God Is Love

“The secular world of ideas plays the doubting game almost exclusively and is usually scornful of anyone who doesn’t. Ironically, however, the Church also plays this game to a great extent. The mystery of the Gospel, the paradox of the Incarnation, and the wondrous enigma of Grace are freeze-dried into a highly rationalized and/or authoritarian system of theologies, codes, rules, prescriptions, orders of service, and forms of church government. Everything is written down, everything is organized, so that all can be certain and those in error detected.”

“In spite of our reluctance and resistance, the essence and novelty of the New Covenant is that the very law of God’s being is love. Pagan philosophers like Plato and Aristotle had arrived through human reasoning at the existence of God, speaking of Him in vague, impersonal terms as the Uncaused Cause and the Immovable Mover. The prophets of Israel had revealed the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in a more intimate and passionate manner. But only Jesus revealed that God is a Father of incomparable tenderness, and that if we take all the goodness, wisdom, and compassion of the best mothers and fathers who have ever lived, they would only be a faint shadow of the love and mercy in the heart of the redeeming God.”