LOVING GOD: EXCLUSIVE LOVE
The doctrine is you love God alone directly and
you love others because God is so connected to them and they are so important to
him and created by him for that amounts to another way of loving God.
LOVE GOD ALONE!
Jesus Christ was asked what the greatest commandment was in the Old Testament.
He said that it was the command to love God with all one's heart and soul and
mind and strength. He said the second greatest commandment was to love one’s
neighbour as oneself.
As God supposedly has to stomach evil for the sake of a greater good, it follows
that you might never be happy in this life or the next. So what use is God to
you then? Believers would urge to you to drop the idea that happiness is the
supreme good. They say that being morally good is. This doctrine teaches that the meaning of life is not to be happy -
because not everybody can be okay forever - but to love and serve. But you don't need
God for that.
Jesus' doctrine that we must love God wholly shows no concern for
us being loved by God. He did not command, "You must try to settle for the
infinite love of God and this is the first and greatest commandment."
God roughly means the supernatural being that is solely entitled to your concern
and your love because he is the source of love and goodness and even human
goodness really comes from him and no other source.
Does this mean that God should be good or believed to be good?
Actually there is greater heroism in loving a God that is evil than one that is
good. If evil is caused by error as religion says then clearly the evil person
should get the most love if it has to be him or some good person. If we should
love without looking for anything back the only way to be sure is to love a God
who does not really give a toss about us.
The Christian faith says that you must love God with all your heart and soul and
strength and mind. God and Jesus emphasise that in the Bible.
If you love God passionately you can’t see if you love others properly. Love
blinds. If you love God with all your heart or more than anything, it would be
hard to see if you really love your neighbour. God gets your attention. No
wonder those who claim to be extremely holy are often cruel.
The Church may say that love of God and love of neighbour go together. But if I
love my child with all my heart and soul and mind that does not necessarily mean
I must love others too. I wouldn't even have to love his nurse. The only way to
make sense of the Church teaching is to argue that loving God and obeying him go
together. He must command me to serve my neighbour. Therefore if you love God
you have to obey him by loving your neighbour. Jesus stated that loving God
means obeying him. He said that he who loves God will keep the commandments.
The command to love God with all your mind does not mean God approves of your
power to think and avoid contradictions. It really means you let God tell you
how to reason and think. It forbids you to think for yourself. The Christians
have never taught that the more we use our minds the more we can love God. They
do not expect all people to be academics.
"Love God by loving your neighbour for it is his will". This command cannot mean
you are being asked to care emotionally for God. Indeed it implies a cold
obedience is what is asked for.
True love for God means loving him because he is good in himself. To love him
because he is pleasant or good for you is to love what you get out of him not
him. It is valuing what he does and not what he is. God is not necessarily good
for you even if he is good. True love of God means you would love him if he had
reason to let you suffer horrendously forever.
Some say the more you love your neighbour the more you love God for he loves
them. This mistakes benefiting God for loving him. It is simply wrong. Look at
the motive!
The Catholic doctrine that our love for God is measured by how hard we try to
keep his commandments is ridiculous. What would we think of a person who said
that a wife’s love for her husband is measured by her obedience to her husband?
We obey the law but does that mean we really love it or trust it?
Laws that consider people not God are against God. No system of law can be
perfectly just. Not even God’s. Nor is it meant to be. God’s law is necessarily
only perfect under the circumstances. Every law hurts some innocent no matter
how fair the makers of the law tried to make it.
God makes it a duty for you to love. Love should not be an obligation. You
cannot obligate anybody to love. Those who say that those who reject love will
go to Hell forever for there is no love there are blackmailing those who fail to
love. To present people with a God who is love or whose law is love is to
oppress them. It accuses people who don’t make a bigger effort to love of being
partly partial to the everlasting despair and punishment of Hell.
This commandment to love God with all our heart and strength does not tell us to
put God first. Rather it tells us that all the loving we do must be for his
sake. We love our neighbour to please God and not the neighbour. This love does
not really value the neighbour except as a means to please God. If we feel
affection for another, we must make sure that it is only allowed for God’s
benefit. So strictly speaking, you are to love God alone.
If you put God first, that only means you love him and love others but you love
him the most. You do not give him all your heart.
Many do not like the suggestion that they are to love God alone for they want to
love themselves. Sadly for them Jesus did not command self-love.
Telling us to look after our neighbour as yourself only means he sees you do
look after yourself or you would not be alive but does not indicate any
approval. What gets the approval is looking after your neighbour. He is
only saying we love ourselves not that it is right to or that we should.
Why is it so important to some people that we believe in
God and a specific kind of God at that? What is wrong with a vague sense of
powers that can help us if we tune into them? Their stance shows more concern
for dogma than for human welfare. It shows a level of intolerance.
Do we need a God to love?
We are better to love the living and our dear departed. They are better role
models for us. They are practical role models. It does not matter if you worship
a poster of Britney Spears as long as you feel happier and keener to do good
because of it. It is okay if it is the best for you.
We sum up by saying that giving all your love to God even if you succeed at doing no harm to people still shows it is not about them. That is fanaticism and you will fail. You will never succeed. Trying to balance God and a devaluing of people will not work. And we need some self-love too. We don't need the narcissistic version commanded by some but we need it.