Today Dennis Prager is questioning where the idea came that unconditional love is a desirable quality in people. It's an interesting question. I suppose it depends on how you define unconditional love. But in its strictest sense, it seems to me that even God does not exhibit unconditional love. The Bible describes God as hating some people. And I doubt He loves Satan.
However, being a father, I can say that it seems that I have unconditional love for my children. Although, maybe there is a condition: that they be my offspring. And since that's a condition that is inseverable, the love always remains. And in a sense, it's the same way for us as God's adopted children. Well, maybe not. We still have the freedom and reject God and thereby face his rejection.
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3 comments:
Unconditional Love, huh. That's certainly a worthy topic!
I'm of the camp that stresses that Love - rather then an emotion - is an action. In other words, you CAN actually show Love to someone that you dislike...even hate. Christ's death - the ultimate act of Love - was for ALL humans. (Choosing to accept that act of love is irrelevant to the importance of the act itself)
For me then, my personal challenge is to NOT get hung up on my 'feeling' or rather my requirement of liking a person (even my children at times I must confess) and focus on my 'act' of love toward them.
So I can be 'mad' at my kids, my spouse, my boss, my colleague, the guy who cut me off in traffic, the client that just cursed me out, the terrorist who just blew something up - and I can accept my "emotion" as valid. But can I show love to any or all of the above? Mastering this (which I can strive toward - but as a human can never truly master) is accomplishing unconditional love!
Thanks for the comment. Your point is good.
On Dennis Pregar's show, the topic was dogs, and why some people love them like family members. More than one person called in and said they like dogs because they get unconditional love from them. Dennis was examining the concept from the perspective of the receiver of unconditional love rather than the giver. His point of view is that it isn't healthy or reasonable for anyone but infants and very small children to expect to receive unconditional love. I didn't know if I agree with him, but it's an intriguing question. He said such an expectation is unrealistic for adults, and may be part of why so many people get disillusioned with marriage. They want a relationship where the other person is always happy with them and doesn't challenge them. I might be reading something into what he said, but that's how I interpreted it.
He ended by raising the question of where this concept of unconditional love originated. He's a practicing Jew, and his claim is that it doesn't come from Judaism or Christianity. I know unconditional love is spoken of in Christian circles, though I don't know that it's overtly taught in Scripture. Like I said, even God's love is portrayed with a certain element of condition.
For me, this hits home because I'm in the process of detaching from my wife, (who has been unfaithful and abandoned me), both in emotion as well as in deed. It’s not something I ever wanted to do, but she has forced me into a place where that's the healthy thing for me to do. Prior to this past year, I would have said my love for her was unconditional. But since she has severed our relationship, I am forced into no longer exercising love towards her. I guess it's sort of the position we place God when we reject Him.
I suppose as long as we were in a marriage covenant, unconditional love was an appropriate thing for both of us to practice. And I as long as we are in the New Covenant relationship with God through Christ, unconditional love is also appropriate.
I didn’t feel strongly abut this post. But Dennis started me re-thinking the idea of unconditional love.
Oh yeah - I'd agree 100% that it's not good or healthy to EXPECT unconditional love from anyone. That is certainly setting yourself up for trouble.
Interesting question about the origin of that concept. I just assumed it WAS a Christian (or other religious) creation. I'll have to research that some more. My guess is that it was some English Poet or French philosopher - both groups can be kind of 'up in the clouds!'
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