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God's Love

Does God love his people in a special way? Yes and No. Scripture seems to say three things about God's love:

He loves all people, and indeed all his creation, the same.
He has special love for the anawim, the poor, the powerless, the downtrodden.
He has special love for his own people.

How do we understand this apparent contradiction? Recently Philip Clark gave me the key: God's love is not simple but complex, not just one type but a harmony of several types. Two that Philip mentioned are: affective love, in which the love is a response to the qualities of the other, so that we are affected by the other, and agape love, in which love emanates to the other regardless of their qualities or lack thereof. Christians are used to emphasizing agape because it is the more remarkable and is the one that is supremely exhibited in Christ's death, but we can see that agape embraces affective love in that it could not be full agape if the lover were not affected by the one loved. God's love, it seems, involves both.

Because of God's agape love he must love all things in his creation the same, regardless of their specific qualities.
Because of God's affective love God has special love for his people.
Because of both, God has special love for the poor, powerless and downtrodden: his compassion.

These pages present 'New View' theology. Comments, queries welcome, to "xn @ basden . u-net . com".

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Created: 8 February 2004. Last updated: 15 February 2004 Philip Clark.