God Is Love

As you know, I think Tim Barnett @ Red Pen Logic is, by and large, a pretty good resource for Christian Apologetics material.  However, Ecclesiastical Tradition is strong in these last days, & Tim could do with some fine tuning. 

It’s true that God is love & light as a matter of essential predication, but that doesn’t mean that in the realm of Christian Ethics God judges us based on the identity of the people we ourselves love.   

God judges us based on our motives - not the mere identity of the target of our service to the community.  For example, we are told that it would be immoral to attend a gay wedding because that amounts to the sin of collaborating with the Enemy.  

How so?  Based on the identity of the couple (2 gay people) & the meaning of the cake, it is immoral to bake the cake.   The baker is judged by us to be in sin based on the identity of his clients & the meaning of the cake. 

The Bible says that what is immoral is a matter of the heart, not the identity of our clients & the cake.  1 Samuel, Proverbs, Jeremiah, Matthew, & James all inform that God looks into our hearts at our internal volitional mechanism, not at who we are paracleting & the meaning of the cake, photos, & website. 

Matthew 22:34–40 (ESV): But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” 

 

This text teaches us that the First Table of the Law is summarized by “Love God over & above everything & everyone else, & love your neighbor before yourself.  All the rest hangs on these two principles.  

How does Matthew define adultery? Does  Matthew 5:27 - 28 target the mere act of looking at someone who isn’t your spouse regardless of motive?  No!  According to the text, sexual immorality/adultery is defined by lustful intent - our inward love for God & neighbor must be reordered by God in order to avoid the charge of lustful intent.     

Romans 13:8–10 (ESV): Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. 

 This text informs us that perfect love for God & neighbor fulfills the Law. 

1 John 4:16–18 (ESV): God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 

This text teaches us that perfected love drives out guilt & fear.  If we love God first & foremost & then our neighbor before ourselves. we will find ourselves vindicated in the Judgment.  

At no point does the Bible teach that we are in sin based solely on external factors like the identity of who we paraclete the meaning of the cake.   This applied to every thought, word, & deed.  If not, then we can please God apart from the degree of love we have for Him & others, which ultimately leads to works righteousness.  After all, if there is even just one thing for which God condemns or commends us that hangs on external factors only & not our internal volitional mechanism, then we can please God while in the flesh, which is works righteousness writ large.

Moreover, if it’s wrong to romantically love someone of the same sex because of the sex/gender, then what makes homosexuality immoral is the fact that the epistemic warrant for human sexual ethics is found in an embedded teleological principle located in human anatomy & physiology & our psychology.   

According to Romans 1:20, the teleological function of the created order is to testify to **God’s** existence, attributes, & authority—not our own.   The text of Romans 1 tells us that people authorized their own image & that of animals and crafted idols that they worshipped & for whom they engaged in heterosexual & homosexual sexual practices that led to the debased mind thing & kitchen sink immorality that led to fall of more than one ancient civilization.   

The traditional view on this is built on 3 to 3 logical, epistemic, & exegetical fallacies : Is-Ought, Vicious Circularity, Overspecification, & Category Error. If used as a response to a homosexual who appeals to his genetics to warrant his sexual ethics, the result for the apologist is Special Pleading.    Elimination of these fallacies results in the view described above not the traditional view. 

See Here, Here, & Here for more.

As always, may God bless us all, each & every one & “Go & sin no more.”