is the love of God in the bible unconditional?

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#1
linate
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is it really conditionally unconditional love? which is really conditional love. 

is it just unconditional if you are a christian? how far would that go? supposedly you can't slip up if you are a christian, but then again if you started sinning seriously people would say you were never saved to begin with. so whether you look at this from catholic or protestant type thinking, there are things that can cause you to lose God's favor. 

even if it was unconditional as a christian, it's still conditional on having the proper faith in Jesus. 

is God's love based on whether you are good or bad? 

my personal stance is God loves unconditionally, but that the bible does not truly reflect that in an ideal way. i think you can salvage the bad depiction from the bible, by saying God loves us unconditinally, but that doesn't man there aren't consequences to our actions. 
#2
Mopac
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@linate
A father who does not chastise their child does not love them. 

God also gives grace to the humble, but resists the proud.

God doesn't condemn anyone, it is God's will that all are saved. However, some choose to reject God. God has given us the freedom to reject God. In so doing, those who reject God bring about their own suffering. God does not force people to choose the right thing. 

I have heard it said by an old retired priest that the only real unforgivable sin is to refuse to believe that one can be forgiven. And sure enough, I believe this does count as a blasphemy against The Holy Spirit. The condemnation of Judas was not that he sold out Christ or that he killed himself.. it was that he did not accept that he could be forgiven.


I have also heard it said that those who cross over into paradise will be surprised at who they find there.










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#3
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@Mopac
i like your views, but does all that square with an honest depiction of the bible? the most straightforward view of the bible as depicted by the bible and traditional christianity is that God loves us with conditions
#4
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NO!
#5
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@linate
I am telling you what The Orthodox Church teaches.
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@Mopac
Why do you have four separate churches?
#7
Castin
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For a second I misunderstood and thought the title was asking, "Does the Bible instruct us to love God unconditionally?"
#8
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@disgusted
The Church is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic.

It is one church.


We have an autocephalous system though, so there are at least 14 self governing churches(recognized by everyone, there are more
that are aren't recognized by all the other churches). But it is really one church. We all believe the same thing. We have communion with eachother. We all meet together and discuss things pertaining to the wider church.

One of the nice things about this system is that we don't have say,  a Pope who can just arbitrarily speak from his chair of infallibility, depart from tradition, and corrupt the entire church. In fact, one of the major things that lead to what historians call "the great schism" had to do with the Bishop of Rome having this crazy idea that he was king over all of Christendom and could determine things outside of his autocephalous church. The Orthodox Church, the true church, accepts only Christ as king, and we have remained faithful to what was passed down by the apostles, while Rome has made many innovations and has broken into thousands and thousands of churches, as that is where the protestant movement comes from.

There is really one church. If they aren't with us, they aren't part of that church.

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@Mopac
The Russian Orthodox no longer recognises the other Orthodox churches. Still all the one church?
#10
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@disgusted
That isn't true at all. That feud is between Constantinople and Russia, and it has to do with granting the Church of Ukraine autocephalous status. The Russian Church and Constantinople are fighting over that because Russia sees The Ukraine Church as part of their jurisdiction. It will blow over. 


My church, the church of Antioch, is still very much in communion with Russia... and Constantinople for that matter.





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@Mopac
I see. God granted the Ukrainian church independence from the Russian church?
#12
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@disgusted
Really, we are all brothers. An Orthodox from the Antiochan church can partake of the holy eucharist in a Russian or Greek Orthodox church. It is One Church. These "churches" are administrative divisions. It is a good system because if one of the churches is being oppressed by a government to change doctrines, the changes won't last past the period of oppression. The church in Russia has a pretty long history of the government meddling in church business, both by the Tzars and the Soviets. None of this meddling ends up sticking.

Contrast this with Roman Catholicism, where all you have to do is get to the Pope and bam, the whole church gets altered. This has happenes too.


A Methodist, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, or even a Baptist, in contrast to Orthodox churches cannot walk into an Orthodox Church and partake of the Holy Eucharist.

But you could probably walk into most protestant churches and take communion. This isn't because they are more open and loving, it's because they don't take the mystery as seriously as us. 
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@Mopac
Why don't you address what people write rather than resorting to your prescripted propaganda. Only fools and the feeble minded are convinced by propaganda.
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@disgusted
You're a nihilist, you won't believe anything I tell you anyway. You're a waste of time. A mindless mocker and scoffer. You should be grateful I respond tovyour inanities at all.

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@Mopac
Read what I write. I just told you that you don't respond to anything written you merely spew your meaningless propaganda. Only fools and the feeble minded are influenced by your propaganda. You are an oxygen thief. Now go and hide from all those people who are trying to kill you. bwuahahahahahaha
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@Mopac
You do realise that Hey Mickey was excommunicated by the Romans first.
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#17
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@EtrnlVw
what are your views of this? id guess you agree with me. god is unconditinoal love, but that doesn't mean there aren't consequences to your actions, and temporary prisons in the afterlife. the bible was written by man and is an imperfect reflection of God's radical love. 
#18
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@linate
I think you're describing the god you would like there to be.  
#19
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@linate
what are your views of this? id guess you agree with me. god is unconditinoal love,

I have no inherent issue with that.

but that doesn't mean there aren't consequences to your actions,

Absolutely, this is a cause and effect creation, sowing and reaping (Karma), no one can escape that it is fixed and for a reason. The principle of grace is powerful and it helps the individual fall in love with their relations but the soul must learn through what intentions, actions and thoughts they manifest. The soul learns through their own choices and the results of those choices. 

and temporary prisons in the afterlife.

Correct, the afterlife has prisons too, for those who perpetrate crimes but the sentences are congruent with the crimes. There is no eternal torture, that is baloney.

the bible was written by man and is an imperfect reflection of God's radical love. 

Sure, there is absolutely no reason to argue for the perfection of the Bible, that is silly. It has useful knowledge and as well information that can be discarded. I agree that is probably the underlying message of the Bible, with errors. 
Everyone can relax, the Bible is not perfect. 

#20
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@linate
is it really conditionally unconditional love? which is really conditional love.

If I were honest, I would say you have a fair argument. But remember the Bible has a very black and white portrayal of reality, so there isn't much gray area. So if you fall in the black category you're screwed lol.

is it just unconditional if you are a christian? how far would that go? supposedly you can't slip up if you are a christian, but then again if you started sinning seriously people would say you were never saved to begin with. so whether you look at this from catholic or protestant type thinking, there are things that can cause you to lose God's favor.

Coming from the Bible and certain religious type thinking that would be correct. But again, the Bibles portrayal of God is that everything that is good and righteous comes from Him and everything evil ultimately gets blamed on the devil.....and those that follow him.
If we look at this from the perspective of positive and negative forces I have no inherent issue with it, because it is proper to distinguish between what is negative and what is positive and what should be pursued and what one should aspire to, as well what should be avoided.

But in reality, there is nothing "outside" of the Creator, everything is within God and so individual souls get locked into lower states of consciousness within creation even animal-like states. And while the Creator doesn't wish this for the soul, the soul is learning through their mistakes and God is watching, even observing through every channel of awareness. The soul never gets rejected for eternity from God, every single soul is a part of the Creator and the soul will always have the chance to improve even if it ends up in a bad place. The soul must learn, when and as it does that soul gets to progress.

even if it was unconditional as a christian, it's still conditional on having the proper faith in Jesus.

If you buy into religious fundamentalism where they like to divide and label/categorize people and create doctrines and put emphasis on dogma (that seems to be where most of their energy goes) then you end up with all these weird contradictory ideas. I was never into church politics and their little games. I just like to read the Bible and apply to myself what is true and useful. I started doing this because I have always love the Jesus accounts, the Gospels. So I put my energy into things that matter, and things that apply to the soul and things that help others.
Spirituality is more flexible than this typical rigid system of thinking. Proper "faith" in Jesus is simply applying what He teaches if it is something that resonates with you, faith in the terms of Jesus is an action, meaning you're putting your "faith" in something to have a positive outcomes, ya know...make changes not just be a pew warmer. Moving mountains never meant rearranging landscapes, rather faith is about overcoming obstacles (mountains). 

is God's love based on whether you are good or bad?

my personal stance is God loves unconditionally, but that the bible does not truly reflect that in an ideal way.

I think you are entitled to feel that way. If something feels screwy to you, you are not forced to accept it. I say just read the Bible and leave others opinions behind. You are allowed to view the Bible as an individual, and in doing so you will get much more from it. You are not chained to any dogma or doctrine or ideas you think are morally bankrupt. 

i think you can salvage the bad depiction from the bible, by saying God loves us unconditinally, but that doesn't man there aren't consequences to our actions.

Like I said above, you really only see real rigid thinking in religious fundamentalism and organized groups. It is important for the soul to learn of duality and pursue the good, uplifting qualities of life and so just leave it at that. In my mind, the real focus is on helping the individual begin to perceive the differences between the spirit (higher consciousness) and the flesh (carnality), and to pursue that which is of the positive and good aspects of life.... to love this idea and the "Father" with all your heart mind and soul and seek to expand this in all directions. The power is in the simplicity of spirituality. Forget all the religious mumbo jumbo dogma and turn it into something that can be useful to you and your life and even to others.

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@linate
is it really conditionally unconditional love?

Is it really 'love'?  i suppose a word is required for whatever it is, but it's not identical to the human emotion (or is it?).


#22
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@linate
The Apostle Peter wrote, "no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation".

The Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth"


Etrnlvw is as much of a Christian as an old testament Jew who sacrificed to Baal. I hope you can see that he has an irreverent attitude towards scripture and the church. His view of things is very skewed, and though I could go through each and every one of his points and soundly refute it with scripture, he doesn't really respect what scripture says. Take his opinion for what it is. The arrogant posturings of a spiritual egotist.

The Orthodox Church is the very church founded by Jesus and the apostles. We have thousands of years worth of writings from the church fathers and the saints who confirm Orthodoxy as being the authoritative Christian Church. These spiritual anarchists are only going to lead you into pride and delusion.

So if you really want the right belief concerning these things, look into Orthodoxy. I will do my best to accurately represent the position of the church, which I do not blindly follow, but believe with knowledge, understanding, and discernment.


Etrnlvw will sooner send you to some Swami. He is not a Christian. Don't be fooled. He is deceived, and because he is deceived he cannot help but deceive others.

And though that might not sound nice, sometimes the truth doesn't sound nice. I do not hate etrnlvw, and would not tell you to either. I want the best for him, just as I want the best for you.


The best thing to do is go with God. The church of Jesus Christ is The Orthodox Church. It is a hospital to help you purify your heart, not a courthouse that makes judgement. Etrnlvw doesn't know Orthodoxy, take what he says about it with a grain of salt.


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#23
linate
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@Mopac
as a former catholic, i view orthodoxy as something worth considering. it looks like a purer version of early christianity, without all the novelties rome eventually brought into it all. 
a big issue i have with orthodoxy, is that you have to do whatever it is your priest tells you to. within reason of course. the idea of submission. but what if there were another priest who would tell you different? it's too arbitrary to submit your whole will to a person. and at the end of the day, if you can shop around with the priests, what's the point of submission to begin with? 
i also try to keep an open mind about things, but orthodoxy is set in its ways. 
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#24
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@Mopac
i put a lot of stock in near death experiences. there is a lot of science to those things. eternal view's views jive well with that stuff, and he has a lot of wisdom, so i like to listen to his views. sometimes i dont know where he gets his info, but he's good at getting the key points of all that. 
how do you view near death experiences? most people find ways of getting it to fit their religion, so it doesn't really change much at the end of the day.... but some of the more conservative types reject it completely. 
#25
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@linate
is it really conditionally unconditional love? which is really conditional love. 

is it just unconditional if you are a christian? how far would that go? supposedly you can't slip up if you are a christian, but then again if you started sinning seriously people would say you were never saved to begin with. so whether you look at this from catholic or protestant type thinking, there are things that can cause you to lose God's favor. 

even if it was unconditional as a christian, it's still conditional on having the proper faith in Jesus. 

is God's love based on whether you are good or bad? 

my personal stance is God loves unconditionally, but that the bible does not truly reflect that in an ideal way. i think you can salvage the bad depiction from the bible, by saying God loves us unconditinally, but that doesn't man there aren't consequences to our actions. 
Where does it say in the bible that God loves unconditionally or unconditionally? 

Your first passage uses the term love and the concept of salvation interchangeably. 

God loved Jacob and he hated Esau. This was prior to their birth - so how does sin or not come into it? Or in other words, what conditions were applicable? 

Protestants - tend to take the view that Christians are saved by grace - not by good works. Hence salvation is an act of mercy, not based upon a condition. Mercy like Grace are by definition - things which are undeserved or unconditional. There is a natural and logical extension to this - if you cannot be saved by good works - then you cannot lose your salvation by doing bad works. 

This of course does not mean that Christians can do bad works without consequences. We are saved by grace unto good works. In other words, if someone calls themselves a Christian but does not do good works, then it is natural to question their salvation. Losing God's favour is a strange thing to talk about. It almost implies a God who is not omniscient. 

God wants his people to comply with his covenants. Yet God is also quite aware that people are sinners. Yes, all of us. We will all go to the grave still as sinners with a sinful nature. Yet, together with the Holy Spirit, we are able - to do good works. 

Non-believers by definition cannot do good works. I am defining good as those things which bring glory and honour to God. Hence an atheist may well do good in accordance with humanities standards - and many if not most do. but an atheist can never do good in the sight of God, because nothing he or she does is with the intention of bringing honour and glory to God. 

Hence, Christians can slip up, but God's favour is not dependant upon the Christians perfectness or not. God's grace towards his people is not based upon a condition - but only upon his own mercy and grace. We choose to love him - and this ought to be unconditional - yet most people love God when they are happy and reject him when they are upset or feel wronged. Or when they are chastised by God. 

I ask again - where does the bible talk about love conditionally or unconditionally and how is this related to salvation? Or to his good favour?


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@Tradesecret
the bible doesn't talk about unconditional or conditional love. the most honest interpretation is conditional love. my questions are just contrasting the God of the bible with the modern understanding that God loves unconditinoally. you do good at describing protestant salvation. perhaps that is as close to getting to unconditional as you are going to get with religion. 
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@linate
I don't know, I feel like the priest I go to is like a friend. I trust his advice. He doesn't give me the impression that I have to submit to him. We are both pretty aware that Christ is the one we are submitting to. A priest is a minister of God's grace, not a dictator.

I respect the position. It is a hard job.
But no, you don't have to do everything the priest tells you. You really should though. It's probably in your best interest. Maybe the priest sees something you are blind to?

There are a few priests at my parish. I don't get the impression that they lord a position over anybody. 


But if you do want a good reason, consider the relationship between a father and their child. A child is not always going to understand everything their father tells them to do, but it is usually in their best interests to trust that it is for their own good they listen.