DO WE WANT GOD'S UNCONDITIONAL LOVE?

 

How real is unconditional love that cannot be proven?  Not caring what a person does or what she is like is a way of not caring about the person.  Unless God can suffer infinitely for all eternity for you he cannot say he loves you unconditionally for such love would be an action thing.  God is a hypocrite if it is all about words.

 

What if you are told God loves you unconditionally?  Part of you senses that it is a lie.  Religion says, "It appears that it is very difficult to accept that you are loved unconditionally by God. This leads to you being hostile to him for you have a problem with yourself and cannot relate to his love or because you are sceptical that his love is genuine or both. The same thing will happen if you think God, without conditions, loves those who hate.  If they hate you you will be angry at God for loving them."  Realistically love cannot be separated totally from what a person does.  Proper unconditional love does involve a willingness to condone what a dangerous person does.

 

God tells nobody face to face that he loves them unconditionally. You can feel manipulated when he has to send messengers to do it.
 

Jesus in Luke 6:32-33 says that loving people who are good to you is nothing to be happy about. There is no sacrifice in it. Jesus here is supposed to be telling us true love is loving those who hurt us and that God is like that too. He loves sinners.

 

The doctrine that God loves his creatures unconditionally is wrapped up like a present to lure people into the Church. It is deployed to condition people so that the Church will have buttons inside them to press to get more control over their hearts and minds.

 

The doctrine that God loves you unconditionally is useful for emotional blackmail.

 

So is the doctrine that this love is unlimited in strength.

 

So is the doctrine that if God could suffer centuries of agony and die just for you he would.

 

So is the doctrine that God became man to die for you on the cross to save you from mankind's fall into sin.  (There is no unconditional redemption from the fall!  That cannot fit God's love!).

 

So is the doctrine that ignoring or rejecting God's love means you are very bad.

 

Emotional blackmail or not the doctrines put pressure on you to make a big grateful response in love to this love.  But pressuring to love will only do one thing and one thing only: backfire.
 
Everybody these days think they want to be loved unconditionally. They are not satisfied with people loving them for what they look like or what kind or endearing ways they have. But belief in God strictly prohibits unconditional love between human beings. The only person to be loved unconditionally is God while others are to be loved on the condition that it pleases God so it is not unconditional love. It is conditional on whether God wants it done or not. If he said not to love them then it would not be done. That is not really loving others at all. It is exploiting them with charm and good deeds to please God. They are a means to an end. It is not love at all for they are just tools to please God with. Would you really want the unconditional love of a God who wants to warp human nature and human relationships?
 
The notion of a God who asks you to love others unconditionally only for the sake of loving him is incoherent.
 
I would rather be loved for my bank balance than to be loved for a being who may not even exist for that is closer to loving me. At least my bank balance is mine and I worked for it. At least the person who loves me for my balance can think that it was good of me to make that money while nobody can say God has a reason for unconditionally loving me. You will plainly see the fanaticism of loving God now.
 
To say that God loves me unconditionally should mean that God loves me because I am a person and not because of what I do. (If my personhood were that important then he wouldn’t let me go to Hell forever but he does.) It is boastful because it is not enough for me to realise that being a living person means I am an absolute value. I have to do one better and act as if the supreme being values me too which makes me for valuable for everything he does is perfect.
 
Most people promote belief in God for they think it’s a necessary belief for living a moral life. If we are not obligated to do all we do for God himself alone then there is no point in believing in God for the sake of morality. What if we do it mainly for God but not exclusively for him? If we can be good to one another and not be doing it for God's sake or are just doing it partly for his sake then he can be done without. So to believe in God is to say that God is the goal of all you do or that he should be. God commands unconditional love for God - for to love God or anything conditionally is really to love the conditions more than them. It is easier to imagine you love a good being unconditionally because unconditional love by definition should be hard if the object of your love is imperfect or in some way bad.

 

You will never be able to tell if your unconditional love for God is real. It is only when a person turns nasty that you will know if you really love them or not. Therefore it must be better to love evil beings than to love God for that makes your love more sincere and proves that it is genuine. This conclusion is unacceptable so we perceive that God is the enemy of right and wrong. Therefore to call on people to love God and do all the good they do for his sake is very very wrong.

 

"Love seeks nothing back." But this does not make love selfless. In fact it is putting freedom into action for always doing things for returns feels like bondage.  So not seeking anything back is necessary for getting the real reward - the sense of freedom.  God cannot unconditionally love you and you cannot unconditionally love him or anybody else.  Not admitting there is a condition makes the problem worse not better.  An unconditional love based on the lie that you really want nothing back and don't take anything from loving is only a counterfeit. 

 

We struggle enough with unconditional love on human terms but God and the like only gives us more headaches and questions.  Spiritual people want your  foundation to be this unconditional divine love but are no help when this foundation is found wanting and unsatisfying.
 
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