How can I love and fear God simultaneously?

directory · Aug 3, 2015

I've been inching closer and closer to faith lately, and while I still identify as an agnostic, I have known moments during which my soul may have been calling to God, and during which it may have received some echo of an answer.

Beautiful moments, those. I won't try to describe the happiness of them, except to say that they made me want to be a better person just so I could deserve them. That's God's love. Maybe (Cue my standard agnostic rant about how it could just be brain chemistry and the power of suggestion– I can be really annoying about this stuff).

But I'm told that there's another side to it: God is infinitely merciful, but He is also infinitely powerful, and we are born sinners. The free gift of God's love is on offer to us at all times, but the unendurable fury of God's wrath always threatens us. Almost all of mainstream Christianity tries to point us to the ladder to the ladder to Heaven, and what a beautiful message that is, but it also warns us of the trapdoor to Hell.

As an agnostic, I spent most of my religious energies dreading Hell (or trying to convince myself that there definitely was no God– better a meaningless vacuum of a universe than one where I'm damned to eternal suffering)– as I move closer to Christ, I've been spending more and more of those same energies hoping for Heaven.

Which is lovely, but I know I'm supposed to do both at once– when I pray to God, my heart, in its best moments, is full of love and awe. When I feel that my quasi-faith has hit its limits as something less than true belief, the old fear comes back. The pieces are there.

But I know that the pieces need to be connected, and I don't know how to make that happen. I fear and love God depending on my current disposition or attitude towards Him: the more I believe, the more I love. The less I believe, the more I fear. There's a famous line in a movie– you've probably heard it before: "I don't believe in God, but I'm afraid of Him." I love that line, ubiquitous as it is. It sums up my experience as an agnostic perfectly.

But a believer doesn't vacillate in and out of faith. A believer loves God in their belief, but a believer also fears God because of their belief. Right? Believers experience this love and this fear at once.

IF YOU THINK THIS POST IS TOO LONG, I GET TO THE POINT IN THIS NEXT PARAGRAPH

So my question is: How do I achieve this simultaneity? How do I love something that scares me? How can I fear something that makes me so happy?

I don't think that I have any earthly model for this. My childhood relationship with my parents might come close: I certainly loved them, both for what they gave me and for the intrinsic sense of safety and comfort I felt around them, and it's true that they had the power to harm me, and occasionally did lessen my immediate comfort in order to punish me. But that's the thing: I wasn't afraid of my parents themselves, but of the punishments they gave me. I knew that those punishments weren't there to hurt me– my parents weren't hurting me for the sake of hurting me, nor was I being punished to expiate a crime. The punishment was educational: if my parents didn't think I'd walk away from it a better person, they wouldn't have done it.

In other words, parents punish their children for the same reason that they do everything else: to maximize their ultimate wellbeing. When my parents punished me, they did so out of love for me, not out of anger. I don't yet know when one can and can't say that God loves a person, but as I understand it, He doesn't love sinners, at least not in eternity. An earthly punishment from God might be corrective, but damnation– whether it entails God actively sending a sinner to Hell or simply allowing a sinner to bring Hell upon themselves– is, unlike the punishment dealt to parents by children, not an expression of love. Damnation is not for the ultimate benefit of the sinner. I know some Christians believe that the damned are ultimately purified and redeemed by their experience in Hell, but mainstream Christianity says that Hell is eternal suffering. You don't walk out of Hell a better person, because you don't walk out of Hell. Hell doesn't exist for the improvement of sinners– Hell is not comparable to a parental punishment.

Furthermore (sorry– I know I'm rambling), terrestrial punishments from God differ from punishments meted out by parents. A child being punished by their parents knows what it did to deserve the punishment, and understands that the magnitude of the punishment matches the magnitude of the transgression– you wouldn't punish a child for not helping with the dishes as severely as you'd punish them for getting into a fight at school. But Christians– and not just Christians– always have to speculate about the degree and nature of divine intervention in the unhappy moments of their lives. If I lose my job, is God punishing me? If so, for what? Have I committed a sin that equals unemployment in magnitude? Which of my sins (I think as I try and enumerate my sins) matches my suffering? And if I'm not being punished, why has God allowed me to suffer– is it a test? Is He simply letting things run their course? Should I even be asking about this?

My point is that the fear of God is different from the fear that one feels for one's parents.

I'm so sorry for how long-winded this post is. I feel that all of it helps get my point across, so I'm going to let it stand at its current length, but here's the kernel of it: I don't know how to fear and love God at the same time– I love Him the more I believe and fear Him the less I believe, but I know that if I ever come to believe fully, I need to to both. Help me out?

paul1149 · Aug 3, 2015

directory said:
So my question is: How do I achieve this simultaneity? How do I love something that scares me? How can I fear something that makes me so happy?

Good post, I enjoyed reading it, thanks. I think there are a number of ways to come at this, but I'll give you a few.

Like the song says, "twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace, my fears relieved". 1john puts it this way: "Perfect love casts out fear", and, "we love because He first loved us".

Paul says "God's kindness leads us to repentance", and that He "has not given us a spirit of fear". Malignant fear is not of God, but a clean fear, rooted in awe and deep respect, is, because there are times we need that motivation to overcome our sinful nature. I know that the remaining fear I have is not that God will be unjust or cruel, but that I will mess things up and incur consequences He does not want me to experience. Father is a good parent who cares deeply about our welfare. Accordingly, He is willing to sacrifice our comfort in order to achieve His higher goals for us. That keeps me sober-minded when I catch myself thinking carnally.

Believers in Christ are under grace, not law. Grace brings freedom and joy. Law brings work-righteousness with its failure and condemnation, which leads to fear. Or just as bad, it can bring the flip side, false pride.

The Lord would have us draw near to Him and learn of Him, as in the invitation at the end of Matthew 11, and to abide, as in John 15. It's far better to catch the updraft of grace than to fall into the downward spiral of law and its futile attempts at performance. It's the difference between living in Romans chapters 7 and 8.

Gordon Wright · Aug 4, 2015

I had bad parents, whose punishment had no real connection to transgressions, but was arbitrary. To have any kind of relationship with God I had to realize that God was nothing like them.

There are different types of fear, and different types of love. I respect God. I can't say I ever respected my parents. They never earned it.

Albion · Aug 4, 2015

directory said:
So my question is: How do I achieve this simultaneity? How do I love something that scares me? How can I fear something that makes me so happy?

God can destroy, it's true. However, when it is said that we should "fear" God, it doesn't mean to be terrified of Him or of Hell.

The word there means to have a sober, appropriate, respect for his power and authority. Since love needs little explanation, this understanding should answer the question of how to both love God and fear God.

FreeinChrist · Aug 5, 2015

MOD HAT

This thread is being moved to Exploring Christianity

Brianlear · Aug 6, 2015

You can get a good sense for fearing God by looking at some of the scarier things he created. Vicious grizzly bears for one. We are insulated from most of it in our modern society. But if you were really put out in the wilderness with nothing between you and God's creation, you'd be scared silly. We all would be. Your life would literally be in his hands. If a grizzly bear charged me, I would instantly crumple into a ball of fear and pray to God that he spare me. That's the fear of God. The knowledge that he made a world where you are so fragile, that your time here could end, just like that. Now for the love part. Grizzly bears charge a lot more people than they kill. The grizzly bear runs up to you, you fall to the ground praying, and he stops short, sniffs the air, and backs off. Yes, you could be killed at any time. But that isn't his desire or wish. You stand up, take a deep breath, and the air never smelled as sweet as it does in that moment. And you are so thankful to be alive.

You said something else interesting--"a believer doesn't vacillate in and out of faith". Actually, this is precisely what a real believer does. Faith is a result of a constant struggle between you and God. You must WRESTLE with him, come close and then go far away. Duke it out. Get angry when you can't find him. Call him out. Forget about the whole thing for a while and then return with fresh eyes. It is the passionate interaction that leads to faith. People who've never struggled, never lost faith...they risk falling into a rut of complacency and worshiping a God they don't know very well. Even worse, people in this predicament may make you feel bad for doubting, mostly to assuage their own fears that their brittle faith will break too easily. Often this is not intentional but it happens.

Sketcher · Aug 7, 2015

I imagine it would be similar to being best friends with a Navy SEAL. You're best friends and everything, but there's a line you probably won't cross with him. Who he is and what he can do demands it.

doomsayer2 · Aug 8, 2015

Actually you could say God is even more demanding than the most ruthless Navy Seal,in that there are things that almost any decent human being will try to prevent such as defending a foreign nation from a combatant enemy,and aiding the wounded and suffering in the process,while God mostly watches and allows things to go unchecked for the most part. Yet it's absolutely amazing the things God can get away with in the name of being all HOLY. But His ways are so much higher than ours,we cannot even begin to discuss this in a way that would move closer to resolving the issue or the question posed originally.
So then the over-simplified answer is that it's literally impossible to be both fearful and loving towards God using your own CARNAL intellect. You first have to be filled with the SPIRIT and mind of Christ to know how to relate to God without wanting to really accuse and mock Him deep down inside. Another answer might be to stop comparing yourself to others as far as being no better in your views of who God is,if that's what you are thinking? Atheists have a lot in common but even they can disagree on some things,albeit try their best to remain united against Christianity as a whole. But don't ever underestimate the evil that seemingly like-minded people are capable of,those OTHER THAN YOURSELF.
God knows what He is doing and how to judge us INDIVIDUALLY. And the biggest lie the devil really told is to make us all believe that deep down were really all the same. But actually we are as different as our own fingerprints,and you may be surprised just how close you really are to knowing God on a much deeper level,and how far some of the most obvious "Christians" are from this. As long as we trust our own intellects and our equals/peers first,we can and will not be able to trust God,period.

Winken · Aug 8, 2015

directory said:
I don't know how to fear and love God at the same time– I love Him the more I believe and fear Him the less I believe, but I know that if I ever come to believe fully, I need to to both. Help me out?

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you SHALL be saved. See also Romans 10:8-13. He is calling out to you ~ ~ ~ receive Him with great joy. The "fear" is there for those who utterly ignore His call. Instead of life eternal in perpetual joy, they look forward to eternal separation from His Love in eternal agony.

God loves you! Rejoice!

ViaCrucis · Aug 8, 2015

Some philosophers of religion have spoken of the numinous. From the Latin numen, borrowed from the Greek noumenon. In one sense the numen was a kind of divine presence, a haunting presence that could be associated with the sense of dread--nothing perceivable to the senses--that could be seen, touched, or felt--but which nevertheless left an uncanny impression upon the mind. "Uncanny" is another good word for this.

Let us imagine for a moment that you believe in ghosts, and I tell you there is a ghost in the next room and you believe it. A certain sensation might arise in you, like dread, a keen "sense" of the uncanny. You are not afraid of the ghost in the next room because it may harm you, but on account that it is a ghost and such a thing is surreal, uncanny, "frightful". You are afraid, not a fear from a sense of danger, but fear from a sense of the uncanny.

When we speak of the fear of God we are not speaking of a fear as though I fear a burglar who has broken into my home at night, or I fear a mother grizzly bear protecting her cubs, or I fear drowning if I slip and fall into a frozen lake. We mean an awareness of the numinous, an awareness of That which is incredibly other. God is not like a tiger, or a burglar that we should be afraid of Him; rather God is God and the insensible sense of such otherworldly presence and vastness draws out from man wonder, awe, and dread. That is what we mean when we speak of fearing God, not to be afraid of God, but the uncanny awareness of God as God.

-CryptoLutheran

oi_antz · Aug 11, 2015

directory said:
I've been inching closer and closer to faith lately, and while I still identify as an agnostic, I have known moments during which my soul may have been calling to God, and during which it may have received some echo of an answer.

Beautiful moments, those. I won't try to describe the happiness of them, except to say that they made me want to be a better person just so I could deserve them. That's God's love. Maybe (Cue my standard agnostic rant about how it could just be brain chemistry and the power of suggestion– I can be really annoying about this stuff).

But I'm told that there's another side to it: God is infinitely merciful, but He is also infinitely powerful, and we are born sinners. The free gift of God's love is on offer to us at all times, but the unendurable fury of God's wrath always threatens us. Almost all of mainstream Christianity tries to point us to the ladder to the ladder to Heaven, and what a beautiful message that is, but it also warns us of the trapdoor to Hell.

As an agnostic, I spent most of my religious energies dreading Hell (or trying to convince myself that there definitely was no God– better a meaningless vacuum of a universe than one where I'm damned to eternal suffering)– as I move closer to Christ, I've been spending more and more of those same energies hoping for Heaven.

Which is lovely, but I know I'm supposed to do both at once– when I pray to God, my heart, in its best moments, is full of love and awe. When I feel that my quasi-faith has hit its limits as something less than true belief, the old fear comes back. The pieces are there.

But I know that the pieces need to be connected, and I don't know how to make that happen. I fear and love God depending on my current disposition or attitude towards Him: the more I believe, the more I love. The less I believe, the more I fear. There's a famous line in a movie– you've probably heard it before: "I don't believe in God, but I'm afraid of Him." I love that line, ubiquitous as it is. It sums up my experience as an agnostic perfectly.

But a believer doesn't vacillate in and out of faith. A believer loves God in their belief, but a believer also fears God because of their belief. Right? Believers experience this love and this fear at once.

IF YOU THINK THIS POST IS TOO LONG, I GET TO THE POINT IN THIS NEXT PARAGRAPH

So my question is: How do I achieve this simultaneity? How do I love something that scares me? How can I fear something that makes me so happy?

I don't think that I have any earthly model for this. My childhood relationship with my parents might come close: I certainly loved them, both for what they gave me and for the intrinsic sense of safety and comfort I felt around them, and it's true that they had the power to harm me, and occasionally did lessen my immediate comfort in order to punish me. But that's the thing: I wasn't afraid of my parents themselves, but of the punishments they gave me. I knew that those punishments weren't there to hurt me– my parents weren't hurting me for the sake of hurting me, nor was I being punished to expiate a crime. The punishment was educational: if my parents didn't think I'd walk away from it a better person, they wouldn't have done it.

In other words, parents punish their children for the same reason that they do everything else: to maximize their ultimate wellbeing. When my parents punished me, they did so out of love for me, not out of anger. I don't yet know when one can and can't say that God loves a person, but as I understand it, He doesn't love sinners, at least not in eternity. An earthly punishment from God might be corrective, but damnation– whether it entails God actively sending a sinner to Hell or simply allowing a sinner to bring Hell upon themselves– is, unlike the punishment dealt to parents by children, not an expression of love. Damnation is not for the ultimate benefit of the sinner. I know some Christians believe that the damned are ultimately purified and redeemed by their experience in Hell, but mainstream Christianity says that Hell is eternal suffering. You don't walk out of Hell a better person, because you don't walk out of Hell. Hell doesn't exist for the improvement of sinners– Hell is not comparable to a parental punishment.

Furthermore (sorry– I know I'm rambling), terrestrial punishments from God differ from punishments meted out by parents. A child being punished by their parents knows what it did to deserve the punishment, and understands that the magnitude of the punishment matches the magnitude of the transgression– you wouldn't punish a child for not helping with the dishes as severely as you'd punish them for getting into a fight at school. But Christians– and not just Christians– always have to speculate about the degree and nature of divine intervention in the unhappy moments of their lives. If I lose my job, is God punishing me? If so, for what? Have I committed a sin that equals unemployment in magnitude? Which of my sins (I think as I try and enumerate my sins) matches my suffering? And if I'm not being punished, why has God allowed me to suffer– is it a test? Is He simply letting things run their course? Should I even be asking about this?

My point is that the fear of God is different from the fear that one feels for one's parents.

I'm so sorry for how long-winded this post is. I feel that all of it helps get my point across, so I'm going to let it stand at its current length, but here's the kernel of it: I don't know how to fear and love God at the same time– I love Him the more I believe and fear Him the less I believe, but I know that if I ever come to believe fully, I need to to both. Help me out?

It should just come naturally if you are the type to love Him. Naturally we should fear someone with His position and power. But you can trust someone who you fear too.

lutherangerman · Aug 11, 2015

I look at these things from a more university inspired angle of theology. IE, I am not a fundamentalist and my doctrinal positions are more inspired by catholicism and the german lutheranism of our time.

That said, I would suggest that when you think of God, always remember Jesus on the cross. In every way of trying to be a christian, you must remember that God forgives you easily, you need only to ask. The Gospels are not good news if you don't ALWAYS read them with the recalling of God's grace. This is why the Apostle Paul spoke of preaching Christ crucified. We do not worship a judean country preacher anymore, we worship the crucified and risen Messiah Jesus. And this Jesus has become a life-giving spirit.

This has killed the spirit of serving God through law. This way is impossible now and we are strongly adviced to leave it. Instead we are now called to serve God through grace, and through grace-inspired love. Do not make yourself a checklist of sins (except maybe the 10 commandments and a daily encouragement to love other people like yourself). Notice the difference between letting your love be inspired by law or by grace. Throw out law. The Jews could not manage this way, neither can we. And if you examine the law, it is not a good law. Do you want to kill others for their sins? Do you want to stone adulterers or fornicators? Do you want to stone youths for just once cursing their parents? I know you say no to this, but this is where the law ways are leading people.

Remember the crucified Savior. He died gently like a lamb on a cross of awful pain. He knew you on this cross. He knew everybody on this cross. This is still Jesus, good brother. He forgives you, He can handle you, He is gentle and kind and does not send anyone away.

God bless you! Please remember the crucified Savior and loose your fears there. God loves you and forgives you and does NOT hold your sins against you. You are brought to a way of grace and love, not wrath and anger.

PureTruth7 · Aug 15, 2015

So many people took the term "fearing God" the wrong way. God wouldn't want you to be literally scared of Him. In Scripture fearing God simply means to have reverence for God, high respect for God. Not literally scared of Him just because He can easily take your life away. But yeah, there are certain events recorded in Scripture where fearing God does mean literally be scared of Him because some people sinned and now judgement is visited upon them.

As for other points in your message, God does love sinners. We're all sinners. But He hates the sin the we commit. That's where the problem is. So He loves us enough to die for us so that we may be saved from the results of sin, which is death.

By the way, hell is not eternal torment, hell is eternal DEATH. The Bible doesn't say eternal punishING does it? It says, eternal punishMENT. Matthew 25:46 "And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal."

More info on hell:
http://remnantofgod.org/Hellfire.htm

How can I love and fear God simultaneously?

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