“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.“ says 1 John 4:8. My question is, is love God?

Question

“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.“ says 1 John 4:8. My question is, is love God? As a clarifying example, would the love a child has for his or her mother be considered God?!

Answer 1

ο θεος αγαπη εστιν [TR - I John 4:8]

These are John's exact words in that text.

The literal translation of this is 'the God love is'. It could also be rendered 'the Deity love is.'

Because the word Theos in Greek, 'God' in English, is neither a name nor a title, it is a concept. The concept is a matter of nature and the nature that is being identified is divine nature.

'I am that I am' said Deity to Moses at the burning bush. 'I am' expresses person. 'That I am' expresses nature or form.

The words that John uses in I John 4:8 are not like an equation 'God = love' which can then be reversed 'love = God'.

John tells us that divine nature, love is. He also says divine nature, light is, I John 1:5.

ο θεος φως εστιν [TR I John 1:5]

He is telling us what is the nature in which the being of deity subsists. He is not making a statement about Person. He is not stating an equivalence of a Person. He is stating what is absolutely true of that nature - divine nature, the nature of Deity.

My own being subsists in human nature, one of whose attributes is a physical manifestation of flesh and blood, the body.

Jesus tells us that the nature of God is otherwise.

Pneuma ho Theos, he says in John 4:24. Literally, 'Spirit, the Deity'. This time, it is like an equation for God - Spirit, therefore Spirit - God.

John also tells us in his gospel account :

In the beginning was the Word ... and God was the Word ... all things were made by him [John 1:1,2 KJV]

If God made all things and if God was before all things then all the things that we see and know were made by him. But he is not the same as those things. He is distinct from that which he made.

Mother and child are both made by him. And the natural instincts within both are made by him. All these things are an expression of whom and what he is. But he is not, actually, those things. He was before they existed.

Yes, they are to be seen as an expression of the Creator.

But those things, in and of themselves, cannot be the essence of Deity.

Answer 2

At 1 John 4:8 we learn that God is love, ὁ θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν. This is a predicate nominative in both English and Greek. Since the word "love" is anarthrous (lacks the article) this is a subset proposition, not a convertible proposition. If it were, it would also be true that love is God, but it is not.

In verse 9 we see that the article is repeated before θεὸς. This article is the same as a pronoun, it being anaphoric to "God" in verse 8.

So when God is love, it is God the Father who is love as the God in verse 9 has a Son.

It is quite impossible for it to have the sense of a divine nature. In fact ο Θεός never means divine nature.

Answer 3

I am more and more convinced that it is more a force and at the same time a kind of energy behind intentions and actions, best described as a concept that drives all things,

itself.

We can't grasp directly but we can see when we act from a place of egoism or from a place of love.

Consider: If you do something from a place of love it will yield different results as when you do the same thing without.

I guess that can not be grasped with concepts or words, but you can FEEL it when you feel most alive, in your highest and lowest times.

In an intense cry of pain as well as in an ecstatic rush. Being alive, feeling the life float through is, communicating ... with life. With god.

As Marcus Aurelius puts it:

"Three relationships i. with the body you inhabit; ii. with the devine, the cause of everything in all things; iii. with the people arround you."

• Book 8 / 27 i Meditations

Answer 4

Does God have features? Yes, He does, for He is "just", "merciful", "[all]-knowing", "[all]-powerful", "loving" etc. I abstain from acting as stupidly as even to bother your eyes by giving quotes from the Bible, in such a casual and commonplace way those attributes are acclaimed of God!

If so, and if God has attributes, now, are those attributes co-eternal to Him or not? Of course, co-eternal, for attributes in created, contingent, finite and perishable beings are also perishable and removable from those beings; for instance, let us for a convenience take this example and assume an antique (in fact, not only antique for that matter) view that poets are inspired from heaven: a human poet cannot write a masterpiece unless he is possessed by divine inspiration, but this inspiration is removable from him, for it is not his necessary attribute (and when he will write for money without inspiration, it will be a garbage), whereas in God all attributes are necessary, eternal, changeless and irremovable.

Now, can we say that God is divided in parts and He is partly good, partly loving, partly just, partly wise etc.? Stupid even to consider it! For indeed He is wholly and entirely good, wholly and entirely just, altogether and completely loving, altogether and completely merciful etc. Therefore, we can say that God "has" love - why not? - and we can say that He loves - again, who can hinder us from saying it? - but nicer and theologically more agreeable would be to say together with John that "He is love", and add that "He is also justice", and "He is also wisdom", and "He is also the power".

By the same token, when we speak about those attributes of God, are they God? Yes, indeed, in a certain definite sense, for those attributes eternally pertain to Him, and if eternally, then before the world was made; and if before the world was made, then uncreated; and if uncreated, then God, for beyond the created world - including all quarks and atoms of the created world's perceptible part and all the angels and archangels of the created world's imperceptible part - is nothing but God.

Yet, it is meet to distinguish the personal (hypostatic) aspect in God, which is Three, from His essential (ousia-tic) aspect, which is One, and from His attributive or energetic aspect, which are Many (like love, mercy, wisdom, power, justice, truth etc.).