Introduction
God is love.
This simple phrase from the New Testament is known pretty much by all professing Christians. The most basic understanding most have of this phrase, is that God is very loving, or that his most dominant quality is love, or that the main motivation of his actions are love.
These phrases are all correct in their own way. And it is a simple, yet true understanding of Apostle John’s statement. However, in this article, I will be delving deeper into the nature of God as love, and the more ontological conceptions.
Though as Christians, we worship, trust and obey God, and do not typically question his nature or love, there are some with more sceptical, jaded, or anxious minds, who feel afraid of God, and are not sure how they can trust him, that he will really keep his promises, or to know if he is lying to us, giving us false hope as some kind of sick or cruel joke.
Hence, understanding how God is love, and how it is intrinsic to his nature, can help us further appreciate and trust God, as well as aviate any fears or anxieties about God, his character, and true intents.
Scriptural Examination
Before getting into depth, we’re first going to simply read John’s passages in regard to God’s nature, love and light.
- “The message that we heard from him (which we want to announce to you) is this; God is light and there isn’t any darkness in Him!”. – 1 John 1:5
- “…love comes from God… So those who love, know God, because love comes from God!… those who don’t love haven’t known God, because God is love! …whoever keeps on loving is in God, and God is in him”. – 1 John 4:7-8, 16
We see here, that we are told that God is light, and no darkness resides in him, we are also told God is love, and that the only reason we as humans love, is because God loves, as he is the origin of love, and that we would and could not know love if God himself didn’t also love.
So we see on a very basic layman’s understanding, the groundwork for ontological conception of God’s love, that it is intrinsic to his nature, and the only reason we have it, is because God has it, if he didn’t, then we wouldn’t, because he is the origin, the creator of all things.
He is compared to light also, in this respect, because like the sun being the source of light, rather than being a receiver of light, God is the source of love. The sun “is” light, in the same manner that God “is” love. Darkness in this respect, which is not in him, is evil, sin, wickedness, and all that entails.
Paul tells us the true definition of love:
- “However, love is patient and kind. It isn’t envious, it doesn’t brag, it isn’t conceited, it doesn’t scheme, it doesn’t watch out for just itself, it doesn’t stir things up, it doesn’t hold grudges, and it doesn’t rejoice over unrighteous things, rather, it rejoices over the truth. It covers everything, believes everything, hopes everything, and endures everything”. – 1 Corinthians 14:4-7
God as love, is by nature, all of these things. Hence, when reading this verse, we can replace the word “love” with “God”.
God is patient, kind, isn’t envious, doesn’t brag, conceit, scheme, look out for his own interests, stir up trouble, hold grudges, lie or enjoy evil things.
This quality has been seen and described throughout the entire Bible, and acts as insurance of our trust in him, that as pure light and love, he cannot and does not lie:
- “So we can find refuge within these two unchangeable things, [that is, the promise and the oath], neither of which God could lie about, by holding on to this hope that He’s promised”. – Hebrews 6:18
- “God doesn’t waver like men, nor may He be threatened like their sons. Will He talk and not make it happen; must He speak and not keep His word?”. – Numbers 23:19
We feel it’s immoral to lie, because God himself is the originator of such morality, he encompasses that morality. He doesn’t merely decide or adere to morality, but ‘is’ morality.
Further, God has worked to express his love to us, and ensure that he has good intents for us, not only in creating our universe with such immense detail and beauty, but also in the desire to save us and give us eterna life and happiness, by even sending his own Son to die for our sins:
- “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life”. – John 3:16
- “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends”.- John 15:13
- “But God proves His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, the Anointed One died for us”. – Romans 5:8
- “He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also, along with Him, freely give us all things?” – Romans 8:32
Of course, some might ask, how do we know that God isn’t lying when he says he isn’t a liar? After all, liars, lie, which includes lying about telling the truth. Is God “secretly evil”?
Is God by nature, wickedness, and the origin of wickedness? Has he set us up to fall? Is he planning some kind of heartbreaking fate for mankind? Planning to go back on his word by saying “gotcha”? Has he devised the greatest and most evil conspiracy of all time, where he and the other beings of Heaven have been plotting to mock us and give us a false hope? Or that perhaps God is even deceiving his own Heavenly family, and own Son? Or that perhaps there is no Son, and that there are no other Heavenly beings such as the angels at all? But it is all just God roleplaying these things to get a good laugh at the end of the day?
To answer this concern, we must examine more deeply, the ontological nature of God’s love and light.
An Ontological Examination of God’s Love
God ‘is’ Love
Understanding that God doesn’t just “have love”, but “is love”, is a vital first step to knowing God and his nature.
We must understand that God’s love, is cardinal. Meaning, it is not a separate quality from himself, just as all his other qualities. For if his love was an “external quality”, or something out of his control, or essence, then that love would be of its own “entity”, and thus beyond God, or pre-existant of God himself, which is not possible as God alone is the eternal being, of which “is” the qualities he possesses. He did not gain them from elsewhere, nor did he create his qualities, implying that he at one time did not have such qualities.
This concept is known by some as “Divine Simplicity”, or “God’s Simplicity”. And whilst there are different variations of this theology, the ultimate crux is that God is not separate from his qualities, and that he is unchangeable. As He tells us himself at Malachi 3:6, and is expressed again at James 1:17.
In examination of ourselves, our own conceptions, we understand our own quality of love, the selflessness that all, or at least most people are capable of, would have originated from a being that was the source of it, who did not just “possess it”, implying it was something different or beyond him, but “was it”.
This ensures that God’s selfless love, is an intrinsic part of him, and it can be no other way, otherwise, we would not know love.
As I mentioned in my article on the “ontological observation of God“, it is akin to trying to explain colour to a blind person, or trying to imagine new colours. Such love exists simply because it does, and is not an invention of man. But all things are contained within and are from God. He can create colours forever. Colours would not be conceived by us without experience, but in turn colours would not exist unless God made them. So our experience is reliant upon God’s creation and expression.
This then means if love came from God, then God “knows love”, and thus “feels love”, and if he truly knows and feels love, then he must “be” love.
Is God All Other Things?
Some of course might counter argue, that since God created all things from nothing, and was the “source”, such logic would mean that God in turn would have to “be colour”, “be human”, or “be material”, in the same way that he “is love”, in order to be the source. And this of course contradicts the notion that God is ‘not’ material, but is beyond his creations.
But indeed we could technically say in a way, God truly is all things, such as material, flesh, colour, space, etc, in that, it all came from his power, as all creations came “out of him”, that is, his eternal mind, and by means of his holy spirit. The inmaterial, the material, the ethereal and tangible, are all in him and are him and from him.
- “O, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and untraceable His ways! Who has known the mind of YHWH? Or who has been His counselor? Who has first given to God, that God should repay him? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things….”. – Romans 11:33-36
So to be the source of all these things, he has to somehow be all of it, and yet tangibly none of, it all at once. Thus, he would be “intangible” and “tangible” simultaneously, which is something beyond our comprehension. Thus he can still be called the source of all those things, and in a way we might say “all things are God”, not in being, or person, but in root. Everything always existed in his mind, before it was expressed into a tangible reality.
However, the difference between his creations and his own persona, is that one is not a “quality” whilst the other is. Love is a feeling, an essence of mind and being, not an object, and in turn we ourselves are made in that image (Genesis 1:26).
Love is Essence and Knowledge, not Object
Because love is a quality of “persona”, and that God is eternal without beginning, he would have always had to have this quality of love as a part of his “conciousness”, lest God changed and therefore was not eternal in nature, personality or quality, and would have had to “invent love” for Himself or others.
But a being without love is either automatically apathetic, or worse, evil. And neither apathy nor evil would intentionally create something like love for itself, nor for other people. In fact it might even be argued that a being without love isn’t even capable of inventing it.
One might of course argue, like in the manner that God invented physical colours without literally “being colour”, that he could do the same when it comes to the creation of love, that God doesn’t have to “have or be” that thing in order to externally create it outside of himself for others to have it. But that it could be a creation from his mind, without him actually “feeling” or having said “quality” within his persona.
However, this assersion again does not consider the fact that love is not an object, but to have love, is also to have a form of knowledge and essence.
We must realise, that man cannot be greater than God. Because he is the source, or the sea from which the river flows. Man cannot not have a quality or intellectual gift greater than God. If a man could have more selfless love than God, then he would have something greater than God, in both quality, and knowledge, and this is something that is not possible, for there would be no origin point or source for man’s greatness beyond the originator. Just as a downward flowing river cannot be more full than the sea.
Such a notion is expressed in the scriptures:
- “Who knows the mind of YHWH? Who has become His advisor and who can give Him instructions? Whom has He asked for advice, And who’s told Him the things He should do? ‘Who taught Him how to be just, Or shown Him the right ways to think?”. – Isaiah 40:13-14
We see then, that our quality of genuine love, would not exist unless God the Father, Yah, thought of it, and himself eternally had it. And that such a quality cannot ever be greater within man, who is recipient of the source.
For God to “truly” be all knowing, he would have to truly have love, or be able to empathise or sympathise with love, which all in turn are forms of love. Mere “intellectual knowledge” of love, cannot truly “explain” love or give fullness of its experience, but to be truly known, it must be felt. If man feels love but God does not, then man knows something God doesn’t.
Therefore, for God to know all, he must not only have knowledge of love.. but he must ‘feel’ love, and if he feels love, it must be an eternal part of him, otherwise, love is of a different source than from God.
This intrinsic love then, ensures that God genuinely cares for each and every one of us, and because the love, in order to be known by him, is intrinsic to him, it is felt by him, and that feeling motivates him to fulfil his promises to us.
- “Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit…. a bad tree cannot bear good fruit“. – Matthew 7:17-18
If God is the Source of Love, is God also Cardinal Evil?
Because we can argue that God’s love is real because our love is real, that he must be the source of the quality of love, and that God must “know love” lest he not be all knowing, can we say the same about evil and selfishness?
Does God have to know and feel temptation? Lust? Greed? In order to have more knowledge than man? As it is with him having and knowing love?
Where did evil come from? Does God contain evil? And if so, that that make him cardinally evil just as much as he is love? Or is God 100% evil incarnate, and is merely lying about being love? Did he invent love as a deception? Or did he invent evil as a contrast to love?
- “Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit…”. – Matthew 7:17-18
Clearly this would result in some kind of contradiction. How can cardinal love and cardinal evil exist “as” a single being?
This is in fact a belief that is held by some, and it is known as “duality”, and is expressed in various historical Christian and Jewish Gnostic sects, as well as Far Eastern religions, such as Daosim, which believes in the necessity of the “cosmological interplay of Dark and Light”, and that one cannot exist without the other… But this would contradict the scriptures which tell us “God has no darkness in him”.
Are the scriptures therefore wrong? Or is God just tricking us? How so we solve this? How can we be sure? Where did evil originate, and how can God not be evil if all things have to originate from God? And if God has to have “all qualities” and “all knowledge”?
A clue is found in that we are told “God is light”.
Light & Darkness
In our physical universe, darkness and light are not two opposing objects, but rather, darkness is merely the result of a lack of light. In order for darkness to overcome light, the light has to be blocked out by an object or smog.
In this case, God is that light, and evil would be a “lack of God”, or perhaps, some kind of “missing quality”, such as.. a lack of love, in which of course, they are one in the same when it comes to God’s cardinal and ontological nature. To lack God is to lack love, to lack love is to lack God.
The mistaken thinking then, of assuming the existence of evil is because God himself must contain the quality or persona of evil, is thinking of the quality of evil as a “substance” or “object”, a “tangible quality”. But understanding love as light, we see evil is but the absense of love, not a quality or object in itself.
But can we prove this practically?
Evil is Defined by Lack of Love
Let us examine a moment, five major loves. Most Christians are familiar with the “four loves” (as made famous by C.S Lewis), but it is important that we also contain the fifth on this list:
- Family Affection (Storge)
- Friendship (Philia)
- Romance (Eros)
- Unconditional Selfless Love (Agape)
- Self Love (Philautia)
Most people have all of these qualities, though some people will be missing one of these qualities or more. Often this results in a lack of balance and wellbeing. With exception to Eros, which some people can happily live without absent of any ill effect.
However, the other loves are essential to our fully functioning wellbeing…
A person who feels no family affection is usually a result of either an in born disorder, a person who prefers selfishness over his relatives, or has experienced a bad upbringing, where one feels very little family affection due to abuse, straining the relationship.
A person who feels no desire for friendship or feels no sense of friendship with others on any level, usually are expressive of coldness or apathy toward one’s fellow man.
A person lacking in selfless love, will only love those who he gets something out of.
And a person who lacks self love, either is a person with a negative self view, lack of self worth, or suffering depression.
Clearly, each piece is part of a functional whole. God who is all things, to be complete, and to pass on to us, such wholesome qualities that we can experience, also would have to have all of them, or he would be incomplete.
Of course, it is an interesting subject to question the notion of “romantic love” and God, as we are not told he has ever had a literal wife, but he does describe his relationship with Israel in the Old Testament, as being like a wife. Thus it is possible that God feels some sort of higher spiritual sense of romantic love, in a way we don’t understand.
But we do well to remember, romantic love also serves our physical needs as humans, the essence of physical relationships and child baring, and not all humans desire such love. Thus, we might say romantic love is a form of love that has “come out of” the other loves, in a specific form when it comes to humanity. Nevertheless, it is something that God in some manner would have to contain within himself.
When it comes to evil however, rather than being a quality, it is better described either as desire absent of love, or a love of the self in absense of the love for others.
In this respect, we might say that an evil person, only has “Philautia”, and nothing else. In which this form of self love becomes “Narkissismós” or what we now call “narcissism”. An unhealthy form of self love, where the love is expressed toward the self, and ones own desires, at the expense at the love for others. And what better way to describe the actions of evil?
And then there are some evil beings, who feel no love at all, not even for themselves, but are purely chaotic in their energy, self deprecrating, but equally as evil, they hate others as much as they hate themselves. Absent of any kind of love at all.
We see this even in a clinical setting. Psychopaths who live in this world, are people absent of any real love or empathy. It is because they lack this empathy, that they can lie, decieve and commit terrible atrocities. Thus we see, their evil is not from a “quality” of evil as an object within them, but it is desire to gratify the self, without the love of others to act as a safeguard against committing harmful selfish acts against others to attain that gratification.
All humans desire things for the self, desire is intrinistic in all we do, even in the desire to help others. But desire absent of the love of others, is what lies behind the creation of evil.
A person with love still perfectly understands and concieves of selfishness and desire, but a person of evil does not understand love nor selflessness. It can only be asserted to be a lack of love, empathy and in turn lack of knowledge.
Again, ultimately this means, for God to lack love, would mean for God to lack knowledge or capacity.
Therefore, if God was evil, a liar, or selfish, then it would not mean he has a “quality of evil”, but rather he would be “missing” a quality. And this is something that isn’t possible. Firstly, we would not have the quality of love for others if God did not have it within himself to give to us, and secondly, God cannot be absent of such cardinal qualities, because he is “all” things, and because he is all things, it “results” in him being love, light and goodness.
God does not have to be evil to “know” evil, for evil merely consists of “desire” to act upon self love or interest, which all beings, including God have.
Qualities, we must remember, are not objects we can hold, they are traits of being. And this is why we cannot come to a conclusion that “an evil God created goodness”, but rather, that God is merely the fullness of quality, and that quality is the wholeness of his light.
The True Source of Evil
Intrinsic evil cannot create, nor concieve of good. Just as a person born blind cannot concieve of colour. Psychopaths for example, don’t concieve of genuine love, they don’t feel or understand love, but they imitate the love they observe around them as a form of acting to fit into and function in society. But to imitate that love, the genuine love first has exist in others to be observed by the actor.
God therefore, cannot be said to be an evil being who has created the quality of love for the sake of deception, for an eternal evil God as the root source of all things, would have to “be evil” incarnate, and thus would unable to concieve of love in order to create it, and nor would be able to feel it.
A Lack of Love, not abundance of Evil
Love is not a result of a “lack of evil”. Because to love is to gain quality, not lose it. Whereas being evil, is to lose a certain quality of love.
The true source of evil character, as we have seen, is a lack of having “total love”. Those who become evil, like the Devil, are beings who are “choosing” to cast aside their love for others, to serve the self.
The result and origin of this, is not because God contains evil quality, as if that were actual substance, but rather, it is because God has free will, which he passes down to all sentient beings. As the source of free will, ‘that’ is what makes evil a possibility.
Free-Will Requires Love
In order to truly and consciously “be good”, one has to have the “capacity” for evil, to walk away from light. Otherwise, we are machines. Likewise, evil has to have some kind of capacity for good, to “be evil”.
Because God “is” light and all things, it ensures that his “capacity” is never acted upon for evil, lest he lost his fullness of love. But beings who are lesser, can indeed do this, because as we have seen, they are “recipients” of God’s light.
Hence, as scripture says, those not with God “walk in darkness” (Proverbs 2:13, John 3:19).
Ultimately, when it comes to the existence of “evil”, we must understand that is founded upon the freedom of choice to abandon the totality of love. And this “contrast” has to exist in order for their to be freedom of conciousness, as opposed to roboticsm.
A person with full love can always choose to put aside the other loves in service of self love, but a person with only self love cannot choose to love others, they are bound by the only love they know, narcissism.
Hence, if God was evil incarnate, and merely created the love we know and experience as deception, or if God “chose” to act on evil and put aside his love, this would imply that he would either lose or has no moral freewill, and in turn, we would not have freewill, nor concieve of freewill, and God could not be said to be truly an all powerful freewilled being.
Without this contrast of choice, the definitions of “good and evil” would not exist. The status quo or “state of being” would just “be”. Evil incarnate would not be considered “evil”, as there would be no source of goodness to contrast it to. What is height without depth? Or depth without height?
If God is free-will incarnate, then he ‘must’ be genuine love incarnate also, in order to choose. If he has no free-will, then it would never have been concieved by any being in all of existence, and neither would the concept of good and evil.
If God choses to refuse love even if he has it, then that love is not a part of him, but external and from another source, and therefore he would not be God. God is ‘bound’ to his love, for he is his love.
Why Did God Invent Pain?
Whilst we can reason of course that “evil character” is a result of a lack of love, some of course would still question the notion of the existence of pain, and why a loving God would invent such a sensation, as God is indeed the author of the human body which experiences the full spectrum of sensations.
Pain afterall, is not a lack of pleasure. So we of course cannot reason the same way in regard to pain as we can to the chracter or morality of good and evil, as to light and dark.
It can be reasoned perhaps that a certain level of pain has to exist, in order to ensure justice, order and security. Thus, the intent of God’s design in this respect, can be argued that it is “from love”, to retain peace and justice in the face of any potential rebellion, for even the demons are said to fear punishment in this respect (Luke 8:28). This infliction of pain of course, being a last resort, an attempt at reconcliation in the face of a failure to make people listen to reason (Ezekiel 18:23), and is even something we do as a human society ourselves. This is to protect those we love, and to try and make the evil see reason without having to elimiate them entirely.
Therefore, the two options for everlasting security and the ensurance of the preservation of life would be; remove freewill, or, invent pain to keep freewill in check. Perfect love is not weak, but it punishes evil whilst protecting the good (Philippians 2:4, Zechariah 2:8).
Another source of pain, is of course, a result of love itself, as we feel pain from the loss of loved ones, or when we see the innocent harmed. God himself also feels this pain (Genesis 6:6, Judges 2:18). Thus, pain has always existed and is an eternal quality, as God himself experiences it, and it is thus part of him.
This form of pain can lead to things such as hatred, which as opposed to what some would argue, is not in itself evil, but rather is considered good or evil, dependant on context (Psalm 139:19-22, Proverbs 6:16-19). A good person hates evil because he loves others, but a bad person hates others because he loves himself too much.
If we did not have the experience of pain, then we could say that our love would be incomplete, as we’d have no reaction to the harm inflicted upon others. Pain is a fundamental component of empathy. Thus, if God did not love, he would have no empathy, which would make him incomplete in that he wouldn’t be able to feel, nor understand pain. Which again, results in God’s creation being “more knowing” than Himself.
For God to know, feel and even understand pain, he has to be able to feel love, and if he does feel love, then he “is” love, as all things are “sourced from” God.
We must of course, also remember ultimately that according to scripture, we are mutations, fallen away from God’s original intent of design, corrupted by a fallen world, and shouldn’t be experiencing the types of daily physical, emotional and mental pains that we do. Such a thing was clearly expressed by Yeshua, the Son of God when he came to express love and heal the sick, and promised the end of such things for all of creation, man and beast alike (Matthew 9:35, John 14:9, Romans 8:19, Revelation 21:4).
Hence the existence of “pain”, shouldn’t be confused with the “character of evil”.
Can God Change?
Though God is love, can he change? Due to the ontological nature of love and God, those advocating dualism would have to imply, that to have an equality of good and evil, that God loved at one time, then became evil, or was evil and later become good.
But this would imply a lack of true eternality, and firmness of being.
It would also result in a cycle of everlasting polarisation. For God would love at one point in infinence of time, and grant his beloved creatures eternal life and fatherly affection, and then he would suddenly switch and attempt to torture us, or destroy us. Followed by another shift in persona, which would then seek to undo that damage. The love of God would try to ensure we were eternally saved, whilst the evil of God would try to ensure we were eternally damned.
In other words, a changeable God which couldn’t make up his mind on being good or evil, would be an extreme case of everlasting divine split personality disorder, but at the same time, it would in an ironic sense ensure our eternal salvation nonetheless, for the love of God in the realm of eternity would always be assured to return and undo any damage that was done, even if the “evil of God” was trying to do the opposite. It would be a stalemate.
So the worst possible scenario conceivable that would still enable God to retain his all knowingness, all powerfullness, and moral freewill, would actually be a being that contains full eternal love, counteracting the evil by nature.
This is why dualism isn’t possible with the eternal God, who “is” his qualities and is the “wellspring” of all things we know. If God changed in any form, then his “nature” changes, what he “is” changes, and he becomes mutable, which makes him reliant upon “outside sources”.
Because God has no beginning and no end, what he “is” by nature, comprised of oneness in all ways, has to be firm and unchanging, otherwise he is not the sole creator, and he is ultimately not in control.
A loving God would not allow himself to become evil, an evil God would not allow himself to become good. And a God of eternity cannot be both things at once, lest he is at war with himself, and that he not truly “be love”, nor would he truly “be evil”, in the end, he would be nothing, “a house divided”, as Lord Yeshua said, “cannot stand” (Mark 3:25).
But because we know, evil character is not the gain of a quality, but rather the loss of a quality, we know God is not an evil being that created the quality of love, but that he can only be light and goodness in fullness, and therefore, unchangable, lest he no longer be everything, and this means he has to be good, love and light eternally.
This is the only way we can have an all powerful, all knowing, freewilled God.
Conclusion
Coming to an overall conclusion. We are to understand that:
We love because God loved first. God is the source of love and is the only reason and possible notion for the fact that we too love, and this in turn leads to the only logical conclusion that God “is” love, as it can be sourced from nowhere else.
Cardinal evil cannot concieve of or create love, but love can only come from a mind that also concieves of and experiences love, but evil is only created via the loss of love’s fullness. And a being that creates love as an external object, but within itself feels no love nor empathy cannot truly be all knowing, nor freewilled.
Therefore, for God to truly be all knowing with full and true freedom of choice in his actions, he has to know love, and if he knows love, then he feels love, and thus “is” love, otherwise he would not be the “source” of love, and his personality would not be eternal.
As God “is” his qualities, being the eternal source of all things, for God to change or “remove his love” in favour for evil selfish desire, he would have to remove or change an eternal part of himself, which would be equated to a human being trying to no longer be made of flesh, as God’s infinte being and qualities are one in the same due to the fact that he “is” the source. Thus God would no longer be whole, freewilled, nor eternal, but it would result in his non-existence, and God would not be God.
Whilst all things are from God, evil is from an absense of love, an absense of light. It is unfiltered desire, not restrained by the love of others. Thus, though God is the origin of all things, he is not the source nor author of evil, but evil is from a lack of the fullness of God when a being uses its freewill to abandon it.
Hence, we know Gods’s love is genuine and real, a cardinal quality and not a deception, for if a deception, then love could not exist in any being at all, or men who feel love for others would have something “more” than God when it comes to qualities of love, which isn’t possible, for a creation cannot have more than its creator, just as a ray of light from the sun cannot be brighter than the sun, and a river cannot be more full than the sea.
Proselyte of Yah 