Is God Love?
It's a religious title for an Eye of Power episode. And, the truth is, we can't ignore religion as we plumb the depths of our motivations and beliefs. We'll do our best to steer clear of dogma, and look at the practical, what-it-means-to-us implications of the question: Is God Love? What do you think?
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Is God Love?
It’s said often that God is love. Do you ever wonder what is meant by that? Why would this show, the Eye of Power, which deals with maximizing our personal power and our agency in this world, consider such a question? It’s because it points us in an important direction. To consider such questions, we must consider fundamental psychological truth. If we don’t engage the world at that level, we have no chance to maximize our power. Let’s dive into this question. Is God love?
To address the question, we’ll need to clarify the two terms. What do we mean by God and what do we mean by love? Two simple questions with answers that are anything but. We’ll tackle them in the same spirit we address all matters in the Eye of Power. We want to establish rock solid foundation and principle and an observable reality so that as we build ourselves up, realizing as much of our untapped potential as we can, we’re solid and strong.
We’ll consider these questions in as broad and inclusive manner as we can. As we do this, we must leave space for the pictures or models that each individual mind may have. Our response, therefore, needs to be more inclusive and exclude as little as possible. If we’re successful, our resulting thoughts will be useful for people along the spectrum of belief from those with strong faith in God along with committed atheists.
“Just that, Tom? Ambitious much?” What can I say? We got to go for it. With these clarifications and qualifications, we’ll take on the question, what is God? Speaking only psychologically, not metaphysically or epistemologically, the nearest universals description I can ascribe to God is this. God is that which we value above all else. We can recognize our version of God by our thoughts and behavior. It’s that about which we dwell on and dedicate our efforts to serve and sacrifice for.
God is that which we value above all else. We can recognize our version of God by our thoughts and behavior.
The word for these activities is worship. We humans are funny creatures. We worship such a variety of things. A super fan of a sports team can be so dedicated as to garner fame. As a New York Giants fan, I’m familiar with one such example, License Plate Guy. These folks dress up, put on makeup, show up at any and all game or team-related events and become known to broadcasters or even people who work for their teams. It’s not that uncommon. Most teams have their versions.
The word fan is short for fanatic, which implies extremity in our feelings and behavior. At heart, it’s worship. As a counterpoint, there are Christians who profess faith in Jesus, who give him not a second thought, especially on Sundays when their team has a game. It let you think I’m casting aspersions. I’ve been in this category myself. In these cases, when we place a team or any other pursuit above all else, it isn’t that specific end that is our God.
The Giants aren’t License Plate Guy’s God. It’s more like the feelings we get as a result of the fervent pursuits we’re after. That’s the real object of our ultimate value. Biblically, these types of pursuits, often described as wealth in one form or another, have been described as a God of its own, the God Mammon. It has other names. Our gods can be ideals, specifically ideologies. This is what religion is. Politics can be religious.
Science can function as a person’s God. The range of possible gods goes from us or at least certain aspects of ourselves to the God that created the unfathomable vastness of the universe from a fraction of a person to all that there is, quite a spectrum. We can consider these options through a wide variety of lenses, tradition, impulse, fashion, and science. The Eye of Power is about our agency, so we’ll choose accordingly. We’ll consider our concept of God through the question. How is that working for you?
In my now over six decades of life experience, I’ve reached a conclusion about the self as God model. It swims against much of the fashionable thought of our age. Nevertheless, worshiping oneself or a component part of oneself comes up short in my view. Why? It’s because we are social creatures who need each other. Placing ourselves at the center of the universe does not help us function best, given the reality of our circumstances.
Is God Love: We are social creatures who need each other. Placing ourselves at the center of the universe does not help us function best, given the reality of our circumstances.
This brings us to the second question. What is love? In English, we have a particular difficulty with that word because we use it rather indiscriminately. The phrase God is love comes from the New Testament, specifically 1 John 4:8, where he writes, “Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love.” In the Greek, the word used was agape.
The Greeks may have been better attuned to this concept because of their precision of language here. The had seven words for our word love. Agape is non-sexual love between people or of all people. It is an emotion, certainly. It comes from the recognition of the connectedness we share, a deep appreciation for how valuable and special an individual human truly is. This notion provides a solid base for building personal power, so let’s go with that.
Let’s return to our original question. Is God love? Reframed, based upon our clarifying discussion, we can ask the question in a new form, is the highest value agape? I don’t know, but let’s consider it for a moment. If it was, what would that mean for us as it relates to our personal power and what would it mean for society and the world if this belief was predominant and widely shared?
In the case where our highest value is other people, it clearly moves us in the direction of service. It moves us away from the bigotry of any kind. It gives us a lens of acceptance and appreciation for our differences. It would make it awfully difficult to resort to violence except to protect the vulnerable from unjust aggressors.
We direct our energies toward the ways we might make the lives of others better and how we can best use our abilities and talents to positive effect. This belief system would move us toward relationships and connections with a wider range of personality and demographic types. Sounds pretty good to me. What’s the downside?
We’d be sacrificing some of those, “I am God,” impulses that serve our immediate desires. This isn’t so much a downside as an inevitability. Whenever we choose one thing, it’s at the expense of what we could have otherwise done. It seems to me we’ll need to keep searching for a downside. Here’s an idea. What if we’re wrong? What if people don’t deserve our esteem? What if they’re more fallen than risen? By serving people, maybe we’d be serving the wrong thing. What do you think of that idea?
Whenever we choose one thing, it’s at the expense of what we could have otherwise done.
There are people who feel this way and because of our dual nature, there is reason to, but it doesn’t lead in the direction of more personal power because it goes directly against all the benefits we went through in support of the first proposition. Following this theological premise, placing ourselves at the center, and sacrificing nothing we want, we can observe real-world examples.
They’re called babies. Sure, they’re cute. Good thing, too, because they’d be in big trouble if they weren’t. Babies are all about their physical impulses and no little else. They’re helpless because they have no worldly awareness or potency to do much of anything. The more we grow, the more potency we manifest in this world, the greater our circle of concern grows. It emanates like ripples on a pond. First, our own bodies, then our immediate family, then our circle of friends, and that part of the world we learn to concern ourselves with.
The process becomes fueled by our personal development. When we become able to make a bigger difference because of the skills and talents we cultivate, there’s a payoff beyond mere thank yous or compensation. We find meaning. Meaning gives us purpose. Purpose gives us happiness. We’re not pointing to the fleeting moments of joy we get through sensory experience. We’re talking about a deep, lasting happiness that is made of feelings of significance and worthiness.
Is God Love: Meaning gives us purpose. Purpose gives us happiness.
This is the pursuit of happiness the framers of the US Constitution wrote about. They saw this as universal and central enough to design what they believed to be the ideal political system around the concept. Is God love? It seems to work for me. What works for you? If you’re not where you want to be in life, I’d suggest it’s worth considering. Let’s go.