Is God's Love Really Unconditional ? ---

[dreamerman]

So god's love is unconditional only when you accept his son? You only have one chance to accept his son in this life time. Is this correct so far? So when you come before your maker at judgement time you can't say I accept Christ because I have seen him? You blew your chance at believing in god and jesus in this life time. These questions are for unsafe and airclean. So no three strikes and you are out?

 

[unsafe]

Mystic ---your quote ----- But don't you contradict yourself here?

This is my view -----

There is contradiction in what I posted -----Unconditional Love has no conditions ----and here we see it being conditional-----

1. God's particular, effective, selecting love toward his elect"
2. God's provisional or conditional love for his people - conditioned upon obedience

Unconditional Love has no conditions ------and this is where I feel people confuse God's Blessings with God's love -----God Loves all people -----Blessings and Curses were based on Obedience not Love on God's part ---all up to the person and their love for God to obey His ways or not -----God's love was always in place even when people choose not to obey Him -----all sin has consequences -----and that goes for us today as well -----as far as the elect goes God is not a respecter of persons Jesus died to save us we choose to accept or reject ---God's Love is present in our choice -----

 

[Mystic]

The Bible teaches not that God has love as one of His many qualities, but rather that God is love in His essence. At the same time, the Bible teaches that God requires us to respond to Him of our own free will, and so, will not force us to embrace Him. So what about those who die after a life of rejecting God's overtures? Are they permanently doomed to Gehemma, Jesus' term for "Hell?" If so, that would repudiate the claim that God's love is unconditional. At death, God stops loving in any meaningful way those who choose separation from Him.

But the Bible repeatedly claims that God does not want anyone to perish. If an unconditionally loving God is omnipotent, then does this not mean that God's love will continue to pursue even those in Gehenna after death? Several NT texts imply just such a pursuit--a second chance. But what if they forever persist in their refusal to respond to God's grace and overtures? Then according to Paul, they face soul annihilation by their choice, not God's. As writer, C. S. Lewis elegantly puts it, "The Gates of Hell are locked from the inside."

Several other questions might be posed to challenge the claim the God's love is unconditional. But in my view, the foregoing line of reasoning points the biblical way to the answer. True, some claim that all the Hell there is is in on earth. But that claim simply rejects biblical teaching and therefore can't claim to speak for the God of the NT.

 

[blackbelt1961]

so I posted on that you tube channel, that there doctrine is false , and to me surprise , They respond, see below there response

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The term "unconditional love" is not found in Scripture; none of the church fathers ever used the term; nor did any other Christian author before the 20th century. In other words, the Church survived almost 2000 years without ever using the term "unconditional love." As a matter of fact, since its introduction into the Church we have seen sin and corruption flourish while love and righteousness have diminished. Ironically, far from being a Biblical term it was actually coined by Erich Fromm, an atheist, in 1934. He rejected all forms of authoritarian government including God's. Not only did he not see God’s love as unconditional He portrayed the God of the Old Testament as a self-seeking authoritarian. As an atheist he argued against the fundamentals of the Christian faith. Sproul and MacArthur have a combined total of close to a hundred years of studying their Bibles regularly, if not daily. That doesn’t mean they are without error but to accuse them of the serious charge of being false teachers based on so little evidence to back it up is quite arrogant. Here are a just a few examples, of many, in Scripture that backup their teaching; "Indeed, I [God] came to hate them there! [ apostate Israel] Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of My house! I will love them no more." (Hosea 9:15). "The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked, And the one who loves violence His [God's] soul hates (Ps. 11:5). "The boastful shall not stand in Your sight; You [God] hate all workers of iniquity" (Ps. 5:5). "And you shall not walk in the statutes of the nation which I am casting out before you; for they commit all these things, and therefore I [God] abhor them" (Lev. 20:23) "These six things the Lord hates, Yes, seven are an abomination to Him: A proud look, A lying tongue, Hands that shed innocent blood, A heart that devises wicked plans, Feet that are swift in running to evil, A false witness who speaks lies, And one who sows discord among brethren" (Prov. 6:16-19) Yes, God is a God of love but if we reject His love and grace He will reject us. "Let no one deceive you with empty words....the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience" (Eph. 5:5, 6)

 

[airclean33]

Judgmental much?

And how bad are you Airclean? Maybe it's time you took a good look at yourself before you judge others on not knowing good from evil. You and Unsafe share an archaic and out-dated doctrine that says that God can and does send any one to hell at any time, and all because he has total sovereignty over us, like some evil overlord demanding praise and glory and threatening us if he doesn't get it. You are so wrong.

The only real hell that exists is right here on Earth, and the more you don't get that, the more you will keep returning here, over and over again. The law of cycles applies to ignorance as well as to sin.

What's your problem Neo. Do you not understand GOD is every were and sees your sin and yes mine to. Do you think my sin some how makes yours ok? I am not sure your meaning about returning hear over an over again.. Do you believe in reincarnation ? I do not ,an would hope one trip though life is enough.

 

[Neo]

What's your problem Neo. Do you not understand GOD is every were and sees your sin and yes mine to. Do you think my sin some how makes yours ok? I am not sure your meaning about returning hear over an over again.. Do you believe in reincarnation ? I do not ,an would hope one trip though life is enough.

You have a tendency to come across very judgmental Airclean. It's not the first time you've done so.

"Over and over again"? Yes, I believe in reincarnation. One trip through life is hardly enough to become "perfect" in the eyes of the Lord.

 

[Neo]

True, some claim that all the Hell there is is in on earth. But that claim simply rejects biblical teaching and therefore can't claim to speak for the God of the NT.

Biblical teaching is subjective according to interpretation.

 

[Mystic]

I also rise to declare that not only am I stupid, I am also wicked, wicked, wicked.

No, I think that at heart you are a very kind fellow who teaches Sunday School because he loves little children. But aside from your thread on Volf, you almost never engage your readers with the attempted depth of understanding that should be expected from a seminarian. And since you champion the message of God's love, you should at least be able to articulate whether God's love is unconditional and what that means and doesn't mean. By contrast, neither Unsafe nor Airclean are seminarians, but I admire their attempts to engage topics biblically, courageously, and in some depth based on diligent efforts to discover online support for their claims.

 

[Mystic]

Biblical teaching is subjective according to interpretation.

No, there is such a thing as the established findings of scholarship. "Gehenna' in the Gospels and in early rabbinic literatures is beyond question a dimension of postmortem punishment.

 

[Neo]

No, there is such a thing as the established findings of scholarship. "Gehenna' in the Gospels and in early rabbinic literatures is beyond question a dimension of postmortem punishment.

I don't believe there is such a thing as an "established findings of scholarship" regarding Gehenna or Hell or Hades, it's all theology and doctrine and is hardly "beyond question".

According to Rabbi Baruch HaLevi, at jewishboston.com, "there isn’t one definitive understanding of life after death or heaven and hell. As the saying goes, “Two Jews, three opinions.” So believe what you want, because ultimately Judaism doesn’t care what you believe, but rather what you do." I like this guy, 'cause this what I've always said: it's not "what" you believe but "how" you believe.

I personally don't believe the Christian descriptions of hell, but rather agree more the Tibetan Master DK, who in our modern times said the following regarding the Christian belief in hell:

"Another fear which induces mankind to regard death as a calamity, is one which theological religion has inculcated, particularly the Protestant fundamentalists, and the Roman Catholic Church - the fear of hell, the imposition of penalties, usually out of all proportion to the errors of a life-time, and the terrors imposed by an angry God. To these man is told he will have to submit, and from them there is no escape, except through the vicarious atonement. There is, as you well know, no angry God, no hell, and no vicarious atonement. There is only a great principle of love animating the entire universe; there is the Presence of the Christ, indicating to humanity the fact of the soul and that we are saved by the livingness of that soul, and the only hell is the earth itself, where we learn to work out our own salvation, actuated by the principle of love and light, and incited thereto by the example of the Christ, and the inner urge of our own souls. This teaching anent hell is a remainder of the sadistic turn which was given to the thinking of the Christian Church in the Middle Ages, and to the erroneous teaching to be found in the Old Testament anent Jehovah, the tribal God of the Jews. Jehovah is not God, the planetary Logos, the Eternal Heart of Love Whom Christ revealed. As these erroneous ideas die out, the concept of hell will fade from man's recollection, and its place will be taken by an understanding of the law which makes each man work out his own salvation upon the physical plane, which leads him to right the wrongs which he may have perpetrated in his lives on Earth, and which enables him eventually to "clean his own slate".
- Esoteric Healing, A.A.Bailey

If you believe I'm committing some kind of a mortal sin for not believing in a literal hell, a hell that torments and tortures souls for all eternity, then well .., that's your problem, not mine.

 

[Luce NDs]

Bad to the bone ... the trash in one mans story are the bones of another ... haunting see-through support systems ... this would be psyche ... skeleton?

 

[Luce NDs]

postmortem punishment ... you did know that forensics are subjective to mortal law? Kinda like McNaughton's Rule on insane ... you can be crazy as hell as long as the law doesn't see it ... thus aspirations to drift about the law as essence of good sense ... an elusive thing with authorities' on the bible as law and not just a myth about mankind's failure to learn?

Ever observe an authoritarian pathological sort ... that passes as sane? There are books on those forbidden attributes ... citii's, acronyms' for chaos! Yet people cannot accept the theories on chaos!

If you do pathological etudes without license ... you could be arrested ... why those ancient investigators of dead people escaped to the forests of Gaul, or Gael ... the scape goats of Medici's and Borges's? In modern times we even had Tom Sawyer who passed off the whitewashing of slabs of the inscribed trees making a wall between reality and subtle virtue ...

What's a secondary orges ... but beta-orgies ... "Borges's" fit that behaviour when you consider what Lucretius' father did to her ... but can a lesser person condemn a Pope? Not by church law ... immoral inquisition, or a fifth of amendments ... to heck with unravelling history ... simply unwind the elusive myths ... buried in the hysterical story? Freudian slide ... slip into the subconscious?

Isn't there a tome being studied called Unwind ... can sects do it, or is that something else?

 

[Jaebius]

No, I think that at heart you are a very kind fellow who teaches Sunday School because he loves little children.

Thank you for the compliment Mystic.

But aside from your thread on Volf, you almost never engage your readers with the attempted depth of understanding that should be expected from a seminarian.

Okay. I believe we may different approaches toward being at Wondercafe2. I primarily visit and post as a break from my seminary studies. My interest is thus not in sounding like a seminarian. I'm just here to hang out and chat with some good people. You seem more interested in approaching the site as an intellectual who wants to seriously discuss theological topics. That's fine, but it isn't really what I'm primarily here for.

And since you champion the message of God's love, you should at least be able to articulate whether God's love is unconditional and what that means and doesn't mean.

Earlier in the thread, I did post this - "As for the question of God's love - that we can speak of unconditional love, a greater love than conditional love, suggests that it is the kind of love which God who is greater than we are has."

By contrast, neither Unsafe nor Airclean are seminarians, but I admire their attempts to engage topics biblically, courageously, and in some depth based on diligent efforts to discover online support for their claims.

Okay.

 

[Luce NDs]

Again it appears the bible is taken forensically ... or by law ... contrary to the Jesu sway to using the bible as a guide to differentiate among the severe conflicts found there ... those appreciative brutes can't see the more delicate parts ...

Conflicts in a tome ... is that almost like a dissonant psyche? Brain storm or just dervish when you dig out what's hidden under the carpet ... a broad-cloth? It is said to support and hide character primarily wholly ... but later for cottoning ... unravel that singularity ... a Maas of threads?

Never express virtue ... bury it in membrane ... or the authority that doesn't like their failures expressed truthfully will get you ... look what the monarchists did to people like Thomas A Moor! Without sense of silence ... he would have been dissociated into quarters or even more ... disheartening as well as quartered out of reality? That's de aft part ... hermeneutic ... from which you observe the past but can't impact it with touché! Can't cut it out ... in the timeless view brutality just goes on ... cause we don't know beta ... that's a second breath after the gasp ... sort 've a duality or a' deus 've attribute? Advocates interference with free wiles ...

Kahn that ... that's the inn ...

 

[Mendalla]

"As for the question of God's love - that we can speak of unconditional love, a greater love than conditional love, suggests that it is the kind of love which God who is greater than we are has.".

But if God's love is unconditional, does that mean he loved the folks he drowned in the flood? Because if he did not, that implies conditions on his love, but if he did, he had a funny way of showing it (rather like saying the US loved the people of Hiroshima).

 

[Luce NDs]

Does not God's love differentiate hate literature as a hard thing? Thus the airy version ... common exchange as hommoe*illy!

Some can't do it right without adept 've understanding ...

 

[revjohn]

They suggest that Preaching God's Love is Unconditional needs to be changed --------do you agree or disagree

I think that they raise interesting points. Points that are definitely worthy of consideration.

From a Reformed perspective the only thing we describe as unconditional is God's election of individuals to salvation. This would, on the face of it, require that the love which is expressed as grace to the elect to remain steadfast and unchanging. It should go without saying that the love expressed to others as justice is also steadfast and unchanging. That these two sides of the same coin exist is disconcerting and the only thing that holds these sides together is truth.

And part of truth is accepting that God's love, while steadfast and unchanging, doesn't result in either grace or justice but a balance of both grace and justice.

God may be content to accept individuals as they are there is nothing in scripture that suggests God is pleased for the individual to remain as they are.

How many times in scripture do we read about God turning God's face away from or towards an individual? How many times do we read humans fearing the one and adoring the other? How many times do we hear God threatening the one or the other? Does a love that is steadfast and endures forever never exercise any kind of power or authority?

Dialing it back a bit from the Divine to the Human. How many of us swallow everything the people we love dish out? Do we not see our loved ones act unjustly? Does that boil within? If it does are we unloving? If it doesn't do we actually love? Do we even care?

The concerns raised by Sproul and MacArthur certainly do not jive with the teachings of Osteen and Schuller. And to be perfectly frank, I think that I would much rather listen to Sproul and MacArthur than either Osteen or Schuller. Of course, anyone with any knowledge of the four know that only three of them are affiliated with Reformed theology (Calvinism). So you think I would be favourably biased to at least three of the four.

Sproul and MacArthur are less likely to be described as ear-tickly. Which doesn't make them wrong. It makes them less popular. It also doesn't mean that they are always right. MacArthur has some embarrasing thoughts that he owns (Young Earth Creationsim, Dispensationalism, Complementarianism and Nouthetic Counselling. Sproul comes with some warts also. Ask a Roman Catholic. Of course if Schuller had been on track you would think that his ministry would have faired better. Pay attention Osteen.

I wouldn't go so far as to say God's love is conditional. That means it can be manipulated by doing the right thing. I am hesitant to suggest God's love is unconditional. That gives the impression it accepts everything and rejects nothing.

There is a balance in there somewhere.

 

[unsafe]

There seems to be great confusion by many on is God's Love Conditional or Unconditional -----

This is an article on this giving pros and cons for anyone who is interested -----

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/kermitzarleyblog/2013/05/is-unconditional-love-a-biblical-concept/

This is the first few lines of this article -------
Is Unconditional Love a Biblical Concept?

May 10, 2013byKermit Zarley12 Comments

Yes and no. First of all, what is it? Unconditional love is the acceptance of a person without him or her meeting any conditions. In other words, it means having affection for someone without establishing limitations. So, unconditional love means loving someone irrespective of that person’s behavior.
This popular idea of unconditional love is quite contrary to much of what God says in the Bible.

 

[Jaebius]

But if God's love is unconditional, does that mean he loved the folks he drowned in the flood?

I believe that he did love them Mendalla.

Because if he did not, that implies conditions on his love, but if he did, he had a funny way of showing it (rather like saying the US loved the people of Hiroshima).

Here I think you're creating a false dichotomy between love and judgment. God's love and his justice, I believe, work together. They are both attributes of the same God.

"We know that God's attributes work harmoniously. The idea that justice and love conflict, is the result of the attributes being defined in isolation from one another. In other words, in order to understand justice, we need to understand God's love. In order to understand His love, we need to understand His justice." - (source: http://www.allaboutgod.com/gods-love-and-justice-faq.htm)

The United States (thankfully) is not Sovereign King over all Creation.

 

[Waterfall]

But if God's love is unconditional, does that mean he loved the folks he drowned in the flood? Because if he did not, that implies conditions on his love, but if he did, he had a funny way of showing it (rather like saying the US loved the people of Hiroshima).

God did give warnings prior to the flood for 120 years, waiting for the people to repent and stop their wicked ways. And although some might think that is putting a condition on love, I see it more as an abundant love by trying to prevent someone from harming themselves while living within the boundaries of free will. Many warnings were given that most ignored.