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<\/p>\nGod’s love involves both giving and receiving. That’s part of the theo-logic of love. But some great theologians erroneously thought God’s love only gives and never receives.<\/p>\n
In my previous blogs, I’ve argued that the Bible, Jesus, and our common experience tell us that God is relational\/passible. And God’s love involves giving to and receiving from others.<\/p>\n
We might call this overall argument \u201cthe theo-logic of love.\u201d The love described in Scripture, in Jesus, and in our own best experiences indicates that expressions of love are partly shaped by responses to others.<\/p>\n
An entirely unrelated, unresponsive, and isolated person \u2013 if such a being existed \u2013 could not love. Love requires relationships of giving-and-receiving influence.<\/p>\n
One of the biggest errors committed by Christian theologians of yesteryear was in thinking God\u2019s love involves only outgoing benevolence with no receptive relationality. In other words, they wrongly thought God\u2019s love only gives and never receives. Let me offer a few examples of this erroneous thinking.<\/p>\n
Thomas Aquinas thought God acted benevolently toward creatures but was not affected by creaturely love. \u201cA relation of God to creatures is not a reality in God,\u201d he writes. God knows creatures as ideas without being causally affected by them.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n Influencing relations with creation \u201care not really in Him,\u201d Aquinas says, and \u201care ascribed to him only in our understanding.\u201d[2]<\/a> In other words, we only imagine <\/em>God gives and receives in loving relationship. But in reality, God does not.<\/p>\n If Aquinas is right, biblical statements about God\u2019s compassion are fictional. Creatures cannot bless God. And God never responds to sin by offering forgiveness.<\/p>\n Anselm made the same error. \u201cHow are you compassionate, and, at the same time, passionless?\u201d Anselm asks rhetorically of God. \u201cFor if you are passionless, you do not feel sympathy; and if you do not feel sympathy, your heart is not wretched from sympathy for the wretched; but this it is to be compassionate.\u201d<\/p>\n In response to his own question, Anselm offers the same answer we saw in Aquinas: \u201cWhen you behold us in our wretchedness, we experience the effect of compassion, but you do not experience the feeling.\u00a0Therefore, you are both compassionate, because you do save the wretched, and spare those who sin against you; and not compassionate, because you are affected by no sympathy for wretchedness.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/p>\n In other words, according to Anselm we think <\/em>God is compassionate when God is actually not.<\/p>\n In contrast to Aquinas and Anselm, I think God\u2019s love involves more than outgoing benevolence. God\u2019s love also involves incoming empathy, receiving, and sometimes suffering.<\/p>\n I stand with many other theologians who affirm divine passibility. I list some in this footnote.[4]<\/a>\u00a0According to us, God\u2019s love requires both giving and receiving. And we think the Bible, the witness of Jesus, and commonsense stand with us on this issue. And they stand against Aquinas and Anselm.<\/p>\n Click To Tweet<\/a><\/p>\n Notes<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, <\/em>I (Wesminster, Md: Christian Classics, 1981), q. 6, a.2, ad 1.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles <\/em>II (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981), 13-14.<\/p>\nThe Error of Anselm<\/h3>\n
God’s Giving-and-Receiving Love<\/h3>\n
<\/div>\n\nLeading theologians erroneously thought God\u2019s love only gives and never receives.<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n