What became of "unconditional" love?

Hmm said:

No, not at all, quite the opposite in fact. I think these Magdalele "nuns", and I'll use double quotes here because they weren't nuns at all, other than technically, were far worse in their treatment of others than the average secular person would have been. I think this partly because I've read the harrowing autobiography of the American slave Frederick Douglass (not a typo, there are two 's's in his name), who testified that Christian slave-owners, I should use double-quotes again around the word "Christian" here but I believe you'll get my point, were far crueler than secular slave-owners. He didn't speculate as to the reason but it's pretty obvious isn't it?



This means that there are two tiers in heaven, which makes me think of workplaces: management against the poor, down-trodden, heroic workers. It's not an image of a Godly eternity that computes with me, no doubt because I'm not managerial material but am instead a fine, upstanding, honest-to-goodness, salt-of-the-earth, blue-collar type of guy.

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Yes and no. The one big variable in heaven is Godly type Love which for humans can only be obtained on earth and it can grow while we are on earth, so we enter heaven with different degrees of Love, but are there winners and losers? Can you really be envious of someone who is Loving you with a much greater Love than you are loving them back? God/Christ/Spirit have the greatest unconditional, sacrificial, unselfish Love for you, and you have your Love to Love them back with, so are you lusting after Their Love, would you feel cheated? They will do anything to help you do whatever good you want to do, but you are not as unselfish as they are.
The problem is with those who do not like or want Godly type Love like the Older son in the prodigal son story if he refused to join the party.

bling said:

Yes and no. The one big variable in heaven is Godly type Love which for humans can only be obtained on earth and it can grow while we are on earth, so we enter heaven with different degrees of Love, but are there winners and losers? Can you really be envious of someone who is Loving you with a much greater Love than you are loving them back? God/Christ/Spirit have the greatest unconditional, sacrificial, unselfish Love for you, and you have your Love to Love them back with, so are you lusting after Their Love, would you feel cheated? They will do anything to help you do whatever good you want to do, but you are not as unselfish as they are.
The problem is with those who do not like or want Godly type Love like the Older son in the prodigal son story if he refused to join the party.

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The trouble with this to me is it's saying that there's no scope for growth in heaven. A fundamental part of being persons is that we have the possibility of continuing to learn and develop. This is as fundamental to our nature as is our freedom. You seem to put a great price on human free-will and consider it even greater than our right to happiness - that God would honour our "free choice" for hell even though it would be clearly against our interests. This to me is no different than saying that a human parent or guardian should allow their children to run across a busy road if they want to.

I don't know if scripture says much about what heaven is but I imagine it is a place/state where we can and experience new things and relationships and grow into eternity. It would be a very much second-rate place to be if our position was fixed and determined by our moral stature at the moment of your physical death in the way you suggest.

Saint Steven said:

Been quite some time since I have heard anyone discuss, or even refer to it.
Discussions of conditions for God's love is all the rage; no mention of unconditional love lately. Currently out of fashion?

Differentiating agape' from phileo and eros was once important gospel discussion.

Do we apply unconditional love in all these situations?

John 3:16
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

John 13:34-35
A new commandment I give to you, That you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

1 John 4:8
He that loves not knows not God; for God is love.

1 John 4:16
And we have known and believed the love that God has to us. God is love; and he that dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him.

1 John 4:18
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear: because fear has torment. He that fears is not made perfect in love.

Romans 5:8
But God commends his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

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A few years ago, in a Facebook Christian group I belong to someone put his finger on some of the stuff that bothered me for years about how Christians have adopted "Unconditional Love" (a pop psychology / therapy term) as an equivalent term. The poster said, "I do not like that term because it seems to imply no boundaries, when Biblical love has boundaries. Instead, I use, "Unfailing Love" because that is what the Bible uses and is the closest translation of the Biblical terms of Chesed and Agape".

Hmm said:

The trouble with this to me is it's saying that there's no scope for growth in heaven. A fundamental part of being persons is that we have the possibility of continuing to learn and develop. This is as fundamental to our nature as is our freedom. You seem to put a great price on human free-will and consider it even greater than our right to happiness - that God would honour our "free choice" for hell even though it would be clearly against our interests. This to me is no different than saying that a human parent or guardian should allow their children to run across a busy road if they want to.

I don't know if scripture says much about what heaven is but I imagine it is a place/state where we can and experience new things and relationships and grow into eternity. It would be a very much second-rate place to be if our position was fixed and determined by our moral stature at the moment of your physical death in the way you suggest.

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I did not say, “your love would not grow in heaven”, but others will have a head start on you, because of their growth in Love while on earth. We will also grow in knowledge, but I do not know how it all works and neither do you.

You say I am saying: “parent or guardian should allow their children to run across a busy road if they want to.” Which is totally false. I am talking about going or not going to party and enjoying or being unhappy at a party, (the older son in the prodigal son story), the parent is not doing something that could get them killed. Should a parent give their child that choice or should the parent drag their mature adult child to the party and allow them to be miserable for as long as the party lasts?

I have heard people say: going to a Hollywood party would be like dying and not going to heaven.

Part of being who we are is who we want to be, if God takes away, who we want to be and replaces that want with someone else, God would be changing who we are to someone we do not want to be.

What more could the father, in the prodigal son story, say or do to get the older son, to happily go to the party, then what he already said and did?

Would the older son be happy at the party, if the father had said: “If you stay here, you will eventually be annihilated and not have an eternal party life with your younger brother”?

I don't think there's a problem with God's love for us. It's that many people don't return that love. Doesn't mean he still won't love them.

Mark 12:30 "And thou shalt love the Lord they God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength:' this is the first commandment."

JulieB67 said:

It's that many people don't return that love. Doesn't mean he still won't love them.

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But if you were a judge and a guy was up before you charged with throwing his child into a fire, would you be convinced by him saying "Come on guv! I do love my son. I was just expressing that love."?