainty in this matter is wholly out of reach, and I do not think my tentatively held beliefs rise to the level of knowledge -- except on the internet, of course. On the internet, I naturally follow the well established tradition of being absolutely knowledgeable no matter what evidence to the contrary.

 

[Epic Beard Man]

Over the years I’ve heard a number of religious personalities from different so called Christian religions say that God loves everyone, He loves people no matter what. The last time I heard that was very recently.

I understand that from the perspective of people who don’t like to obey anything except their own whims it must be cool to belong to that kind of religion. The ideology of “do whatever you feel like and God will love you anyway” makes things easier, doesn’t it?

But from a Christian perspective, it doesn’t make any sense. Christians base their belief in the Bible, and the Bible contains a number of laws and principles that God himself requires people to follow. If it wasn’t important how people behave, He wouldn’t have bothered in the first place.

So, for example, does a person who is violent towards others, a person who steals or someone who commits adultery deserve to be loved by God? If they are not obeying God’s commands, then they don’t care about Him, so why would he care about them?

One can talk about forgiveness, which is mentioned frequently in the Bible, but forgiveness applies when people repent and stop doing whatever they were doing wrong. If someone acts against God’s principles, apologizes and then goes back to doing the same thing, would it make any sense for God to overlook their behavior and just love them anyway?

According to what I’ve learned in the Bible, I don’t think so.

Great post! I have to say I've struggled with the idea of "love" in the human sense of the word, and whether God does surely love his creation. I cannot say with conviction that what God does is love in he human sense of the word because God although being the author of the human language, is not human. Looking at over billions of neurons and other cells in the body I would think God cares for all of life, otherwise our bodies would not contend with foreign pathogens to sustain our health and brain/heart function. For a moment, forget scriptures and look around you. Look what is inside you. Your mind is on auto-pilot and your organ functions act independently of your control. You do not need to think to breathe nor you do not need to think to pump your heart with blood back through the ventricles. All of this is done for you. God's power has sustained all of life to continue to exist until the capacity of our bodies cease to exist. I'm quite thankful I was created the way that I am. I think this is more of a reflection of love from the Creator.

 

[Epic Beard Man]

I'm no scholar, and I could be wrong about this, but I don't think there's much in the bible to support the notion that the Christian God loves unconditionally. Rather, it seems to me that among the conditions He sets for His love is faith or belief in him, and possibly "good acts", etc. In short, His love is all too conditional, all too human, rather than godlike. That is one of the major reasons I do not find His existence credible.

There is the issue that I have as well which is why I tend to take the scientific approach (if you saw my previous post)......

Love is a categorization of collective emotions humans experience and in no way can we accurately place any conditions of what is upon God. But because of the limitations of the human language we do so anyway.