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God's Love, Agape

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God's Love, Agape God is Agape as presented in his classic book Agape and Eros by Anders Nygren, 1932 a book review by Lloyd Knecht. Anders Nygren appears to harmonize with the five primary aspects of The Love of God by John F. Peckham associate professor of theology and Christian philosophy at the Theological Seminary of Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan. Five primary aspects of God’s love. 1. Divine love is volitional but not merely. It includes a free volitional aspct that is neither essential nor necessary to God’s being, yet it is also not arbitrary. God freely decided to create the world and bestow His love on all creatures. However, The divine-human love relationship Agape and Eros has been out of print for years but used copies are still available on Amazon.com for about $50 to $60. It’s never safe to take someone else’s evaluation of a book as important as one on God’s love. Beckham notes that Nygren’s views are the most prominent influence among Christians today.- is neither unilaterally deterministic nor essential or ontologically necessary to God but bilaterally volitional and contingent. 2. Divine Love is evaluative This means that God is capable of being affected by, and even being benefited by, and being benefited from, the disposition and action of his creatures. God enjoys in, takes delights in, tales pleasure in, and receives value from the disposition and actions of his creatures while being displeased by evil. Whereas absent God’s prior initiative sinful humans would be incapable of bringing anything valuable to God, through Christ’s mediation humans may bring pleasure to God. 3. God’s love is profoundly emotional, including deep and responsive affection and concern for his creatures, without amounting to undifferentiated sympathy. God is ultimately concerned with humans, feeling sorrow, passion and intense anger at evil, but also compassion and the desire to restore creatures to relationship. 4. Divine love is fore-conditional, that is that divine love is undeservedly bestowed prior to, but not exclusive of, conditions. While divine love is surpassingly enduring, steadfast and reliable, humans may reject God’s loving overtures and eventually, forfeit the benefits of his love. God’s love is thus unconditional and conditioned in different respects. God’s disposition of love is unconditional and constant, but love relationships and the benefits thereof are finally contingent upon response. The Love of God is recognized and appreciated by well-known scholars and makes a valuable contribution to the topic of God’s love. John Beckham recognizes that the conversation on God’s love will continue. However, his approach seems to have some presuppositions of his own. Referring to Nygren’s and Luther’s view he asserts, “So goes the sweeping and highly influential agape-eros distinction, which has had significance not only in popular musings on love but even in some serious theological studies. If presuppositions regarding the meaning of biblical terms for love are left unchecked, one might possess this or another presupposition of God’s love or agape, assume that is what is meant by the biblical term love, and read that preconception into the text every time terminology of love appears. This chapter seeks to avoid this outcome by a brief overview of the semantics of divine love, challenging the influential agape-eros distinction and, in the process, introducing the major biblical term for love that correspond to the wider fore-conditional- reciprocal model. “The terms included in the following brief survey were selected in conjunction with the inductive reading, investigation and analysis of the canonical data.” The Love of God p. 69 Revelation in scripture is progressive. This is the reason why Isaiah 52, 53 and Hosea give expanded understandings of the Messiah’s love and mission than was revealed to and understood by Israel before. The sanctuary was a revelation as well, but Israel, in general looked to the sacrifices themselves rather than the One they prefigured, Jesus Christ. Having studied John Beckham’s books Canonical Theology and The Love of God, A Canonical Model. It appears to me that he gives insufficient weight to an important concept stated by John the beloved in the New Testament, “The law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. No One has seen God at any time. The only begotten, Son of God, who is in the bosom of the Father He has declared Him” (John 1:17, 18). He also seems to give little significance to the noun Agape, “God is Agape” (1 John 4:8, 16) as Luther and Nygren do but refers repeatedly to the word group in which Agape as one of the words. Beckham was unsatisfied, for whatever reason, with the “highly influential” scripture derived discoveries of Luther and Nygren. It seems plain that they drew their definition on the New Testament teachings of Jesus, Paul’s epistles, and the gospel and epistles of the Apostle John. Upon what kind of scriptural evidence did Luther and later Nygren base their definition of agape? Agape and Eros by Anders Nygren must be read and compared point by point with John Beckham’s book, The Love of God, to see upon Lloyd Knecht ! 12/11/16 9:55 AM what evidence of scripture they agree or disagree. This I have done. Comment: Although Ellen White may not be considered by some as a recognized theologian , yet as a Seventh-day Adventists it is essential to give appropriate weight also to the inspired insights of Ellen G. White. I have made some comparisons and contrasts that may be useful. A correct understanding of the gospel depends in large measure on correctly understanding God’s love and our scripturally enlightened response. He appears to allow the less exhaustive definition of love in the Old testament to diminish the agape motif as revealed in the New Testament especially by Jesus, Paul, and the inspired Apostle John. The verb and the adjective in the agape word group signifies a total commitment to either good or evil as manifest in Demas experience. (see Agape and Eros for the definition of agape in the reelation of Jesus to Paul (1 Cor. 13 etc.) in Arabia. As theologians I am sure that Luther and Nygren were aware of the other words related to Agape in scripture, the verbs and adjectives. Beckham recognizes that no one, including himself, Luther and Nygren, has the complete understanding of God’s love. Beckam also disagrees with Luther and Nygren on the meaning of the word caritas which Augustine coined, which was an attempted synthesis of agape and and eros according to Luther and Nygren. Agape and Eros p. 692 According to Beckham caritas is only human love, “proper human love, caritas ,is directed upward toward God….In this way Augustine’s” The Love of God p. The subtitle in Beckham’s book The love of God in the chapter, “Agape Versus Eros” appears to state the main objective of his book to minimize “The Lloyd Knecht ! 12/2/16 11:52 AM Theological Inflation of Agape”. For the reasons above and other evidential Comment: reasons I am even more convicted, that in the main, Nygren and Luther were Lloyd Knecht ! 12/2/16 11:52 AM more right than wrong but fellowship with God needs further development. Comment: Luther as a Roman Catholic priest living in the medieval period and a student of Augustine, highly respected Augustine, yet rejected Augustine’s attempted synthesis of the contradictive concepts of egotistic eros and theistic agape to define God’s love, which according to Luther was the Roman Catholic understanding of God’s love caritas. This is confirmed in Luther’s works in Romans and Galatians which I am currently reading. Beckham seems not to recognize Augustine’s attempted synthesis of eros and agape. He refers to caritas as human love rather than eros derived from Plato and other pagan philosophers and introduced by the church father Origen and others. We will spend eternity studying God’s love and never will exhaust its height, width or depth. However, millions have been richly blessed by the beautiful biblical insights derived from the Greek noun agape used in Scripture and revealed in Nygren’s book, “Agape and Eros”. Rather than agape being a theological inflation of God’s love it falls far short. The love of God p. 70 This may seem rather presumptuous, but we should be encouraged by the fact that God used spiritual laymen, as founders of the Seventh-day church to establish a system of truth from scripture that at that time was rejected by all the learned theologians of their day and ours, but the sanctuary truth that finds its complete fulfillment in Jesus Christ as the revelation of God’s character of agape surpasses all others. The writings of Ellen White harmonizes with scripture, Luther and Nygren. For example, she says, “God is love (agape). His nature, His law, is love. It ever has been; it ever will be” (PP p. 33). “….we behold God in Jesus. Looking unto Jesus we saw that it was God’s glory to give. ‘I do nothing of myself,’ said Christ, “the living Father has sent Me, and I live by the Father.’ ‘I seek not mine own glory, but the glory of Him who sent Me.’”John 8:26; 6:57; 8:50; 7:18. In these words is set forth the great principle which is the law of life for the universe. All things Christ received from God, but He took to give. So in the heavenly courts, in His ministry for all created beings, through the beloved Son, the Father’s life flows out to all; through the Son it returns, in praise and service, a tide of love to the great source of all.
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