Posted on 06/15/2021 3:50:58 AM PDT by Kaslin
Unconditional love is neither biblical nor rational nor moral.
Can you name anything good that is or should be given with no moral or ethical conditions?
Take salary, for example: Do you see a problem with continuing to pay employees no matter how they perform? In other words, do you see a problem with unconditional salaries?
The question is rhetorical.
If people believe they will receive the same salary no matter how well or poorly they work, few will work hard. The fact that a worker can be fired is precisely what prevents most people from slacking off.
Furthermore, paying the same salary to the lazy and careless worker as to the hardworking and responsible one is so unfair that it would completely undermine workplace morale.
Now substitute love for salary.
If everyone received the same amount of love no matter how terrible or beautiful their actions, wouldn't that create the same problems as unconditional salaries?
If we gave everyone the same amount of love no matter how they behaved, what would motivate anyone to behave better? And would it be fair? If kind, self-sacrificing, responsible people were to receive no more love than narcissists, murderers and thieves, the world would be a far more unjust place than it already is.
Unconditional love is no more desirable, no more fair and no more goodness-inducing than unconditional salary. Yet, remarkably, unconditional love has become the great human and even divine ideal.
This is a recent development.
Google charts the use of words and terms in English-language books from the beginning of the 19th century until the present. If you look at its chart for the term "unconditional love," you will learn that until the 1970s, the term almost never appeared in English-language books. And then, all of a sudden, it was everywhere.
In other words, when America was religious, no one used the term "unconditional love." Only as America became less religious, its culture more secular, did usage of the term soar. This alone should help dispel the widespread notion that unconditional love is a religious ideal.
It isn't. In a lifetime of teaching Judaism and now writing volume four of a five-volume Bible commentary, I have never come across the concept of unconditional love. In fact, God makes it clear that His love is conditional on obeying Him. For example, he tells the Israelites: "If you will obey Me faithfully and keep My covenant, you shall be My treasured possession."
If.
The Book of Psalms makes this even clearer: "(God) hates all evildoers. You doom those who speak lies; murderous, deceitful men the LORD abhors" (Psalm 5:6-7). Obviously, God doesn't give unconditional love.
As for Christianity, many Christians assert that unconditional love is the ideal for humans to aspire to. Yet, I could not find a single direct statement about unconditional love -- divine or human -- in the New Testament. As a Canadian Christian pastor and theologian, George Sinclair, wrote: "The Bible does not teach that God loves unconditionally or that you should love unconditionally."
Why modern Christians so frequently speak of God's unconditional love and of unconditional love as what humans should aspire to is a mystery to me. The very fact that according to Christian theology, only those who believe in Christ are saved from hell should make it clear that salvation is conditional. Some Christians respond that God continues to love the nonbeliever even as he descends to hell -- because it is the nonbeliever, not God, who has sent himself to hell by rejecting God's love through His offer of salvation. However, that hardly argues against God's conditional love -- that love (and the salvation prompted by it) is conditioned on the human being's acceptance of God's terms.
It is true that countless people who have strayed far from a righteous life have been immensely helped by the belief that God loves them -- but they must repent to benefit from that love.
Unconditional love is, in the final analysis, a bad secular idea.
Aside from undermining people's reasons for pursuing excellence and undermining group morale -- as we saw in the example of unconditional salaries -- there are three other reasons it's a bad idea.
First, if people are loved no matter how immorally they act, love becomes the one thing in life that is completely divorced from morality. Unconditional love makes love amoral.
Second, what means more to you -- someone who loves you because they love everyone unconditionally or someone who loves you because they consider you special?
Third, unconditional love often leads to very unloving behavior. If husbands and wives, for example, know they will receive the same amount of love no matter how they treat their spouse, do you think this is likely to lead to spouses acting better or worse?
But, many people will respond, don't parents have unconditional love for their children? And isn't that the ideal?
Yes, many parents do love their children unconditionally -- because it is instinctive in most people to so love their children. But is this a good message to convey to your children: "No matter how you treat your siblings or even us, your mother and father, not to mention non-family members, we will love you just the same"?
And even if parents' love for their child is unconditional, why should that be a model for how we ought to feel toward every other person on the planet? Would your children be happy to know that you loved everyone just as much as you love them? Should you? There would actually be something psychologically and morally wrong with a parent who loved everyone as much as they loved their child.
Yes, babies should receive unconditional love. The rest of us should want to grow up.
As for God, I have never believed I was the recipient of unconditional love from Him, nor have I ever sought it. I seek His approval. That's a better way to live.
If you want to be loved unconditionally, get a dog. Otherwise forget it.
Not even dogs, I have found out. Their conditions are just particularly easy to meet for most people. a dog will love a scoundrel, but not someone with flat affect, that is, emotionally unresponsive, as in certain kinds of dementia.
Romans 5 (KJV)
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
⁶ For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.
⁷ For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.
⁸ But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
⁹ Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
¹⁰ For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
How anyone could say that there is no such thing as unconditional love when referring to the love of God towards centers, tells me they don’t know their Bible very well at all. I do recognize though that human beings are supposed to separate themselves from Sinners once they are saved and to have no fellowship with the works of iniquity and to make a righteous judgement against the behavior or deeds of others, but that’s not what he was saying at the beginning.
Yep. Prager is the last one to trust with a “bible commentary”.
Or, how about “Love God and love your neighbor as yourself”?
John 9:31 Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth.
This verse from John doesn’t sound like unconditional love to me.
Not necessarily and definitely not in my experience. My wife is suffering from Alzheimer and is in late stage 6 or early stage 7. She is unresponsive in large part to us and I would say 99,99% unresponsive to our dog, This dog, an 11 yr old GSD had attached herself to my wife from the day we picked her up and thru the years was at her side each day all day. She would follow my wife from room to room and lay by her when my wife sat down. At night she would sleep on the floor by my wife's side of the bed. Everything is the same with the exception of following her around because my wife is immobile and needs assistance to move and even there the dog will bark constantly when anyone approaches her to help her up. It is not in any way an aggressive bark and the dog has never even growled at anyone. So even though my wife does not recognize or even address the dog in any way the dog remains by her side and is always in a position where my wife is in her direct line of sight. You can say that is not love but I would disagree with you.
Dogo remembers, sweetly, past responses. New puppies ignored my father, very into alz, when he certainly felt emotions but couldn’t express them. Btw, have you never been growled at by a dog?
God's love is greater than our sin, but conditions still apply.
The seeming ignorance of a conservative Jewish commentator who must be familiar with both the Bible, evangelicals and theology is inexplicable. Here the author presents love as only having one meaning, and must be that which has one degree and is reciprocal. Surely he knows that there are many words for love and I wonder what his infants did to merit his love, or the longsuffering and mercy he might show toward a wayward teen in the hopes that such may result in repentance so that the offspring will experience positive love. For how could he not know that love as a positive sentiment can also be the motivation in disciplining one due to wanting the good of the subject who actually merits the opposite of love?
"It isn't. In a lifetime of teaching Judaism and now writing volume four of a five-volume Bible commentary, I have never come across the concept of unconditional love. "
Really? So Moses being willing to be damned in order to save the rebellious, ungrateful Israelites examples reciprocal love?
And Moses returned unto the Lord, and said, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold. Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin—; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written. (Exodus 32:31-32)
Tell me what the Hebrews did to merit God's basic benevolent love, wanting what is good for them?
When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt. As they called them, so they went from them: they sacrificed unto Baalim, and burned incense to graven images. I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms; but they knew not that I healed them. I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love: and I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws, and I laid meat unto them. (Hosea 11:1-4)
The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: But because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. (Deuteronomy 7:7-8)
I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love: and I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws, and I laid meat unto them. (Hosea 11:4)
The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works. (Psalms 145:9)
And other Jewish commentators see what Prager cannot:. https://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/1093544/jewish/Unconditional-Love.htm God "Between the lines of all the do’s and don’ts, rewards and punishments and if-then conditions, we find the foundations for the kind of love we all desire — unconditional love, ahavat chesed." - https://www.jewishexponent.com/2019/08/23/unconditional-love-and-covenantal-love/
" In fact, God makes it clear that His love is conditional on obeying Him. For example, he tells the Israelites: "If you will obey Me faithfully and keep My covenant, you shall be My treasured possession."
Which means that Prager confuses the attitude and actions of love by God toward people with the covenantal rewards of obedience.God showing love to man who do not warrant it is simply not opposed to showing love that is greater in degree and scope toward those who positively respond to His unconditional love.
"As for Christianity, many Christians assert that unconditional love is the ideal for humans to aspire to. Yet, I could not find a single direct statement about unconditional love -- divine or human -- in the New Testament. "
He must have a very restrictive idea of "direct!" When you require "a single direct statement" such as "God unconditional loved the world" for any conveyance, and esp. in the Bible, then you are going to be an impoverished ignorant man. And it is hard to not conclude that this is willful myopia in the light of very clear direct statements that describe unconditional love, such as,
But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. (Matthew 5:44-45)
Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:10)
We love him, because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19)
To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. (2 Corinthians 5:19)
For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. (Titus 3:3)
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. (John 3:16-17)"
Which also includes chastisement, as it did in the OT:
For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. (Hebrews 12:6)
If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; If they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; Then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless my lovingkindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. (Psalms 89:30-34)
But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world. (1 Corinthians 11:32)
"Third, unconditional love often leads to very unloving behavior. If husbands and wives, for example, know they will receive the same amount of love no matter how they treat their spouse, do you think this is likely to lead to spouses acting better or worse?" God unconditional loving souls simply does not mean they or benefits as those who respond to it. If it did then evangelicals would not be "evangelical." Prayer thus can only be arguing against a false belief of unconditional love, while it has been evangelicals who testify to being the most unified major religious group in conservative beliefs.
"As for God, I have never believed I was the recipient of unconditional love from Him, nor have I ever sought it. I seek His approval. That's a better way to live."
Rather, Prager has been the object and recipient of unconditional love - benevolence he did not merit, and even despite meriting the opposite - but which mercy and grace is purposed to effect obedience, which is the mark of those who have responded to God's unconditional love, which ultimately is that of His Son.
That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. (Romans 8:4)
"The Book of Psalms makes this even clearer: "(God) hates all evildoers. You doom those who speak lies; murderous, deceitful men the LORD abhors" (Psalm 5:6-7). "
Indeed, and "God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day;" (Psalms 7:11) "For the wicked boasteth of his heart’s desire, and blesseth the covetous, whom the Lord abhorreth." (Psalms 10:3) Yet which is not opposed to God loving the same, working and wanting their good, thus working that they may repent and be actually pleasing to God and experience His love. their hating the wicked
Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel? (Ezekiel 33:11)
In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old. (Isaiah 63:9)
The Bible examples other language expressing two apparently opposing concepts such as "Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling," (Psalms 2:11) "walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost," (Acts 9:31) but which are actually synergistic, and which is part of basic theology. Thus Prager's seeming ignorance is a paradox, and it seems to me that his lack of objectivity in his railing against unconditional love is driven by some sort of anger, and that he should not be writing commentaries on the Bible. But which is understandable since thus far he has rejected the unconditional love of God shown to Him by God, who"spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all," (Romans 8:32) and who Himself "loved me, and gave himself for me" [said by a murderer of Christians] (Galatians 2:20) And which Prager sadly says he cannot even see. May he do so by the grace of God.
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His love sent his son to die for the ungodly, not just for The Godly or as calvinist mistakenly say, only for the elect. Jesus Christ paid the penalty of death for the entire world and that includes all of the wicked centers.
Sufficient for all, efficacious for believers only.
Well said, and I am in complete concurrence!
Please explain that opinion. I'd like to learn.
While we were yet sinners, Jesus died for us.
If that’s not unconditional, I don’t know what is.
If our behavior merits God’s favor, the it’s not love. You love someone because of who they and you are, not their performance.
Yes, God’s love is unconditional as there’s not a thing we can do to earn it. He gives it because it’s who He is, not because of who we are.
My kids do not always do what I want and it affects how we relate, but I love them anyways because they are my own flesh and blood.
Well, that is very succinct.
He’s hyper Jewish. It seems as if when trying to interpret Christianity, he puts a comparative Jewish spin on it in an either inaccurate or unflattering way.
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