Love, Part One

The following is adapted from some thoughts I've been writing in a book I call my "spiritual journal." Some folks, even amongst those who follow and believe in God as strongly as anyone, do not or cannot feel God's love in their lives (Mother Teresa was a prime example of this at certain times in her life). Now, an emotion like love is not something that should only be reasoned out logically. It must be experienced to be felt fully. Therefore, I recognize the imperfect and potentially futile nature of this post that attempts to "prove" that God loves us. That being said, I hope that perhaps my thought process will be at least a little helpful as it was to me.

Note: At no point do I attempt to argue for the existence of a deity, please do not take this as such. For better or worse, I'm starting with the base assumption that the universe was created by someone/something.

Love, Part One
The Necessity of God's Love

If there is a God, and I have come to believe with relative certainty that there is, then it seems to me that He must love us. I see no way around this. How could we exist if He did not love us?

Many who express belief in a Creator God, self-identified deists and others, assert that He made the universe yet does not interfere in its subsequent motions. He cares nothing of us in the sense that 'love' implies. I see two possible implications here.

1. We were created as some cosmic experiment for the Divine,

or...

2.We were created without purpose, for no reason, without meaning.

If God is the boundless, all-knowing Being that the name implies, then I must take issue with Implication #1. We cannot add to the knowledge, entertainment, or purpose of the already-infinite One Who made us from nothing. If, on the other hand, God is not the omnipotent being described, then He is not truly God. Thus, I outright reject Implication #1.

Regarding Implication #2, the notion that the universe is without any meaning or purpose whatsoever is not entirely unreasonable - if you are an atheist. Starting from the theist's point of view, however, I simply do not see how our universe can be a haphazard vacuum concocted by an aimless divinity. Would an all-perfect being create anything without an all-perfect purpose? His mind is not the mind of a mistake-making man. How can He be the cause of imperfection? Why would He be the cause of imperfection? If a being of immaculate understanding created us and our world, He must not have done so without reason.

So where do we stand? We were made for some purpose, yet that purpose cannot be the entertainment or edification of an already-perfect God. I see only one conclusion here... The universe was created for the universe's own sake. Indeed if there are only two things - Creator and creation - then the purpose of creation must be either for the former or for the latter itself. Ruling out the former as we previously have, this leaves but the one option. God desired that we be created not for His benefit, but for our own benefit.

We humans often quantify or describe our love for others in terms of positive or desirable qualities. Now, it isn't wrong to do this necessarily. "I love my wife because she is smart and beautiful and funny." "I love my friend because he understands me and he's always there for me." These are good statements because they compliment the loved one, but they most certainly do not encompass the fuller idea of 'love.' Intelligence, beauty, jocularity, empathy, and other 'lovable' qualities are great, but we tend to like these qualities because they are in some way beneficial to us. Would a man ever claim to love his wife simply because she is beneficial to him? Ideally, no. Love is that emotion of fondness for someone purely because they exist. Love at its fullest does not desire self-benefit, it desires the other and the benefit of the other.

Thus, I believe, God's desire to create for creation's sake insists that He loves that creation. What else could he feel for something He made yet cannot benefit him in the slightest? He did not make the universe because He was lonely, He made it out of love.

The Heart Nebula