It is all the prattle these days to speak of 'unconditional love.' Even Christians engage in it. It is not difficult to understand why this is so. The idea of unconditional love possess a natural gloss and blass of magnanimity, of super big heartedness, even shadings of Christian largess. In the run-up to the US Mid-Term Election of 2022, one candidate Herschel Walker (who has the blessings of the Southern Baptist Church) ran into considerable controversy over getting one of his girlfriends to have an abortion. When his son, Christian Walker, came out in the media and blasted his father for being a hypocrite, Herschel Walker responded, "My love for Christian is unconditional." Whatever "unconditional" means in this case it included—it was soon be revealed—not having provided for his son's upbring or being there for him (or the three other children Herschel had fathered with other girlfriends). But as I argue, "unconditional love" is easy to practice and to claim honour to, because "unconditional love" is not love at all.
Unconditional love is a Christian heresy. Even God, in all that the Bible tells us about Him, does not love unconditionally. What God does is He loves truly, truly enough to give His Son to die on the cross for us.
We begin with some clarifications on what we mean by 'unconditional love.' A simple definition would be loving another person no matter how demanding the conditions may be. But this is insufficient to be useful. We have quite a few friends who have children with congenital defects which made them utterly dependent on all their needs on others. Loving them fits the bill of unconditional love. But the conditions involved here are not volitional and not of the children's choice. In fact, most of them cannot choose or understand what that is. Loving these children is uncondition love. But take the case of the infamous prodigal son of Lk 15. Having received his inheritance and squandered it he returns to his father with a stack of IOUs and demands that his father settles them, and that whatever is left of his father's wealth should now be shared between him and his older brother. "I am your son, and you should love me unconditionally." Or take the case of a young man whose father is a pastor. This young man—we'll call him Jack—wants to 'marry' his partner Kenneth, hold a big party to celebrate their 'wedding,' and expects his father to pay and to bless the 'wedding,' knowing all the time that his action would provoke deep misgivings and conflict of conscience on his family. Should the paster love Jack 'unconditionally' and do as the latter wishes? These latter examples are the sort of 'unconditional love' that form the subject matter here.
A number of fundamental affirmations in the Bible make sense only if God does not love unconditionally. Paul tells us that we were "God's enemies" (Rom 5:10) and 'objects of His wrath" (Rom 9:22). A love that loves unconditionally could never make the beloved an enemy or object of its wrath. God affirms His elective love for Israel by asserting "I have loved Jacob but Esau I had" (Mal 1:2-3). But a love that loves unconditionally will have no one to hate, for hating entails conditions that make the hated hated. The ultimate end of unconditional love is universalism. The kind of love that results in universalism is not love at all because it is indifferent. Indifference does not care one way or another; it is the very opposite of love. Even hate cares enough to hate. Indifference does not even do that. Love cares.
God does not love unconditionally. He loves truly. God loved Israel but He would not let her go on with her sins without her repenting. That condition—that Israel repented—was an expression of true love. God's love for Israel cares that Israel should be the best she can be. That means that Israel should keep her promises and commitments; this Israel can do only if she obeys Yahweh's laws. In so loving Israel conditionally, God loved Israel truly. The wealthy man who would settle the IOUs of his prodigal son and split what is left of his remaining wealth may claim to love his son unconditionally, but he would not be loving truly. He cares not that his prodigal son is headed even more decidedly for greater distruction or that, in so loving the prodical 'unconditionlly,' he loves his older son with extreme conditionality, of gross partiality. The pastor-father who would acceed to Jack's wishes forsakes his son because he fails to proclaim by a clear refusal that there are things that are detestable in God's eyes, and he opens the gate for Jack (and Kenneth) to descend into perdition. To agree to his son's demand is to say he does not care. And that which does not care cannot be love. God loves trully. He lays no condition on anyone coming to Him.But once we come to Him and accepts Him as Lord and Saviour, His rules rule. The Christian life is a repentant live. No Christian can expect God, hence, to tolerate a life of continuing sinfulness and to love him/her "unconditionally." God does not love "unconditionally." He loves trully. That is the only way to love. Unconditional love is no love at all.
©ALBERITH
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