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Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I'm extremely grateful to God for you all. I've never seen a site filled with brilliant theological knowledge like here.

I had a thought that I'd like your comments on. I'm not sure if this occurred to anyone here amongst you, but something just dawned on me of late, and I'd like you to refute/agree with it as you see fit.

If one of the attributes of God that He is "ALL LOVING", it means that He must have loved before the time of the creation. You agree?

So - WHO DID HE LOVE?

Through the Triune Nature of God, we recognize that the Son (the 2nd Person of the Trinity) IS the Beloved of the Father.
He is the ETERNALLY Beloved of the Father.

i.e. That God did NOT start loving as soon as He created, but Love was manifested in His Being through His Triune Nature.

This is very important.

It means that without a Trinity or God without a Triune nature, the ONLY Love God will have will be selfish (i.e. He would only have Himself to love) - i.e in Islam; God's nature would be selfish.

But the unity of love between all members of the Triune God is selfless, not selfish.

If God started only to love once He created mankind and the creation, then He wouldn't have been "All Loving". Its like saying, God only discovered what light could do once He created light. But HE KNEW what light could do before He created it.

The same with Love. How would He be able to Love WITHOUT a Trinity??

Do you agree with this logic, or am I incorrect??

Thanks

Thanos888:

Christ is in our midst!!

The intimate nature of the Trinity is His "other-directedness." That is, each of the Divine Persons points toward the others. In this, He shows us what love is really about--it is pointed outward, even as the mystery of it all begins with the fact that one cannot love another unless one loves and accepts oneself.

So the Holy Trinity originates all love, all love flows from Him outward (to us and to all creation), and pulls all true love back to Himself (as gratitude).

Bob

Theophan,

That was so beautifully phrased.

I feel you are agreeing with me? Is my understanding correct? That through the Trinity, there exists eternal perpetual selfless love between them. A Triune God is truely selfless and all-loving.

is there anything wrong then with my original post? Is it incorrect in anyway?

Thanks

Thanos888:

Christ is in our midst!!

I think we have to be careful here about the Mystery of God, the Trinity. Love flows among the Persons, but we must always remember to use the singular form because there is only One God. We dance around trying to define a Being Who is far beyond our comprehension, yet wants to be intimately involved in our lives.

Let me past in a portion of a teaching tool I just used for training lay readers. The point is not to take words at their face, but to plumb the depths of the meanings and nuances that we may miss or forget. Some interesting insights came out of this exercise for me.



Notice the implications that come out. God wants to love us, first. Then He wants us to love Him back--voluntarily. then He wants us to invite Him into our lives so He can walk with us, share everything with us, and finally share everything He has with us for eternity. Kind of overwhelming when you think of that generosity. And all we've got to do is say "yes."

Bob

What is being asked can only be answered to a certain point because our minds are finite. Yet is we ponder Jeremiah 1:4-5

The word of the LORD came to me thus:
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you.

I don't think we are really to know or understand until our lives are completed back in heaven with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Gazing upon the icon of the Last Supper, we realize the front of the table is bare. Why? Because we were there! It is a mystery of the Triune God only he knows.

What I'm thinking is this:

If you take the Islamic God, 'Allah' for a second, how can you say that he is "all loving"? How?

If he was "all loving" , then he must have always loved, EVEN before his creation. Who did he love outside of himself? It would mean, that if he was "all loving", then he only had himself to love.

However, in a Triune God, Love is exhibited between all persons of the Trinity. The Word of God is the Beloved of the Father. There is perpetual and perfect Love between the Father and His Perpetual Son. It is selfless love because each person of the Trinity Loves OUTSIDE of Himself.

But without a trinity, God without a Triune Nature, is humanised. We have humanized God.

Does anyone see where I'm going with this??

Does anyone realize that, as far as I can see, this is the best answer to refuting Islam: their god CANNOT be "ALL LOVING".

Christ is in our midst!!



Unless I'm mistaken, Moslems don't make that claim in the first place.

Bob

He is and always will be!

Muslim have the "99 names of Allah" but it does not include All Loving. Allah, according to Islam is All merciful, just, all knowing, all powerful etc, but he is not all loving. They never make that claim. Neither in the Qur'an nor in the sayings of Muhammad.

Kyrie eleison,

Manuel

Luvr of East,

But they do! Although LOVE is not one of the names of "Allah" , muslims say that their god loves.

But he only loves the muslims. He hates the non muslims.. lol

He reminds me of some kid that I went to school with. He'd beat up everyone that wasn't "in his gang". The weired thing is, to be in his gang, you'd have to love a life of violence, so not only did it not appeal to me, but I was destined to be persecuted by him and his "gang".

Lord have mercy on us!

Christ is in our midst!!

From what I have come to understand of "mercy" and of "love" and their relatedness, a limited "love" does not seem possible if "mercy" applies. Similarly, "hatred" in any form is not at all compatible with "mercy."

Bob