Love Above All?
This is the third post in a short series covering some themes in the Doctrine of God. In the first post we examined why studying God's revelation of himself is worthwhile for Christians. In the second post we saw that God reveals himself through means, and that this mediated revelation gives us true knowledge of him.
In this post we will think a little about who God actually says he is.
Who is God?
If you are asked this question there is, perhaps, one answer that jumps quickly to mind. Who is God? Well, (1 John 4:8) God is love. And since this phrase is in the bible, we can be sure it is true as exactly and fully as God, through John, intended it to be.
But a curious thing has happened with it; for many it has become the controlling idea of who God is. For some it has taken on the importance of being the most fundamental description of God, such that everything else we have in scripture must be subsumed under this one short phrase. It has become the keystone in understanding who God is, the uber-attribute above all attributes.
In this thinking, all things about God are to be understood in terms of love. And usually through love as defined by human intuition; which is itself thrown around by the spirit of the age.
The credibility of this idea seems to come from the simplicity of the phrase and its seemingly forthright, almost abstract, clarity.
God is love.
The verse says what God is, surely then this is the key in understanding who God is?
God is... other things as well
However, this is not the only time God is described in his own words using the same, simple, sentence structure. God is other things as well. Taking just a simple search through the book of Deuteronomy (chosen for no particular reason) for example:
God is a consuming fire, a jealous God (Deut. 4:24)
God is God of gods, Lord of lords (Deut. 10:17)
The eternal God is your dwelling place (Deut. 33:27)
Even in 1 John, the very book in which we find 'God is love' we also find 'God is light' (1 John 1:5).
God is love, that is true if we mean it the way John meant it. But is God love above all other things? Is our intuitive understanding of love to become the guiding metaphor in our exploration of God's character? One that every other metaphor must bow before?
A Brief Introduction to Simplicity
Christians have long described God as 'simple'. Common usage of the word 'simple' makes that description seem a bit strange to our ears.
Simple, in this case, doesn't mean basic or easy to understand. It means not made-up of parts. God cannot be split up into different bits, he cannot have those parts rearranged, re-ordered or removed.
If God was made up of parts, then each of those parts would be more fundamental than God himself. God would be a dependant being (dependant on those parts of him existing and sticking together) which he is not.
God is simple, and the ‘attributes’ of a simple being go all the way through that being.
So, if love is an attribute of God then he is love all the way through. If justice is an attribute of God then he is just all the way through. And what's more; His love is just all the way through, and his justice is loving all the way through. These things can't be separated, set against each other, or set over each other.
In fact, no attribute of God is anything other than God himself, according to his whole character, brought to bear on a situation.
In all things God acts completely as God, and therefore he acts according to everything that he is.
There are mysteries upon mysteries here, and implications beyond the scope of this post. But the up-shot is this:
To declare that God is love above all other things is to tear God apart, to substitute a fake idea of love for the real thing, and to ignore vast swathes of God's revelation of himself to us.
God is love, yes, but in a way that is inseparable from him being light, righteousness, or even a consuming fire.
Run the Reductio
The ideas above might seem simply abstract to you, but ideas often have consequences, and even the seemingly abstract can become very concrete, very quickly.
Setting 'God is love' up as the uber-attribute has led to significant wackiness. The logical moves are uncomplicated:
God is love, 'x' is what I believe love is, therefore God must be 'x'
So, 'God is love, love is being nice to people, therefore the key characteristic of God (that nothing else must be allowed to undermine) is... that he is very nice to people'.
Therefore, when God says: I will judge the wicked and send them to eternal punishment ‘we’ say: "Well, that undermines the fact that God is love above all things, he violates who he is unless he is nice to everyone." In this example separating 'love' from the simple character of God allows us to redefine love on our own terms, and then set our new definition up as the interpretive authority over all things.
But we could do the same with any 'God is' statement. So let's run the reductio ad absurdum and follow the logic into the oblivion of ridiculousness:
God is a consuming fire
'Consuming fire' is the most fundamental description of God. We can separate it out from all the other descriptions of God, and set it above them.
Separated from God's character, we can now define the attribute 'consuming fire-ness' in a way that seems intuitive to us.
Let us say that 'consuming fire-ness' is the same as having pyromaniac tendencies.
And since we've separated this metaphor and attribute from all the others, let's now make it the controlling metaphor of everything else. Everything the bible says about God must be subsumed under this ultimate truth.
So, when God says in Isaiah 43:2 that the flames will not consume his people because he is with them... well, we ought not to believe that. God is consuming fire above all other things therefore it would deny God's character if God did not consume them when they walk through the fire.
For God to be God he must ultimately burn everything up for God is a consuming fire.
I hope the logic above is clear and sound, but I hope the conclusion is clearly ridiculous to you. My point is though, that this conclusion is no more ridiculous than those we reach when we set 'God is love' up as the sole controlling metaphor of who we believe God to be.
Where this leaves us
This post is not intended in any way to diminish the wonderful truth revealed to us in 1 John 4:8. God is love. His character shows us the true definition of love, and he has shown potently overflowing love to his people, saving them from their sins and promising to bless them into eternity.
Neither is this post an attempt to diminish the rich and pointed command in 1 John 4:8 to love God's people as God has loved us.
Instead it is intended to help us know and love the Lord more truly. For, to understand God's revelation of himself we need to take it all into account; all his words and all his acts. And we must avoid lazily (or sentimentally) attempting to tear God asunder, and setting up a god that is no god in his place.
