Is God's Love Really Unconditional?

God’s love, as presently viewed in general culture, embraces an unconditional regard for all people, possessing only an accelerator for loving people, only moving forward to bless them no matter what they think, feel, or do, and no matter how they respond or don’t respond to him.

But this is not the God of the Bible, the God of Judeo-Christian revelation, who clearly possesses both deep expressions of love as well as discerning restraint, love that takes into account how human beings respond to him. 

God of the Bible

The Lord takes faithful care of those who trust in him and become like him, but pulls back from those who dismiss or dislike him, or deny his existence. In other words, while God in eternity loves blessing all who receive and obey him, in time he exercises discernment about whom he loves and how much he loves them.

The Bible repeats this consistent theme: 

“Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands. But those who hate him he will repay to their face by destruction; he will not be slow to repay to their face those who hate him” (Deut 7:9-10). 

Jesus further emphasizes the conditional nature of God’s love when he says, “If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love” (Jn 15:10).

And, Jesus says, "You are my friends if you do what I command" (Jn 15:14).

From a human point of view, it can sound like God is playing favorites and being picayunish about the conditions he places on his love. But from the divine point of view, God is unwilling to squander his love on foolish relationships and imprint his stamp of approval on unrighteous behavior. He really does know the secret motivations that drive behavior, discriminating between those who seek him in their heart and those who don’t.

It is true that God is love, but his love is tempered with wisdom that balances expression and restraint. He expresses more of himself and his blessings to those who enter a reciprocal relationship with him, while applying restraint to those who harden their hearts. 

The Bible shows again and again how people can break down, nullify, or destroy the love bond that God initiates by perpetuating negative patterns of behavior, patterns that also break down human relationships. The Bible also describes how God can alternate between blessing and cursing people, cherishing or abandoning them, according to whether or not they abide in him.

Christ provides expression/restraint guidelines for human love: 

Expression and Restraint

 

For the forward rhythmic swing of the arc Jesus says, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Lk 10:27). Christ wants those who love him to take on his passion for the wellbeing of humanity. 

So during the course of a day, persons are to watch out for the welfare of others, helping strangers in need, displaying kindness toward employees in stores and fellow drivers on the freeway, and expanding tenderness in one’s heart for friends and family members.

By the same token, the backward rhythmic swing of the arc represents an equally crucial teaching of Christ: “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves” (Mt 10:16). 

Naïve love can result in a world of trouble, because many human situations call for a more objective assessment of people’s intentions and less of a subjective, heartfelt involvement with the person. Responding with an open heart to everyone who shows interest leaves a person with no defense against the manipulative patterns of a con artist or narcissist.

For more, read: 

Trusting in The Trinity: 

Compass Psychotheology in Action

Trusting in The Trinity

How The Christian Trinity Is Unique

Undifferentiated concepts of God, like God as nature, or God as the evolution of the universe, yield little meaning because they are so vague they fail to grasp the distinctly differentiated aspects of God’s personhood that offer concrete points of integration with human beings. 

The Bible holds a unique place among world religions because what it records about God and persons occurs over several millennia, arising out of particular historical situations and concrete interpersonal encounters. This creates a public account open to all peoples, a common legacy to humankind. “I have spoken openly to the world,” Jesus says. “I said nothing in secret” (Jn 18:20). The cohesiveness of Scripture comes from the divine Subject who guides the biblical narrative, and the human subjects who interact with God.

Bible

Two singular concepts arise from the Bible that reveal how this divine Subject, this God of the Bible, interfaces with people, concepts that arise from the Old Testament and carry forward into the New. 

The singular message of the Old Testament lies in the revelation of a personal transcendent Creator, a novel concept even in the world of ancient comparative religions. 

The singular message of the New Testament lies in the revelation that right thinking about God, or doctrine, combined with personal faith in God, leads to reconciliation and friendship with God, a thesis original to religions of that day.

Christianity

Christianity puts together the Old and New Testament into the synthesis of orthodox doctrine about the personal transcendent Creator, asserting that God can be known and loved by understanding his personality and attributes. This requires a rhythm of integration and differentiation, so that people can perceive, name, and engage the personal transcendent God.

Just how does God disclose and differentiate himself from all the other claims to deity in world history? He simply says, “I AM” (Ex 3:14; Jn 8:58). God’s essence, therefore, constitutes self-existent personality without beginning or end.

"I AM"

 

From this foundational premise, God continues to reveal himself throughout Scripture with names that provide clarification. From the Old Testament come the names God Almighty, for example, and Lord of Hosts, Holy One of Israel, and Ancient of Days—surely meant to convey awe and wonder, mystery and majesty. Not the average idol in the land of Canaan, or the average tribal god. This is God the one and only, Maker of heaven and earth, a transcendent-personal presence to be reckoned with. 

In the New Testament comes increased differentiation, this time toward personalizing God’s immanence, his holy and loving presence in the world. Now God becomes entirely personal—so personal that his name is Jesus. Human, yes, but also divine: one Person with two distinct natures, co-existing without mixture or confusion, in one interpersonal self: Jesus Christ, the Son of Man and Son of God. Here is differentiation, in rhythm with integration. 

Jesus Christ

And through Jesus, God the Almighty becomes differentiated as God the Father, Holy Father, Righteous Father…Our Father. And whom do the Father and Son reveal but the differentiated Holy Spirit: the Spirit of the Father, Spirit of Christ, and Spirit of the Lord.

And what is the sum total of God’s self-communication in the Old and New Testament story? 

One God in Three Persons, blessed Trinity.

For more, read: 

CHRISTIAN PERSONALITY THEORY:

Compass Psychotheology Applied

Christian Personality Theory

   

Hegel, Christianity, and Compass Psychotheology

I first read Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit when I was twenty-one, an entree to my lifetime study and enjoyment of the great philosophers who have influenced and shaped Western philosophy and religion. I read him again during my master's degree in philosophy, and again in later years when I was differentiating Compass Psychotheology from other systems of world beliefs.

Hegel

Georg Friederich Hegel (1770-1831) was born in the same year as Beethoven and the poet Wordsworth. At the age of 18 he studied theology at the University of Tubingen. During his mature years, he wrote four books in philosophy and was given the chair of philosophy at the University of Berlin, where he remained until his death from cholera at age 61.  

Hegel was a Christian. And Hegel valued the rational mind. He integrated his perceptions of Christianity and Reason this way: Hegel saw the whole universe as the products of an absolute subject, an Absolute Mind. He wanted to underscore that the real world is more than the subjective conception of people's minds, that reality is rationality, or Thought. "Reason," Hegel said, "dominates the world and ...world history is thus a rational process."

The process of human history evolves from the tensions of polar opposites (thesis and antithesis) that give way to historical developments (synthesis), which in turn create new contexts for thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. For example, there exists an ever-recurring tension in any historical era between the freedom and autonomous will of individuals (thesis), the freedom and autonomy of nation-states (antithesis?), and the collaboration or clashing of nations in terms of peace or war (synthesis?). 

In this way the Absolute Mind, or the divine Spirit, becomes the external manifestation of human Will and its Freedom, and the good is "the realization of freedom, the absolute final purpose of the world." Because for Hegel reality is rationality (Thought, Idea), it seemed only logical that our knowledge of the Absolute is actually the Absolute knowing itself through the finite spirit of human beings.

Compass psychotheology, too, asserts that the personal-transcendent God revealed in Hebrew and Christian Scripture stands behind nature and the cosmos, interacts creatively with the people of every culture and nation, and is moving human history toward a climactic fulfillment of his plan and purposes for humankind.

God's Creation

Compass psychotheology, too, suggests that freedom of the will is a divine endowment in which Homo sapiens are imprinted with the image of God their Creator, and through which individuals live in tension between self will and God's unfolding will.

Compass psychotheology, too, sees creative tensions of polarities built into human nature and personality, and that these mirror to some degree the personality and nature of the divine as revealed in the incarnate Son of God, Jesus of Nazareth, who upon his resurrection from the dead, became the Savior of the World, and the eternal destiny toward which human history is moving. 

The apostle Paul says it this way: "The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross" (Colossians 1:15-20).

These polarities include the transcendence of God as existing eternally apart from the created cosmos, and the immanence of God as manifested in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, both of whom as divine person intersect human history and influence persons and nations. These polarities are found in human personality, in the tension that exists between the compass points of Love and Assertion, Weakness and Strength, which are nevertheless synthesized into the unifying whole of self-aware identify, with freedom of choice and self-will.

Compass psychotheology diverges with Hegel's philosophy of Mind and Spirit in holding to the biblical narrative, in which humankind is fallen from the Will and Purposes of God, and must be rescued from sin by the atoning sacrifice for sin: Christ on the Cross. Persons can resist this offer of personal salvation, for it is not rational, and to believe in one's heart the scandalous "Good News" that the crucified God provides grace and forgiveness to all who repent and have faith Jesus.  

"The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God.  As the Scriptures say,

'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and discard the intelligence of the intelligent.^'

So where does this leave the philosophers, the scholars, and the world’s brilliant debaters? God has made the wisdom of this world look foolish. Since God in his wisdom saw to it that the world would never know him through human wisdom, he has used our foolish preaching to save those who believe.  It is foolish to the Jews, who ask for signs from heaven. And it is foolish to the Greeks, who seek human wisdom. So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it’s all nonsense. But to those called by God to salvation, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.  This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God’s weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength" (1 Cor 18-25, NLT).

In the view of compass psychotheology, Hegel is one of the philosophers who, though great in intellectual sweep and motivational ambition, erred when he tried to remake Christianity into a philosophical instrument for his will and purposes. 

In avoiding the confrontation of the Old Testament prophets with the Hebrew culture, and the confrontation of Christ and the apostolic witness with the Gentile world, Hegel too facilely equated the good, the rational, the mind, and the spirit, with the Will and Purpose of the divine.

As a corrective against this kind of philosophical idealism and romantic optimism, compass psychotheology speaks of the categories of evil that characterize all persons via their human natures, personalities, and relationships. However, when persons deals decisively with their sin and self will through confessing and receiving Christ, other parts of Hegelian philosophy do indeed characterize what Christians call sanctification, growth in holiness, discipleship, or, in compass psychotheology terms, "self-actualization in Christ."

Here, then, we do find God and sinner reconciled, and the power of the Holy Spirit (who is the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of the Son) at work in those who believe both to know and to do the will of God.

"Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect" (Romans 12:2).

Personally, I'm thankful for having read Hegel in my formative years, for he prodded me to stretch my mind and seek to see the big picture of the cosmos and the divine, in creative tension with the little picture of human history and individual life. And though I came to see these things through the lens of faith that illuminates reason, I can well understand why it was important for Georg Friedrick Hegel to see the universe through the lens of reason that inspires faith.

Compass Personality Theory and Behavioral Personality Theory

Behavioral personality theory is the brainchild of Joseph Wolpe, B. F. Skinner, and Arthur Staats, among others. Also known as learning theory, it is the most empirically based approach ever devised to study human behavior. However, since scientific and laboratory studies aim at controlling all variables in order to discover objective information about how living organisms behave, the subjective self of human beings can be lost in the process. 

B. F. Skinner

Skinner articulates this perspective when he says:  

“There is no place in the scientific position for a self 

as a true originator or initiator of action.”

Behaviorism generates highly differentiated knowledge, such as how to extinguish a phobia or reinforce a target behavior, but this information is not well integrated with the self who lives as a complex person outside of the scientific experiment. Concepts that cannot be measured quantitatively—concepts like selfhood, free will, dignity, and openness to God—risk diminishment if the person is reduced to an experimental object, leaving a personality theory that mainly focuses on how changes in environmental stimuli elicit changes in behavioral response.

Behavioral theory produces significant quantitative data about the limits of human perception; for instance, the range of decibels required to hear a sound, the level of lumens required to perceive an image, or the amount of pressure needed to trigger a sensation. By treating the hypothetical “self” as a black box, the theory also answers questions about operant conditioning for use in controlling social behavior. 

Operant Conditioning

For example, the best way to manipulate a person to do something new is to reinforce the first appearance of that behavior with a massive schedule of reward. Then, as the behavior is repeated more often, the reinforcement is modified into an intermittent schedule of reinforcement. Before long, the human organism is hooked on the behavior, so to speak, because there is an unconscious quest for continuing the behavior with the hope of an occasional reward.

This objective knowledge of how to shape and control human behavior can be used benevolently or malevolently. In casino gambling the manufacturers of slot machines use the full power of behavioral theory so that the machines pay out in varying rhythms, ranging from several payouts in a row (which establishes motivation to stay at the machine), to one payout for every twelve or thirteen pulls (to maintain the addictive excitement). Of course, the odds are in the casino’s favor because human selfhood is bypassed through the use of contingency management, the dispensing or withholding of reinforcing stimuli designed to strengthen behavior at an instinctual and unconscious level.

In a more positive venue, behavioral personality theory makes many contributions to classroom discipline for teachers, showing them how to reinforce on-task behaviors such as silent reading or group cooperation by verbally rewarding proactive behavior, and ignoring or creating a “time out” to extinguish negative behavior. 

Behavioral principles are valuable in many situations where selfhood and personal choices need suppression in order to maintain a safe and organized environment. Jails, the military, business management, and caretaking for incapacitated persons all benefit from some form of token economy, or the exchange of cooperative behavior for tangible rewards that strengthen individual compliance and support group cohesion.

However, when it comes to the question of human worth, the development of autonomy, and self-actualizing choices, learning theory falters, since its primary view of Homo sapiens rests on an animal behavior paradigm that considers thoughts, feelings, and values as variables to be controlled, not inalienable rights for pursuit and fulfillment. 

Inalienable rights

Compass personality theory suggests that behavioral theory makes its most valuable contributions in building efficient social environments that support constructive interaction, as well as in helping persons whose judgment is impaired by disease, disability, or drugs to achieve a measure of self-control where none existed.

Yet for the bigger picture of actualizing human development, people’s interpersonal selfhood must come to the fore, working synergistically within environmental structures that foster safety and morality, while offering freedom for the development of individual identity, both of which contribute to the wellbeing of community.

For more, read:

CHRISTIAN PERSONALITY THEORY:

Compass Psychotheology Applied 

Christian Personality Theory