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.

For me the mystery strengthens my Faith. It is bigger than me or humanity.

The more I find out, the more I realise there is to find out...

You said you won't have a fully formed idea for a while, which implied you would have one later and not necessarily when you get there as it were

You might not know how an aircraft works but you could get a book, do an aviation engineering course, you could find out. And the different sources would generally agree. You wouldn't have one book saying 'aeroplanes work by magic' and another saying 'aeroplanes work by converting bars of chocolate into rocket fuel' so your analogy is a very poor one.

You haven't actually found out anything have you?

I have read maths books but I still do not fully appreciate big numbers. I will know, in Heaven.

1 Corinthians 13:12 "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known."

No but with time and coaching you could. And there are many humans who do. You don't have one person saying 2+2 is 4 and another saying 2+2 is 237346465737736583

It's testable and repeatable and predictable, whereas information gained via religious revelation is contradictory i.e. god doesn't mind homosexuals/god doesn't like it, god wants female bishops/god doesn't want female bishops.

And you're all saying you know what you believe to be the true path because god confirmed it. So what about the people that have had contradictory revelations? There're every bit as sure they're right, well maybe they're mistaken, maybe it was just one part of their brain talking to another part, oh wait a minute, that might mean that your revelation was one part of your brain talking to another part. Oh dear, what a muddle.

That's what big concepts are like head. Mind boggling. I love 'em.

Don't forget we have the Bible as well as God working with us through His Holy Spirit as well.

Big concepts are fine. I have no difficulty with that. But according to you god isn't just a big baggy concept. You make out he is a specific thing with things he likes and doesn't like. And yet you don't seem concerned that he is telling people wildly different things. That would concern me. If my husband was telling our kids very different things, things that contradicted themselves and then sitting back and watching the drama unfold. Hmm, I wouldn't be impressed. He would not be a good dad.

I also think we are made up of mind, body and spirit but actually think they are intrinsically intertwined so to seperate them out and say only a spirit 'goes to heaven' for me is problematic. The bible makes it clear that our bodies will be renewed as the earth will be renewed, and it never seems to me that the people we will be in eternity will simply be floaty, mindless spirits. I believe God created us as we are - so our bodies are part of who we are. My body will be my body minus useless lungs and hopefully minus muffin top and my mind will be my mind, but a perfect version of that mind, so hopefully less sieve like and with more depth of understanding.

As for contradictory revelations, it's a good point HiH, and it sometimes looks a muddle, for certain - how can Christians be so very diverse in what they actually believe about something? I still hold to the truth that all/the majority of believers have the same central tenets, the absolutes of God comign to earth in human form in Jesus his son, dying and being raised to life and conquering death. All that is kernel, all else husk - although unfornutately the husk has often taken over and been used for control and oppression. There are also far too many who remain uneducated, some stubbornly so, about what the bible was actually saying to the audience it was intended for, such as in Paul's letters which have been used so wrongly Paul must be spitting feathers up there in his new body without the thorn

So yes, it's a muddle. But we are made to be diverse. And actually I would always question anyone saying 'but God told me' especially in the area of something that could be used as an oppressive tool, eg in homophobia and sexism. We can look in the bible, we can interpret the bible with hermeneutics and good exegesis but we cannot say 'God told me...' something that actually contradicts what the bible says. It makes me fairly suspicious when I hear of such 'revelation'.

There is Truth, it is just bigger than we can fully comprehend with our human minds. There is the right thing to do in every single individual circumstance. It is just that the circumstances can not directly compare, exactly, because they are each individual.

However reading the Bible and having a personal relationship with God has affected me deeply, on a conscious and subconscious level (my 'hunches' are more reliable). My understanding does deepen over time.

But how does your understanding deepening over time differ to my understanding differing over time? As I grow older I understand more about myself and the world. I learn how to navigate better through difficult situations from the the life experiences I came through before.

I can't see how you would be any different in how you would deal with a life crisis than I would bar the taking to god. We'd both deal with what we had to, seek support where necessary and probably feel overwhelmed quite often. It's not as if non-Christians stand out from Christians by their distinct lack of wisdom or coping skills. They're still paying their bills, sorting out problems, caring for their family and so on. They're not standing about scratching their heads going 'crap, I have no idea how to problem solve'. Well we all do that from time to time but there's no clear distinction.

For example, if your car isn't working well you take it to the garage, just like I do. If you're worried about a friend you ask them if everything is okay and take it from there. If your neighbour is being unreasonable you try to resolve it by talking. You tell me one situation where you do anything specifically different than me other than the praying. But I bet that, praying aside, you're doing all the head scratching, talking and thinking that I am doing.

head I can only compare myself to myself before I became a more committed Christian. I used to worry a lot more. I would try and reason my way through decisions and have as many 'fors' as 'againsts'. Now I think I am much more at peace with the decisions I make. I am much less worried about the 'done' thing.

I don't know the workings of your mind head, so I cannot say whether we would seem very similar from the outside.

Oh and I remember really enjoying ranting, moaning, gossiping and funnily enough, shopping. This does not seem half as exciting now.

No of course we couldn't compare you to me, it would be unhelpful anyway as it would be too small a data pool. But if we compare Christians and non-Christians as a whole it's not obvious Christians are immune to having troubles and having difficulty dealing with those troubles. I would add that while I am aware Christians have less divorce, so do other faiths (which have much lower rates of divorce then Christians) which suggests the cause would be more to do with the lifestyle of people of faith in terms of attending a place of worship be it a church, synagogue or temple and so on.

I'm sure there are many people that don't and have never been into ranting and moaning. And I know there are Christians who love a good moan too.

The fact that you don't enjoy those things as much is likely to do with your maturity than anything supernatural otherwise the distinction between Christians and non Christians would be very obvious to us all.

I've never liked shopping or gossip. But dare say I probably do a lot more gossiping than I realise!

But personally speaking, my Faith helps me a great deal. It has helped me through a number of difficult situations, I'm not sure I would have been able to manage without it.

I know this is personal to me, but it is so, because my Faith is my choice.

Oh and people grow and mature as Christians. Being a Christian is difficult to separate from maturity.

I am not sure some sort of statistical study would help either, since people come to Christianity from different starting points, for example somebody could be naturally very generous.

And not all the qualities you gain are very easily measurable or quantifiable.