God is LOVE. What this means is that God is love's ground of being, its foundation. Love derives its existence, its ontology, from God. Take God out of the picture and you take love out as well.
But what does love mean, anyway? What does it mean to love something or someone? I propose this definition: LOVE IS THE RECOGNITION OF BEAUTY IN THE OBJECT AND THE DESIRE FOR ITS CONTINUANCE IN THE OBJECT, BOTH FOR THE GOOD OF THE OBJECT (AGAPE) AND THE SUBJECT'S SATISFACTION (PHILEO).
Given this definition, we can see that when Scripture commands us to love our fellow man, what it is essentially telling us is that we should open our eyes to see the beauty of every human being and desire their good, which translates to us deriving pleasure from the beauty beheld. Man was so wired by God that beauty gives him pleasure, as it does God.
God's love for man is of the same nature. God loves His people, desires their ultimate good and derives pleasure from seeing the BEAUTY OF CHRISTLIKENESS in them. In the end, EVERY HUMAN BEING DEVOID OF CHRISTLIKENSS (that is to say UGLY or LACKING IN BEAUTY) shall forever be expelled from God's sight and presence.
But why is it often hard to love? I believe it is a problem of truth deficiency (just as vitamin deficiency causes physiological problems, truth deficiency causes spiritual and psychological problems). In fact, all of life's ills are solved by the acquisition and enfleshment of truth. The difficulty in loving another person has to do with a blindness that has descended that prevents the beholding of beauty in the other. Without beauty perceived, there would be no reason to love, and this is natural. The key is in gaining a vision of the beauty that exists in the person. How is this vision acquired? By knowing, believing, and living the truth about the object of love. In the marriage relationship, beauty is intrinsic to it and to both parties involved by virtue of it being an earthly model of Jesus Christ's relationship to the Church. In other human relationships, the anthropological truths of Scripture serve as the backbone of the love that must mutually exist between persons. Emotional roadblocks to love are dealt with by the filling of the mind with these truths, as every emotion has at its root a believed notion.
But what does love mean, anyway? What does it mean to love something or someone? I propose this definition: LOVE IS THE RECOGNITION OF BEAUTY IN THE OBJECT AND THE DESIRE FOR ITS CONTINUANCE IN THE OBJECT, BOTH FOR THE GOOD OF THE OBJECT (AGAPE) AND THE SUBJECT'S SATISFACTION (PHILEO).
Given this definition, we can see that when Scripture commands us to love our fellow man, what it is essentially telling us is that we should open our eyes to see the beauty of every human being and desire their good, which translates to us deriving pleasure from the beauty beheld. Man was so wired by God that beauty gives him pleasure, as it does God.
God's love for man is of the same nature. God loves His people, desires their ultimate good and derives pleasure from seeing the BEAUTY OF CHRISTLIKENESS in them. In the end, EVERY HUMAN BEING DEVOID OF CHRISTLIKENSS (that is to say UGLY or LACKING IN BEAUTY) shall forever be expelled from God's sight and presence.
But why is it often hard to love? I believe it is a problem of truth deficiency (just as vitamin deficiency causes physiological problems, truth deficiency causes spiritual and psychological problems). In fact, all of life's ills are solved by the acquisition and enfleshment of truth. The difficulty in loving another person has to do with a blindness that has descended that prevents the beholding of beauty in the other. Without beauty perceived, there would be no reason to love, and this is natural. The key is in gaining a vision of the beauty that exists in the person. How is this vision acquired? By knowing, believing, and living the truth about the object of love. In the marriage relationship, beauty is intrinsic to it and to both parties involved by virtue of it being an earthly model of Jesus Christ's relationship to the Church. In other human relationships, the anthropological truths of Scripture serve as the backbone of the love that must mutually exist between persons. Emotional roadblocks to love are dealt with by the filling of the mind with these truths, as every emotion has at its root a believed notion.
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