Is Conditional Love Actually Love?

[wolfnchains]

1. Is authentic healthy love conditional? Yes or no? And why do you believe that?

2. *If you believe in God*, do you believe God "loves?" And is that "love" conditional? Do the doctrines you believe support that? Explain.

3.
A. If the answer to all the above is "Yes," do you yourself "love" God?

B. Why do you love God?

C. Is your love for God conditional, genuine love? Or does it exist purely to receive something or because you were given something? Such as protection, miracles, salvation, entrance to heaven, acceptance, avoidance of hell etc?

D. Define Love.

E. Is it possible to love God or be loved by God as long as there is a condition in order foe that love to exist?



Can your "love" for God be real

[Hawk_Spain]

No, to all

[robindf1]

1. Is authentic healthy love conditional? Yes or no? And why do you believe that?

You don't define your terms, which makes this question almost meaningless. What is love, to you? Is it a feeling? An action? Is it a specific kind of connection between you and another person? The willingness to put someone's happiness above your own? Is it something we choose or something that happens to us? Is it different from being IN love?

I can only speak personally and describe what love means to me. It's looking at someone else and seeing something different from what everyone else sees. It's an act of will, an intention and an action freely chosen when someone acts on their feelings of attachment to know and understand someone, to expose and be exposed to them at the most vulnerable. And, yeah, a feeling of attachment also.

Can love be conditional? Sure. Can conditional love be authentic? Sure. People break up. It doesn't mean they were never in love. Can love be unconditional? That's a little harder to prove outright, but there are enough examples of people who never stop loving horrible people, no matter how horrible they are. Which I'd say is close enough for our purposes.

Healthy? I'm not sure if that makes much sense. I've never seen anyone talk about if you should love someone or if you shouldn't. It'd be like asking someone if they should like oranges or not.

1. I*If you believe in God*, do you believe God "loves?" And is that "love" conditional? Do the doctrines you believe support that? Explain.

Why are you asking that? You're specifically talking about the Christian god, so that's a question with an objective answer. Yes, He loves. No, it's not conditional. You can make that argument from both directions: 1. God portrays man as deserving of eternal torture, yet He loves man. That's unconditional love if anything is. 2. There's nothing you can do to stop God from loving you. Which is the dictionary definition of unconditional love.

1. I*If you believe in God*, do you believe God "loves?" And is that "love" conditional? Do the doctrines you believe support that? Explain.

3.A. If the answer to all the above is "Yes," do you yourself "love" God?

No. But people will love anything, even if it doesn't exist. I've seen people love their pet ants. Or their ships. They'll paint a face on a rock and feel love for that, even when they understand that it's irrational. Humans will love fictional characters. Heck, Pokemon is basically built around making you love 1s and 0s. Humans are weird little critters.

C. Is your love for God conditional, genuine love? Or does it exist purely to receive something or because you were given something? Such as protection, miracles, salvation, entrance to heaven, acceptance, avoidance of hell etc?

I mean, if you want to argue that conditional love isn't genuine love, you probably should have made that case before now. Or at all. You should have defined conditional love, and love, and unconditional love--this is why you define things before you give an argument. Jesus.

A good reason why you should have defined your terms is that conditional love does not mean, "I will love someone only if," It means, "I will stop loving someone if," Unconditional doesn't mean "a love that exists for no reason". It means, "a love that never ends." And, honestly, why do you love the person that you love? I was unlucky in love until I met my husband. Somehow, around a minute after we started talking, I knew he was it for me. That was almost ten years ago. I do believe there's a logical and scientific explanation for that, but in the absence of one, it must simply be (for now), because I do.

And that's the case for most people, it seems to me. Love cannot be justified, only felt. You wouldn't stop loving your partner if they became less handsome. You wouldn't fall for someone because they were more handsome. Or richer. Or whatever. So asking people why they love God is a little silly, to me.

Define Love.

You should have done that already, and tried to bring us around to that way of thinking.

Is it possible to love God or be loved by God as long as there is a condition in order foe that love to exist?

Can't imagine why not. You haven't really defined what love is and where it comes from, what makes it valid or invalid, what makes it authentic or inauthentic, etc. So I can basically say anything I want to here. If you wanted some gotcha question, you'd do better to say something like "If your love for God is unconditional, would you still love him if you knew loving him would send you to hell?"