As you know, I’ve decided to write a series on “Why I Come From A Christian Perspective.”
In this article, I’d like to share the fourth answer that comes to mind:
God is Love.
Before you roll your eyes thinking, “well, that’s a really simple, generic answer,” stay with me because – as you’ll see – it’s NOT.
See, I think most people jive with the idea of a loving God – or a “God of Love.”
I think this is a very intuitive sense most people have about God when they think of the idea of the ultimate deity or a supernatural being. Surely, God must be a God of Love, right?
And while I agree, I want to ask: have you ever really stopped and thought about the implications of this?
Love is an action. And the only way for an action occur is between two entities or beings. We call that the action of love.
By way of example, when I love someone, I show love to them through my actions.
Yet if God is One God, how can we say God is Love unless there is love passing from one distinct being to another within God Himself?
Note that for our purposes, I am thinking of God here in the context of Him being distinct and separate from all creation (though He was intimately involved with creation).
And remember that the Bible begins with Genesis 1:1 where it says “In the beginning God..” clearly implying God came before any of His creation (technically God always was – but that is another discussion for another time).
This is where the beautiful, mysterious, and genius Christian doctrine of the “holy trinity” becomes so important to me.
The “Holy Trinity” refers to the three distinct persons within God Himself: the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.
These do not represent three separate gods (that would be polytheism consistent with many eastern religions) but nor are they all identical (that would be strict or absolute monotheism as in Judaism or Islam).
Yet in Christian belief, these distinct beings all share the same “substance,” if you will.
And no, this is not a mere theological or philosophical tradition.
If you study scripture carefully (see last article on why scripture is trustworthy in my view), you can see all three distinct beings, or members, of what is called God involved on a regular basis- from Genesis all the way through Revelation. And they all work in perfect accordance with one another.
In other words, God IS Love because that is His Nature AND fhe Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit all love one another in perfect unity.
This is One God. Three in One. One in Three.
Don’t ask me to explain! There is no perfect analogy to explain the holy trinity. Suffice it to say that God’s calculus is on a higher order than we human beings can completely understand.
But to return to my original point, as a Christian, I can confidently say God is “love” because that love is not only His Nature but it always was, always is, and always will be expressed within and among all three members of God (One God, One in Three, Three in One).
Which means God is Love even independent of His interactions and relationship with His creation.
The Christian worldview strongly supports the idea that God is Love, and that’s Reason #4 that I come from a Christian perspective.
Let’s thrive together!
