Is the Christian God's love unconditional?

[Woolmark]

Ok, some questions which have been playing on my mind, I am genuinely interested.

Surely his love is on the condition that you are a) a Christian and b) follow his rules?

Also, if God loves everyone as much as he does, why can't he save everyone by simply appearing to them? If I could save my children by doing this then I would in an instant, rather than turning up at the end and destroying the ones who weren't Christian.

niminypiminy I'm not sure what you mean by a philosophical question in this context.

It is perfectly valid - and interesting - to speculate on whether we are in fact dreaming. What is irrational is to make the leap from "maybe I'm a cuttlefish' to "I AM a cuttlefish" without something more than speculation.

Especially when it leads to conflict with others who have decided to believe they are butterflies or klingons.

Combination of my own experience of God backed up with the weight of testimony from other people?

And that's different to the millions of people who are convinced of the truth of other faiths/gods how?

And, Back, when you say 'this dream follows rules' then we say 'paging Mr Hume' because it was his great insight that what seem to be rules are simply regularities in past experience - we cannot depend on their recurring in the future.

I don't depend on them in the sense of having absolute conviction/faith that they will. But you don't advocate ignoring those regularities do you. You are just as careful as I not to drop something fragile.

I agree with you, there's loads more basis for believing that God exists than wormholes do.

Back you are welcome to believe that common sense explanations of the world are sufficient. It's just that your arguments about why God doesn't exist are then very vulnerable to reasoned argument.

Head logically speaking I have no problem with the existence of other gods. As it happens I trust the revelation that there is only one God. But that is a different matter from the principle about whether weight of evidence counts towards drawing a provisional conclusion.

I don't have any "arguments about why God doesn't exist". I've never said that GOD doesn't. Only that the total evidence for him existing is zero.

:)

I have no problem with the existence of other gods. As it happens I trust the revelation that there is only one God. But that is a different matter from the principle about whether weight of evidence counts towards drawing a provisional conclusion.

I'm confused. You say you have no problem with the existence of other gods but believe, through personal revelation, that there is only one god? Talk me through that?

So you believe that personal testimony is evidence. Even if it isn't about a god, what if it's about a mermaid or a werewolf or a mothman?

head the Bible talks about other gods. Christ asked whether we know that we are gods. There is also talk people worshipping the god of this world and Mammon as opposed to God, the one true God. Belief in other gods exists in people's heads and externally / collectively as spiritual entities.

It is interesting when you look at Norse myth and what happens at the end of the world in terms of this.

Back, saying 'there is no evidence for the existence of God' is an argument. It depends on a whole set of assumptions about what counts as evidence, how evidence might confirm a proposition, how we might weigh different types of evidence, how we define the object of enquiry (what do we mean by God?) ...

Certainly personal testimony counts as evidence. There would be no judicial process and no history if it did not. In fact there would be no scientific knowledge unless personal testimony counted as evidence, since any piece of scientific writing is a piece of personal testimony. And before you say 'but it's repeatable' bear in mind that past regularity does not guarantee future conformity to a pattern.

For me the witness of the Bible, my own experience and Christian tradition provide enough of a weight of evidence of the creator God. With regard to mermaids and suchlike the weight of evidence is not so strong.

Do you believe in the existence of zero Back?

Bloomin’ heck, so much has been said, struggling to read it all! But lovely to see so much discussion.

Thanks Head/HiH I like Ninny abbreviation of HiH - can I useit too? You said I also debate about things that are less enjoyable to think about like MGM and FGM. I'm pretty much a debating/thinking type person, as most of us are. I agree.

Ninny thank you for your kind thoughts. I do find it hard to post on these threads more than any other. I think for me it is fine because over the 30 years I have been a Christian I have explored my faith to some great degree which has helped me to hold my faith lightly and tightly at the same time! By this I mean that if any particular bits are challenged I do not feel the whole thing topples like a house of cards. Yet at it's core my faith is very much part of who I am who I want to be and I want to debate in a loving and kind way, and not necessarily win arguments at the risk of 'losing' people - myself included, if that makes sense!

Hattie I'm sorry but I don't understand what this mean "When you make the specific claims about the properties of your god that you do, you go further than you realise to prove that he/she/it doesn't, and can't exist." Unless you were thinking I was using my faith making me happier as proof that it was true in which case you were presumably going to say that that would mean other people's faith in other things make them happy to. You said Her argument in her post to me was that Christianity & faith makes people happy and changes their lives. I showed that while that may very well be true, it says nothing about whether that faith is based on anything real.

I quite like your example of the lottery, and love the fact you will be giving some to charity too. but as I say I was not offering that as an example of faith being true just because it made people happy. Just that as people we may find it rewarding to connect with God and of course your lottery example would only work once, I would get a bit suspicious if my friend was calling with the same hackneyed old story every week!

Hattie you are correct There are many, many reasons why faith survives & is so widespread. It doesn't have to be true to make people happy or give them hope - they only need to believe that it is. However, for me faith is dynamic, I believe God meets me in those dark, stressed times and reveals (or uncovers) some things that are true and real and deeper than the difficult situation that I might find myself in. It is not some sort of passive belief. Also my point, although yours is very valid too, is that something drives us (as humans) to look beyond ourselves and I wondered why you thought that was. Faith in other religions etc may work for people too and that does not prove it is real either. But it doesn't prove it is not real.

Do you have faith the bus won't crash when you go on it, or belief it won't or do you know it won't, or think it won't or not think about it? I totally get that not believing in God is not necessarily a form of faith (my opinion, I know others may disagree) but I still feel we all exercise a degree of faith about everyday things. Faith is not so wacky and way out, without it we may feel unable to ride the bus or go on planes or trust our partners or......

Mad lovely post. Beautiful. Bless you.

head/HiH can you explain what you mean by I do wonder if my faith would have lasted so long had I had the opportunity to try and defend my beliefs in the same manner as believers do here, but then believers here don't seem to even wobble which again makes the whole belief thing highly interesting. I am genuinely interested. I think (if you want to take me as an example) that Christians do wobble, we wobble a lot. I am always wobbling! Honestly. It is not the lack of wobbling that makes faith long lasting, it is the ability to be cantered on God as one wobbles!

I think many Christians have tried over many years to work out or understand what was going on in the Old Testament! Truly. It is a case of the more you read the harder it is to understand! (To ME at least.) So for me one thing I began to do was try and relate to the Old Testament as the story of a bunch of people trying to relate to God in a culture where things were hugely different to they are now. Where people literally sacrificed their children to appease their gods. In that time and place how people tried to follow and know what I believe is the real God (The Lord) and how God revealed things to them. There is wisdom and poetry and all that (I know people on here love commenting on our poetry) but I do not assume that the Old Testament or the New Testament are giving us cut and dried rules of what to do all the time. And most Christians do not act in this way either! Thankfully. And you are not thick, my dear, or if you are I am too! I get lost in all the big words too! I know that I reckon, and I might be wrong, but the way you think critically inside Christianity is different to the way you think critically about other religions and other stuff in general? was not directed to me, but what does it mean?

ninny, I 100% agree! I think that is bad advice. I have found that critical thinking about my faith exploring the difficult bits of the Bible for example has been vital for me in strengthening my faith. This is why IMHO our faith is living and engaging.

Back I think you have some points about compulsory worship etc, I agree no one should be forced (or really can be forced) to 'worship'. Bishops with votes, I think I am in favour of that as long as they are voting the way I think! (I am only human).

But I want people to base decisions on what they know rather than what they guess or what some guy tells them in church. So if I am a wife who is subject to domestic abuse (I am NOT, thankfully) and I say believed I am worthless and of no value I should go on believing that because that is what I know? (maybe an unfair example and certainly not meant to offend anyone* but you see what people 'know' is subjective too), hence part of my life is all about human rights because it is so very important to me.

Please believe me Back beating children and prison sentences for non-belief is the furthest thing from my mind! Perhaps there is an element of fear for you in this. Likewise there is fear in the church which leads to the church being (I believe) unfair in its dealing with society in some things.

Italian, lovely post!

And you are absolutely right faith is more about trusting than it is about making statements about what exists ( though these are also relevant!). Faith is what you do not just what you think. Thank you for reminding me of this.

Posheroo - you said well, when I was young vicars were still threatening hell fire to sinners. Thats hardly uncondidional love. if you believe that this is true, that hell awaits those who are not saved and that God's unconditional love awaits all who turn to him how would it be unloving to tell them? If you want my honest opinion on this I would say I truly do not know if hell is real or not. I do believe that those who do not choose to be with God in this life will not necessarily be with him in the afterlife, which I do believe in. And I believe that those who choose God in this life will be with him in the afterlife.

For those who do not choose him or do not know him, that is between them and God and I have chosen to trust God about this, that he will be utterly fair and compassionate. I have beloved friends and relatives who do not know the Lord. I trust God that he loves them, even if they do not know him.
And if you were to ask me why I chose to become a Christian 30 years ago, I would say that God's love was compelling, it drew me in. Over a period of about 18 months I heard about it and then I made a choice to follow Jesus. It was the most significant choice of my life. because of it I met my husband which means I live where I live and we have the child we have and hope to have another. It has been a rock in my life and I would not change it for all the tea in China. And I am a big tea drinker!

The Bible talks of Hell and I don't quite understand it. I believe in a God of love, unconditional love, but you need to know him to experience that love. Personally, I think Hell is not a place of physical torment and agree that is a horrible image, but I cannot confirm that, I only know what I have experienced in my life, that God is loving and kind and gentle. That he knows me and loves me unconditionally, whether I screw up or do good. I aim to do good and I want to for a million reasons. I screw up yet God is always with me, closer than a brother and in the words of Robert Frost in the Road Not Taken....

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference"

Completely agree, Italian :)

I also think it's bad advice to say 'just have peace' - that involves detaching heart from head, when in my experience in faith heart and head can co exist quite nicely really. There is an element whereby we sometimes need to rest in our knowledge and experience of what God is like, but not to the detriment of our own intellectual abilities, and not when there is so much good and thorough scholarship out there.

I also think of the OT as a journeying of a people finding their way with God, and how they relate to God and how they gradually find out about being reconciled with God. People say I cherry pick when I talk this way, but I think it is merely a sensible way of looking at some historical documents, which I happen to believe are inspired by God but not written by God.

Oh sorry - a gazzilion posts from me, very selfish, sorry!

I was on here late last night and woke to so many lovely posts! Must stop now!

Could not agree more mad when you say If you want people to see that religion is harmful from these threads, I'd like people to see that following Christ is hopeful, while agreeing that some religion is indeed harmful. And yes . PS HiH can I join you with the Colombo box set and a bowl of Bombay mix?

Weight of evidence not so strong

But people have seen them! How can you disregard their testimony while accepting others?

Thanks Ninny and Mad off to make a fry up now!

I now have a hankering for Bombay Mix.

Possibly not for Columbo. That would just be wrong.

Beautiful posts Italian

Hmm maybe a bit of Lewis though...I like Hathaway!

weight of evidence?

MHD and Italian, you are both such great advocates for Christianity. I love reading your posts. And HiH and Back, I value the opportunity your posts give me for thinking through my faith.

Having said all that I've got to go now and measure for curtains hang out washing and do some washing up! Can't ignore it any longer!

Capsicum I love Lewis! My Gp is like a dark haired version of Lewis. I get the vapours just thinking about him!

Must make lunch. See you all soon, I hope.

That's absolutely marvellous and encouraging that you're promoting the use of reasoning when approaching the OT, and I expect you also do with other parts of the bible that are sexist, homophobic and cruel. But that's you doing it, not god, you're using your noggin' and your 21st century sense of morality the very same way I do when I'm thinking about issues. When do you know you need to use your own code? When you find it offensive. Why do you find it offensive? Because it was written by a barbaric desert tribe, as you would expect from that era in history. Why couldn't god have introduced us to a more sophisticated sense of human rights then back in the desert some 4000 years ago? No idea!

Take parenting for example. You don't change the basic rules much from when they are 2 to 18. That would just be confusing. 'If you don't do XYZ I will get everyone you know to throw stones at your head until you are dead but this afternoon if you don't do XYZ I will still love you unconditionally but will feel a bit sad.'

If it was all just how the humans interpreted god, why would god be happy for himself being portrayed so utterly, utterly despicable if it wasn't actually true!?

IGH, you're welcome to join me so long as you don't eat any of those long noddley bits, those babies are mine.