Can you prove God's Love is unconditional?

[Koldo]

Unconditional Love is defined as: affection with no limits or conditions; complete love

Unconditional love is love without any conditions. Simple as this.

The Love one has (especially a Mother) for a child does NOT pertain to any conditions or compromises, it is the truest love that Mankind is capable of.
It is regardless of the loved one's qualities or actions.

The child has the quality of being her 'child'.
It is the kind of love with a single condition necessary and one that is hard to change.

Koldo, are you a parent?

No, i am not.

 

[McBell]

Any god who understands pain in the way we do and has decreed it to where any person who doesn't subscribe to his particular tenants of faith is not love. Muslims say "God hates idolatry." If God hates idolatry and idolaters practice such, then logically God hates the practice. In other words if what we do becomes who we are and God hates what we do then it follows necessarily according to scripture God hates that part about us. This is not unconditional love.

So you base it all on an if?

So if a parent who hates murder has a child who commits murder, the parent has to somehow automatically stop loving their child?
And this makes sense to you?

Does this same "logic" also apply to brussel sprouts?

 

[McBell]

Unconditional love is love without any conditions. Simple as this.

Except it is isn't simple at all.

The child has the quality of being her 'child'.
It is the kind of love with a single condition necessary and one that is hard to change.

Huh?
How is being a her child a condition?
So are you saying that if it wasn't her child that she would not love the child?

 

[Koldo]

It would still be unconditional if the father still loved the child after finding out it isn't biological. The conditions shouldn't matter once the love is present.

I would argue that once a being is granted the quality of being 'my child' it hardly ever loses this quality even if later on i find out it is not my biological child.

Therefore it is still a conditional love. It simply has a condition that can not easily cease to exist.

 

[Koldo]

Huh?
How is being a her child a condition?
So are you saying that if it wasn't her child that she would not love the child?

Yes.
Before posting a reply please do consider that once we acknowledge someone as 'my child' it becomes 'my child'.

 

[idav]

I would argue that once a being is granted the quality of being 'my child' it hardly ever loses this quality even if later on i find out it is not my biological child.

Therefore it is still a conditional love. It simply has a condition that can not easily cease to exist.

The choice to love unconditionally may have been made because of some reasons but once unconditional love is present, it shouldn't matter what the conditions are at that point. If we won't draw a line and keep loving no matter what then it qualifies. Some mothers keep loving their serial killer sons though denial may be helping in such a feat. If there is not line then it is unconditional despite whatever it is made you remove the line in the first place.

 

[sojourner]

Simply . . . No.

according to your own scriptures:
-God kills 70,000 innocent people because David ordered a census of the people (1 Chronicles 21)

-God also orders the destruction of 60 cities so that the Israelites can live there. -He orders the killing of all the men, women, and children of each city, and the looting of all of value (Deuteronomy 3)

-He orders another attack and the killing of “all the living creatures of the city: men and women, young, and old, as well as oxen sheep, and asses” (Joshua 6)

-In (Judges 21) He orders the murder of all the people of Jabesh-gilead

Just about every other page in the Old Testament has God killing somebody!
-In (2 Kings 10:18-27) God orders the murder of all the worshipers of a different god in their very own church!

In total God kills 371,186 people directly and orders another 1,862,265 people murdered.

So? Since these stories are told, not as historical reenactments, but as theological examples, and since they are told by believers for believers, I don't think we can extrapolate from them what you're trying to extrapolate. The audience's concept of universality was far different from ours, so the stories here don't point to the concept of unconditional love, and to force them to do so merely weakens your position.

 

[Koldo]

The choice to love unconditionally may have been made because of some reasons but once unconditional love is present, it shouldn't matter what the conditions are at that point. If we won't draw a line and keep loving no matter what then it qualifies. Some mothers keep loving their serial killer sons though denial may be helping in such a feat. If there is not line then it is unconditional despite whatever it is made you remove the line in the first place.

Those mothers keep loving their serial killers sons because they are still their sons.
The condition still exists.

 

[sojourner]

If there are no conditions for your love to exist/to arise/to cease to exist, then you are going to love everything.

That's not the particular definition of unconditional love that is under debate here, I believe.
However, to humor you, I believe that God does love everything, because God is love.

The parts you want to ignore. Such as the massive death of living beings in the flood.

I'm not ignoring them. At all. But as I've said before, the story has nothing to do with unconditional love, but with the righteous remnant. So it's quite simply wrong to use the story to "prove" that God's love is conditional.

So i am not part of the audience, and i can't have my own conclusions from the story?

Not if your conclusions aren't based in a proper exegesis.

If this was the case, what/who would grant you the right to speak for the said audience?

I'm not speaking for said audience. But my exegetical technique has a more solid base than yours.

 

[sojourner]

Unconditional Love is capable by the 'supposed' children of this god, yet this god is incapable of it "Himself".

I don't see where either of these things has been proven by the thread.

 

[sojourner]

Unconditional love is love without any conditions. Simple as this.

You don't get to make up a definition and then come along and use that contrived definition to prove everyone else wrong. Such a tortured definition means nothing.

 

[Koldo]

That's not the particular definition of unconditional love that is under debate here, I believe.
However, to humor you, I believe that God does love everything, because God is love.

I am aware that many people tend to define unconditional love as something else entirely.

I'm not ignoring them. At all. But as I've said before, the story has nothing to do with unconditional love, but with the righteous remnant. So it's quite simply wrong to use the story to "prove" that God's love is conditional.

I have never said God's love is conditional.

Not if your conclusions aren't based in a proper exegesis.

Do you realize this sort of argument serves no purpose?
What if i said your conclusions are the ones not based in a proper exegesis?

I'm not speaking for said audience. But my exegetical technique has a more solid base than yours.

Once again, this sort of argument serves no purpose.
What if i said my exegetical technique has a more solid base than yours?

 

[Koldo]

You don't get to make up a definition and then come along and use that contrived definition to prove everyone else wrong. Such a tortured definition means nothing.

Tortured definition?

Unconditional = without conditions
Love = Love

Unconditional love = love without conditions. Can it get any more clear than this?

 

[idav]

Those mothers keep loving their serial killers sons because they are still their sons.
The condition still exists.

Yes but we established that being someones son would also have to not be a condition. Basically to test it you just give them the test of their life and take everything away and see if love still exists. Like god did to Job and he still loved.

 

[Koldo]

Yes but we established that being someones son would also have to not be a condition.

Who did? Surely not me.

Basically to test it you just give them the test of their life and take everything away and see if love still exists. Like god did to Job and he still loved.

Job loved God because God was God ( whatever God meant to Job ).
Job loved God because God was/is what it was/is,and if it were not Job wouldn't have loved God.

 

[Twig pentagram]

After I read the Bible and the Quran I came to the conclusion that their god is not about unconditional love. After reading the answers in this thread I'm still convinced that their god is not about unconditional love.

 

[idav]

Who did? Surely not me.

Because I demonstrated that a parent might still love the child even when they found they weren't biological. That removes the child condition and if love continues at that point it is very much unconditional but again they would have to be tested to find out.

Job loved God because God was God ( whatever God meant to Job ).
Job loved God because God was/is what it was/is,and if it were not Job wouldn't have loved God.

I suspected you would argue that but how far can we possibly take a test. I can only speculate based on the story but of Job found out that God was really a villain in conflict with god and the devil then Job may have not continued. Job gave his servitude and servitude can go to great lengths despite the vices of any master. Anyway, yes if Job changed his mind at any point then his love was conditional but his character had enough tests for my liking to find that the love of Job survived through much hardship.

The thing is for it to be conditional love you would have to actually create the condition for testing otherwise it is speculation. As long as certain conditions didn't change that love then it is unconditional until proven otherwise.

 

[Koldo]

Because I demonstrated that a parent might still love the child even when they found they weren't biological. That removes the child condition and if love continues at that point it is very much unconditional but again they would have to be tested to find out.

And i have already said that once a being is granted the quality of being 'my child' it hardly ever loses this quality even if later on i find out it is not my biological child.

The 'my child' condition still remains. A great example are adopted children. If i have adopted a child it is 'my child' even if i am not its biological father.

I suspected you would argue that but how far can we possibly take a test. I can only speculate based on the story but of Job found out that God was really a villain in conflict with god and the devil then Job may have not continued. Job gave his servitude and servitude can go to great lengths despite the vices of any master. Anyway, yes if Job changed his mind at any point then his love was conditional but his character had enough tests for my liking to find that the love of Job survived through much hardship.

Job's love for God is rather unusual, in my opinion. Still conditional though.
It is hard to make accurate statements over which such conditions could be.
Perhaps it could be because God gave so many things to Job, or maybe because to Job as omnipotent being is deserving of his love no matter what happens.

The thing is for it to be conditional love you would have to actually create the condition for testing otherwise it is speculation. As long as certain conditions didn't change that love then it is unconditional until proven otherwise.

To be honest, this is a matter of logic.
If no particular conditions need to exist for our love to something to arise then we are going to love everything. Do realize that if there are no particular conditions for this love to exist it also lacks a reason to exist.

If you are able to love someone/something for no particular reason then how can you not also love someone/something else? And while at it, how can you not love everything/everyone else?

 

[idav]

To be honest, this is a matter of logic.
If no particular conditions need to exist for our love to something to arise then we are going to love everything. Do realize that if there are no particular conditions for this love to exist it also lacks a reason to exist.

If you are able to love someone/something for no particular reason then how can you not also love someone/something else? And while at it, how can you not love everything/everyone else?

See but this makes one wonder what it takes to actually love your enemy. You would have to have love of your neighbor or a stranger as much as you love yourself. Such love is hard to achieve and may only be realized in moments in certain situations when one might actually put the whole before the self. Rare but it happens.

 

[Vendetta]

Eh koldo you and I are on the same page and you're explaining it better than me