I really like the questions. I really think that most Christians don’t adequately challenge their beliefs, and too often rely on someone else’s faith to get them by, albeit unconsciously (but I digress).

I believe that love IS God’s nature, love within the three persons of the Trinity as well as love for His created order, including creatures (flora and fauna). I, also, believe God acts with integrity, as that is part of His nature (truth). Too act outside of His nature would violate His integrity. Could He stop loving? Could He act outside of His nature? I can force myself to act outside of my personality type and basic psychological nature. However can I project that possibility upon God? I don’t think so as I exist with dual, conflicting natures-the fallen nature of the flesh and, as a Christian, a restored nature. But there is no evidence that God suffers such as we do with this conflict.

Bottom line, I fully believe that God’s nature includes love of creatures and that God cannot act outside of His nature, because truth-including integrity-is part of His full nature.

I understand your approach…but I have a related question that I think precedes your three questions. It is this: How can one know whether one is loved by God or not? Unless we retreat to the corner of saying God necessarily loves all of this creation (which I understand is where you are going), I think it’s pretty difficult to apply any doctrine of “knowing” in such a way as to be able to know that one is loved by God. If the human condition (perhaps even extending to the condition of creation) is the data base, it raises the question How strong is God’s love? And what effect does it have on us?

Help me Tom to reconcile the Biblical O.T. narrative in light of this or direct me to readings on the matter. As presented in the O.T., the Israelite people are chosen in a manner where they were enemies of their neighbors as obedience to God.
The necessity for God to Love without external coercion or internal compulsion in what way encounters the many neighbors whom the godly view as enemies? Is there a shadow side to God’s love that would Hate something/one or are the OT people merely opportunistic tyrants?
I have been asked about God “hardening the heart” of O.T. figures at times that result in the Strong arm of God. I am wondering on the openness discussion on these considerations. Thanks.
Ron

Last night I presented your questions to our men’s group. Very interesting discussion followed. We did not reach any consensus, but honestly engaged the questions. One question was raised that seems fitting and appropriate: Does God love those who ultimately wind-up in hell? I suggested that He really does and that He suffers grief when anyone ends up there, but ultimately it is their choice. We left this question mainly in the air when we departed.

Paul, Chuck and Ron,

Thanks for your responses!  I’ll make a few brief comments…

Paul - One of the classic theological positions that I affirm is that God’s nature is eternal and unchanging.  Because I think love is an essential aspect of God’s nature, I agree with you that God cannot not love. Just as a square must have four sides, God must love.

Paul 2 - I agree with your response to the men’s group you mention.  I don’t think God ever gives up loving us, even if that means loving us despite our choice to experience hell.  God’s love (chesed) is everlasting, as many OT writers proclaim.

Chuck - Great questions!  As you guessed, I think one can rationally know that God loves them, because they can know that God’s nature is love for all creatures. But as you rightly suggest, there is a difference sometimes between cognitive knowledge of God’s love for us and our deeply felt experience of God’s love. John Wesley thought that our feeling God’s love deeply was of paramount importance for our having confidence, or what he called “Christian assurance.” I agree with him. One role of the Church is to foster situations in which Christians are more likely to experience this deep feeling of being loved by God.

Ron - You raise a number of good questions.  First, I don’t think that God considers anyone an enemy, in the sense of God being essentially opposed to them. But, second, some people are enemies of God because they either 1) declare themselves as enemies or 2) act in opposition to God.  I also think, third, that God hates sin. God hating sin is a secondary consequence, however, to God’s essential nature of love. For these reason, I take very seriously OT statements about God’s wrath.  I just don’t think divine wrath is arbitrary. And I don’t think wrath is essential to God’s character.

Thanks again to all of you!

There is a tacit requirement that you have not made explicit, and that is:

“It was necessary that a loving God creates His Creation, including beings to be loved”

IOW, you tacitly assume that Creation is a NECESSARY product of God’s love.

If, OTOH, you consider Creation CONTINGENT, if God was not NECESSITATED to create His Creation, then, of course, He would NOT be necessitated to love something EXTERNAL to Him.

I guess I do not know what to think of this, and I will have to think about it a lot more. I have always been one to believe that if God so chooses, he could stop loving us. I never believed however that he would! Thinking about it, I think God is someone who obviously loved us so much to send his son, why would he choose to stop love us, but i also know that God can do anything he wants, because he is all powerful. God’s nature is to love, so I dont think he would ever stop.

I tend to agree with Holly that even though God is all powerful, his loving nature establishes his love of us and of his creation. God is capable of anything, even unbound love.

As for the sinners that go to hell, I believe that in that situation God’s pain is massive because of the severance of relationship. His love for the damned cause him the most pain.

And I believe that creation is a necessary product of God’s love, because it is in the relationship that God’s love and grace are most powerful.

Here are my answers to those questions:

1. No, God could not stop loving me. My reason for this answer is that if He could stop loving me then He would not be God. God is never changing, always the same; therefore, He could never stop loving me.

2. No, God would not stop loving me. If He stopped loving me then I would pretty much fall apart and there would be no hope for me beyond this earthly life. Once again, God would not be God.

3. I am confident that God would continue loving me because of His nature to love me. Also because He knows what would happen without His love and wants the best for me.

The knowledge that God created man in his likeness affirms that we were created out of love.  For God’s love did not begin with the sending of his son, but the breath that conceived the human race.  The written word supports God’s nature of love. Though some may use condemnation to refute God’s ultimate nature of life this simply cannot be true. For eternal life is offered as God’s greatest testament of love that eternal life is offered. God’s ultimate sacrifice, Free Will.

From the first day God created man He was in communion with human. He talked with Adam and they walked in the garden. He loved his creation. I believe that, but I still struggle with God loving his creation when he flooded it all and started new. I understand punishment, but cleaning out the whole world but Noah and his family and 2 of every animal almost doesn’t seem like love. Can someone explain that to me?

Before I finished reading this, I thought, “but God is Love”, and I truly believe this. I think that God loves us all, but hurts for us out of his love. I believe that Love is a major characteristic of God and it is important for us to grasp this concept fully.(I am still working on this.)

I believe that God is love.  Do we have to say that God Must love us in order for this to be true? I dont feel that saying God has a choice in the matter changes this.  However, Scripture does say that God is love.  It does seem that if He is love, that He must love.  If God is defined by love, than I dont think He would ever not love us especially since He created us all in His image.  Does it really matter whether God has a choice in the matter of love?

This is a very interesting post. It reminds me of a class I took where my professor said at one point “pleading with God to love is like pleading with a candy bar to be sweet. The candy bar can’t help but be sweet; it IS sweet.” Maybe I’ve got the translation incorrect but 1 John 4:8 says “...God is love.” Enough said.

I like the distinction here that you use in discussion, about whether God “could” or “would” stop loving us. Sometimes phrasing a similar idea in two different ways helps us to understand an issue in an entirely new way. I think that this is a very interesting discussion about the way that God’s nature relates to humanity, and that we would do well to think about more questions like this.  I’m pretty sure I agree, though, that maybe one of the only constants in the universe is God’s steadfast and unmovable love.

I have not given as much thought as I guess I should to answer any of the above questions. I guess I figure if God actually wanted to, he could stop loving us, but I dont believe he wants to. I believe that God loves all of us unconditionally, but believe God can do anything he wants to do.

I really like the questions that you brought up.  I found them to be very thought provoking.  I think many people don’t completely think through the question before they answer.  The answer the first questions brings about some reactions to the second question and also the third question as well. As people begin to answer the questions you can very quickly see how much thought they have put into the questions being asked. 

One of the comments many non-believers say about Christians is we turn off our brain and just blindly believe what we are being taught in church without thinking it through.  This comment I think is true of some people and it would be to there advantage to think things through. Paul commended the Bereans in Acts 17:11 because the Bereans when they received the message would take it with great eagerness and examine the Scriptures to see if it was true.  This is the approach that everyone of should have when it comes to what we are being taught.

Thank you for the food for thought.

What sort of God, a God of Creation for instance, wouldn’t want to connect with and relate to creatures?

Love is at the essence of all that Scripture points toward.  Love is central to the great commandment, the driving force to the great commission, and the motive for God’s mission.  I cannot imagine any part of God that would cease to love, lest God become a contradiction to His nature.

That being said, as we are the gifted recipients of His love, shouldn’t we live in love in relation to the world we find ourselves in?

It’s a scary thought to think that one’s creator could stop loving its creation.  And to me, it’s even scarier to think that my creator would want to stop loving me.  When I think about the topic of God choosing to love or not, I always come to the passage in Romans where it talks about how God hated Esau.  I had always been uncomfortable with that passage and have never really had good teaching on its true meaning.  Furthermore, I have thought about the idea that God is God and his ability to do whatever he pleases (because he is God).  Who am I to define what God can and cannot do?

I believe that in order to create something you have to have love involved in it one way or another.  When God created us, the world, and all things in it I do most certainly believe it was with love.  Creating things takes time, patience, thought, interaction which I believe all take love to do.  To think God could not love us or His other creations is something I believe He would not do.  He has so much invested in His creations and I just can’t see Him flipping the switch and saying, “I’m done.”  Why else would He have created such a wonderful plan such as eternal life if He was just going to stop loving His creations?

This is an interesting thought.  Can God stop loving us?  It would be hard to imagine that God, the creator of all would want to stop loving us.  Parents of a child (in most circumstances) love their child.  From the time of the birth of the child to the day the parent dies have love for their child.  It is a never ending during love for our lifetime.  We are God’s children…The same holds true…God can’t help but love us.

“My way is to say the fact that God loves the world is necessary as a part of God’s nature.  But how God loves the world is freely chosen in God’s moment-by-moment relationship with creation.”

I agree with this statement. Love is a choice some would say, so I think it would be right to say God loves the world in whatever way that may be.  I don’t think he can choose to not love us.  He is love and loves unconditionally no matter what the situation is.  I wonder what would happen if God could choose to not love us.  This really gets me thinking and it’s hard to know what the truth is.

One biblical statement that “God is love” alone reveals that God’s nature is love. He cannot stop loving because He cannot reject Himself. The Bible supports this. For instance, God placed Adam in such a beautiful garden and talked with him. He sent His Son to take punishment of our sins. Jesus on the cross asked His Father to forgive those who spitted, laughed at, and crucified Him. Jesus asked His Father to send Holy Ghost to abide with believers leading them to heavenly mansions by pointing their faults and leading to repentance, teaching, and sanctification.  What a great acts of love. Every act of God is an act of love.  One possible reason why people might think that God could stop loving creatures is because God punishes.  However, even punishment is an act of love without which this world would have perished long ago.

These are questions that I have honestly never even thought about.  I guess it has always been assumed that “yeah, of course God will love us and creation no matter what… because He is God.”  But I never thought about why.  I believe that it is within Gods nature to love.  As mentioned, God is love.  If love is a part of who God is, then it would not be possible for God to stop loving.  On the contrary, God it seems like God would be able to control what he can and cannot do.  The answer just keeps going in circles in my head.
{For Love class}

I believe this subject is confusing to many because of the questions it is based on. The question could God stop loving you? I would say he is capable but I do not think he would stop loving us. I would have to agree with others in that I believe that love for the world is an essential element in God’s nature. I believe that God does not have to love the world but I also believe that he would never stop loving the world.

I love that every time I read your blogs, it makes me think! It makes me think of things that I have never thought of before. I really have to think about my feelings relating to God and how I truly feel. First off I would say that I think God can NOT stop loving me nor WOULD he stop loving me. The simplest way I can put this is, I know I would and could not stop loving God, so how could he stop loving me? He is the Creator and has infinite love for all of us. Whether or not one chooses to have that infinite love for him is where the question is.

It seems to me that if God could or would stop loving us than it would have happened already. Human beings are cruel, fallen and sometimes evil creatures. If God were capable of not loving us then He would have left us behind long ago in response to our nature. I believe it is essential to His nature to love all of his creation and I am thankful he chose to send Christ to Earth, a truly loving act.

God is love.  I do not think that there is any doubt for the fact that God is love.  I never even thought that God could or would ever stop loving us.  And I strongly disagree that God could or would stop loving us.  That definitely was not the purpose of why he created this earth and humans as his own images.  If he was going to stop love us or have choices of who he is and is not going to love, it is so not like God.  God would have not created this earth including his daughters and sons if was not going to love us in the first place.  Why would he send his own son in this world and sacrifice his only son for everyone’s sin? He could have done something else to forgive some people that he “favors” if he had choice of loving certain people and stop loving them if he chose to.  And this blog was very hard to understand for me because it is not our place to even judge whether God would or could love us.

“God Can’t Help But Love Us.”  That’s quite the assumption, don’t you think?  But I couldn’t agree more.  Although I personally think that we can make it extremely difficult for God to love us because people today are so easily fooled by temptations and obsessed with materialistic things such as money.  Most of us are guilty of these things in some point in our life.  God will always love us because He created us and gave up He gave up His only Son for us.  God has sacrificed everything to give us this life.  We should be grateful for what He has given to us and we should give Him the respect He ultimately deserves.
  Another thing I wanted to bring up were the two questions asked in the article; Could God stop loving us and Would God stop loving us.  I answered no to both these questions even though I think they are generally the same question.  God created everything out of love.  He created the plants, animals, the landscape, and us.  God’s is willing to all the love in the universe to us, but it is up to us to deserve the love that God.  We must represent Christ-like character everyday and live the life of a Christian in order to obtain the highest love we can gather from God.

God has an active relationship with His creation; one that is based in love. In the book of Genesis it says that God created everything in the universe for mankind.  Through Adam and Eve, disobedience breaks the relationship with our Creator; He chose to fix the broken relationship by sending His only son, Jesus to die on the cross for our sins. This action was done out of love. God has the freewill to love His creation, and indeed He loves every single one of us with our flaws and imperfections. Ultimately God is Love.

I have always believed that God has the power and the freedom to do whatever he chooses, which would include loving or not loving us.  I have never really thought about this question because God would never choose to stop loving us, God is love. After reading this blog it made me think about why i believe what i do.  I found myself disagreeing until i read the part “My way is to say the fact that God loves the world is necessary as a part of God’s nature.  But how God loves the world is freely chosen in God’s moment-by-moment relationship with creation.” I definitely agree with this.  Maybe God doesn’t have the choice to love us or not, but how He loves us is up to him.

Reading this I began to think about God’s character. If God’s character is love, then couldn’t he change that if he so wanted? People can change their characters, and granted we obviously cannot even begin to come close to being purely divine like God, but if we can, can’t God? Is it possible that God has not acted out of the purest love in the past? Most people would say no, but if God is a learning God, and has responded to creation throughout time with where they are at, is it not also possible that he learned from his response because it was not the highest response of love possible? With this, is there an implication that love can be greater than God?

When considering these questions about God’s love, I think of the New Testament and how Jesus Christ was sent here to this earth, which I believe is/was an act of love.  However I do not know if I can go as far to believe that in every decision Jesus made he had to chose to love and did not have the ability to decide not to love in certain instances.  I enjoyed the point about how God loves differently in certain instances.  It is an interesting take suggested and it does make sense in the thought that “God is love”.

My question is what is the meaning of God’s “love?” What does it mean for God to stop loving me? It is hard to imagine what the result of that would be. I would think that if God stopped loving us, we would cease to exist or would it just be a series of bad events? In addition, it seems that some people answer the questions based off of one aspect of God’s character. In the first question, people answer yes because God is all powerful and can do whatever he wants. I struggle with this because I feel like I am limiting God by saying he can’t do something. The inconsistency comes when one forgets ALL of God’s character. To answer both of the questions fully, one has to apply all aspects of His character.

When I think of God, my mind usually goes right to his love for us.  I do not think that God will stop loving us nor would he stop given the choice.  I really enjoyed thinking about these questions because it really drives me to explore my own beliefs.  He created us in his image as his children.  He has unconditional love for us that does not change no matter how we behave in this world.  He will always love us and he sent his son to die for us to give us everlasting life with him.  In some ways I feel like that took great sacrifice and was deeply painful but at the same time it can be viewed as selfish because he will have us and his son with him in heaven forever.  Love isn’t always perfect.

God’s love is freely offered and freely taken by humans. The only reason we give God the title God is because he loves us, however if God choose to he could stop loving us. He is our God because we are his, however if he stopped loving us we would fall out of belonging and in turn fall into a sense of anarchy.

I am still not convinced that God could not not love us. If I think that God is all-powerful, then God must have the ability to do as God pleases. The thing that draws me to God is that God chooses to love us, which makes God’s love so much powerful to me. If God had no other option than to love us, then how genuine is God’s love? I did agree on the last two questions however, because God is always wanting to have a relationship with us God will always choose to love us no matter what.

In answer to the question “Could God stop loving us?” I would have to say, “Yes, God could quit loving.” Although I understand your argument, Dr. Oord, I disagree with it. I try to never make statements that “God could not…” I find these statements to be futile because I believe that humans should not make statements that limit God, or attempt to espouse knowledge of God. As it is written in Isaiah 55:8-9 “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.’”

I have heard the phrase “God is love” my whole life and have not really thought that deeply about it until now. I have never really thought about the fact that God could potentially stop loving us. As this article says, it just seems so unlike God to stop loving. I think that I agree with the statement that God loving his creation is necessary for his nature. I do not believe that God would stop loving us, no matter what we do.

I believe that God is not changing, i believe that his love for us will never change. We have all fallen short and sinned, while he sent his only Son to die for our sins. I believe that this is the ultimate show of Love. So could he stop loving us? no, i do not believe so, if he did why waste time sending his son to die for us. Even if he decided to change tomorrow, then is there really a God worth living for?

Most theologians would agree that God’s promises hold true. He does not lie. So when he says he will never leave us or forsake us, he means it. He therefore could not completely stop loving us because he has promised to do so. Another argument is the reason I believe God’s promises are true are because I believe it is not in his nature to lie. He cannot lie because it would be against his nature. In the same way, hating us would be against his nature and therefore it is not something that I believe God could do. God can hate the sin we are doing but God will never stop loving us.

I found this interesting because I have never even given a thought of asking the question “could God stop loving us?“I have always remembered the passage saying that ‘God is love’ and with that there was no question as to me ever feeling differently.  I think it would be a scary place to believe that there was a possibility that the creator of this world could hate me, one that I would never want to live in.

I believe that God is Love and that He cannot and will not stop loving us as His creation. He has told us that in the Scripture, so if He were to stop loving, it would prove God to be a liar… and then how could we trust Him with anything? While I do not always understand God’s actions, I choose to believe that in everything, God is Love.

While it sounds weird to me to say “God has to love us” the logic of that after following the diagnostic questions makes sense.  I do believe that it would be completely out of God’s nature not to love us and therefore I believe that God has to love us.  I also believe however that God doesn’t need us.  He (the trinity) could be perfectly okay without us (his creation) to love.  In light of the idea that God has to love us, I think I may have to re-evaluate this belief.  I’m not entirely sure, but I think the two may conflict.

I found this blog post quite interesting. I have grown up in the Nazarene church and have always heard of God’s unconditional love. I guess since that was all I was ever told I never thought of the other side of this statement of what if God stopped loving us. It is hard to wrap my head around because The God I know is all loving. I cannot fathom a God that could stop loving us at will. It definitely gets me thinking more about the opposing sides of things I have been told all of my life.

I find myself identifying with the position that it is not possible for God to stop loving. It is within God’s being and nature that he is a loving God and would be a violation of who he is should he stop loving. A house cannot stand divided against itself and therefore God cannot stop loving because it would be contradictory to who he is. To say that “God cannot..” is not a limiting statement, nor is it a naive statement, rather it is the understanding of God we have attained through the Bible. Another example would be that “God cannot sin.” It is not finite understanding of God but rather and comprehension of his nature

Being raised in the church, the phrase “God is love” is very commonplace for me to hear. My pastor at my church back home likes to say the same thing just with more added to it. He likes to say that “Not only is God love; He was love, is love and will be love.” God does not make a conscious decision every day to love us. His nature is to love. Many people who do not agree with me on this will cite the verses in the Old Testament where God destroys cities and puts people through horrendous ordeals. In my mind, this is what discipline is. My parents spanked us as kids, but they always made sure to say that they were doing this because they loved us and they wanted us to learn-we always thought they were lying and would many times respond my saying “You don’t love me (us)!”. God disciplined His children so that they would learn. They call this negative reinforcement in psychology. Even in this, God is displaying love in and through His actions.

For me, the primary aspect of God’s love in regards to God “can’t” is the characteristic of the ‘unconditional.’ That is something that we as people admire, advocate, and — simultaneously, don’t understand. We may have an idea or inkling into unconditional love but I think that in it’s entirety that is a characteristic that only God will possess. Therefore, His love is willed and a very much a part of Him. But it is the unconditional nature of His love that leads to the thinking of “God can’t”

I think god loves all his creations and will continue to love all of his creations. In my eyes the one thing that we have to connect us to god is the bible and thge bible clearly explains go love, so if we say that god could stop loving his creations is somewhat saying we dont believe in god. Also i feel like if god was ever going to stop loving us times in history like slavery and the holocaust may have done that. I think god is very loving and forgiveful and in my option that will never change.

Here are my answers to the questions stated. Yes, and yes. The first answer comes, in part, from a habit of tradition. If we are created in God’s image and we have been given free will (a belief that is constantly debated but I believe) than God probably has free will. He is free to do whatever he likes and is not constrained so can act in whichever way he chooses. The second answer needs some defining. Yes, but love, as always, needs some definition. If love is a specific action in a specific moment of time that promotes well-being, than from human experience I have to say that God allowing humans to have free will is not loving.  Historically, human action toward itself does not promote well-being. I believe it is up to us to bring the love of God into the world and according to this belief we can fail. So it is more that we fail to be loved than that God refuses to love us.

1.) can God stop loving us?
No, I do not believe so. God Loves everyone no exceptions. I can’t imagine a God who did not love his children.
2.) would God stop loving us?
No, because we are his “children.” At times you may be upset with your children but I don’t think you can ever stop loving them. You have an emotional tie to them. Something inside you knows that they are a part of you.
3.) why are so confident God would always love us?
In class today we talked about God’s nature as being lvoing and powerful ect. So if God decided not to love us he would not be God.

One of the first thoughts I had while reading this blog was “Does God still love Satan, His fallen angel, and all of the demons?”  He created them, along with all the souls eternally apart from the Kingdom of God.  I answered my question with a “Yes” because I believe that God will always love His creation, regardless of where it spends eternity.
Another thought was in response to the first sentence of the blog: “Many Christians believe God does not necessarily relate to creatures.”  Why would God create anything He can’t relate to?  And, why would God call His creation “good” and make man in His own image if He doesn’t relate to creatures?  When humans create things, through art, music, photography, writing, etc…the individual typically creates something he/she relates to.  As created beings of a Creator, I believe we are echoing some form of what the Creator did when He created us.

From what I’ve been taught about God my entire life, He is a loving God. I agree that love is part of His nature, it is who God is. On that same token I believe that God could not stop loving us, because if He is a loving God by nature than obviously he can’t stop being a loving God. If love is truly a characteristic of God, than in my mind it is unchanging.

I do not think that God would stop loving us because God is love. I know this because I have a personal relationship with him and know him through prayer, the Bible and personal experiences. I do not think that God would stop loving us because it is like that is part of his dna and you cant change a person’s dna. I do not know how to explain it from God’s point of view but I know that personally there is nothing like God’s love and that is a void that can only be filled by his love.

Think that last sentence sums the truth up right there. The Bible does refer to God by saying that “God is love”. If God is truly love, then He is bound to love us by from his very nature. If God could stop loving us, then his many promises in the Bible for us as humans would not be promises at all but merely possibilities. I would not want to serve a God whose fate for me was based on a whimsical mood swing and decision change.

It has never crossed my mind that God COULD ever stop loving me. Although through past life experiences I have felt alone almost as if he had abandoned me I never felt I would lose his love. I was brought up with the belief that no matter what an individual did good or bad God would always and will always love them.  I also believe that because God loves me, he suffers with me through the bad times. He is always present because he loves his children, he never leaves us. I would never say God would stop loving someone because if he did then he would not be the loving God we know him to be.

I agree with the thrust of this argument. I think God would not really be God if He did not love humans. However I would be a little bit careful and clarify something. To make a blanket statement that God cannot stop loving because God is love can result in problems if it is taken too far. If God has to love everything in existence (not just humans) then you have God loving inanimate objects, which is a problem, and you have a bigger problem of God loving things like sin, death, and suffering. I would solve this problem by emphasizing that humans are created in God’s image. The love that goes on between the Trinity is very important here. God cannot help but love Himself (in the sense of love between members of the Trinity) and since we are made in His image there is a certain element in us that is like God, and the nature of this element means that God cannot help loving us either. This image of God is not shared by inanimate objects or evil things, so God can be indifferent (in the case of inanimate objects) or hate (in the case of evil).

I do think because we are God’s creation, God can’t help but love us. This makes me think of how a parent loves their child. Because a child is a part of the parent, no matter what a child does the parent will always love them. They may be disappointed in their child’s actions, but will never stop loving them. As God as our father along with the promise of God’s ever presence, it is inevitable God will always love us. I would agree that God’s love is not the same depending on what is intended for us and the choices we make, but I don’t think that God would choose to stop loving us even if God could.

What is the action of love? Some say God is always there to love you? Then how does one explain war or natural disaster? If one still says God always love you in the face of disasters, would that say that sometime God’s love is passive? He’s there for you and is with you…but he did not do anything to help narrow down the pain. If one say that it’s so we – human need to learn a lesson – not to torture each other. That’s when we can argue that the motive/intention is good but the end result is painful. But can reasonable logic be applying to questions God actions?

God Can’t Help but Love Us:
What is the action of love? Some say God is always there to love you? Then how does one explain war or natural disaster? If one still says God always love you in the face of disasters, would that say that sometime God’s love is passive? He’s there for you and is with you…but he did not do anything to help narrow down the pain. If one say that it’s so we – human need to learn a lesson – not to torture each other. That’s when we can argue that the motive/intention is good but the end result is painful. But can reasonable logic be applying to questions God actions?

If God has to love us then His love is meaningless.  Why would you be amazed by the love of someone who was forced to love you?  Why worship or care about a god who has no choice?  Love cannot exist without freedom.  If one is forced to love then it is not really love.  Unfortunately you cannot have the freedom to love without also having the freedom not to love.  We can be more sure of God’s love than anything else in the universe, but without at least the freedom to not love, God’s love would be a coerced and trite thing.

Just because it is in God’s nature to love us, does that mean that he can never go against that. I believe and hope that God loves us because God wants to love us. If God just loves us because he can’t help but love us, it takes my want to please God away. He is going to love me the same no matter what i do, so i might as well do whatever i want to do.

I think God COULD stop loving if he so choose.  I think this could be considered in accordance with the same free will given to us as people.  However, I believe love is at the foundation of God’s nature. If He did not love (or stopped loving) it would go against the very essence of who God is.  And honestly, I don’t think I could, and I wouldn’t want to, believe in a God that doesn’t give love unconditionally.

I think to say God can not stop loving is limiting His power. I do not think God can be limited in any way. Yes, it is His nature to love so He would never stop loving. He created us specifically to love and for us to love back so why would He choose to stop?

i believe that God is Love. I believe that God could choose to change but I know and believe that He won’t. I say i know because God created each of us in his image and therefore is like a father to us; this means that God wants what it best for us in every moment of every day. This brings me to what Oord said, God’s love is necessary because of his nature. And as far as God not turning on creation, despite all of the horrible choices made by humans and all of the hurt caused by humans…God isn’t forced to love us just like we aren’t forced to love him. I think that what keeps God believing in us as his creation is that he knows what we are capable of. He sees how great we can be in little blurps of our life; sometimes moments when we love, or moments of compassion, or even a whole day without anger, etc. I don’t know how else to say it than God loves his creation and I don’t think that God would ever choose to stop loving us!

I really really liked this article, especially when it came to the questions. I thought it was interesting to actually examine what it would mean if we though God could or would ever stop loving us and I completely agree with your opinion on each question.
Growing up with a single parent household, I have always grown up with a picture of God in my head as my literal Father- to me it just makes my relationship more informal and I can talk to Him about anything… However, if I am viewing God in this way than that is also how I would view my mom.  If I ever make mistakes or fall short of expectations, I don’t want to believe that my “parents” could stop loving me. I want to believe that their love is endless and no matter what I will always have them to fall back on.
I believe God loves and and will always love us no matter what the circumstances are. To believe his love is conditional in some way would mean we might have to live the rest of this life without Him, and in my opinion that is unbearable, let alone impossible.

In the Bible it says “God is love.” This makes it sound like love is engrained into his very being, which I do believe is true. But then we often also say that God is all-powerful. Wouldn’t an all-powerful being be able to stop loving, if He so chose to? It seems that yes…He could. But I don’t believe He would. There are countless Biblical passages that show how unfailing God’s love is. It Jeremiah God says “I have loved you with an everlasting love.” I want to emphasize the “everlasting” part of this passage. Never-ending…continuing on forever; that is His love for us. Conflicting? Possibly. I do believe love is a part of God’s nature and I do believe in His all-powerfulness, and I will continue to think about how those relate.

I really enjoyed this reading. It brought up a lot of interesting questions that personally I have never thought about before. I liked that it made me challenge what I believe. I do believe that God can never stop loving us, his love is unconditional and never ceasing. However, this does bring up a great point, I think that if GOd chose he could stop loving us. Who is to say that, or put that limitation on God, I have always grown up with the idea that God can do whatever he wants. For me it comes down to knowing that God is all powerful and has the ability to do whatever he wants. It is my understanding and belief that he would never choose to stop loving us.

Your blogs always make me think about things that I have never considered. When I think about God’s love, phrases like “God is love” and John 3:16. Up to this point, I have thought that love is God’s nature without really considering alternatives.

Following the intro to theology class I took last semester, I learned just how important love is. John Wesley speaks of love as humans highest calling in some of his sermons. Considering this challenge God has placed on us, I knew God would not call us to do something He does not do. Jesus is considered the best teacher ever and He was not the kind of teacher that said, “Do as I say, not as I do.” It is God’s nature to love us, but I strongly agree with you Dr. Oord in that how God loves is freely chosen by God.

When I think of this topic, it makes me think of the Ontological argument for God’s existence, which states that a perfect being must exist because one that exists in reality is greater than one that exists in our thoughts, and therefore it must exist in reality. Although I do not personally agree with this argument for God’s existence, it does cause me to think. Why would God never stop loving us? Because which God is greater: a god that can or might choose to stop loving us, which would cause us to live in fear of losing that god’s love, or a God whose love for humanity is essential to God’s being? Obviously the God whose love is essential is greater than a god who can or might choose to stop loving us, and since God is the greatest and most perfect, then God must be the latter.

I have a hard time believing that God loves us because He can not help but do so. If God is all powerful, then I feel like He has the power and ability to not love us, though I believe he chooses to love us. The belief that God chooses to love us is more powerful, meaningful, and more relational than the statement that He can not help but love us. I believe God wants a relationship with each and every one of us, and thus chooses to love us, not because He has to, but because He wants to.

I really enjoyed reading this. It made me think about things that I normally don’t think about when I hear “God is love.” I do believe that God is love and that He will choose to never stop loving us. God sent His son to die for our sins, I believe that if God wanted to stop loving us, He probably would have done something else rather than sending His one and only son. But He didn’t, because God is love and He will never stop loving us.

I think an important part of the argument for a nature of love rather a God-humanity must love sort of relationship is the issue of free will. While free will within humanity tends to be a testy subject, it is something, in varying degrees, we want to uphold with value. In this, we can also affirm that God has free will. I do not want to argue that God must act in a certain way as if God is contractually bound to obey an agreement with humanity. However, I do want to say that God only acts out of love and this is something that we can depend on. If God’s nature is love, God still functions as a free agent, but entirely out of love through nature, rather than obligation.

To begin, I don’t believe that God existing alone (as the Trinity) before creating us precludes his having a loving relationship with his creation. I don’t see why this would be a contradiction. I understand God as being outside of time, or at least time as we can humanly understand it. Thus, at some point, God chose to create us and to love us as a necessary aspect of his nature, ie “God is love.” Furthermore, the Bible presents a consistent narrative of God’s love for people, so I believe he would not stop loving us. I do not believe that he could not choose to stop loving us, because God is omnipotent, but I do believe that he will not choose to do anything outside of his nature—that is ever stop loving us.

This has crossed my mind a few times, but I have never taken the time to fully contemplate that God COULD stop loving us. Since God is all-powerful, I do believe that if he wanted he could stop loving us, but I do not believe that He WOULD. Even from the beginning we knew that God loved us and that He would always love us. God even gave up His own son for humanity’s sake. I feel as though, there would be nothing that his children would ever do to make Him decide not to love us. I am comforted to know that whatever my mistakes are, I will have God to love me even if no one else does, and to know that allows me to believe there is no way that He would ever choose not to love me.

I think it is scary that we as humans sometimes create certain perceptions of God without a good reason. Though the argument that love is God’s nature is biblical, and I agree, I have never pondered the question of whether or not God could stop loving us. It brings up the question in my mind of the flood. Without a strong foundational view of God’s nature of love, this event could seem like God stopped loving his most valuable creation. I still find this hard to understand, but I know that God’s unchanging nature and his nature of love mean that even though it is hard to grasp, God was acting out of love.

First and foremost, I’m a limited person with a very limited POV regarding the limitless vastness of who God is and what He represents.  I can give my opinion based only on what I’ve experienced thus far.  I think that God’s love for us is ever present.  His love for us may come in different flavors, some sweeter than others.  Sometimes people, like myself, need (from time to time) the tougher type, indicated the latter.  It would be easier to dismiss this as God not loving me, but it is not so. Love is engrained deeply within the fabrics of who God is, thence, His love for us will always endure.  He knows what we need, when we need it, and how we need it.  Love & God are one, in very, very simple terms, it would be like trying to remove the peanuts in peanut butter

I had never thought of God not loving his creation or me as a possibility.  But after reading this blog I see that the questions you raise are very important in understanding who God is and what his love is. If God had a choice to stop loving, it could imply that he’s finally had enough of our shenanigans and is finite.  But by including love for creation as an essential part of what it means to be God, that shows his omnipotence.

I think it is natural that we ask ourselves these questions, but more importantly how we choose to answer them! After reading these, I had a question of my own-Why would God create us if he did not want to love us? Why would he even bother create us if he wouldn’t at least like us? Why would he give us His Son to die for us? There are so many more questions in my head as to why or how he could choose not to love his creation.

I have always thought about the question “would God ever stop loving me” and I have always known this answer to be no. I know that regardless of what I do, good or evil, God will always love me. I have never doubted that. However, I have never considered the question “could God stop loving me”. Once again I would answer no. I agree with what you said that God’s love for this world, and his creation, will make an on going love for me that will not end. It is not in His nature. If God is able to love such evil things in this world and even have love for those who chose hell over heaven then I know that God will no matter what always love his creation. God is love. Therefore He cannot choose not to love.

It was very difficult for me to think about and try to decide whether God could or would stop loving us. I’m not sure I have a strong stand of what I think yet. I think that it limits God in saying that he cannot do something so I am inclined to think that God could stop loving. However, it is nerve-racking to think that God would stop loving us tomorrow or anytime. I believe it s God’s nature to love and I believe God does love us. But I think I do believe God COULD stop loving us if He wanted to and yet He does not want to stop loving because it is in His nature to do so. So would God stop? No. I don’t think so…

This made me consider many things about God’s love I have not yet previously contemplated. I have always considered God’s love as a steady constant presence that I could always be assured of. Though we as humans may not always be in God’s good graces I think that we can always be sure of his grace. My meaning by that is though a proud parent may be disappointed in a child’s actions they will still want to promote their well-being, as does god and his creation.

I thought that this blog post was very interesting. I am rather confused though because it seems at the beginning of the post, it seemed to me that you believed that we could not count on God’s love. Though, towards the bottom of the page, it says that you are confident in God’s love toward us. I just don’t know which is what you really believe.

I do believe that God has the choice to love us, but the God I know in my heart will never choose to not love us. I believe that he can and will hate some of the things that we do, but he does not love us any less than he did before we made the mistake. God’s love is unconditional and I fully believe he will always love us, until the end of time.

After reading this I had some questions.I have really never thought about God not loving us. I just never thought that was possible. I also do not believe that God would create someone he does not love. He is all loving I believe. I believe he has the choice to not love or to love us but I do not believe God would choose that.

This kind of relates to something that I struggle with. Why does God create humans to suffer? This is just something that has really challenged me my whole life.

To me, God has had the “appearance” of the Ultimate parent figure when his nature towards us came into question.  Despite all that humanity has sinned in the past, I firmly hold on to the belief that God will continue to love us despite our faults and our misgivings.  That to me is the mark of a parental figure, for which God in my mind is supposed to be, who will continue to love us regardless of our faults.  This I have no doubt.  He may not exactly like what we do in the world, but he did create us and he did send his own Son to die for our sins.  If that is any indication that he will love us continually, I don’t know what is.

In response to the idea that God could stop loving us, is a difficult response. It is argued that God can do anything and everything, loving is something God can do, or not do. But how well do we know His nature? How can we absolutely say God could stop loving us, but He won’t, because then He wouldn’t be God.
Does this mean that if God is incapable of not loving us, we have defined God’s characteristics and truely know Him?
I’ve heard that God is indescribable, and we cannot begin to understand the complexitly of His work. Yet here we are saying God will always love us. Interesting.

Too often we don’t dive into something just because its what we’ve always heard and when we’re told God is “all-loving” thats usually all the further you take it unless in a class such as Dr. Oords.  Could He, would He, Why? are questions that make us think deeper.  Im guilty of not digging deep enough and the idea that yes God loves us no matter what but that He can decide how He loves us still affirms that “God is Love”.

For me it makes sense for God to love us perfectly in every moment which means he never changes in each moment. This also incorporates God being everywhere in one moment and he would need to be perfect in order to have the ability to do this. It would make no sense if God could or would stop loving us cause then he would not be perfect in that moment. God may not like our choices but it does not mean he turns his back on us, He is always finding ways to catch our attention when he needs it and that is when we have the choice to listen or ignore him. I personally believe he is walking with us in our life during all moments and he would need to the perfect balance of loving and powerful to walk with us.

These questions posed were very thought provoking. I do not like the idea that God is “forced” to love us (in a matter of speaking) due to Him Nature. Honestly, I would like to think that God loves me for who I am and what I do, not because He has to. At the same time, I want a love that doesn’t change when I mess up sin.

One other aspect in regards to the necessity of God to love His creation (especially us humans) is that God created us in His image. If God could chose to not love a being He created in His own image, What does that say about who God is, and what His character is.

It is interesting that those who answered God could stop loving us also answered God would not stop loving us, with no reason to the question if God could stop, why wouldn’t He?  I don’t believe He’ll stop loving us, but I never considered if He could.  Now that the question has been brought up to think about, I don’t think God could stop loving us.  When something bad happens that doesn’t seem loving, we tend to question where God is and why, if He loves us, He isn’t taking care of us.  Yet I tend to think of it in the terms of how love can be shown.  I think that setting boundaries and enforcing punishments in order to protect us can actually be a loving act, although we may not think so right then.  I think His love will often surpass our understanding of what love looks like.

think an aspect that people tend to struggle with in these questions is why the answers aren’t so cut and dry. One of the reasons for this, I feel, is that the Bible is giving us God’s love from all the different author’s perspectives and because of this, each account will differ depending on the author. For instance some books speak more of God’s Wrath, seen more significantly in the Old Testament, and others of God’s unfailing love. Because of this I think Jesus is the prime example of displaying God’s love and character. We should not discount the other references to God’s love in the Bible but count ourselves lucky that we are offered so many perspectives to God and in doing so we may ascertain his character for ourselves and not limit him.

God created us to be inquisitive, critically thinking creatures, so I believe that He is glad when we strive to understand who He is. He gave us the Bible that we may know His truth, and that includes His character. However, as has been mentioned repeatedly, we must approach this exploration carefully and, above all, humbly. We are imperfect creatures attempting to understand the perfect God. I believe wholeheartedly in the importance of the mysterious nature of God. He would not be as great if I could understand every detail about Him and how He works. I think that in the Bible God has clearly revealed all that we must know during this temporal lifetime. Thus, anything that seems ambiguous and unclear is not vital to what God calls us to do. When we are in heaven, we will not be limited by our earthly minds, and all will be revealed. However, in the meantime, we should continue to study and wrestle with His Word, knowing that the Holy Spirit helps us to understand what is beyond our grasp, but also that these complicated issues are not hills to die on.