When does God stop loving you?

[camethodactor]

Since I believe that God is love, and God is our Father who is the savior of all especially of those who believe, God's love is unconditional and thus can never end. For God to stop loving us would mean that God's love is imperfect and therefore would reduce the Creator to being human.

To any and all (I would like a multi-denominational view on this):

I've pondered over this question a lot. God initially loves you unconditionally, right? So when does God say to a creation that he loves unconditionally, "I no longer love you because of what you've done," and send you to hell? At what point does God abandon you?

Because if hell exists, this must happen at some point.

 

[Hairy Tic]

To any and all (I would like a multi-denominational view on this):

I've pondered over this question a lot. God initially loves you unconditionally, right? So when does God say to a creation that he loves unconditionally, "I no longer love you because of what you've done," and send you to hell? At what point does God abandon you?

Because if hell exists, this must happen at some point.

## I believe God is Love, therefore, that He loves unconditionally. I think that His Love is, by definition, unconditional, & is identical with His Grace. My guess is that God's love for the damned is "experienced" by them as hate simply because they have lost the capacity to love anyone but self. The Saints have not lost it; OTC, this capacity is fully developed in them: so they are totally open to receiving Infinite Divine Love as the Infinite Divine Love it really is I think it's possible, on some such basis maybe, to reconcile universalism with a belief that there is a Hell. Both are in the NT.

Why do the damned suffer ? Because God loves them ? But that's a mere guess.

IOW, Heaven & Hell may be the same thing - not two different "places", but two "experiences", both eternal. And IMHO, that "thing" is God - God is Heaven, God is Hell, according as He differently "received" by different "types" of people: those for whom He is all-important, & those for whom their own selves are all-important.

(For those of us who believe there is a Purgatory, I believe God is Purgatory )

 

[Hairy Tic]

Then why does God choose to bestow his gift on some, and not on others? It's because of our thoughts and actions, is it not? What else exists that influences our salvation or damnation besides our own righteousness?

## Any one who sincerely seeks God, will find Him, AFAICS. There is a saying in Catholic theology: "God does not deny grace to him who does what in himself he can do" - IOW, having, without a man's knowledge, given him the desire to do His Will, God does not deny that man the grace which God puts it into the man's heart to desire. For grace, in Catholic treaching, does not destroy or smash or obliterate or trash human nature - it purifies, cleanses, corrects, elevates, beautifies, strengthens, builds on, renews, transforms, redeems perfects, & sanctifies it.

The debate is about an unfairness that does not exist, because everyone on earth is given all they need to find God. This is not another way of saying they "become Christians", if that is understood as meaning they join one of the Churches.

IMHO the question resolves itself into:

• in this time and place, can I love God with my whole heart ?
  
• in this time and place, can I love my neighbour ?

ISTM that to do the second is to do the first. That to love one's neighbour, is the way in which one loves God. If, & as, God is real regardless of what we think of Him, an atheist who loves his neighbour is in reality loving God whom the theory of atheism denies. What we do, is more important than our theory.

People are damned, not because God has decided to damn them, but because they bring damnation on themselves by doing wrong. Those who do what is pleasing to God, are often not Christians at all. That they do what is right, is itself His gift. There is no justification for any idea that God is not at work in the world as well as in the Church - that non-Christians should do what is right, is to be expected; it's not an astounding exception to what might be expected. What would be amazing would be not finding it done.

 

[perrfekt]

God loves us always
He loves us so much that He will let us leave Him, if we die in such a state, a state of seperation from God, we become fixed, growing and changing is for the living, once we are dead the dye is set, we are either friends of God or we have set ourself agianst Him, if we have set ourself agianst Him we would not want to spend forever with Him. The options are heaven or hell, if we set ourselves agianst God we have chosen a horrible eternity of pain

beautiful statement. the only thing that could be added is this "in yet while we were still sinners, christ died for us."