Jordo May 1st, 2009

Is God love or is love God?

We define our existence anthropomorphically from inside the universe outward. What if the universe doesn't make sense that way? What if it only makes sense if you are looking into it from without?

What if the only sane perspective is the almighty's?

Erik May 1st, 2009

Are you saying that love is God?

Chemical Erik May 4th, 2009

Was just reading 1 John in bible study this weekend.

1 John 4:7-8
Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

Sorry for the KJV quote, I'm using a BPBible portable off a flash drive and it doesn't have good and modern translation.

Jordo May 6th, 2009

God is love, and love is God. You assume disparity where none exist. Love is active; it is action. Love is a property of the lover not the beloved. It is the very likeness of the almighty.

Marcia May 7th, 2009

FYI–once you untag yourself from a Facebook picture, no one can "re-tag" it. I know this because my kids are always untagging themselves from pictures of them I've posted. If I try to tag it again, I get a message that I can't, because that person has untagged themselves.

(Now I mostly post pics of them just to be perverse.)

Jordo May 8th, 2009

That's right. Its real!!

http://www.sanicare.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=55

Erik May 8th, 2009

Good work Porter!

Watching Theology May 8th, 2009

Love=God, therefore, when we love, we=God. (Orthodox nazi response)

I think you got a big part of it, but missed the main. The response to Thomas' request (show us the Father) is, "If you've seen the Son [Jesus], you've seen the Father."

That's completely consistent with 1 John. If you want to know God, he is known in how he loves (which is actually what John 3:16 says: God loved the world like so: he gave his Son). In other words, it may be tempting to move straight from God to love and think, "I love, therefore I have/am God." But that misses what both passages puts at the center. God loves us in Christ. We love as Christ loved. The equation, and all practice, is meaningless apart from a center of Christ.

If we want to show God, we show Christ. How do we do that? That's a different question. Love, yes. There are other ways that we show Christ (although love may be chief among them): word and sacrament, etc. But always, love is found and perfectly expressed in Christ, who is himself the exact representation of God.

ps. I'm not sure if you started to move to a mystical body/soul division. Ask your Hebrew professor about the word "Nephesh."

Erik May 8th, 2009

I'm not saying when we love we = God. I'm saying we are the body of Christ, filled with His Spirit and children of His Father, and that our love is proof of that. That doesn't mean we're God, but we are one with His Son by marriage.

All that is now, temporally. However, when we see Him we will be like Him (not…we will be Him), we will be like Him. We will see that we are perfectly loved in Christ and the result will be our likeness to that love.

So, there is a consummation yet to come, however when "…we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us." (1 John 4:12) What I was saying is that love is action and God is love. Being invited into the Body of Christ is to be invited into the action that is the loving communion and eternal union of Father, Son and Spirit.

Erik May 8th, 2009

Oh, on the body/soul thing…I don't think we have a body and a soul, that we're dual natured. I believe we are body and soul…one nature, the nexus of the spiritual and material world.

Chemical Erik May 8th, 2009

I'm feeling concerned about how we define love = GOD. My first reaction is to say that is idolatry. But that's based on how I would define "love = GOD". For instance: we don't worship love, but rather worship GOD with love. God is love, but is also more than love.

I'm necessarily disagreeing with anyone here, but seeking clarification because I'm not sure what's being said.

Erik May 9th, 2009

I don't know if I'd say love is God. That's probably because of how I've come to define love after 37 years of rock songs and movies. But I'm really comfortable saying God = love (the loving process of divine Trinitarian fellowship).

If you put "God" on the left side of the equal sign it communicates something about the primacy of the divine person who is love. When "love" is on the left side of the equal sign, the first thing you think about is the nebulous force in all those ballads and chick flicks. You don't think about the supreme being who is then described as love. The statement "God is love" seems to elevate love to the level of divine personality while "Love is God" seems to pull God down.

However, speaking purely mathematically, a = b therefore b = a. Doesn't really matter how you write it.

Anyway, that being said, let me take another shot at expressing what I've been thinking.

God is love. He is the loving relationship of Father, Son and Spirit in unity. Love is action. John says that we shouldn't love in word only, but in deed. Jesus said that there's no greater love than to lay down your life for the loved ones. Love isn't static, it's not a feeling, it's a process. It's displayed in action.

What I'm saying is that God has called us into the eternal relationship of the Trinity in the Body of His Son to enjoy the love Father has for Himself in the Son and to be filled with His Spirit and as a result, love as He loves. God's not some far off old white guy that we'll see one day. He is experienced when we join Him in the action of love.

1 John 4:16 - "God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him."

What's been hitting me is that union with God is as easy as loving. People want to see God, to have proof He exists. Well…

1 John 4:12 - "No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us."

The wind blows, the trees move, and you know the wind exists because you see the effects of the wind. Wind is action…like love…like God. We are the trees.

John 3:8 - "The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."

I'm just riffing here…enjoying myself, but still riffing. What do you think? How does it sound to you?

Chemical Erik May 11th, 2009

I'm thinking an "=" isn't appropriate as I'm looking at this a little longer. "God is Love" isn't the same as "God = Love". It's subtle, but important. God created love and all love flows from God. Love is critical and inseparable from who God is and what God does. Yet love is not a substitute for God.

My undertanding is that if we show love as a response and worship of God, we're acting biblically. If we seek to love others apart from God or as an act above worshipping God, we will not understand love sufficiently and act in misguided ways. We may attempt to love by support people in acts that are self abusing. We may fail to love ourselves in sacrifice to others.

God is love and in order for us to love we must recognize the source from which love flows.

Jordo May 12th, 2009

Ah, so God is love, but love is not necessarily God. Hmm…

Blah-di-blah, blah, blah! Words; its all just words. We've already lost the ADD's, ADHD's, and we are soon to loose the dyslexics (who by the by always believed love is dog).

Chemical Erik May 13th, 2009

Words make thoughts. Thoughts form beliefs. Beliefs inspire actions. Actions define our lives.
Also, dogs are very loving.

Jordo May 13th, 2009

The form the structure of our thinking. A structure can support but it will also define and even restrict that which it supports. Words bind.

Erik May 13th, 2009

Chemical,

It works the other way too. Experience inspires beliefs and beliefs effect our thoughts about the meaning of words.

The word love could mean something totally different to you than it does to me. Case in point, you said…

If we seek to love others apart from God or as an act above worshipping God, we will not understand love sufficiently and act in misguided ways. We may attempt to love by support people in acts that are self abusing. We may fail to love ourselves in sacrifice to others.

In my mind, insufficient and misguided love that does not flow from union with God is not love. Enabling abuse is not a little bit of love and affection mixed with impure motives. Enabling abuse isn't love at all. Same with self-sacrifice. If it's not self-sacrificial love, then it's not the "kind" of love I'm talking about.

John 15:13 "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."

I'm talking about pure, unadulterated, divine love (as if there were another kind). When we love like that, we participate in the action that is the essence of God. God is love.

What I'm trying to say is, maybe the reason you don't like the statement God = Love is because to you that's like saying God = the devotion of a slobbering animal.

George McFly May 13th, 2009

I like slobbering animals.

Chemical Erik May 14th, 2009

Jordo - words can bind. They are but a tool that adds power to thoughts. That which is put forth as spoken and written words is greater in power than that which stays in our heads. It can be more power to bind and hurt, or more power to love and heal.

Erik - I think you've got me totally wrong on that last post. I said "attempt to love". Never claimed that was love and never would. I don't like "God = Love" because it implies we can apply mathematical rule to the statement. Most of all "Love = God", which is often read "Love is equal to God". While if fully understood this is true, but isn't easy to understand and leaves a huge opening for confusion and manipulation. Those confusions and manipulations are what I was discussing in my last post.

"Keep everything as simple as possible, but no simpler" - Albert Einstien

Erik May 14th, 2009

Chemical,

Sorry I didn't understand what you were saying. After reading your last post, we may be saying similar things with regard to the a = b, b = a thing.

When it comes to the Biblical statement, "God is love," it would be informative to know the meaning of the word "is" in the original language before assigning it an equal sign. It depends on what your definition of "is" is.

Even if we stick with "is," like you said, when we say "If God is love, then love is God" that may be technically true, but requires quite a bit of discussion and qualification to fully reach mutual understanding.

Ah well, such is life. I'm going to go eat Thai food again and avoid talking about anything of consequence with my counselor.

Hope I didn't offend Chemical.

Chemical Erik May 14th, 2009

Erik - Absolutely zero offense taken. I was just trying to clarify myself. Enjoy the Thai, I think that's what I'll have tomorrow from the awesome little Thai street stand here in downtown Denver. Today it's clam chowder from the microwave.

Jim Lee May 15th, 2009

To say that God is love is not the same thing as saying "love is God." The first is telling us that we can know that one of the defining attributes of this being called "God" is the characteristic of love. Since God is not necessarily limited to this one attribute, therefore love is not God.
Scripture also says that "God is a consuming fire." No one whose house is being burned down would point to it and say that the fire is God.
Language is not the same as math. "Is" in this case does not mean "equals."

Jordo May 18th, 2009

Ahhh! The gummy bears are eating my brains!

Guys, chill. I wasn't flaming any wars! I was just being funny, having fun, poking fun, and as Yoda would say (had he not lived in a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away), "joking, I was!"

So I saw the Star Trek movie. I really liked it, and I'm not a trekie or treker or whatever the nerds are calling themselves these days. You should see it. They've reinvented the franchise, made it cool (if that's possible), and believe it or not the deciles of Roddenberry won't get cranky. They found the ultimate loop hole– a black hole!

OK, so I own the entire series of Star Trek: The Next Generation. But I enjoy it from a purely narrative aspect. I just want to know that I've encapsulated a Star Wars AND Star Trek reference into a single comment post. Fellow nerds (alright I admit it), can't we all just get along.

Jordo May 18th, 2009

I'm sorry the word deciles is Yiddish for disciples. I realized that most people wouldn't get the allusion– screw it, the stupid spell checker mis-checked the word and I was oblivious to it. I meant disciples.

For your further edification:
decile noun (from Statistics): (1) Any one of the numbers or values in a series dividing the distribution of the individuals in the series into ten groups of equal frequency. (2) Any one of the ten groups.

linda brooks June 12th, 2009

I liked the comment about losing ADDer's. U were right to say that. LOL. But the most interesting thing of all is that I was showering today and noticed the toes of my left foot were giving the vulcan handshake. It was so funny that i couldn't stop laughing because of the creed that goes with it. I broke my toe when moving to a new house in the last three months. You can't do much but just splint a broken toe. The Vulcan hand signal is so cool and now my Big toe has a new friend and creedo. LOL.