God is Love

[TScott]

St. John said it in his Epistle, and I think it is the very foundation on which the Christian religion rests.

It's interesting that 500 years before Christianity Plato wrote about the relationship between gods and love. The Greek philosophers assigned gods to the many aspects of human behavior in order to garner understanding of these aspects through metaphor. In Symposium Socrates asks his love tutor, Diotima, about the nature of Love:

"What then is Love?" I asked; "Is he mortal?"

"No."

"What then?"

"As in the former instance, he is neither mortal nor immortal, but in a mean between the two." "What is he, Diotima?" "He is a great spirit, and like all spirits he is intermediate between the divine and the mortal."

"And what," I said, "is his power?"

"He interprets," she replied, "between gods and men, conveying and taking across to the gods the prayers and sacrifices of men, and to men the commands and replies of the gods; he is the mediator who spans the chasm which divides them, and therefore in him all is bound together, and through him the arts of the prophet and the priest, their sacrifices and mysteries and charms, and all, prophecy and incantation, find their way. For God mingles not with man; but through Love."

What is your philosophy regarding this, or what is your philosophy regarding love in general?

 

[GrowingSmaller]

On the spur of the moment:

I think that the idea of "be in the world but not of the world" might lead us to neglect developing love of the world itself, and as such undermine a positive attitude towards life and culture which (in potential, given the right manifestation) our existence and culture might deserve. This is what I call 'the institutionalised racism of Christian philosophy.' It labels a vast species/domain of our experience essentially sub-standard, valueless and perhaps irredeemable and pushes it to one side like a fussy mother.

Maybe I have this wrong.

 

[Eudaimonist]

"As in the former instance, he is neither mortal nor immortal, but in a mean between the two." "What is he, Diotima?" "He is a great spirit, and like all spirits he is intermediate between the divine and the mortal."

Yes, a daimon. Basically, the daimones were a type of "spirit" between the humans and the gods, maybe a little like angels.

Socrates argues that Love (the daimon) is lacking in beauty and goodness, because otherwise Love would not be attracted to either, seeking to possess them. So the idea that "God is Love" is contrary to his message. God can be Beauty or Goodness, but not Love.

What is your philosophy regarding this, or what is your philosophy regarding love in general?

Let's look at little further into Plato's Symposium.

Diotima: I put it to you, Socrates. What is it that the lover of the good is longing for?

Socrates: To make the good his own.

Then what will he gain by making it his own?

I can make a better shot at answering that, I said. He'll gain happiness.

Right, said she, for the happy are happy inasmuch as they possess the good, and since there's no need for us to ask why men should want to be happy, I think your answer is conclusive.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[DisingenuousChristian]

I'm not certain that "God being love" is a coherent concept. As defined by Spinoza, for instance, if love is "pleasure accompanied by the idea of an external cause" then is God the pleasure or the cause or "intermediary" as a sort of spirit like Diotima says? If intermediary, God would always have to exist in the form of a constant "becoming" between these two poles of pleasure and cause. But if God is the cause of love and the source of its pleasure, then that leads into a regress problem: how did mere becoming give rise to the necessary being? It's akin to asking, how did the chariot always drive itself without the horse and the road as its actuating principles?

 

[TScott]

On the spur of the moment:

I think that the idea of "be in the world but not of the world" might lead us to neglect developing love of the world itself, and as such undermine a positive attitude towards life and culture which (in potential, given the right manifestation) our existence and culture might deserve.

Yeah. You know, John can be a little puzzling at times and I'm not sure where he's coming from in that verse of his Epistle, but it's probably got a lot to do with those who he's writing to. Later in the letter where he tells us that if we don't love we cannot know God because God is love, it would seem to contradict that, but I think if you read the 2nd chapter in it's context he appears to be making an allegorical point, (not that John would ever do such a thing.)

But yeah, I think there is a lot in the NT, especially from Paul where it's almost like "forget life on earth-it's not important at all." It's always been pretty clear to me that the Gospel writers and Paul all expected that "the new day" was almost upon them, and therefore worldy things were of little matter.

 

[TScott]

Yes, a daimon. Basically, the daimones were a type of "spirit" between the humans and the gods, maybe a little like angels.

Socrates argues that Love (the daimon) is lacking in beauty and goodness, because otherwise Love would not be attracted to either, seeking to possess them. So the idea that "God is Love" is contrary to his message. God can be Beauty or Goodness, but not Love.



Let's look at little further into Plato's Symposium.

Diotima: I put it to you, Socrates. What is it that the lover of the good is longing for?

Socrates: To make the good his own.

Then what will he gain by making it his own?

I can make a better shot at answering that, I said. He'll gain happiness.

Right, said she, for the happy and happy inasmuch as they possess the good, and since there's no need for us to ask why men should want to be happy, I think your answer is conclusive.


eudaimonia,

Mark

But Diotima also tells us that Love is not all happiness. She gives Socrates the story of Love's conception and birth when he asks about Love's parents.

On the birthday of Aphrodite there was a feast of the gods, at which the god Poros (Plenty), who is the son of Metis (Discretion), was one of the guests. When the feast was over, Penia (Poverty), as the manner is on such occasions, came about the doors to beg. Now Plenty who was the worse for nectar (there was no wine in those days), went into the garden of Zeus and fell into a heavy sleep, and Poverty considering her own straitened circumstances, plotted to have a child by him, and accordingly she lay down at his side and conceived Love, who partly because he is naturally a lover of the beautiful, and because Aphrodite is herself beautiful, and also because he was born on her birthday, is her follower and attendant. And as his parentage is, so also are his fortunes. In the first place he is always poor, and anything but tender and fair, as the many imagine him; and he is rough and squalid, and has no shoes, nor a house to dwell in; on the bare earth exposed he lies under the open heaven, in-the streets, or at the doors of houses, taking his rest; and like his mother he is always in distress. Like his father too, whom he also partly resembles, he is always plotting against the fair and good; he is bold, enterprising, strong, a mighty hunter, always weaving some intrigue or other, keen in the pursuit of wisdom, fertile in resources; a philosopher at all times, terrible as an enchanter, sorcerer, sophist. He is by nature neither mortal nor immortal, but alive and flourishing at one moment when he is in plenty, and dead at another moment, and again alive by reason of his father's nature. But that which is always flowing in is always flowing out, and so he is never in want and never in wealth; and, further, he is in a mean between ignorance and knowledge.

 

[TScott]

I'm not certain that "God being love" is a coherent concept. As defined by Spinoza, for instance, if love is "pleasure accompanied by the idea of an external cause" then is God the pleasure or the cause or "intermediary" as a sort of spirit like Diotima says? If intermediary, God would always have to exist in the form of a constant "becoming" between these two poles of pleasure and cause. But if God is the cause of love and the source of its pleasure, then that leads into a regress problem: how did mere becoming give rise to the necessary being?

Sure, I understand the dichotomy of John's God is Love and Plato's Love being an intermediary between mortals and the gods. Plato and John were not speaking of the same gods, IMO the gods of Plato were vehicles for the metaphors he used in teaching.

But as far as being a coherent concept? John rationalizes his claim that God is Love because God sent his only son into the world so that we could live through him. He sacrificed his only son for conciliation of our sins. John says the love here is not our love of God but God's love of us. At this, considering God as Love, I begin to see more of Plato's Love because here it is God's own wrath that he is sending his son to protect us from. He is after all the light and the darkness, or as Plato's Love is born of plenty and poverty having both traits.

It is difficult to see coherence when dealing with love or gods.

 

[Paradoxum]

I'm not sure why 'God is Love' is such a hard idea to understand. I assume it means that Gods nature is to love, and that He isn't a heartless distant Judge. It means to love is to participate in the divine.

I guess my understanding of moral love is that it should be ones intention in moral action. Duty is all well and good, but unlike Kant I don't think one is more moral when one doesn't act on inclination. Having a passion for doing the moral is a good thing because ones intention in moral action shouldn't be ones own glory, but the goodness of others. I could agree that Love is almost divine. Finite as it is known in the physical, but infinite as it is known in the mind.

 

[DisingenuousChristian]

I'm not sure why 'God is Love' is such a hard idea to understand.

It isn't... that is, if you don't mean it literally, that God is somehow the 'act' of Love or anything.

Figuratively it makes perfect sense.

 

[Eudaimonist]

I'm not sure why 'God is Love' is such a hard idea to understand.

It's not that it's hard to understand. The meaning of those words is hard to pin down.

It's like an ink blot test, since one simply can't interpret the statement literally. The mind naturally focuses on some "reasonable" interpretation that is completely one's own. There are many different ideas out there of what that phrase means.

It also comes across as just a part of an arm's race for making one's own God more powerful and amazing than one's neighbor's gods. Our God isn't just loving -- our God IS Love! Infinity times infinity!


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[iLogos]

1 John 4:8
He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

There is a deeper meaning here then the more obvious one, which fails.

One can love money, and sin too.

What is really meant is spiritual love, not worldly love.

There is love and then there is LOVE.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Yeah. You know, John can be a little puzzling at times and I'm not sure where he's coming from in that verse of his Epistle, but it's probably got a lot to do with those who he's writing to. Later in the letter where he tells us that if we don't love we cannot know God because God is love, it would seem to contradict that, but I think if you read the 2nd chapter in it's context he appears to be making an allegorical point, (not that John would ever do such a thing.)

But yeah, I think there is a lot in the NT, especially from Paul where it's almost like "forget life on earth-it's not important at all." It's always been pretty clear to me that the Gospel writers and Paul all expected that "the new day" was almost upon them, and therefore worldy things were of little matter.

Ty for that. Maybe my OP was a little harsh, but I think I have a better understanding now after mulling over it.

The world is seen as the immanent, but love is seen to be not of the world but of the next, the "new day" as you put it. It is the Kingdom of the future as experienced in the present. So Christians have made a phenomenon (love) which ordinarily people might say is part of life and of this world, and defined it as other worldly, Godly and of the future kingdom.

Thus there is a rift or division in their metaphysics of reality:

Within - in love and other Christian states of mind - the eschatological Kingdom of Heaven can become apparent and be met/touched/realised, whereas the outer is always of this life and world and therefore inferior. Perhaps?

 

[TScott]

There is a deeper meaning here then the more obvious one, which fails.

One can love money, and sin too.

What is really meant is spiritual love, not worldly love.

There is love and then there is LOVE.

Sure, but consider the comparison to romantic love to our feelings of God.

To those in love, Love springs eternal, to a theist God is eternal.

To those in love, Love conquers all, to a theist God is omnipotent.

To those in love, Love is everywhere, to a theist God is omnipresent.

To those in love, Love knows no bounds, to a theist God is omniscient.

 

[iLogos]

Like I said there is love and then there is LOVE!

We agree in the essentials, only differ slightly in the definitions