I was reading Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina on the way back to school today (listening to it on CD, actually), and (oh, it's amazing, btw) as Tolstoy was elaborating on some of the character's intricate feelings for each other (think of A K as Pride & Prejudice with better insights and a more complex plot, for Russians), I started thinking about God's love for us. I agree that God loves us. Yes. Good. Now that we all agree on that -- what does God's love for us look like? Clearly, it can not be direectly compared to any kind of love that we experience from each other, since we are imperfect and God is perfect. From the one side I hear that God did not need to make man. He was self-sufficient without man. . . and yet he did make us. . . out of love. God's overabundance poured out into the outlet of creation and made something as an expression of that love. But still, God doesn't need us, is fine without us. Does it even affect him if he doesn't have us? If so, how does that follow his not needing us?
On the other side, the church is the New Testament's bride of Christ. A metaphor, but one with some striking implications (to me). If God loves us like a man loves his bride, that's a passionate, (can I say) dependent love. Much of the happiness of the groom depends on the happiness of the bride. Is God's happiness contingent on ours? On the church as a whole's?
If God's love is perfect (vs any we know as men), then how do these two sides reconcile? Thoughts? Criticisms? Answers?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Hiya, here I am to comment. :)
What God's love looks like: Well, actively working for our good is definitely part of it. (And it's a part of human love that should be emphasized more than complex emotional responses, I think.)
So, I think we can distinguish between "he doesn't need us" and "it wouldn't affect him if we left." I don't need to have a cat to be a perfectly sufficient and happy person, but I've definitely been out late looking for a lost cat and cried hard over a dead cat. (The comparison is faulty because my love for my cats is intrinsically selfish -- but the point is, you can care a lot about something/someone you don't really need.)
Also, to continue with the bride analogy, the need for the beloved often stems from the love, rather than the other way around: It's "I need you because I love you" more than "I love you because I need you."
So I think God can passionately desire us and still be a freestanding God with or without our requital.
Hmm, I don't know about God's happiness being contingent; I think I'm out of my depth here. But my feeling is that God would be too big for that -- that he could break more heart over us than we ever thought about having, and still have room for infinite bliss.
Does any of this make sense?
I'm glad we can have bloggy conversations again; I've missed them. :)
I have a blog!
-Emily
first, i am amused that a comment = a pint of mead.
second, i added a link to you on my new blogspot.
hoorah!
Post a Comment