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Love of God can mean either love forGod or love by God. Love for God (philotheia) is associated with the concepts ofworship, and devotions towards God.[1]
TheGreek termtheophilia means the love or favour of God,[2] andtheophilos means friend of God, originally in the sense of being loved by God or loved by the gods;[3][4] but is today sometimes understood in the sense of showing love for God.[5][6][7]
The Greek termagape is applied both to the love that human beings have for God and to the love that God has for them.[8]
The teachings of theBaháʼí Faith hold that the love of God (philanthropia).[9][10]ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, the son of the founder of the religion wrote:"There is nothing greater or more blessed than theLove of God! It gives healing to the sick, balm to the wounded, joy and consolation to the whole world, and through it alone can man attain Life Everlasting. The essence of all religions is the Love of God, and it is the foundation of all the sacred teachings."[11]
TheOld Testament uses a rich vocabulary to express the love of God, as a concept that appears in many instances.[12] The Lord expresses his love through the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah and says, "I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving kindness" (Jeremiah 31:2).[13] However, theexegesis of the love of God in the Old Testament has presented problems for modern scholars.[14] The love of God appears in a number of texts (e.g. Hosea 1–3, and then in Ezek 16 and Isa 62) but resolving the references to produce a consistent interpretation has been challenging and subject to debate.[14]
Emeritus Professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in 'The Difficult Doctrine of Love,[citation needed] says both the love of God and the wrath of God are ratcheted up in the New Testament over the Old. Also the concluding verses of several epistles emphasis love (1 Corinthians 16:22,Ephesians 6:24,2 Thess 3:5).
Many of the most stunning promises in the Bible are for those who love God, notablyRomans 8:28 (all things working for good for those who love God) andDeuteronomy 7:9 part of the prelude to the 10 commandments (those loving God being blessed to a thousands generations, where many of the worst curses in the Old Testament where curses went to 4 or 10 generations). Jonathan Edwards said his chief obligation was to raise the affections of his congregation as high as he could toward God in volume 4 of the Yale edition of his works, entitled “The Great Awakening.”[15]
Both the terms love of God andlove of Christ appear in theNew Testament. In cases such as in Romans 8:35 andRomans 8:39 their use is related in the experience of the believer, without asserting their equality.[16] InJohn 14:31 Jesus expresses his love forGod the Father.[17] This verse includes the only direct statement by Jesus in the New Testament about Jesus' love for God the Father.[17]
Inpolytheism, that which is loved by the gods (τὸ θεοφιλές) was identified as thevirtuous orpious.Socrates famously asked whether this identification is atautology (seeEuthyphro dilemma).
InGreek,philotheos means "loving God, pious", asphilosophos means a lover of wisdom (sophia).2 Timothy 3:4, using the wordphilotheos in the plural form, speaks of certain people as φιλήδονοι μᾶλλον ἢ φιλόθεοι (lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God). The wordTheophilos was and is used as a proper name, but does not appear as an adjective or common noun in Greek,[18] which uses instead the formtheophilês, which means "dear to God" but also "loving God".
However,Eric Voegelin usedtheophilos to mean "lover of God": "In thePhaedrus,Plato hasSocrates describe the characteristics of the true thinker. When Phaedrus asks what one should call such a man, Socrates, followingHeraclitus, replies that the termsophos, one who knows, would be excessive: this attribute may be applied to God alone: but one might well call himphilosophos, a lover of wisdom. Thus in the classic sense and reference of 'philosophy', actual knowledge is reserved to God; finite man can only be the lover of knowledge, not himself the one who possesses knowledge. In the meaning of the passage, the lover of the knowledge that belongs only to the knowing God, thephilosophos, becomes thetheophilos, the lover of God."[19]
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Bhakti is a Sanskrit term meaning "loving devotion to the supreme God". A person who practices bhakti is called a bhakta. Hindu writers, theologians, and philosophers have distinguished nine forms of bhakti, which can be found in the Bhagavata Purana and works by Tulsidas. The philosophical work Narada Bhakti Sutras, written by an unknown author (presumed to beNarada), distinguishes eleven forms of love.
Devotees ofKrishna worship him in different emotional, transcendental raptures, known asrasas. Two major systems of Krishna worship developed, each with its own philosophical system. These two systems areaishwaryamaya bhakti andmadhuryamaya bhakti.Aishwaryamaya bhakti is revealed in the abode of queens and kingdom of Krishna inDwaraka.Madhuryamaya Bhakti is revealed in the abode ofBraja. Thus Krishna is variously worshipped according to the development of devotee's taste in worshipping the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Sri Krishna, as father, friend, master, beloved and many different varieties which are all extraordinary. Krishna is famous asMakhanchor, or butter thief. He loved to eat butter and is the beloved of his little village inGokul. These are all transcendental descriptions. Thus they are revealed to the sincere devotees in proportion to the development in their love of Godhead.Vaishnavism is a form ofmonotheism, sometimes described as 'polymorphic monotheism', with implication that there are many forms of one original deity, defined as belief in a single unitary deity who takes many forms. In Krishnaism this deity is Krishna, sometimes referred as intimate deity – as compared with the numerous four-armed forms ofNarayana orVishnu.[20] It may refer to either of the interrelated concepts of the love of God towards creation, the love of creatures towards God or relationship between the two as inbhakti.
The love of God, and thefear of God, are two of the foundations ofIslam. The highest spiritual attainment in Islam is related to the love of God. "Yet there are men who take (for worship) others besides God, as equal (with God): They love them as they should love God. But those of Faith are overflowing in their love for God." (Quran 2:165). Another Islamic concept is that God's love leads towards good deeds "And feed with food the needy, the orphan and the prisoner, for love of Him (i.e. God)."
Islam, as Christianity, has numerousmystics and traditions about the love of God, as in:
The concept of Divine Love, known asIshq-e-Haqeeqi (Persian), is elaborated by many great Muslim saints to date. Some Sufi writers and poets may have taken human love as a metaphor to define Divine Love but the prominent mystics explain the concept in its entirety and reveal its hardcore reality.Rabia Basri, the famous 7th century mystic, is known as the first female to have set the doctrine of Divine Love.[22] In IslamicSufism, Ishq means to love God selflessly and unconditionally. ForRumi, 'Sufism' itself is Ishq and not the path ofasceticism (zuhd).[23] According toSultan Bahoo, Ishq means to serve God by devoting one's entire life to Him and asking no reward in return.
The love of God has been called the "essence ofJudaism". "And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might." (Deut 6:5)
Goethe expresses the sentiment of love of God alongside the opposite sentiment ofhatred of God in his two poemsGanymed andPrometheus, respectively.
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