This is a paragraph from my forthcoming book that speaks to the nature of God and love. I receive support for this Contrarian view from the brilliance of two of my primary mentors for this view.
God is not love!
"When someone says, “God is love” they identify Him as the source and embodiment of love, but actually He is not love any more than He is justice, or mercy, or grace. He is much more. The great C.S. Lewis distinguished God’s love from the romantic’s false notion that “love is God” and A.W. Tozer amplifies Lewis by resoning that God is not love because love is not God. Love describes an attribute of God but it is not a proper object of worship. So, with both Lewis and Tozer, I concluded that the world and the people of flesh may worship love but children of the spirit simply experience and share love but we only worship God. (The Knowledge of the Holy. Page 97)" Chapter Six
What Matters About Me
- Jack C. Getz
- I am who I am, not what I have done. For those who care about pedigree, I have little more than being a former public school teacher and a pastor/denominational adminstrator. The following insights come from a couple of tests I took. They may explain why I am a Contrarian and why I decided to do a blog about it. The first test is a standardized personality profile. The second is something strange called a Brain Type test! 1)“Jack lives outside traditional boundaries and ahead of the curve. When others focus on limitations, Jack creates new possibilities and ideas. He is a doer, not just a dreamer. Well grounded in reality, logic and analytical thinking. He enjoys meeting and working with other creative and ambitious people...a fearless leader. Only 3-5% of U.S. population has these qualities.” 2) Jack's Intellectual Type is Word Warrior. This means he has exceptional verbal skills. He can can easily make sense of complex issues and takes an unusually creative approach to solving problems. His strengths also make him a visionary. Even without trying he's able to come up with lots of new and creative ideas. (Like blogging as Contrarian?)
This challenges common ideas about the purpose of praying. Not a rehash of old dogma.
Click Image to purchase - Search Jack Corbin Getz Or Check major online book sellers.
In the same vein, God is just, but He is not justice. He is merciful, but not mercy, faithful, but not faithfulness etc. It makes good sense, but we are so familiar with the hymn "God Is Love," that it gets thrown around rather carelessly.
ReplyDeleteIt's a good reminder to think before we speak. (Perhaps I should worry, as I am so quick to "post a comment." I do like this Internet Theology Cafe though!)
The thought came to me today that the same is true about people. We are not love but can be loving etc. All our qualities combine to to form our personality...right?
ReplyDeleteI don't know enough about personality to say what it is or isn't - but I suspect it's about our values, traits, heritage, natural
inheritance and learned preferences.
Being labeled as one thing, even an eternal value like love, means you are 100% of that thing. So there's no space for anyhting else. And, anything that limits God, like being one thing,can't be His identity.
True, God is all of love, all mercy, all grace, all justice, all faithfulness etc. but they are not all that He is.
My head hurts!
I was reading 1 John 4 today, and not to throw a wrench in things, but John does state plainly, at least in the NIV, that "God is love." He says it twice, once in verse 8, where the point is that we must love to claim we know God. Then again in verse 16 - a simple declarative sentence, "God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him." This is such an amazing chapter - I don't mean to brush over it quickly, but it seemed to fit in with the above conversation. And - it doesn't seem to argue with your last point, that though God is "all of love" he is more than that.
ReplyDeleteWhile I'm at it, I'll take issue (sweetly, of course!) with your point about labels. If your point is - we shouldn't use them, I'd probably agree, although they sometimes can be useful. But as to them making you 100% that thing - I will respectfully disagree. I can be labeled many things - wife, mother, sister, daughter, friend - and all are true, but they do not limit my identity. Rather they expand it and there is still freedom to add to the list.
(Hmm -I hope you'll get some fresh new posts - or post-ers. I don't think I'm enhancing my reputation as a critical thinker here!)
Me either! I'm trying to recall what I meant by that when I said it. Clearly, if you are a mother, you are all mother, something true of any of our multiple roles. You may be a good mother, a bad mother or a mediocre mother, but once you are one you can't stop being one.
ReplyDeleteI'll think on this more!
I would guess that figuratively speaking you are correct. But I have known a couple of "mothers" in the Booth Center who could not wait to give up their rights to the moniker much less the implication (at the least) nor essence (at best) of the title "Mother". In dealing with them over a period of time, even when their child(ren) became extremely ill, there was no caring, no concern, no feeling.
ReplyDeleteWhen we say God is not love we would once again build a partition between God and Man, there would be a depth of enmity that would again need to be overcome. I think quickly of the scripture found in 1John 4:10 where we read... "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins".
It was for LOVE THAT HE CAME. Not Just His but ours and I believe that is what you are saying here. It cannot be one-sided. While His Love is COMPLETE it is not entire, exhaustive, intact.. until we "partake" of it. To me this is the communion of the Father through Jesus Christ when we receive the Body and Blood of Christ Our Lord. It is not a Eucharist that we crave, a wafer nor juice could never represent the fullness of His entirety when we join as one in the spirit.
Sorry - I've gone on long enough. I do believe though that God IS LOVE! Without it there could be no mercy - no grace - no hope!
Finally... I'm checking my blog!
ReplyDeleteThanks for writing! Great thoughts. You sound like a professor and associate Dean!
I agree with all you say but still rest on the idea that God is not love because love is not God. We love our parents, family and friends, but we don't worship that love because it's not God. It's of God.
He is not thought of as love because He is loving and loves, but because of His character, of which love is one of many expressions. We can't worship His qualities, or even His word, only Him, because He is the Word that enlivens the rest of His nature. Love is part of a nature that He expresses through His many qualities and values, like grace. But to say He is love limits Him in my mind. Does God love? Yes. Is love the only grace carried into eternity? Yes. S0 in that, love is unique, but I can't worship love, only the lover and I praise the lover because He loves.
I love Barbara because she is Barbara, not because she is a good mother, cook or provider. When I praise her it's not because of what she does for me, I thank her for that. I praise her because of who she is to me. I can't praise unless I love the object. Similarly, I love and praise God for who He is and express gratitude because He loves me.
Whew!
Thanks again for stretching me. As iron sharpens iron, eh?
You said...
ReplyDeleteI agree with all you say but still rest on the idea that God is not love because "love is not" God.
However, God's WORD says...
"He that loveth not knoweth not God; for 'God is love'." 1John 4:8 (KJV)
Also...
"And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. 'God is love'; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." 1 John 4:16 (KJV)
What then should I rest in? Should I rest in my respect and love for my friend and agree with him, or should I rest on the WORD of God ALONE?
Me thinks thou knowest the answer to that.
God bless you buddy. You are truly a thought-provoking lad.
--Wayne--
Wayne
ReplyDeleteI steal everything, well almost everything. I have C.S. Lewis and A.W Tozer on my side. The nuance is what is confusing. I think the translation is probably more like "God is loving"
and not just love. The spirit of it is found in the opposite, which is what drives so many people to worship love, not the source of love. I don't worship love, the Bible, the church or anything else that is only supposed to describe or help define the nature of God. Do you worship love? No, you don't worship a quality, but the person.
You can't make a quality into a person.
I'll try to remember to get some of the material from Tozer and Lewis. Mere Christianity and Knowledge of the Holy are probably where they are.
Thanks for writing and challenging both yourself and me.
Love you brother.
Hello again...
ReplyDeleteI see the point you or CS LEWIS or whomever is trying to make and I appreciate the constructive abstraction of the point that we cannot worship love but we must worship God. However, the scripture says we can worship the love of God since God IS LOVE!
I think the better point here would be that we cannot separate the two. To do so "undresses" our Creator God and makes Him seem COLD and aloof - perhaps even indifferent or disinterested. God is none of those things. He is ALL IN ALL!
God is love and love is God. We can at no point speculate or trivialize that on the basis of our mere humanity. (visa-vis your illustration using Barb)An ALL-ENCOMPASSING GOD cannot be "figured out" for His thoughts are above our thoughts... His ways are above our ways. (ref. Is 55:8,9)
I can see what you're trying to say my friend, it is thought-provoking and you have always had that ability to cause one to look inward and say, "I believe that... but why do I believe that?" That is the essence of a true thinker and a man devoted to his fellowship. I admire that. Problem is... the Scriptures trump CS LEWIS AND TOZER this time.
Blessings on you my brother.
--Wayne--
I can't correct your errant thinking right now, I have to go the the hardware store, but don't sleep too soundly on your swiss-cheese-like arguments. I will return with a fury and flurry of truth that will buckle your obstinate defense of the indefensible! :=)
ReplyDeleteBring it on!!!!
ReplyDelete