TEAM Conference.

I'm getting ready to jet out for the TEAM Conference at Azusa Pacific University. I'm teaching at the first general session tonight and spent a good chunk of the day studying and getting ready for the teaching. The focus of the teaching centers on the thought that Jesus did not call us to be "saved" [think the "Do you know where you would go if you were to die tonight" type of thinking], rather he is inviting us into a subversive, revolutionary movement.

While getting ready I came across this quote from The New Being by Paul Tillich and had to throw it out there. It addresses some of the same thoughts I shared in the God is Love post and the C.S. Lewis quotes from Voices. Read and consider...

After two thousand years are we still able to realize what it means to say, "God is love"? The writer of the First Epistle of John certainly knew what he wrote, for he drew the consequences: "He who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him." God's abiding in us, making us his dwelling place, is the same thing as our abiding in love, as our having love as a sphere of our habitation. God and love are not two realities; they are one. God's Being is the being of love and God's infinite power of Being is the infinite power of love. Therefore, he who professes devotion to God may abide in God if he abides in love, or he may not abide in God if he does not abide in love. And he who does not speak of God may abide in Him if he is abiding in love. And since the manifestation of God as love is the manifestation of Jesus the Christ, Jesus can say that many of those who do not know Him, belong to Him, and that many of those who confess their allegiance to Him do not belong to Him. The criterion, the only ultimate concern, is love. For God is love, and the divne love is triumphantly manifest in Christ the Crucified. [p. 26-27]

Comments

[Scott Buttes]

Mike -

Could you help me make better sense of this statement?

"God and love are not two realities; they are one."

Is Tillich saying that God and love are identical (that is, the same very thing)?

Or is he saying something among the lines that love is an essential quality of God and His nature? That without it, God could not be God? (In which case, they God and love would be distinct and therefore would be separate realities).

[Mike DeVries]

Hey Scott! Don't know if this will answer your question or not, but here goes...

As I was mulling over the quote I got the sense that Tillich was speaking about the essence of God and the essence of love. I think he is addressing the need to see love and God linked in a mysterious union. I think that he is trying to explore the following text in 1 John and grappling with the concept that God is love. The text does not say that God is like love, of that God does not just do loving things. It literally says, "God is love."

Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love… And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. [1 John 4.7-8,16]

What intrigued me is the thought of love not being able to exist outside of God. Love does not exist independent of God. As John said, if you are abiding in love, you are abiding in God. Hence, could a person experience a taste of God by truly loving? Therefore I think central to what Tillich is saying is something mysterious about the essence of love and God. I also think that this is what C.S. Lewis was getting at in the quotes that I posted from Mere Christianity.

But then again, I could be wrong...

Thoughts anyone?

[Scott Buttes]

Hey Mike,

I think you are right. I think Tillich is getting at the fact that love cannot exist apart from God (and probably go so far as to say God cannot exist apart from love). Also, that an unsaved person can get a taste of God by loving. That is, when one experiences love they are experiencing a part of God's nature.

I think this clarification is very helpful for me because we live in a society that often times doesn't want to believe in God. And one of the ways they go about this is by reducing God to just love (or ONLY love). I've heard Oprah do this for instance. God is love - but He is also truth, beauty, goodness, the Creator of creation, the first cause of the universe, etc. So I think my concern was to clarify that Tillich did not fall error to the other side of reducing God to only love.

Thanks brother for always keeping me thinking and searching on this journey.

[Doug]

In The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis wrote that people often say "God is love", when what they really mean is, "Love is God". (I'd give the real quote, but I'm at work and don't have the book here :) To me, at least, it seems that the meaning "Love is God" is certainly the more common understanding in our culture today (for instance Scott's example of Oprah).

[Wes]

Whenever I discuss this topic there always enters the concern that people whodon't know God can't be capable of love. I have found this to be groundless in that there are those who do not bost a traditional knowlege of God who are moving more profoundly in love than some Christians.

So can we say love can be experienced apart from God? not necesarrily but it's clear it does not require any intellectual decisions about God. It's more important to say God cannot be God without love.

God is love and love is an undeniable substance of God's presence. In a locutionary form they are exclusive but their purlocution is mutual. I don't think you could convey a just describtion of one without including the other. Those who love share a profound relationship with God and those who do not love shouldn't even talk about Him.