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.

head Maybe God chose me?

The Bible moves me deeply. I cannot let the teachings go.

Brice, don't you think you might have anything to do with it?

Imagine a parent whose child becomes a drug addict, who steals from them, abuses their trust, damages their other child. There might come a time when, after years and years of trying to help them, of trying to get them into rehab, of supporting them, nothing is helping. The child is determined to destroy themselves. There may come a time when the parent has to say 'I still love you; I will always love you; you will always be my darling child, but I cannot let you into my house or my life.'

It is not an exact analogy, because no analogies can ever be exact. But in this situation, the child bears responsibility for themselves, do they not? If you turn away from God, set your face against his way, do you not bear responsibility for that? God will always welcome us back, will always love us, even when we set our face against him. Nothing we can do can change this love. But we can change what we do.

Brice, because it isnt unconditional. I dont know how much you know of the bible, but people wouldnt be seperated into sheep and goats at the end if it was unconditional. There would be no need. We would all go to the same place. But we wont, because we are all going to be judged.

We have spoken about evidence upthread

If you want to become a Christian ever again, and right now I dont think you want to, you will never get your evidence. And as already been discussed many times, even if you did, it would never be enough for you.

In fact, it is never enough for anyone. Hence I presume why God does not bother with it.

As capsium says, he is trying to link up with us.
It is up to individuals, not really children and people with additional needs, to find Him.
Children and people with additional needs I believe will go to Heaven.

There is a lot more than just common sense in the book of Proverbs.

Goldigga, I can't let you go around thinking such a wrong thing about God. His love for us is definitely unconditional. Nothing we can ever do will ever lose us God's love, and people in hell have not lost it.

We will have to agree to disagree on that niminypiminy.
Your post is not what it says in the bible at all is it.

He is not willing that any of us should perish. Gold

(Forget exactly where it says that and I have to do the school run soon. But it should ring some bells with you)

God loves us, is love. We chose whether or not to accept His love. He does not force Himself on us. We have free will. We chose but there are consequences to our choices.

I love my child, deeply. If he makes a wrong decision it upsets me but I do not love him any the less. If, when he was an adult, he wanted nothing to do with me I would be greatly saddened but I would have to respect his choice and still love him. As soon as he changed his mind I would welcome him with open arms.

This is like God and us.

I like the child analogy. Ok suppose you have a child and arrange for it to be adopted in another country and brought up without any knowledge that you even exist let alone that you are their parent.

Now you wait and wait and if the child doesn't run to you and call you mummy you reject it.

That's fair and sensible right?

Hey we can make it even better. You can write to the child saying you his mum, but in the form of riddles and symbols that you know he won't understand. You can also pay 1000s of other people to also write to him claiming to be his parents so that your letter is lost in the pile.

This is the way any parent would act isn't it.

He does not want us to perish, but some of us will.
We cannot and should not sterilise the bible by getting rid of hell. I think preachers in general are now trying to do that, but they do us a great disservice.

In the parable of the prodical son, it was necessary for the son to say sorry to the father, else none of it would have happened.

Golddigger, I agree. It was more honest before people started rewriting the bits that were no longer acceptable. If you're going to follow god and the bible than trying to squirm out of the hard bits is not the way to go.

2 Peter 3v9
I dont particularly like to quote the bible on here, but it does put it nicely what I am trying to say.

The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.

Hurrah Back
Halleluya!

Yeah but in the parable of the prodigal son the prodigal son lived with and knew his dad as a physical being. You can't compare that to a human reject one particular proof-less god out of 1000's

Golddigger, I am an atheist, but if I believed that the creator of the universe was asking me to stand up for him then I'd have a bible in one hand and a sword in the other. There'd be none of this changing the bible to suit the audience.

Nowadays whenever I point to something of questionable morality in the bible someone says "oh.. well.. we don't really do that.. god didn't mean that.. it's a mistranslation.. it's a metaphor"

Wasn't that what Peter did? "Jesus? never heard of him. You must have me mixed up with someone else"

headinhands. For some particular reason, this afternoon, I dont understand your posting. I understand your first sentence but not your second.

Back. See thats what I mean. You are not being served well.
And unfortunately it goes up to the top of some of the denominations, if not most of them, as well as further down the ranks as it were.

I find it sad when atheists who claim to be all in favour of knowledge and scholarship and critical thinking are only willing to countenance a version of Christianity without any scholarship and critical thinking.

It's frustrating when Christians whose faith has been tested and changed by encountering history, textual studies, science, philosophy, other languages and cultures are told that they are not real Christians by atheists who claim to be open minded.

It's wearying to be accused of blind faith and lack of critical thinking when, if you try to show how your faith is reasoned and has been strengthened by critical thinking, you are simply ignored in favour of something that more nearly corresponds to someone else's prejudices about what Christianity is .

Gold I never said I didn't believe there is such thing as Hell. I believe also that we need to repent and accept Christ. I believe the Bible.

What I say about unconditional love is that I believe God loves us and wants to bless us, it is just some of us refuse to accept His blessings. Since we have Free Will, He will not force His blessings upon us. However He still loves us.

The, Christ transcending language, religion and everything is a big concept. Not one that I can fully understand. All I can say is God knows our hearts, we do not always know other people's, they could be professing Christ in another language which I might not understand. This could mean societies we know nothing about, might actually know the Truth but express it in a way we find difficult to comprehend. But God knows.

So god communicated his to humans in a way that one needs to be a scholar to access it. Wouldn't that automatically prevent millions from learning enough to understand.

Wrt god wanting to bless us. It would seem, would it not, that he wants to bless people in the third world a lot less then in rich countries? Why would that be?

Again I god knows our hearts and it's possible to be a Christian in that you like to be kind, why would god need to bother with the hole Jesus thing? Just let us get on with it and sort us out at the end of course that says nothing about the contradiction of a god who expects us to be caring and prevent suffering but who does absolutely nothing himself.

I was a Christian for some 26 years. I can still recite the books of the bible, does that not qualify me to make comment on Christianity?

Head Our perception of blessing can be relative. To me a meal in an expensive restaurant would be a treat but another person might eat there every night so it would not seem such a treat to them. Hardship can make you appreciate the small things.

However acknowledging this does not mean I underestimate the suffering of people in Third World countries, before you say it.

There is Evil in this world, so much has been messed up. Evil comes from Satan. We have power through Christ over Satan but it can take time to put things right. However not everybody believes or follows Christ.

I did not comment on any of your qualifications, head. However if you have ceased to be a Christian there is the possibility there was something in Bible you misunderstood.