# Is God's love "unconditional?"



## AThornquist (Apr 29, 2011)

I know that quite a few people say that God's love is unconditional, and I'm trying to figure out if that is proper to say. Of course, this terminology depends on the object of love; one might say that God's love for the believer is unconditional because if one is truly in Christ, then indeed no matter how spiritual or unspiritual this Christian might become he or she is accepted as a child of God. 
Of course, for the reprobate there is a sense (in my opinion, though some disagree) in which God loves them, yet they are under the curse of God and will be punished for being blessed by God and yet remaining a rejector of Him as Lord. 
Then there is the unbeliever who is under the wrath of God but who was elected in love; would this love be regardless of the condition of the object and therefore "unconditional?"

Blegh. The only reason I care is because "unconditional love" is spoken of frequently in our culture. Let me know what you think.


----------



## dudley (Apr 29, 2011)

The Parable of the Prodigal Son, though found only in Luke's Gospel, is one of the clearest and fullest expression of the Truth in so few words and provides the basic structure for what I believe Jesus was trying to teach us about Gods position; that the love of the father, which symbolizes "Our Father in heaven" is unconditional if the son is truly repenting...That is my opinion....


----------



## Pergamum (Apr 29, 2011)

I heard a few people say that God loves us because of Christ; but it seems that God's love was the cause of sending Christ. Thus, it is not proper to say that God's love of us is because of Christ's work for us, but God's love for us caused the Father to send the Son to die for us. Thus, it appears that God's love is unconditional in that sense.

Of course, if one is truly a child of God, He will want to obey his Father.


----------



## dudley (Apr 29, 2011)

Pergamum said:


> I heard a few people say that God loves us because of Christ; but it seems that God's love was the cause of sending Christ. Thus, it is not proper to say that God's love of us is because of Christ's work for us, but God's love for us caused the Father to send the Son to die for us. Thus, it appears that God's love is unconditional in that sense.
> 
> Of course, if one is truly a child of God, He will want to obey his Father.



I say "ditto" and Amen brother Pergamun! He so loved us He sent His only begottten Son to redeem us from the ravages of Hell and bring us to Him in eternal glory in Heaven.....


----------



## AThornquist (Apr 29, 2011)

Thanks for the responses. Anyone else?


----------



## ryanhamre (Apr 29, 2011)

I think I'm leaning towards God's Love is conditional.

We know God hates those who do iniquity, and it's also safe to say that God hates satan.

God's lack of love for these individuals is for a certain reason, a breaking of some condition.

If God's love is unconditional, then universalism abounds... and God hates no one.

We get God's love through Christ, and Christ alone.


----------



## jogri17 (Apr 29, 2011)

Election is unconditional. Election is an act of love. therefore Love is unconditional.


----------



## ryanhamre (Apr 30, 2011)

Election to what? "For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son" (Rom. 8:29)

1. Election is unconditional
2. Election is an act of Love
3. Therefore, Love is unconditional

I believe proposition number two is missing what the act of love is for.

Another question we must ask ourselves is this; in and of ourselves, are we lovable?


----------



## Whitefield (Apr 30, 2011)

I'm reluctant to say that anything is conditional in God. It seems to me that if we say God's love is conditional, then it is a reaction more than an action. And if it is a reaction, then the one being reacted to is the determinant of the reaction. To put my thought in a more symbolic way, if we say it is the case that "if A then B" and "if not A then not B" are both true in a given instance, then "A" determines whether "B" happens.

To say that God's love is unconditional is not the same thing as saying God's love is universal.


----------



## Don Kistler (Apr 30, 2011)

We are only "accepted in the Beloved (Christ)." That is a condition. 
The condition repeatedly seems to be that we be in Christ.

We know that God hates all who practice iniquity, so that's a negative condition for not being loved.


----------



## InSlaveryToChrist (Apr 30, 2011)

Please, correct me, if I'm wrong, but if love is a _free_ act of God, then how can it be conditional? Some people argue that God's love is unconditional of anything outside of Himself, but conditional of Himself. In other words, they say that God finds the reason to love in Himself. But how is that a _free_ act, then? Doesn't freedom indicate you are not coerced to act by any conditions whatsoever?


----------



## Prufrock (Apr 30, 2011)

Benevolence, beneficence and complacency. The first is that by which God willed our good from eternity; the second, doing good to us in time according to his free pleasure; the third, that by which he delights in us as renewed creatures in Christ. This is the threefold love of God in traditional Reformed dogmatics, and should show the conditional/non-conditional aspects of God's love depend on in which sense "love" is taken.


----------



## Semper Fidelis (Apr 30, 2011)

God's love is better than unconditional. Here is my review of Powlison's book Seeing with New Eyes. I think he captures the issue well:

*************************************************


Chapter 9 examines one of the catchphrases of Roger’s “unconditional positive regard”. God’s love is “better than unconditional”. 

It is difficult to convey the richness and weight of God’s love, in part, because of the secular language that surrounds the idea of love today. Powlison takes dead aim against the modern notion of “unconditional love” that begins and ends with sympathy and empathy and blanket acceptance of a person with no expectations. We can take it or leave it. In contrast, God cares too much for us to leave us as we are.

Powlison appeals to the light of nature in that parents have a protective love for their children. How much more so a perfect, heavenly father! He appeals to Psalm 121, Hosea 11 and 14, Isaiah 49, and the life of Christ. The Lord watches us. He cares. What his children do and what happens to them matter to him. 

God actively loves us. He decided to love us when He could have justly condemned. His love is full of blood, sweat, and tears for us and it cost the Son tremendously to love us. He fights with us and pursues us with great fervor. He comes to live in us and transforms us by His Spirit. He is jealous. He even has hatred in his love for us: hatred for evil whether toward us or done by us. It is a particular love that we are meant to emulate toward our brethren as Christ lives in us (Eph 4:32-5:2).

The love of God has a definite goal expressed in 2 Cor 5:14-15 – it is accepting but opinionated, choosy, and intrusive. The popular term of “unconditional love” does capture four truths about love: 1) that conditional love is a bad thing, 2) that God’s love is patient, 3) that love is God’s gift, and 4) that God receives us just as we are. The term however muddies the waters for four reasons:

1. There are more biblical, vivid ways to capture these truths. Real love’s kindness has zeal, self-sacrifice, and a call to change.
2.	Unmerited grace is not strictly unconditional. God’s love required the perfect life and sin-bearing substitution of Christ.
3.	God’s grace is intended to change people. We are not just fine as we are but slaves to sin apart from God.
4.	Unconditional love carries cultural baggage. This is true not only in Christian circles but the secular ideas that vie against Biblical notions of love. 

Our lives need a better story and solution than the unconditional acceptance that the world offers. The world offers the sin-suppressing madness of Rom 1:18-32. God’s love raises us from the dead and gives us spiritual life that we may love as we have been called into by grace.


----------



## InSlaveryToChrist (Apr 30, 2011)

Prufrock said:


> Benevolence, beneficence and complacency. The first is that by which God willed our good from eternity; the second, doing good to us in time according to his free pleasure; the third, that by which he delights in us as renewed creatures in Christ. This is the threefold love of God in traditional Reformed dogmatics, and should show the conditional/non-conditional aspects of God's love depend on in which sense "love" is taken.


 
Maybe you could provide us with some resource(s) handling that view of the love of God? By the way, do you know any theologian who holds to it and yet believes John 3:16 is to the elect world?


----------



## earl40 (Apr 30, 2011)

dudley said:


> The Parable of the Prodigal Son, though found only in Luke's Gospel, is one of the clearest and fullest expression of the Truth in so few words and provides the basic structure for what I believe Jesus was trying to teach us about Gods position; that the love of the father, which symbolizes "Our Father in heaven" is unconditional if the son is truly repenting...That is my opinion....


 
Great point. Of course this presupposes that God grants grace to the son to do such. For even our repentance is dependent on faith in Him which is a gift of God, which no doubt you believe.


----------



## Don Kistler (Apr 30, 2011)

With regard to God's choices being "free," they are not. God is not free to do anything that is in any way contradictory to His nature. God is not free to love sin or hate virtue. God does not have a free will in the sense of His will being neutral to both sides of an issue.

God's will is determined, and therefore is conditional, on His eternal plan to exalt His Son in the salvation of sinners. Everything He does is conditioned on that.


----------



## Prufrock (Apr 30, 2011)

InSlaveryToChrist said:


> Maybe you could provide us with some resource(s) handling that view of the love of God? By the way, do you know any theologian who holds to it and yet believes John 3:16 is to the elect world?



Sure. All of them. I can't imagine any Reformed theologian would have avoided those categories anymore than they would have denied traditional ways of talking about the Trinity. Since Turretin is English and most people here will accept him as a representative authority of mainstream Reformed orthodoxy, you can read his discussion of God's love in Institutes I.XX, where the categories are described. And, yes, he maintains that Jn. 3:16 refers to the universality of the elect.


----------



## Michael (Apr 30, 2011)

yes


----------



## Osage Bluestem (Apr 30, 2011)

I believe the entire purpose of our existance (the elect) is adoption into the family of God. He willed us into being as the object of his love. I believe that is election. He predestined his elect to be turned over to sin for awhile so he could demonstrate his glory, power, and love to us in the redemtion provided by Jesus Christ that he prepared for us so that we could witness firsthand God's righteousness in the destruction of evil and by that be eternally edified in exaltation of his Son.


----------



## pepper (May 9, 2011)

God first loved us, therefore no condition. However, forgiveness is not unconditional. Christ met the legal condition, and we must receive by faith that forgiveness and we are called on to repent. Jesus Himself calls out for sinners to repent and believe. No faith, no salvation see John 3:18 and John 3:36. There is no unconditional forgiveness.


----------



## Osage Bluestem (May 9, 2011)

AThornquist said:


> I know that quite a few people say that God's love is unconditional, and I'm trying to figure out if that is proper to say. Of course, this terminology depends on the object of love; one might say that God's love for the believer is unconditional because if one is truly in Christ, then indeed no matter how spiritual or unspiritual this Christian might become he or she is accepted as a child of God.
> Of course, for the reprobate there is a sense (in my opinion, though some disagree) in which God loves them, yet they are under the curse of God and will be punished for being blessed by God and yet remaining a rejector of Him as Lord.
> Then there is the unbeliever who is under the wrath of God but who was elected in love; would this love be regardless of the condition of the object and therefore "unconditional?"
> 
> Blegh. The only reason I care is because "unconditional love" is spoken of frequently in our culture. Let me know what you think.


 
I believe God's love is unconditional. That is the doctrine of unconditional election. It is proper to say.


----------



## py3ak (May 9, 2011)

Paul nailed the issue, as usual. Hosea 14:4 provides Biblical support, and one of my favorite lines from Turretin encapsulates the matter: "No cause can be assigned for the will of God."


----------



## ryanhamre (May 9, 2011)

I do not understand the rationale that Unconditional Election == Unconditional Love.


----------



## Osage Bluestem (May 9, 2011)

ryanhamre said:


> I do not understand the rationale that Unconditional Election == Unconditional Love.


 
Well, God loves everyone he elected to salvation. We know that election is unconditional so what does that say for love?


----------



## Bill The Baptist (May 9, 2011)

Osage Bluestem said:


> Well, God loves everyone he elected to salvation. We know that election is unconditional so what does that say for love?



Right, but the question is does God truly love those he has not elected. If the answer is no, then His love is conditional upon His election. I know it sounds a bit circular to say that God's love is conditional upon God's love, but that is the benefit of being sovereign.


----------



## ryanhamre (May 9, 2011)

If God loves everyone he elected to salvation, and election is unconditional, then it would seem to me that the love is the result of the unconditional election.

God's love of me is through Christ, and Christ alone. Election is unconditional, in that there is no condition within our condition, that merits election.

If the love is unconditional, then this would bring into question the difference in love for Jacob and Esau. One of which was elect and the other reprobate. He loved one, and hated the other. Does God unconditionally hate?


----------



## Osage Bluestem (May 9, 2011)

Bill The Baptist said:


> Osage Bluestem said:
> 
> 
> > Well, God loves everyone he elected to salvation. We know that election is unconditional so what does that say for love?
> ...


 
I believe that reality is the reality of the process of adoption of God's elect people into his family. He created them to be adopted so he created them in love. He made them how he wanted them to be as objects of his love. He doesn't love the reprobate in a familial way and he created them to maintain an evil world for the training of the elect and for his glory so that he can destroy evil in sight of his elect. This will glorify him and edify his elect.

So, God's love is not conditional upon anything because God created his family in love to be what they are. We are made to be part of the family of God.

---------- Post added at 07:23 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:19 PM ----------




ryanhamre said:


> If God loves everyone he elected to salvation, and election is unconditional, then it would seem to me that the love is the result of the unconditional election.
> 
> God's love of me is through Christ, and Christ alone. Election is unconditional, in that there is no condition within our condition, that merits election.
> 
> If the love is unconditional, then this would bring into question the difference in love for Jacob and Esau. One of which was elect and the other reprobate. He loved one, and hated the other. Does God unconditionally hate?



As stated above God created his elect in love to be members of his family. The reprobate serve the ultimate purpose of glorifying God and edifying the elect in their destruction. God hates them unconditionally because they were created to be hated. They were made to be damned, however all of that serves a good purpose in glorifying God and edifying the elect. So it is good that evil exist for awhile.

Why is there Evil? « Osage Bluestem


----------



## ryanhamre (May 10, 2011)

So, if the elect were created to be loved, and the reprobate were created to be hated, then wouldn't a condition of being loved or hated be contingent upon the purposed creation of such and such individual?


----------



## Osage Bluestem (May 11, 2011)

ryanhamre said:


> So, if the elect were created to be loved, and the reprobate were created to be hated, then wouldn't a condition of being loved or hated be contingent upon the purposed creation of such and such individual?


 
No. God made everything and everyone for a specific purpose within His plan. There are no preexisting conditions that will determine the love of God. God's love is unconditional. It just is. 

His forgiveness is conditional upon repentance, but in his love he has predestined his elect to repent. So, it's all taken care of by God. We simply exist by his grace as objects of his love.


----------

