Tag: Love

Love is God, but not like you think

Love is God, but not like you think

C. S. Lewis famously proclaimed,

“Love ceases to be demon only when it ceases to be a god.”

He was quoting M. Denis de Rougemont. But just two sentences later, Lewis writes the following in his own words:

“the truth that God is love may slyly come to mean for us the converse, that love is God” (The Four Loves, p. 7).

In one sense, I agree – as do scores of Christians who assert some version of the following: God is love, but love is not God.

For instance, A. W. Tozer:

Equating love with God is a major mistake which has produced much unsound religious philosophy and has brought forth a spate of vaporous poetry completely out of accord with the Holy Scriptures and altogether of another climate from that of historic Christianity.

Or (after a quick Google search), the “Fierce Marriage Podcast,” which describes an episode like this:

“God is love… but, love isn’t God!” In this episode we’ll look at the wonderful, counter-cultural, biblical idea of love.

The idea here is that we often make an idol of what we call “love”—as defined by feelings of romantic ecstasy, emotional attachment, sexual desire, or a piercing (almost painful) longing for another creature—whether it’s for a boyfriend, a child, or a Labrador Retriever.

There’s truth to this danger, especially because most of us—whether we know it or not—are more children of Romanticism (e.g., Rousseau, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Disney, Nicholas Sparks, Taylor Swift) than we are of a cold and sterile Rationalism. What’s more, the danger is not that we would love too much, but that our loves become misdirected and disordered, so that we chase endlessly after a particular feeling, and end up worshiping created things instead of the Creator. Ironically, to do so may also destroy the objects of our love (and ourselves) because created things cannot possibly bear the weight of divine expectations.

In response, Lewis, Tozer, and “Fierce Marriage” have this to say: God is love (1 John 4:8), but love is not God.

AUGUSTINE’S REBUTTAL

It may surprise us to learn, however, that the greatest theologian in church history disagreed, at least in one sense.

Saint Augustine by Philippe de Champaigne

Saint Augustine wrote this in reflecting on 1 John’s claim that “God is Love.”

“[V]ery Love is God: for openly it is written,
‘God is Love.’”
~ Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, 98.4.

If his assertion seems flimsy, Augustine then returns to 1 John (and other texts) for additional proof: “whoever abides in love abides in God” (1 John 4:16). For Augustine, it’s crucial to note that Scripture is not here describing a flowery human emotion, but a divine person (more on that in a moment).

Hence, if (1) God is Love, and (2) abiding in Love is abiding in God, then it follows inescapably that (3) Love is God. On one level, the argument may be read somewhat like a math equation. You cannot say 2+2 = 4 without also affirming that 4 = 2 + 2. If Deus (God) = dilectio (love), then the converse is true. And that fact does not care about your feelings.

LOVE AND TRINITY

But… (and we must not miss this “But”) Augustine’s argument then takes a turn that makes it very different from a pop song, fused with a Nicholas Sparks novel, drizzled with a sugar-free glaze of suburban spirituality.

He begins to think about the Trinity.

His question is as follows: If God is Love, and if Love is from God, and if abiding in Love is abiding in God as God abides in us (all of which are taught in Scripture), then which person of the Trinity ought to be identified as the divine Love that simultaneously fills us even as it links us both to God and other people?

Augustine’s answer is the Holy Spirit,

“by which the begotten is loved by the One who begets him and in turn loves the begetter.”
~Augustine, De Trinitate, 6. 7.

After all, Augustine’s favorite Bible verse was Romans 5:5:

“God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” ~Romans 5:5

WHO IS RIGHT?

So, should we side with Lewis or Augustine?

In the end, it depends entirely on whose definition of “love” you’re willing to accept, and which god you’re talking about. Augustine writes of Love’s divine origin, Lewis speaks of creaturely echoes. One is the pure spring, the other is the creaturely river that flows invariably through tainted soil. Lewis thus explains:

Every human love, at its height, has a tendency to claim for itself a divine authority. It’s voice tends to sound as if it were the will of God Himself (The Four Loves, emphasis mine, p.7)

In the end, Lewis, Tozer, and “Fierce Marriage” all defer (in differing degrees) to a fallen and culturally-defined account of the word. Hence, they speak of it as a “demon” when it assumes the place of a “god.” I get this move. And I’ve probably made it too.

But it comes at a cost, not just because it risks sounding like illogical nonsense (2+2=4 but 4 ≠ 2+2), but because it means we’ve settled(?) for a fallen definition in place of the real thing. Dare I say, for “mud pies in a slum because [we] cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.”

Augustine defines Love in light of the Trinity, so “demonic” definitions are ruled out from the start.

Of course, that’s no defense of twisted, selfish, or sinful expressions of what we call “love” down here. (Augustine knew that better than most.) Instead, it’s an invitation to let God define the word that is itself definitive of God’s holy character, poured out by the Holy Spirit, into our hearts.

In other words: Love is God, but maybe not like you think.

Hello friends. You can subscribe to this blog via the green button on the home page to receive future posts by email. This is helpful since I’ve decided (mostly) to uncouple the blog from social media. I’m grateful for you. ~JM

Ferdinand and bull____.

Ferdinand and bull____.

OH HOW PERILOUS TO GET YOUR HEART’S DESIRE

Recently, while others flocked to see the latest Star Wars movie, I got to take our three oldest kids to see the film that we’ve been waiting for: Ferdinand.

Ferdinand, the bull.

(Dear Jedi groupies, I hear the Klingons were fantastic!)

Sadly, I had to leave Ferdinand early because our 2-year-old suddenly proclaimed that he felt sick.  And last I checked, it’s still illegal to yell “vomit!” in a crowded theater.

But I was there for the sad part.

Here it comes.

“THE BIG SHOW”

As the film opens, little Ferdinand grows up on a ranch called Casa del Toro.  He is there with his father (Naf), who is not only the biggest and toughest bull on the block, but also kind and loving toward his sensitive son.

Unfortunately, like all the other bulls, Ferdinand’s father wants nothing more than to make it to “the show” (the bullfights in Madrid).

And eventually, he does.

One day, a matador shows up to choose the fiercest bull to take to the arena. And as young Ferdinand looks on, they load his father on a trailer.

Unfortunately (of course), the trailer returns empty.

As a ranch-hand sprays it out with water, Ferdinand begins to realize: Daddy isn’t coming home.

“I’m not crying; you’re crying!” (*whisper-shouted to a 4-year-old).

THE TRAGEDY OF GETTING WHAT YOU WANT

While it’s risky to extract deep thoughts from children’s movies (See my prior post on the post-colonial undercurrent in last week’s episode of Paw Patrol), I couldn’t help but note the truth at work here.

For many of us, getting our heart’s desire can be disastrous.

The Bible shows this truth repeatedly.

In Romans 1, the evidence of God’s “wrath” against sinners is not a future-focused fire and brimstone, but a present-tense allowance of the heart’s own longing:

            God gave them over to the desires of their hearts… (vs. 24).

Likewise, in Proverbs (14.12) we are told that

            There is a way that seems right to a man / but in the end, it leads to death.

Still, my favorite example of the “bullfight principle” comes from Numbers 14.

After spying out the Promised Land, only Joshua and Caleb declare their wish to enter in to it. Everyone else proclaims that they would rather perish in the desert than have to face such fearsome enemies.

If only we had died … in this wilderness! (vs. 2)

In the end, God gives everyone their wish.

Joshua and Caleb enter in; the others die in the desert.

O how perilous to get your heart’s desire.

WE ARE NO DIFFERENT

Unfortunately, the reality behind our foolish wants usually seems less obvious in our own lives than in the Bible, or in Casa del Toro.

Be honest:

How many times have you gotten the very thing you longed for, only to be left with an acute case of buyer’s remorse?

If only I could marry him…

If only I could get that fancy house…

If only I could be deployed and see “real action”…

If only I could write a blogpost that would be read by thousands…

CHASING MAILMEN

In such ways, we become like the old dog (“Bear”) that my family used to own.

Every day he chased the mail truck.

Then, one day, he caught it.

Miraculously, he lived (only because my dad couldn’t find the .22 cartridge that he needed to put him out of his misery). But he never chased the mailman after that.

A NICE PLACE TO VISIT

Another illustration can be seen in an old episode of The Twilight Zone.

In “A Nice Place to Visit,” a thief named Valentine dies in a robbery and then finds himself in “heaven.”

Here, he gets whatever he wants, instantly and endlessly. He visits a casino and wins every bet; he eats his favorite food for every meal.  But he eventually finds this “paradise” monotonous and smothering.

“I’m tired of heaven, take me to ‘the other place,’” he screams.

To which his guardian demon responds:

“Whatever gave you the idea you were in Heaven, Mr. Valentine? This is the other place!”

The Twilight Zone is bad theology.  Even so, one view of final separation from God is to see it as the ultimate example of “getting what you want”—that is, if your wants have been eternally corrupted (See C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce).

“Hell” is when corrupt desire finally achieves its object.

In this state, divine love might feel like a torture—like plunging frost-bitten fingers into an otherwise refreshing bath.

REDEEMING OUR DESIRES

What then is the solution?

As folks like Jonathan Edwards and Augustine knew well, the answer is not “tamping down” of human longings, but rather redirecting them toward more worthy ends.

Enter grace.

Enter The Holy Spirit.

Enter discipleship.

In such ways, God enflames and redirects our loves, so that they may point toward the One who is actually capable of satisfying them.

When this happens, we become like Ferdinand.

We learn to love the smell of “flowers” over bullfights, and more importantly, bull____.