June 11, 2008
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Question 68 – Does God love unconditionally?
Question 68 – Does God love unconditionally?
Robert,
The Bible seems to indicate that God’s love for us is dependent upon our love for His Son, obeying His commandments, our repentance from sin, etc. But it is also full of passages that show the love of God toward sinners. Is God’s love therefore, ‘conditional’ or ‘unconditional,’ or does the Bible use different meanings for the word ‘love’ in reference to God’s love for man? Does God still love the sinner in Hell?
Nick
R. Sungenis: Nick, you ask a very good question. Does God have the capacity to hate another being? What, actually, do we mean by hate? Is hate rational or irrational?
Regarding the “hate” that Scripture sometimes attaches to God’s anger, we can understand its application by seeing its specific usage in key passages. In Malachi 2:16, for example, God declares: “‘I hate divorce,’ says the Lord God of Israel, ‘and I hate a man’s covering himself with violence as well as with his garment,’ says the Lord Almighty.” The temptation among some is to neutralize God’s hate, since it is assumed that negative sentiments are inconsistent with the divine nature. This is far from the case. We can understand the significance of the “hate” from a logical exegesis of the passage. For example, God’s disposition toward divorce cannot be anthropomorphized. He really hates divorce. Moreover, as with Exodus 32:9-14, Malachi 2:16 is a case in which God verbalizes His actual feelings, which requires us to accept them as they are, otherwise we force God into duplicity. By the same token, we cannot lessen God’s hate toward a man who “covers himself with violence,” since both clauses of Malachi 2:16 must be in grammatical equilibrium in order for both to be valid, that is, we cannot conclude that God hates divorce but does not hate the man who covers himself with violence. In fact, in the next verse, God reinforces His animosity toward the wicked by pointing out how He detests people when they say that God believes “All who do evil are good in the eyes of the Lord, and he is pleased with them.”
Some interpreters explain Scripture’s reference to God’s “hate” as being derived from a Hebraic idiom meaning “love less.” Although this may be true in some instances, it is obvious that Malachi 2:16 will not allow such an interpretation. Applying the “love less” interpretation in regards to hate is true only in instances where hyperbole is being used to emphasize a certain teaching (as in the case of Luke 14:26 when Jesus teaches the people to “hate” their father and mother), but not in instances where obstinate and unrepentant wickedness is in view, especially in instances that God articulates His hatred toward evil and the evil person (e.g., Malachi 1:3 “but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his mountains into a wasteland”; Psalm 5:5, “you hate all who do wrong”; Psalm 11:5, “the wicked and those who love violence his soul hates.” See also Psalm 139:21; Proverbs 6:16; Isaiah 1:14; Jeremiah 12:8; Hosea 9:15; Amos 5:21; Zechariah 8:17).
If we define “hate” by our human standards instead of divine standards, we will invariably side with the “loving less” argument, because most human hatred is often irrational and we don’t want to make God appear irrational. As the above passages show, however, God directs hatred against the willfully wicked, and this implies that God has a divine right to hate the wicked, and do so without sin. This kind of hatred is rational hatred. To see this more clearly, ask yourself this question: Does God love the devil or hate the devil? Based on the fact that the devil has consigned himself to be God’s arch enemy for eternity with no hope of ever repenting and requiting God’s original love for him, the obvious answer is that God hates the devil. In a way, we can say that God’s hatred of the devil is so real that He wished he had never created him, just as God said the same of the human race right before the flood (Genesis 6:6 “And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart”). If God can hate the devil, then surely God can hate human beings who also refuse to repent and die in that state.
On the other hand, Scripture is equally clear that God loves His whole creation, even the unrepentant sinner He is wooing to repent. As a father, God can love even those with whom He is angry. This is shown, for example, in Wisdom 11:26 “You spare all things, for they are yours, O Lord, you who love the living. For your immortal spirit is in all things.” John 3:16 states: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son...” Romans 5:8 states: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Matthew 5:45 states: “He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good.” These passages, however, express the general truth that God loves mankind despite his sin, yet in no passage of Scripture does it declare that God will continue to love the individual who consistently, deliberately and without repentance, does evil in His sight (cf., Deuteronomy 29:19-20; Isaiah 22:12-14; 13:11-13; 30:12-14; Ezekiel 24:13-14; Lamentations 5:22; Hebrews 10:26-31).
As Augustine writes: “He, therefore, had love toward us even when we were practicing enmity against Him and working iniquity; and yet to Him is it said with perfect truth, ‘Thou hatest, O Lord, all workers of iniquity’ [Psalm 5:5]. Accordingly, in a wonderful and divine manner, even when He hated us, He loved us; for He hated us, in so far as we were not what He Himself had made; and because our own iniquity had not in every part consumed His work, He knew at once both how, in each of us, to hate what we had done, and to love what He had done. And this, indeed, may be understood in the case of all regarding Him to whom it is truly said, ‘Thou hatest nothing that Thou hast made” [Wisdom 11:25] (Gospel of John, Tractate 110, 6; NPNF I, vol. 7, p. 411).
From all these passages, we understand that God loves His whole creation without exception, but those who obstinately sin and maliciously despise God, He stores up His hate, wrath and anger for the day of judgment (cf., Isaiah 13:9; Romans 2:8; 1 Thessalonians 2:16; Colossians 3:6; James 5:1-5). God is not malicious or spiteful, but He maintains a righteous indignation against sin and those who unceasingly perpetrate it. As Emil Brunner states: “God’s dual nature is the central mystery of the Christian revelation...For God is not simply Love. The nature of God cannot be exhaustively stated in one single word” (The Mediator, pp. 281-282, 519).
