Do you believe God does NOT love everyone?

HypnoToad said:

Again, PLEASE READ THE OPENING POST AND ANSWER WHAT IT ASKS.

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OK, I'll try again.

Please define what you mean by good?

If you mean Holy then yes God is good, always as He is always Holy. If you mean is God always what we consider good then maybe not, but that is because we dont always recognise it. Was God getting the Israelite's to wipe out whole nations not good? I cant answer that. God hated Esau and at least some of the nations wiped out were his descendants. He really did hate him. Esau despised his birthright, sold it for some soup which shows gluttony, was selfish and only thought about himself, or so it would seem from scripture. So was God wiping his descendants out who opposed the Israelites good or not? It would appear that God sees it as good or he wouldnt have told them to do it. It seems harsh to me as we are all the product of nature and nurture. Surely that would apply to many people today. If we were still under the old covenant half the world would get wiped out.

HypnoToad said:

We're talking about agape love - the question is for those who feel God does not have agape love for all people. It doesn't have to be expressed in the same way or to the same degree towards all people - it just has to be present to some degree towards all people.

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My point would be that how the Lord feels about someone has no significance. If you are starving, would you rather he feed you or would you rather he have compassion for you?

HypnoToad said:

PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING

This is solely for those who believe God does NOT love everyone. (I tried this in a different thread before, but it got closed before I could get more than one response, so I’m gonna try it again with my own thread.)

If you believe God does NOT love everyone, I’d like to ask you to respond to the following:

Jesus tells us, “no one is good but God.” The Psalms state several times, “the Lord is good/for He is good.”

So, we seem to have the Bible teaching us quite simply: God is good. Yes?

Should we take that to mean God is always good, that everything God does is morally good & righteous, everything He does falls within the category of “good”? Is it an absolute, never-changing fact? *OR*, should we instead take that to mean God is usually good but still does immoral & unrighteous things once in a while? Is “God is good” just a general statement and not absolute? Does God do anything that has no good in it?

Please keep your responses brief and limited to what was asked. Don’t overanalyze, these aren’t “trick” questions. There will be follow up questions, but don’t try to jump ahead and bring up things I haven’t asked about. Also please don’t debate with others’ answers, I don’t want this thread getting derailed. Ignoring the guidelines can result in being regarded as off-topic and being reported.

I’m going to try to wait a bit before responding and posting the first follow up, because I want to get as many responses as possible before proceeding.

Thanks ahead of time to those who participate.

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Sorry I'm late!

Yes, God is always Good. He is the very definition of Good and Righteous. Understand that what is permissible to God may not be permissible to His elect.

HypnoToad said:

Thanks for answering.

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Shoulda made this a poll!

HypnoToad said:

I thought about it, but "is God always good" isn't the extent of this thread. There are follow-up questions coming, and putting them in a poll wouldn't, imho, work.

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Okay cool...looking forward to those.

HypnoToad said:

You're still not answering the question. Whether it's "significant" or not is irrelevant. Do you believe God has agape love for all people - yes or no? If yes, you don't need to respond further at this time - the question of the OP is ONLY for those who would say "no". If your answer is "no", then please address what I asked in the OP, thank you.

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You're welcome.

HypnoToad said:

...Jesus tells us, “no one is good but God.” The Psalms state several times, “the Lord is good/for He is good.”

So, we seem to have the Bible teaching us quite simply: God is good. Yes?

Should we take that to mean God is always good, that everything God does is morally good & righteous, everything He does falls within the category of “good”? Is it an absolute, never-changing fact? *OR*, should we instead take that to mean God is usually good but still does immoral & unrighteous things once in a while? Is “God is good” just a general statement and not absolute? Does God do anything that has no good in it?...

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Of those such as myself whom to appearance per context you are polling (I reserve the right to define what I mean for response purposes elsewhere if necessary), I would be surprised to find any who would confess "God is usually good but still does immoral & unrighteous things once in a while," unless perhaps the one responding agreed unawares via some theological incoherence or personal bitterness--though again not as a matter of confession of belief. That part of the dichotomy ("*OR*") seems quite unattractive to your target poster, unless I am quite mistaken.

Thus the whole set of believers addressed in the OP (or so I can only suppose), myself included, would confess that "everything God does is morally good & righteous" (per God's own definition of these terms, as per post # 41 above)--the sense of good, I think, in "no one is good but God."

However I am not confident that the clause (1) "everything God does is morally good & righteous" is necessarily equivalent to the clause (2) "everything He does falls within the category of 'good'" despite grammatical implication of equivalence by their apposition.

In other words, I suspect the word "good" could be interpreted and applied in different ways in the two clauses: In the second clause and not the first, "good" could be interpreted as that which is for the final and eternal benefit of those He does not love, which I would deny. Asterisk/footnote on "love": I mean love in a final mercy sense here, cf. Rom. 9, Tit. 3:5--I think post # 45 needs clarification or correction in defining love for our purposes.

The Lord in the Psalms is not merely good in Himself, but good to persons--or to some persons, not good, as the case may be.

I would not of course deny some possible (or probable) interpretation of the second clause which reads "good" in identical fashion to that in the first clause, I think in particular reading the word "good" as a close synonym to the words "just," "righteous," or (with its ethical overtones) "holy." In this sense, God demonstrates His goodness even in condemning the wicked (while in the previous sense [artificially speaking for our purposes] of benefit, that same condemnation is not for the good of the wicked).

You also ask: "Does God do anything that has no good in it?" Per the above, I would respond "no," if "good" is equivalent to justice and righteousness, but also I would say that all God does without exception is for His glory, which is always necessarily a good.

However, not all God does is for the good of all persons in every way. All things work together for good (in a final sense encompassing glorification as well as the other benefits of salvation per Rom. 8:28-30) only for those who love God and are called according to His purpose, though God also sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous, which rain is for the good (a qualified, temporal good at least) of the righteous and the unrighteous. And the good of rain on the unrighteous may become a divine cause for greater judgment given a final lack of repentance in the unrighteous (cf. the man who owed 10K talents, Mt. 18), hence not for their final good.

HypnoToad said:

What more is it that needs to be clarified? There's sources all over the internet talking about what agape love means.

I think that meaning [final mercy] is more narrow than what agape love is. I have stated that God loving everyone doesn't have to mean that He loves everyone equally, or that He has to express His love in the exact same way to all people.

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I think we are close to understanding one another.

It may help in addressing your questions to me to add the following illustrations of "agape-love" as the Greek OT and NT use the word often transliterated as "agape" in noun or verb form:

1) Amnon's incestuous rape of Tamar is described in terms of agape love, 2 Sam. 13:15 etc. of the Greek OT.

2) Demas agape-loved this present evil world, 2 Tim. 4:10.

3) Balaam agape-loved gain from wrongdoing, 2 Pet. 2:15.

Granted, the NT uses agape-love more commonly of the self-giving, care-in-spite-of, heartfelt sorts such as often in the writings of John, though even John felt comfortable referring to Jews who agape-loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God, John 12:43.

It is precisely because "agape-love" is all over the internet (or is in coinage at least as church jargon)--in a time of biblical illiteracy in the English speaking world--that in modern English it develops a life of its own which must not be confused with the way the NT may use a Greek word for love which is behind the origins of modern "agape-love" English usage.

And precisely on this thread, where (in my expressed view at least) an implication of the OP question concerns distinguishing between kinds of love that more specificity seems called for. I am not even sure modern popular usage of "agape-love" always maps precisely with common usage in John, etc. per the above.

Given the above and other considerations, for all I know God "in some way" may "agape-love" those He wills to harden rather than be merciful to in Rom. 9 sense even if God hated Esau in ways outlined in Mal. 1 as similarly some Jews in Paul's day (a point of Rom. 9-11), and so on. God may extend kindness in this life (like rain) to those He has no intention of forgiving. And also as you wrote, "God loving everyone doesn't have to mean that He loves everyone equally, or that He has to express His love in the exact same way to all people."

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