There seems to be a common assumption in an awful lot of modern theology that the primary truth about God is that he is love. "God is love" is at least Biblical as a statement (1 John 4:8, 16), and there's a lot of important stuff that can be said about the Trinity from that statement.
But of course, people often load the word "love" with a lot of baggage it wasn't meant to carry, and interpret "God is love" in a way that contradicts large chunks of the rest of the Bible.
But why should "God is love" be primary at all? Why not "God is light; in him there is no darkness at all." (1 John 1:5). After all, it's in the same book. But I don't think either "God is love" or "God is light" is the number one candidate for a three word description beginning "God is...". Nor is "Truth", "Life" or "Wisdom", though there may be something to be said for each of those.
I think there are two possibilities much stronger than either. After all, we're never told that "God is love, love, love", but we are told that he is "holy, holy, holy." Actually, we're told that as many times as we are told that God is love (Isaiah 6:3, Rev 4:8), and we're told that God is holy quite a lot more (Lev 11:44, Lev 11:45; Josh 24:19; 1 Sam 6:20; Ps 22:3; 99:9; Isaiah 5:16; 1 Pe 1:16 for starters). So I'd say "God is holy" is much closer to being his primary attribute that "God is love" on the basis of the Biblical evidence.
The other possibility of course is "God is Jesus".
Now imagine what modern theology would be like if we started with the truth that God is holy rather than the truth that he is love.
8 comments:
I think it was John Stott who said that the best summary of what God is like (apart from Jesus!) is 'holy love', which qualifies both: he is neither holy in the 'holier than thou' sense, nor is he love in the 'warm and fuzzy' sense.
Yes - I agree that "holy love" is much better than just "love" when taken as a description in isolation.
But to use a distinction I don't wholly agree with, I think that in terms of the way that we experience God, holiness should be primary rather than love. The sense in which God is love is primarily in relation with himself (ok, his other selves); his holiness is primary in relation with the rest of the universe.
I think I'd want to suggest that neither love nor holiness is primary. God must be both perfectly loving and perfectly holy or he's not really God. Holding on to love or holiness alone or emphasising one over the other leads to error. If God is primarily holy why didn't he just punish us for our sins instead of paying the price himself? If God is primarily loving rather than holy then why didn't he just let us off? But if God is both perfectly holy and perfectly loving then we have a situation where our sin required the price of a perfect sacrifice to satisfy our offence against his perfect holiness, and because he loved us, he was happy to provide that sacrifice for us.
Or am I missing something as usual?
Hmmm... We're probably disagreeing over what primary means. I agree that we can only fully understand God's holiness when we understand his love and vice versa.
Lydia of course suggests "God is God", which I think is remarkably profound...
Hey Custardy,
I think it true to claim that 'God is love' does have some kind of primacy because it is a noun whereas the other attributes are adjectives - God is describe as Holy no Holiness, as Almighty not almight.
Moreover, the nature of God - in perfect relationship in the trinity along with the nature of human beings made in the likeness of God I think is primarily about relationship. Relationship with God, relationship which each other.
Where I think we run into trouble is in a very poor understanding of what love is.
I think we have a very small view of love.
alienfromzog - "God is light, in him there is no darkness at all"?
I agree in terms of the primacy of love for our understanding of the Trinity...
Sorry for slow reply.
I see what you mean Custard, but I think when John writes 'God is light and in him there is no darkness.' It's not literal in the sense of 'God is love.' (If a non-physical concept can be called literal... but you see what I mean)
God is light, in him is no darkness is a poetic and quite profound comment on God's holiness.
Which again brings me back to my original point.
AFZ
P.S. If it helps, here's what I think about Love: http://alienfromzog.blogspot.com/2008/01/essay-on-love.html
(sorry, shameless plug...!)
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