How God's Love Works: a rational view

Cambridge Elements, 2023

Religious believers are often commanded to love like God. On classical accounts, God seems a poor model for human beings: an immutable and impassable being seems incapable of the kind of episodic emotion (sympathy, empathy) that seems required for the best sorts of human love. Models more conducive to human love, on the other hand, are often rejected because they seem to limit God's power and glory. This Element looks first at God and then divine love within the Abrahamic traditions—Islam, Christianity and Judaism. It will then turn to love and the problem of hell, which is argued as primarily a problem for Christians. The author discusses the kind of love each tradition asks of humans and wonders, given recent work in the relevant cognitive and social sciences, if such love is even humanly possible. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Studies in Christian Ethics, 2009

Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis

In this article the author considers some of the ways in which those with religious authority might exercise their power by persuading believers to perform actions that they (the believers) would not have dreamed of performing had not justifications been presented to them in the name of religion. There are, of course, reasons other than religion – love and money, to take but two obvious examples – that lead people to do things that they would not otherwise have done, but religion would seem to add that extra something (for good or evil) that can inspire people to believe and act with an added fervour, an extra commitment, and an extra disregard for other consider­ations. If we really believe that it is God who wants us to do something then we are more likely to do it (or at least feel more guilty if we do not do it) than if George or Tony or even our guru asks us to do it – unless we believe that our guru is God, or is the only one with a direct hotline to Him (or Her). We may even ...

International Multidisciplinary Scientific Conference on the Dialogue between Sciences & Arts, Religion & Education, 2022

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0xUnported License, permitting all non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work isproperly cited.

Faith and Philosophy, 2015

Does God love every human equally and to the deepest degree possible? In an earlier article 1 argued that no one could, in principle, love every human equally and to the deepest degree possible. Thomas Talbott has objected and argues that a model of the divine love extended equally to all best captures the idea of God as loving parent. 1 contend that Talbott's argument fails, in part, as it implies that the divine love treats the interests of humans as fungible. Thomas Talbott has recently defended proposition (L) in response to several arguments 1 presented against it: (L): 1f God exists and is perfect, then God's love must be maximally extended and equally intense. 1

Modern theodicies normally involve the premise that God benefited us through creation. The assumptions on which such a premise relies have, however, rarely been discussed in this context. I argue that causing someone to exist cannot benefit the person whose existence is at stake, and hence that God is not our benefactor. If anti-frustrationism is a correct theory of welfare, the concept of a benevolent Creator is incoherent.

Beate Ego/Ute Gause/Ron Margonlin/Dalit Rom-Shiloni (Hrsg.), Theodicy and Protest. Jewish and Christian Perspectives, 2018

Experiences of contingency can break into our lives in an extremely painful manner. If serious suffering or an unexpected catastrophe hits us, we are forced to ponder on our lives. Priorities are sorted through anew, and the question is asked: Why are we standing where we are standing, why have we become the way we are, why does that which is happening happen to us? It is the function of religion to take on such experiences of contingency. Religion doesn't work on contingency through acting or deciding as, for example, in the medical system, but by thematizing contingency itself. Thereby religion too, to be sure, doesn't offer any easy answers. Religion awakens much more the consciousness not for the knowable, not for the calculable, but for the fundamental doubt that accompanies faith. Pastors are challenged in a special way to withstand the indefinite and undefinable and not to explain them away rationally. The unexplainable, that which remains ambivalent, is not the end of communication for them, but its beginning. I will illustrate this with the following pastoral care example.' Ms. Hedinger is a 57 year-old woman who knows that she will soon die of cancer. When Reverend Hagmiiller visits her in the hospital she soon signals at the beginning of the conversation that she has a need for discussion. Ms. Hedinger begins to tell the pastor about all the misery that she has become aware of recently on television-refugee camps, fleeing hungry children and so forth. Then she says, and I quote: »There the question arose why God would allow such horrible things to happen. That ! am sick and will perhaps die is in the final analysis a small individual thing. Not important. But what is taking place there, for thousands of people: that shouts to heaven. Is there a divine governance of the world? How do you view that?« Rev. Hagmiiller is wise enough not to answer the question directly. He cautiously The example is found in flans van der Geest,

Sacrificial love is a prevailing topic throughout the Christian tradition, and is often thought to bring us closest not only to the historic actions of God in the form of Jesus, but to the very heart of God. As such it is understandably perceived as integral to most Christian visions of moral life. In dialogue with a range of post-enlightenment critiques of Christian theologies regarding sacrificial love, Asle Eikrem presents an unconventional systematic approach to this multi-layered and complex theological topic. From Hegel to prominent 20th century theologians, from feminist theologies to post-modern philosophers, this volume engages in a critical conversation with a host of different voices on all the classical topics in theology (creation, trinity, incarnation, atonement, sin, faith, sacraments, and eschatology), also providing a moral and socio-historical vision for Christian living. The result is a unique appraisal of the significance that the life and death of Jesus holds for the world today.

Religious Studies, 1993

Academia.edu, 2023

Review / critique of D. A. Carson's, "The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God." Argues that Carson equivocates on the term "love" such that it is no longer meaningful. Given meticulous divine sovereignty (Calvinism) it cannot be said in good faith that God loves everyone. Carson's book thus fails the biblical and theological litmus test of John 3:16.