Redemption, Reconciliation, and Liberation
22 March 2004, 6 pm | Faith
This post is partially a reply to Gil Milbauer’s comments on Christianity. He is an atheist who has some serious questions and misinformed opinions of Christianity. I am not a very good apologist, but here is my attempt to explain some of Christianity.
Christianity is not a philosophy; it is a way of living.
First and foremost, it is not fair to pronounce judgments on the morality of Christianity based on Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ. The movie presumes that you know the whole story of Jesus before you even sit down to watch it. We also need to keep in mind that this movie is one man’s interpretation of the events of the last twelve hours in the life of Jesus. Parts of the movie probably tell us more about Gibson’s view of Jesus than it does the whole of Christianity. (A side note: You are correct to say that the movie is all about suffering, that is why it is called “The Passion”. The English word passion comes from the Greek work for suffering, pathos. BUT, Christianity is not all about suffering. Suffering is an accepted part of life.)
Before I get too far, I need to clarify a common, misguided notion on the relationship between God and humanity. God is love. God loves His creation the Universe. He loves everything in His Universe. Humanity is not excrement in God’s eyes. God knows and loves each and every person. He loves you exactly the way you are. And this is what gets me, there is nothing you can do that will make Him love you any more, or any less. He simply loves you just because you are you. If you do not understand this paragraph, then the rest of this essay will probably be meaningless.
Because God loves us first, some of us have chosen to love Him in return. It is your choice. He will not force or coerce you to love Him back. He will still love you regardless of your choice. He has given you free will in order to make this choice. It is up to you to choose. He will not give you that sign of definite (or scientific) proof of His existence that many people think they need in order to believe. If He did, then that would nullify your free will.
For a lack of a better word, there is one caveat to God’s love. It is true that He loves you exactly the way you are right now regardless of whether you love Him back or not. But, God wants to transform you. He wants to perfect you. He wants to transform you into an adopted son or daughter of God, just as Jesus is the Son of God. This is not to say that you will become the Christ, rather you will become Christ like. You will become holy. You will become sanctified. This is a process that will not be wholely completed in this worldly life. The caveat is that you must believe before this transformation can begin.
The English word love has too many layers of meaning to it. To say that “I love my spouse” does not carry the same meaning as “I love ice cream.” We must differentiate the meanings of love:
Affectionate love is fondness or preference for certain things or people. (C.S. Lewis describes this type of love in his book The Four Loves.)
Eros love or erotic love is sexual love. This is the form of love described in countless songs and poems.
Philia love is friendship love, or brotherly love. It is seen in the name Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love.
Agape love is unconditional love. It is perfect and selfless. This form of love is sometimes called charity.
The first three forms of love listed above usually involve emotions, something usually associated with “warm fuzzies.” Agape love is not an emotion. As William Barclay wrote, “Agape has to do with the mind: it is not simply an emotion which rises unbidden in our hearts; it is a principle by which we deliberately live.”
Jesus gave us two commandments (from which all of the Bible is based): love God and love your neighbor. Jesus emphasized the first commandment “with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” Jesus emphasized the second commandment with “love each other as I have loved you.” Jesus had agape love for us. We are called to agape love. (Although we often miss and end up with, at best, philia love, we none the less strive for agape love.) This is the basis of all Christian morality. (Note: Agape love includes loving your enemies.) Paul gives an excellent and famous description of agape love in 1 Corinthians 13. (See also “The Challenge of ‘Agape’ Love” for a little more depth.) These two commandments set up a hierarchy of focus: God first, others second, and myself third.
Thomas Merton described the Bible as a story of redemption, reconciliation, and liberation. The Bible, especially in the Old Testament, is filled with stories that illustrate these themes. Many times the people of Israel broke away from the will of God, found themselves lost or captive, redeemed themselves, reconciled with God, and became a free nation again. These themes of redemption, reconciliation, and liberation are best exemplified by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
To understand redemption, we need to go a little deeper in the relationship between God and humanity. Keep in mind that God loves us; but basically, God and man are separated. There is a gap between us. Some people call the source of this gap “original sin;” that is, man chose with his free will to go his own way, to go it alone without the need of God. Some people describe man as being lost. Regardless, man has basically chosen to reverse the order of focus to himself first, others second, and if he gets around to it, God third. (Note: A simple definition of sin is to go against God’s will. There is much debate on how to know God’s will, but I believe most of it goes back to the two commandments, to love God and to love others.) This gap between God and man, this condition of being lost, our sin, leads to death. And by death, I mean not only the death of the organism, but also death of the soul or spirit, the death of the essence of you.
The death of Jesus on The Cross and His Resurrection was His act of redemption for humanity. He is the Way to bridge the gap between God and man, to rescue us from being lost, to set things right, to lead us to life. All of this fits within the definition of redemption. Jesus paid our ransom to get us back from death.
As for reconciliation, it is all about forgiveness, to make things right between two people. Maybe the best way to understand Christian reconciliation is in the story of the Lost Son (as known as the Prodigal Son). In this story, the younger son wants his inheritance. He basically goes to his father and says that you are dead to me, give me what is mine. The son takes off and spends his inheritance. After all is gone, in his moment of deepest despair, in his brokenness, he realizes that he could go back to his father and apologize for his mistake. He knows that he forfeited his right to be his father’s son, but at least he could be a servant and live better than he currently was. As he heads back to his father’s house, the father spots his lost son in the distance. This is a key point in the story because it means the father was watching for him. The father had already forgiven his son and was waiting for him to return. The father runs to his lost son. And as the son tries to apologize and ask for forgiveness, the father says “For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” In other words, my son who took his inheritance is dead, but I accept this son back as my adopted son, to enjoy the benefits of being his father’s son again. I hope that you can see the symbolism in this story, that is, the father as God and the lost son as humanity. We are called to forgive others as God as forgiven us.
Liberation in the Christian sense is not about political freedom. Jesus came to show that there is a freedom above and beyond political freedom. Seeking political freedom is important, but there is so much more. Political freedom comes and goes as the winds of government change. Political freedom never lasts in the long run, like anything that is external to people and part of this world. The mistake the Jews of two thousand years ago made was that they were expecting a messiah like King David, to deliver them political freedom from the Romans, to change the conditions of the world around them. Jesus did not come to change the external world; He came to change our internal world, to change what is on the inside of people.
Many people see all the rules that a religion like Christianity imposes on its followers as the exact opposite of liberation. Many people also think that a person who is a devout Christian has given up his or her ability to think, to become a mindless pawn to doctrine. I admit this is true for some Christians who see it just as a system of correct doctrine and correct behaviors. But for many Christians, the struggle is more inward. It is an attempt to live authentically. As Søren Kierkegaard says, genuine Christianity is anything but doctrine; it is about the how of doctrine. It is a way of being in the truth before God by following Jesus.†
C.S. Lewis probably describes it best what happens when a Christian makes a moral choice:
The Christ Himself, the Son of God who is a man (just like you) and God (just like His Father), is actually at your side and is already at that moment beginning to turn your pretense into a reality. This is not merely a fancy way of saying that your conscience is telling you what to do. If you simply ask your conscience, you may get one result; if you remember that you are dressing up as Christ, you get a different one. There are lots of things which your conscience might not call definitely wrong (specially things in your mind) but which you will see at once you cannot go on doing if you are seriously trying to be like Christ. For you are no longer thinking simply about right or wrong; you are trying to catch the good infection from a Person. It is more like painting a portrait than like obeying a set of rules. And the odd thing is that while in one way it is much harder than keeping rules, in another way it is far easier.
In other words, it is not all about the rules. It is about who you are, who or what you are trying to become. “Painting a portrait” is about freedom, not blindly following a bunch of rules.
There is a deeper level to Christian liberation. It touches on trying to live an authentic, integrated life, not one dictated or tied to the current fashions of culture. As G.K. Chesterton wrote, “The…Church is the only thing which saves a man from the degrading slavery of being a child of his age.” Søren Kierkegaard goes further:
Although pleasure, honor, riches, and power and all that this world has to offer appear to be one thing, they are not. These can never in all circumstances remain the same. They are always subject to constant change. Each in its own way consists of a multitude of things, a dispersion, the sport of changeableness, and the prey of corruption! For example, in the pursuit of pleasure, look at how so many seek for one pleasure after another. In such a pursuit, variety is the watchword. But this is utterly futile. How can one will one thing that can never in itself remain the same thing? When a person wills in such a fashion he not only becomes double-minded, but self-divided; at complete odds with himself. He wills first one thing and then immediately another, and sometimes the opposite, and so and so on. What does such a person really will? New pleasures; something new! change! change! Ask him now if he really wills one thing. Ask him if he wills at all!
The fact is that the worldly ideal is not one thing at all. In essence it is unreal. Its so-called unity is actually nothing but emptiness concealed by a multiplicity. In the short-lived moment of experience the worldly goal is nothing but a vacuous diversion. For what else is desire in its boundless extreme but nausea? What else is earthly honor at its dizzy pinnacle but contempt for existence? What else is the overabundance of wealth but poverty? No matter how much all the earth’s gold hidden in covetousness may amount to, it is infinitely less than the tiniest bit hidden in the contentment of the poor! What else is worldly power other than dependence? What slave in chains is as unfree as a tyrant!
In other words, if you put yourself first, you become absorbed within your own ego. You become a slave to your wants, desires, and imagined needs. This does not mean that the world is bad and material things are evil. Things of this world are just temporary, and we must keep in mind not to let “things” rule our lives. Further more, if you place a radical trust in God (through the virtues of faith, hope, and love), you will become free of trying to satisfy your ego. God will take care of you according to His plan. (Which goes without saying, it will most likely be different than your fantasy plan for your own life.) This is a partial explanation behind the paradox: you must loose your life in order to live.
There is still another level to Christian liberation, that is, the concept of humility. Humility is the exact opposite of pride. (Some say it was pride that lead man to commit the original sin. It was pride that separated Satan from God.) Humility is not something that is prized in our culture. It is through humility that we can put God first, others second, and ourselves third. It is through humility that we can love (remember agape) and serve our neighbor and enemy. It is with a humble heart that we come before an all powerful God who chose to love us first and ask for forgiveness. It is through humility that the last will be first, the lowly will be exalted, the powerless will be glorified. It is humility that conquers pride. It is through humility that God brought the choice to believe in Him to the level of worldly things. And it was through ultimate humility that Jesus chose to die on The Cross.
All of this leads back to Jesus Christ. Everything I have discussed so far is done through Him, with Him, and in Him. How? Remember the gap between God and man? God had to bridge this gap in a way for us to understand. The only way to reach man is through his humanity. So God became man in Jesus. Jesus was one man with two natures, a human nature and a divine nature. How did both natures exist within one being, I do not know. It is a mystery. But it is incorrect to think of Jesus as just a great teacher. It is also incorrect to think of Him as some kind of super human with special abilities, as if he was a creature somewhere between God and man. It is also incorrect to think of Him as just a God who limited his powers. He was both, human and divine, in one man. It is Jesus that bridges the gap between God and man. It is through the humanity of Jesus that we are saved. Through Jesus Christ, we are redeemed, reconciled, and liberated.
There is much more to discuss about Christianity, like the Holy Spirit and the Trinity, the Resurrection, heaven and hell, life and death, judgment, mercy, miracles, the Bible, etc. There are volumes written about all of these things, plus so much more. If you are serious about learning more about Christianity, I highly recommend the book Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. (It is well written and very thorough, using layman language and not much scripture. It gets much better after the first section.)
In closing, I want to leave the skeptic in all of us something to ponder. The Apostles were a group of uneducated men that followed Jesus for the last two or three years of His life. They lived and traveled closely with Him. They witnessed their friend tortured and killed. They themselves went into hiding for nearly two months after His crucifixion. They could have easily gone back to their former lives, but instead, they began spreading the Good News about Jesus. They faced hardships and risked their own lives to do it, at no personal gain for themselves. In fact, tradition says that all but one of them eventually met horrible and painful deaths. And the Message continued to spread. Something had to have happened immediately after the death of Jesus. Something very special had to have happened to motivate those men to do what they did. I do not think they risked their lives for just an idea or a philosophy. There had to be more, much more to it. How do you, the skeptic, explain that?
† from Charles E. Moore’s introduction to a collection of Kierkegaard’s spiritual writings called Provocations.
![[image: 'Smiling Jesus']](http://journal.cowpi.com/grafiks/sidebar/smiling-jesus2.jpg "'Smiling Jesus'")
![[Jerusalem Cross with Heart]](http://cowpi.com/journal/grafiks/jerusalem-cross-heart.gif "Jerusalem Cross with Heart")
Comments
Thanks, Mark.
I don’t really think that Christianity is all about worshipping suffering, but I still think there are elements of that negative attribute.
Your discussion of humility vs. pride seems to support this opinion of mine. It seems to be anti-human, anti-life, psychologically unhealthy. It seems to say: “Don’t value yourself and what makes sense to you, instead value what I tell you to. You’re not good, you’re bad. Everyone else is more important than you are; and your only chance for things to turn out ok is to do what I say.” Well, that doesn’t seem like a sound strategy to me. It seems like what every con man would like me to do.
It seems to me that there’s no valid basis for a tribesman to believe the missionary rather than his witch doctor. Both tell an internally consistent, unfalsifiable, dramatic, story. Both urge him to believe that story over the evidence of his senses and reasoning mind. Both tell him to abandon his own quest for values and adopt theirs.
It seems like a recipe for disaster, if your goal is to find truth and happiness. It seems far more likely to lead to falling victim to the most persuasive people around you.
If the story you tell is true, then God doesn’t love me in a way that I respect. God doesn’t want me to be eternally happy, or to reward me for my honest and sincere efforts to understand the world and to treat people well, for reasons that makes sense to me. Instead, He wants me to suffer for eternity unless I believe the right fantastic story without sufficient evidence; to reject the epistemological tools that serve me well in the rest of my life.
I wonder how he’d act if he didn’t love me!
But, I do sincerely appreciate your efforts to help me understand Christian doctrine better.
Thanks!
∼ πλ · 22 March 2004, 9 pm · by Gil ¬
Gil - I never thought of humility the way you describe it. For me, humility is a result of realizing how little we really know, how imperfect we are, how foolish we can be, and so on. I suppose that there is a connection between faith and humility, even to the point that they are corequisite. But anyway, faith isn’t rational (though someone could prove me wrong). That’s what makes it ‘faith.’
∼ πλ · 22 March 2004, 10 pm · by Steve Bogner ¬
Gil — I guess I erred in not defining more precisely what humility is within Christianity. Dictionary.com gives the following definition for “humble”: 1) Marked by meekness or modesty in behavior, attitude, or spirit; not arrogant or prideful; 2) Showing deferential or submissive respect; and 3) Low in rank, quality, or station; unpretentious or lowly.
Christian humility ONLY applies all three definitions with respect to the relationship between God and man. Christian humility applies the first definition with respect to other people. Definition two, in a sense, applies in Christian dealings with other people within the context of agape love, that is, a willingness to unconditionally and selflessly love other people. Many people show this unconditional and selfless love by freely choosing to serve others. Agape love is life-giving, and often involves a sacrifice of some measure by one person for another. I assume suffering may come in at this point when dealing with sacrifice. (I admit that Christians on the whole do not do all of this very well, but we are called to try to the best of our ability.)
Your statement, “Don’t value yourself…You’re not good, you’re bad. Everyone else is more important than you are;” focuses too much attention to the third definition of humble. It also implies that you do not fully understand my second paragraph in the essay about God’s love for people. God loves each and every person for who they are. He loves, for the lack of a better term, the essence of each person. As a result, that means you are a lovable person. Everyone is a lovable person. Everyone is equal in the eyes of God, and therefore, should be equal in our eyes. That is why we *should* have agape—unconditional and selfless—love for each other. No person is above or below, worth more or less than anyone else. Qualities of good or bad are not attributed to a person, but to the choices a person makes.
To exhibit pride or arrogance, the opposite of the first definition of humble above, is to elevate your status over another person. In effect, this forces someone to assume the role of the third definition. Pride imbues a quality of good or bad to the person, and not to his or her actions or choices. And this obviously interferes with agape love. (Note: Not all forms of pride go against humility, i.e. the pride of doing a task well. But, there is a fine line where this type of pride crosses the boundary over into arrogance over others.)
I hope this helps to clarify how humility is not “anti-human” or “anti-life.”
On another point, where does it say in my essay anything about rewards?
I understand your rejection of a reward of eternal life in heaven as an extrinsic motivation to follow a bunch of rules. It does not work. It may motivate a few people, but for most, it does not do a very effective job. It is not directly life-giving to people as a means of help for them to make good choices in their everyday kind of situations.
The choices you make in life affect you. They affect you somewhere deep within the essence of who you are. Even Aristotle believed this. As C.S. Lewis wrote, “…taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow-creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.”
To be honest, a possible reward in heaven is a bonus. I want to be in harmony with myself, with other people, and with God. Humility leads to this harmony. Pride and arrogance leads to division, war, and hatred within yourself, with others, and with God.
Christians believe what choices you make in life echo in eternity.
∼ πλ · 23 March 2004, 10 am · by Mark ¬
Ok.
Well, the Christianity you describe doesn’t seem as negative as some of the actual christians that I have encountered.
It still makes no sense to me that my subserviant behavior would offer God (or me) any benefit. And unconditional love seems unattractive as well. My love is conditional, otherwise it’s meaningless.
Changing topics a little, do you think people who use their christian values to justify using the state to censor others are interpretting christian doctrine correctly?
Does christian doctrine involve insisting that Howard Stern be prohibited from discussing sex on the air?
∼ πλ · 23 March 2004, 2 pm · by Gil ¬
“My love is conditional, otherwise it’s meaningless.”
Hmmm. Do you have a child?
What conditions have you placed upon yourself to love your child?
Do you love your child because he or she has brown eyes? Smart? Pretty? Good at baseball?
Or do you love your child just because? Just because he or she is yours?
And as a parent, what sacrifices are you willing to endure (suffer) for your child to be healthy, happy, educated, and to live a long, prosperous life?
Is that sacrifice a benefit to you, or to your child?
Is that “subserviant behavior” a benefit to you, or to your child?
Does unconditional love still seem unattractive?
∼ πλ · 23 March 2004, 6 pm · by Mark ¬
Now to answer your two questions.
“Does christian doctrine involve insisting that Howard Stern be prohibited from discussing sex on the air?” In my opinion, no. I don’t think it is a matter of Christian doctrine.
People have the free will, and thankfully the right, to choose the form of entertainment they want. Stern is easy enough to avoid listening to by just changing the radio station or TV channel. But it is the right of a Christian, just like anybody, to complain about it.
“Do you think people who use their christian values to justify using the state to censor others are interpreting christian doctrine correctly?” I tend to say no; but, what is a Christian, or anybody for that matter, to do if it is not easy to avoid something that goes against their values? I would say yes, it is a matter of doctrine if only a Christian feels that it has become an injustice. But, then again, injustice can be a very nebulous line to cross.
First religion, now politics. What’s next, sports?
∼ πλ · 23 March 2004, 6 pm · by Mark ¬
I loved my child originally because he was a marvelous wonder whom I had assumed the responsibility of raising; full of potential, and intelligence. Later, as we could communicate better he exhibited still more wonderful qualities that I can easily love.
I don’t love him “just because”.
If he consistently made bad choices, that hurt people and their property, and he was not open to reason, then I would not love him as I do now. I would try to fulfill my responsibilities to him as well as I could, but what I would feel for him would not be love.
I love him because he has great qualities and we have a special, close, relationship that lets us know each others’ great qualities.
If I loved strangers, with whom I lack this relationship, knowlege and appreciation as I love my son; then my love for him wouldn’t be the special and important thing that it is. It would be, as I said, meaningless. It would be independent of my estimation of the value of him and our relationship.
I do have a certain respect for all people and their lives (until they demonstrate that they don’t deserve it), but calling that love, or wanting it to be like the love I have for my son, is an insult to him, and to love.
∼ πλ · 24 March 2004, 1 am · by Gil ¬
Do you have more than one child?
Does the love for your first child diminish because you love the second child too?
Does your love for the second child “insult” the first?
Would you be willing to make the same or similar sacrifices for all of your children?
If you had a dozen children, would your love be about the same for each?
Before you answer the previous question, do you agree that the love of a parent for their child is a combination of agape love, philia love, and affectionate love? Also keep in mind that you might be more fond of, or have a preference for a certain child, but that is affectionate love, not the higher forms of agape and/or philia love.
Furthermore, does your love for your children “insult” your love for your spouse? Does your love for your spouse “insult” your love for your parents?
Gil, you are correct in that our love and appreciation for others grow with the more knowledge we have of them, but that builds our philia and affectionate love for them. (Knowledge can also diminish these types of love too.) Philia and affectionate love are connected with our emotions.
Remember, agape love is not an emotion. The quote I gave in my essay called it a principle, but that word seems to limit it. At the very least, the bare minimum, if you wish or want the best for a person, even if you do not like them (or even if they are an enemy), you are beginning to touch upon agape love.
Agape love is not asking you to love others like your family. That is impossible. In fact, agape love does not even require you to like the person, although it greatly helps because we *are* emotional creatures.
∼ πλ · 24 March 2004, 10 am · by Mark ¬
I only have one child, but if I had more, and loved them, it wouldn’t insult my love for my son. I was speaking about a love that was out of a sense of duty rather than a response to what I value and judge to be good. That would be an insult to genuine, earned, love.
I think that what you call agape love is not just insulting, but a bad thing. I think that our time, energy, emotions, and other resources are best spent furthering the things that we value, rather than things that we don’t, or worse, things that hurt the things that we value.
I think people are generally good, and valuable. I respect their rights, and will often go out of my way to help them if I don’t have good reason to think that’s a mistake. People generally have qualities that I value; as a choice, not because of a commandment. But, it’s possible for people to change my mind about them. There are people who do horrible things, and I don’t love them in any way. In fact, I wish them to disappear. Loving them, in any way, seems like an awful rejection of reason and, as I said, an insult to love that comes from earned appreciation.
∼ πλ · 24 March 2004, 7 pm · by Gil ¬
Gill — I agree completely with your statement: “I think that our time, energy, emotions, and other resources are best spent furthering the things that we value, rather than things that we don’t, or worse, things that hurt the things that we value.”
But, I am trying to understand why you think “agape love is not just insulting, but a bad thing.” The only thing that I can think is that we have fundamentally different views of people.
You seem to view each person as a separate, individual entity, complete and whole within itself. I do not see people that way. I see people some how connected with each other. We are not only connected within our humanity, but also on a spiritual level. A Christian metaphor describes Jesus as the Vine and each and every person as a branch. Another metaphor describes every person as a member of the Body of Christ. Still another metaphor describes people as a family with God as the Father. (That’s why the Lord’s Prayer starts with, “Our Father…”) All the metaphors describe people connected together through Christ.
To love a stranger is loving a member of the “family” that you have not met yet. If people are members of the same Body of Christ, hating a person is analogous to hating a part of your own body. To kill a person is like cutting off a branch of the Vine that you are a part of.
If people are connected, then it would be an insult not to love them. Therefore, my attempt to love them does not come from a sense of commanded duty. I choose to love them. I value them and my “time, energy, emotions, and other resources are best spent furthering the things that [I] value.” The love for others *must be* from my free will, or it would be a false love, and be worthless as you have correctly implied.
Trying to love others does not disrespect the love for my family, it enriches it. The more you love, the more your capacity to love grows. And that, in turn affects my love for my family, for others, for God, and so on.
∼ πλ · 25 March 2004, 6 am · by Mark ¬
I guess I wasn’t clear. The reason I call it insulting is because it devalues my love. It would not be based on a positive evaluation of individual worth, but just handed out indiscriminately.
If you win an “award” that you think represents a notable achievement, and later find out that everybody gets that award no matter how poorly they perform, then the award will lose value to you, won’t it? It will not really be an award at all and you might feel insulted by having it misrepresented to you. If “I love you” from someone really means “I acknowledge your existence and ‘love’ everyone”, it’s not special at all and it could be insulting to have been misled.
You see it as a positive thing to have agape “love” for everyone, but I don’t. If someone says he loves every piece of art he’s ever seen, I don’t think “Wow, that guy really appreciates art!”, I think “Wow, that guy has no taste!” He doesn’t have more and better appreciation of art than someone who discriminates, he has worse appreciation.
Yes, I view people as individuals. I think that’s the most respectful way to view them, and the way I want to be viewed. And, as I said, I do have a positive feeling toward all people, initially, and I presume that they are good and valuable (like me) and will try to be pleasant and helpful to them. But I don’t call it love, and it isn’t unconditional. I don’t think people who love unconditionally are doing humanity any favors, just as people with no taste are not doing art any favors.
∼ πλ · 25 March 2004, 11 am · by Gil ¬
Gil — Okay, I think I know where you are coming from. You are right. Loving everyone is like receiving a participation award instead of winning a gold medal. Everyone knows there is nothing special about a participation award because it is not an award for individual achievement. But, I believe that this analogy is only partially true for love. Jesus has shown us that there is more to it, that we need to go beyond our own selfish ego needs.
I understand your revulsion to agape love. It seems to go against human nature. We are not perfect people. We have a need to be recognized, a need to be special, a need to have special relationships with only certain people. When you love someone, you want the best for them. If it is a true love, then you want the best or them even to the point of sacrificing something of yourself for them. Our human frailty puts conditions on our love. We want to limit our love to only those who seem to deserve it, as to award them a gold medal for some sense of individual achievement. Agape love is a goal, a principle, in which we attempt to remove conditions to our love, to be willing to make a sacrifice for someone.
I also understand your revulsion to loving everyone. There is something within human nature that wants us to be special, to stand above the crowd and win the gold medal. We call this pride. It comes from our needy egos. It takes humility to accept the participation award and be happy with it, to know that it really was the experience that counted and not the award. (Remember the discussion on humility? A willingness to not be prideful over others.)
Have you ever seen that one track event scene from the Special Olympics? All of the runners are pushing themselves to run down the track. The crowd is cheering as the lead runner nears the finish line. The runner coming in second is close, but the leader is just too fast. Suddenly the second place runner trips and falls. The leader turns to see what happens. Instead of finishing the race and winning the gold medal, he turns back to help his fallen competitor. By this time the other runners have caught up. Together, with arms around each other, everyone helps each other cross the finish line together. And the crowd goes wild.
This is an example of agape love. The leader sacrificed his chance for the gold medal, a chance to shine *momentarily* in his glory of individual achievement, all for the sake of helping another person. The leader also did not put any conditions on his decision to help; he just did it, no strings attached. The third place runner, along with the others, also sacrificed their chance for the gold medal too in order to help. No one in that race received “the” gold medal for winning. Everyone received a participation award.
Agape love is not about individual achievement and winning the gold medal. It is about the participation award. Just by participating, one is enriched and lifted up by experiencing it. Everyone who participates gains something. And maybe the more participants, the better the experience. There is a time and place for individual achievement, but not within love, not true love. Love is not about competition; it is about cooperation.
You have an example within your own family Gil. Look at the difference the addition of your son has brought to your relationship with your wife. Hasn’t the love that your son brought enriched both of your lives? The cooperation within your family to do what is best for each and all, hasn’t that lifted all of you up? If you have a second child, will that not too do the same, but more so? Isn’t everyone within your family winning a participation award and not the gold medal?
Jesus Christ is the example for Christians. He had agape love for the whole of humanity. He did not show partiality to anyone with His agape love. He placed no conditions on it. But that does not mean He liked everyone. After all, He was human too. I imagine He did not particularly like Herod or Pontius Pilate or the head priest that condemned Him at His trial. But He did not deny them His agape love. He did not want to leave them out of participating. Jesus also had many friends. (Remember philia, friendship love?) He also had a few close friends too. He was particularly fond of John and Peter. (Fondness, remember affectionate love?) Loving everyone did not lessen the value of His special loves with His close personal friends. That is why Christians are called to follow His example.
∼ πλ · 26 March 2004, 11 am · by Mark ¬
what a great essay, well written!!
the last, directed to the “skeptic in all of us” is really a very good point.
∼ πλ · 26 March 2004, 6 pm · by mea ¬
I found this conversation via a search for something to present to my atheist father who is dying of cancer. I appreciate the concept of presenting something to inform, not to convert. I haven’t yet read your essay, but will shortly.
I wanted to add my thoughts on agape, or unconditional love. The Bible says God is love. Love, therefore, is who God is. I believe that God’s love is the ultimate power for change in our lives, and I think the main problem we have is an incorrect understanding of His love. We all have experienced conditional, imperfect love, and have a hard time relating to agape love. Conditional love says “I love you as long as … If you do (or don’t do) whatever, I won’t love you any more”. Unconditional love says “I love you, because you are valuable and worthy in my eyes, and it doesn’t matter what you do. There is nothing you can do to stop my love for you.” The first brings insecurity and doubt. “How can I be sure that I will be safe in your love if I do… ?” “Will you still love me if I disappoint you?” “what if I make a big mistake? Does your love turn into hate or rejection?” “Why would I want to love you back if your love for me is so fickle that one or two mistakes of mine would affect your love for me?”
The second produces great security, motivation, hope. “You mean you still love me after I did …?” “Is it possible that you could still love me as I am, with the ‘bad’ thoughts I have, with all the mistakes I have made? How can you still love me?”
Once realization of that love that won’t ever leave sets in, I can say “Wow, your love for me is so secure I feel free to be myself” especially for a God who knows everything about each of us “If you love me so much, even knowing everything about me, including the things I hate about myself, I must be very important to you” Of course important enough for Jesus to sacrifice so greatly for me. “Lord, if You love me so much, I can do nothing else than return that love in any way I can” Love begets love. “We love Him because He first loved us” “Lord, understanding Your love now as I do, I realize that You love each person here. You know each of us personally, individually and Your love for one of us doesn’t diminish the love You have for each of the rest of us.” As a kid in a family of 7 kids, I sometimes hated my siblings because they did things I didn’t like. As an adult I have learned that we are all different, sometimes very different, and sometimes we do things that others of us don’t like. Sometimes we don’t like each other. But regardless of how we feel about each other, our parents love each of us, and that love isn’t affected by how we (siblings) feel about each other. Nor is it affected by the mistakes we make or the disappointments we cause our parents. Loving each of their children individually, one of the greatest hopes of our parents is that we, their children, learn to love each other. They can’t command this though, because Love can’t be commanded, it can only be given freely from a willing heart. So how can I love my sister who has treated me cruelly in times past and with whom I desire no contact because it’s almost always negative? I can decide that while there are things about her that I don’t like, she is still a worthwhile and valuable person. She just has a lot of problems that result from bad experiences in her life. I wish the best for her, hope she can find a way to heal the wounds of the past, and realize that I have my own problems and can’t expect others to like me all the time either. I am not the standard by which I can judge others, because I’m a very imperfect example. Jesus is the standard by which I can judge, and when I look at Jesus I see overwhelming love and compassion mingled with constant forgiveness. Seeing this allows me to love my sister, because if Jesus loves her, and he loves me, and he has the same love, compassion and forgiveness for her as he has for me, who am I to withhold love for my sister? As I learn to appreciate and understand God’s love for me more, I WANT to love my sister, and everyone else in my life, because I begin to see them as someone of value to God and realize that if they are willing, God can take away the negative and bring out the beautiful person they really are. We all have God-created beauty within, but the stains of bad choices, bad experiences (often not of our own doing) mar our characters. Thinking in the context of eternity which I believe in, I see strangers, enemies, everyone as potential friends for eternity and realize that if God loves me enough to want to spend eternity with me, He feels the same about everyone (God is not willing that any should perish but that all would receive eternal life). Therefore everyone else is a future friend and someone who I would like to help in any way possible to find their way to a knowledge of God’s love so I can develop a friendship with them. I believe that a key reason for us being here is to help make life a little easier for others, because this world is a terrible place to live in at times.
A thought on eternal hell and God’s love. I can’t believe in the teaching of eternal hell in the context of God’s love. I believe that the Bible doesn’t teach this, but verses have been compiled to present this position. This teaching came into existence through the church hundreds of years ago in an attempt at ‘scaring’ people into heaven. If I believed in this teaching, I doubt I would be a Christian because I couldn’t reconcile it with a God who is love. How could anyone think it’s just and fair for a person to suffer tortuous agony for eternity for mistakes made in a few short years of life? How can the angels and all people, at the final day, say “Just and true are thy ways, o God” in light of this teaching.
I believe that those who don’t accept God’s love and salvation WILL be destroyed by fire ‘in the sight of the angels and in the presence of God’. This would be because God Himself is the fire. Isaiah 33:14-16:”The sinners in Zion are afraid; Fearfulness has seized the hypocrites: “Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?” He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly, He who despises the gain of oppressions, Who gestures with his hands, refusing bribes, Who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed, And shuts his eyes from seeing evil: He will dwell on high; His place of defence will be the fortress of rocks; Bread will be given him, His water will be sure.” The fire is God. Remember how He came to Moses as a burning bush? How He led the Israelites as a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night? Remember how He took Elijah to heaven in a chariot of fire? “For our God is a consuming fire. “-Hebrews 12:29, “For the Lord your God is a consuming fire,”-Deut 4:24.
Those who don’t accept God are ‘given over to their own choices’. This is what God’s wrath is: “Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonour their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them up to vile passions.” Romans 1:24-26
This presents a much different picture of God - one that I believe is more accurate. He is love, and deals in love with all, even those who chose not to associate with Him. He is not a tyrant who is planning to roast forever those who use the free choice He gave them to chose separation from Him. This is the God I love. This is the one who inspires me to love others in a way that I can only through His power.
Thanks for the opportunity to share.
∼ πλ · 27 October 2004, 4 pm · by mariwood ¬
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