Problem of Evil & Agape-Justice Part 3: God is Agape-Love

"Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been fathered by God and knows God.  The person who does not love does not know God, because God is love. By this the love of God is revealed in us: that God has sent his one and only Son into the world so that we may live through him... And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has in us. God is love, and the one who resides in love resides in God, and God resides in him. By this love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because just as Jesus is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears punishment has not been perfected in love. We love because he loved us first" (1 John 4:7-9, 16-19; NET).

God (Yahweh) is Agape

Now let us turn to the subject of God being agape, since we have come to know what it means to truly God’s neighbors in agape-love.[i] We have just seen how the lives of His neighbors abide in agape, and so it makes sense why God ontologically speaking is agape-love, for those who love like Him are truly like Him as much as a created being can be. Let us turn to a quote by Kierkegaard, “Christianity’s take is humanity’s likeness to God. But God is love, and therefore we can be like God only in loving, just as we also, according to the words of the apostle, can only be God’s coworkers in love” (63)[ii]. According to 1 John chapter 4, God exists as an eternal spring of agape, such that agape-flows naturally flows from His very essence with infinite propulsion from an exhaustible ontological source. This means that in being true to Himself, God cannot help but be self-emptying. After all, manner of existing represents His very to-be, such that He reveals Himself as the ‘I AM, the Self-Emptying One, for that IS what and who I AM’ (187).

Even though water often represents the Spirit in Scripture, so also does fire, and it makes since why God would call Himself a “consuming fire” that is analogous to a baptizing water (Deut. 4:24; Luke 3:16). This is made clear through the narrative of Christ, who is the revelation of the I AM of God. His live is a living testimony that God’s to-be is one in which in being true to Himself, He “spares nothing but in [agape-]love gave everything” (3-4). This leads Kierkegaard to conclude that the “life of love” within God must be “an eternal spring” that infinitely gushes forth love (3-4, 10). In Jeremiah 17:13, we read how God exists as the fountain of life, and Christ revealed how He exists as the source of living water (John 4:10-15). In John 7:37-39, He teaches that this water of divine life represents the Holy Spirit, who is the “life-giving Spirit” (Rom 8:2). Consequently, in order to become the children of God, it makes clear why individuals must be born in water and spirit, for only then can we become neighbors with God in bringing agape-love to completion (John 3:5-6).

The “boundlessness” of the freely self-emptying life of agape rests in it being freely offered without “excluding a single one” (52). He offers all His neighbors made in His image to-be partakers of this life of agape. After all, it is the nature of agape to freely give to all regardless of “accidental” dissimilarities of essence, for they bear similarity of being in which they are Infinite Being’s finite other (52). God is the one “who lovingly gives all things” (271). As Scripture teaches, God is like the sun in freely giving light to all, given how “all generous giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or the slightest hint of change”  (James 1:17).[iii] This leads Kierkegaard to acknowledge that “love is indeed devotion and sacrifice,” and this devotedness is ingrained in the very nature of God, for He is holy. With this in mind, we should consider the Scriptures that make clear how misunderstood God’s holiness is by those espousing the Christian faith. For instance, in one place God Himself says, “All my tender compassions are aroused! I cannot carry out my fierce anger! I cannot totally destroy Ephraim! Because I am God, and not man – the Holy One among you – I will not come in wrath” (Hos. 11:8-9)![iv] God made clear to the Israelites through the exodus narrative up to Mt. Sinai that He was devoted to promoting their highest good, and this was for them to possess an intimate relationship with Him who is “slow to anger, and abounding in loyal love and faithfulness” (Ex. 34:6; Deut. 33:3).

This loyal love of God mirrors the royal law of love, as this loyal love ultimately meant “self-sacrificing love in the divine sense” (119-120). Ezekiel 16 makes clear how God abides in the way of agape-love revealed in 1 Corinthians 13, and if He did not then He would not be agape. In other words, we must accept that if God does not abide by this definition of being a loving one, then He is not agape-love. Here we read how “Agape-love is patient, love is kind… it is not puffed up… not self-serving, is not easily angered or resentful… bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things… never ends” (1 Cor. 13:3-8). God clearly manifested such character throughout His relationship with Israel (Hosea). Hence, God, through Scripture, makes clear that He is unconditionally devoted to the other, as a very need within Himself. As One who is agape, His will is not driven by hedonistic self-seeking honor, for His holy will was revealed in and through the cross. The cross makes clear that the fruit of agape is His honor alone regardless of it being reciprocated, for it manifests that He is true to Himself: Christ the self-emptying one for the finite other (4).

Kierkegaard correctly states that the nature of agape is that “love’s element is infinitude, inexhaustibility, immeasurability,” so that “the one who loves by giving, infinitely, runs into infinite debt” (180). This makes clear how agape is equally strong at all times without a hint of variation, as it encompasses all others (180). This is echoed in Romans where it says “owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law” (Rm. 13:8). Moreover, is not the law that which holds people accountable to being holy as God is holy, to be god-like in agape love. In scripture we read that all neighbors of God are owed agape-love simply by nature of being an other: “I urge that requests, prayers, intercessions, and thanks be offered on behalf of all people, even for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. Such prayer for all is good and welcomed before God our Savior, since He wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:1-4). This is also made clear by the fact that the Spirit is God and the one who behaves according to the ways of the Spirit bears the fruit of agape, which are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, etc., and this means that to bear fruit of agape towards all is to be god-like, which means He likewise bears it towards all, for this is the freedom that God created us for the freedom to be self-givers towards all our neighbors like Himself, since this is true freedom (Gal. 5:13-25)[v]. Seeing as “God is Spirit,” this freedom is marked by agape and underlies His very fabric of existence, for “agape abides, and for that reason it is,” for it has “eternity within itself” seeing as it is a very “life of love” from which flows the life of God (8- 10). Hence, 1 John 4 is corrected in identifying God’s ontology as one that “love is the ground” of God’s being, such that all that God does proceeds from agape and thus is a work of agape, for His being is permeated with the agape that is His very to-be as the Self-Emptying One, the Consuming Fire, whose name is Jealous (225; Ex. 34:14)[vi].
 God is jealous for all ontological others partake in agape, such that He is devoted to the promotion or the completion of agape love, such that His wrath seeks to purge everything that separates the neighbor from being set apart in agape-love, which means He is a sanctifying fire, for agape is the ground of true being apart from which man has no true ontology, like a neighbor who has forgotten one is a neighbor to the Heavenly Father and has lived like a slave (Gal. 4:7; John 8:34-35). This is like the prodigal son, who the Father said, “was dead, and is alive; he was lost and is found,” the son had forgotten his destiny to be free as one can only be in loving one’s neighbor as oneself in imitation of God, for freedom is only found in giving oneself away (Luke 15:11-31). Therefore it makes since why Kierkegaard would understand that the existence of agape is purely invisible, because it is the very life of God and can only reside within the innermost being of man where his ontological likeness to God dwells, which is the basis for him being the finite other to God (5). The agape of God means that He is a personable being or a neighborly being towards us, for agape “speaks to us human beings, to you and me” to “each one [of us] individually” in a devoted way that cares like only a true neighbor can care, for true individuality is only found in such a disposition of caring for other qua other (14, 107, 112).[vii]

The highest human beings can be neighbors in is existing as God’s neighbors (27). The teleological bent of agape is towards love being brought to completion in the family of agape that of spiritual beings, and this means that agape seeks to upbuild by laying the ground in all spiritual being to become what He created them to become, neighbors in agape by which they can to share His agape likeness, for agape cannot help but be upbuilding for this is its ontological element, its freedom (100, 212). Kierkegaard makes this clear when He says, “from the beginning to the end, the discourse is about love because building up is love’s most characteristic specification. Love is the ground, love is the building, love builds up (216). Scripture makes this plain when is says that “love builds up,” and so God by necessity is the Upbuilding (Edifying) One, for God like man pursues building up others (1 Cor. 8:1; Rm. 14:19).

The root of up building is the Greek word for house or dwelling and is the same root for the word communion/ fellow-ship which represents what God created us for to share His house, to be His tabernacles, that we would shares in His ontological presence, and so up-building literally means to construct a building and metaphorically to help improve ability to function in living responsibly and effectively (BDAG 695-696). And so this means that goal of agape is to promote neighboring that is befitting of those who tabernacle alongside one another as fellow companions and “sharers [same root] in the divine nature [agape]”, who truly participate in communion as equals on one level, in being spiritual creatures able to participate in the ontological freedom of self-giving (2 Pet. 1:4). This after all is the purpose of the Body of Christ being the Temple of God in the Spirit, which is to build one another up, which is the work of agape, and such divine-like activity is befitting the “dwelling place” of “God household” “in the Spirit” (1 Cor. 8:1; 12:1-Eph. 2:14-22, 4:11-16).

This communal house-building of God is intrinsic to His very existence as a triune intra-communal being. Kierkegaard Himself makes this clear when He speaks of the triune divine nature of God in the following key paragraph that puts the who discourse on agape and God being agape in its proper theological perspective: “So deeply is this need rooted in human nature, and so essentially does it belong to being human [as one created in the image of the divine life, as finite ontological other],” seeing as “even he [the Son] who was one with the Father and in the communion of love with the Father and the Spirit…” (155). Hence, God’s triuneness and the nature of what it means to be both triune and agape, go hand in hand with the idea discussed here of the syntactical root of the Greek word for “communion” (koinonia), which is oikos (house), for God Himself is His very own house, just as we read in Scripture: “[God] dwells (same Greek root of oikos!) in unapproachable light ” and “God is light” (1 Tim. 6:16; I John 1:5). Therefore, God is His own dwelling place, for He is agape, which is teleologically bent on making communion a very dwelling place, i.e. the communion of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and God created human beings to be his neighbors (fellows/ partners/ dwellers) in the triune life of agape that being the divine life of communion among being who can freely participate in the completion of agape rooted in mutual self-giving disclosures of existing one for another.

God created mankind to be sharers of His house, which Scripture makes clear both in previously cited passages, and in the following passages: “the builder of all things is God… Christ is faithful as a son over God’s house. We are of his house, if in fact we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope we take pride in;” “For we are the temple of the living God, just as God said, ‘I will live in them and will walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.’ Therefore ‘come out from their midst and be separate… and I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters,’ says the All-Powerful Lord” (Heb. 3:3-6; 2 Cor. 6:14-18)[viii]. This building up is the way in which mankind can truly become like God in dwelling alongside Him in walking with Him and doing the work that He does by, for this true kinship is found where it says, “We are coworkers (companion laborers, work-fellows, together-acters) with God. You are God’s field, God’s building. According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master-builder I laid a foundation… no one can lay any foundation other than what is being laid, which is Christ… each builder’s work will be plainly seen, for the Day will make it clear, because it will be revealed by fire;” and this building up that is true to God’s very life is the building up in agape-love (1 Cor. 3:9-12; 8:1). Therefore, unconditionally all humans, because to be a human means to be created in the image of God (who live, move about, and subsist in God and His kin/ offspring), means to exists as a neighbor of God, yet whether or not they will actualize this latent identity is a matter of free choice, because free choice in giving  denying oneself and picking up one’s cross is the condition for participating in the completion of agape or else it is no agape[ix] (Acts 17:28; Eph. 4:24; James 3:9).[x] The foundation of being a co-dweller and fellow co-acters with God is this freedom that allows us to truly be God’s neighbors, for “when we love the neighbor, then we are like God” (63).

To be continued in coming days... (I have already written the rest, but I am just editing before for posting to blog)

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[i] These neighbors abide in the agape that God is and consequently, this same agape is what becomes completed through His spiritual neighbors, which Scripture makes plain (1 John 4:7-13).

[ii] For other contextual affirmations of God being love see the following: 120-121, 152, 216, 264-265, 281, 400-401, 425.

[iii] No wonder, Jesus distinguishes how man should be like God in generously loving all, even one’s enemies and those who hate oneself, by metaphorically saying how “one should be like our Father in heaven, since He causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matt. 5:45; See also Acts 17:24-28 where the passage where it says that all, even the pagan Greeks, were God’s offspring who subsist in God who God appointed when and where they would live to the end that “they would search for God and perhaps grope around for Him and find Him” for He is everywhere wanting to be found because He is agape).

[iv] God’s resilient devotedness to the beloved is made clear throughout the Major Prophets, in particular see Ezekiel 16, which was figuratively manifested through the concrete situation of Hosea’s marriage with a prostitute.

[v] This patience towards enemies becomes clearly manifested in Scripture by God, “The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some regard slowness, but is being patient toward you, because he does not wish for any to perish but for all to come to repentance;” “Do I actually delight in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord? Do I not prefer that he turn from his wicked conduct and live?... For I take no delight in the death of anyone, declares the sovereign Lord. Repent and live!” (1 Pt. 3:9; Ezek. 18:23, 32). Hence, God does indeed live according to the ways of the Spirit, and He created mankind to do the same.

[vi] Love is passionate, which is why it suits God to be called Jealous and a consuming fire, for His passions is teleologically bent on bring agape to completion, and to this end promoting sanctification at all possible which hinges on recognition of being God’s neighbor who becomes who he was created to be, in the likeness of God, to be one who freely gives himself away to the completion of agape (112).

[vii] This personable, relational, and communal intimacy being truly free being whose ontology is grounded in agape was meant to be symbolized by the Sabbath, which God intended to be treated “as holy” as a “reminder of our relationship” by which they come to “know that I am the Lord their God” (Ezek. 20:20). To observe the Sabbath meant to be devoted in mutual self-emptying to their covenantal relationship with God by mirroring His very holy devotedness towards them that purified them to the end of promoting the completion of agape (Deut. 30:6; 1 John 4:10). No wonder to have a “purified soul” mean to “obey the truth,” which means participating in the life of God, by “showing mutual love” from “pure heart” that “loves one another” by being “born anew” “from the imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God”, Christ (1 Pet. 1:22-23).  As Kierkegaard points out such heart is formed by the love of God, such “that our hearts might remain in love and thereby remain in him, convinced that the one who remains in love remains in God and God in him” (400-401). Hence to abide in agape means to abide in rest which is the very life of God, and such communion in the life of agape hinges upon not have a hard heart that refuses to give oneself freely away to the life of agape that is found in God’s rest alone, within His holy of holies, where the completion of agape alone takes place (312-313; Heb. 4:1-11).

[viii] See also, “Look! The residence of God is among human being. He will live among them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes…” (Rev. 21:3-4)

[ix] The free participation in the completion of agape is found in 1 John: “But whoever obeys his word, truly in this person the love of God has been perfected. By this we know that we are in him. The one who says he resides in God ought himself to walk just as Jesus walked… If God so loved us, then we also ought to love one another… If we love one another, God resides in us, and his love is perfect in us. By this we know that we reside in God and he in us: in that He has given us of his Spirit… We have come to know and to believe the love that God has in us. God is love, and the one who resides in love resides in God, and God resides in him. By this love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of Judgment… no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears punishment has not been perfected in love. We love because He loved us first (1 John 2:5-6; 4:11-19).

[x] This after all is why Christ said, “Then he said to them all, “If anyone wants to become my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it benefit a person if he gains the whole world but loses or forfeits himself?” (Luke 9:23-25).