Theology of Love

October 6, 2014

Theology and love are two subjects probably best left untouched so they might stand alone

and speak for themselves. They are both heavy and dense subjects which, when approached by

human articulation, often drift away like weightless clouds into the intangible abstracts of our

neocortical selves. Yet, that is exactly the aim of the following pages. Who is God? What is love?

How are they related? The discussions which emanate from these questions are prone to ambiguity,

yet this paper will seek a ground-level understanding of God and love, an understanding that is not

only known in the mind but also felt on the skin. This understanding is truly love and truly life as

God made it. When things are as they should be, love is the beginning, middle, and end of all; it is

the origin and destination; it is the cause and effect. In order to truly be itself, love must be lived.

A theology of love begins with God, which is still a vague place to begin, because there are

many religious, ideological, and philosophical places to begin when starting with God. For this

paper, I will begin with God as expressed and known according to the biblical story. The Bible,

indeed, begins with God: In the beginning, God1 Before creation there was God. This is where

we must begin with love, for the kind of God that stood before creation will determine the nature

of love. Dr. Timothy Keller explains the effect that the Christian understanding of a triune God has

on love:

If God is unipersonal, then until God created other beings there was no love, since love is
something that one person has for another Love then is not of the essence of God, nor is
it at the heart of the universe However, if God is triune, then loving relationships in
community are the great fountain at the center of reality in the Christian conception,
God really has love as his essence Ultimate reality is a community of persons who know
and love one another.2

1
Genesis 1:1 (ESV)
2
Timothy Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (New York, NY: Dutton, 2007), 216.
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Beginning with God, a theology of love establishes that loving relationship truly is the fabric of

existence. It is the origin of everything because, as the scriptures claim, God is love.3 Furthermore,

it is not only the origin but also the cause of everything. Keller continues, with the help of George

Marsden summarizing Jonathan Edwards, to describe creation as an overflow of Gods love:

The ultimate reason that God creates is not to remedy some lack in God, but to extend
that perfect internal communication of the triune Gods goodness and love Gods joy and
happiness and delight in divine perfections is expressed externally by communicating that
happiness and delight to created beings The universe is an explosion of Gods glory
The love of the inner life of the Trinity is written all through it.4

We can see from this that, because of the interpersonal nature of the triune God, love is the origin

of all things and that, because love naturally expands, it is also the cause of all things. God created

out of love. After an eternity of living in perfect triune love, God saw it fit to create the heavens and

earth, and to fill it with plants, animals, and, most of all, humanity in order to share his love.

Love is seen not only in Gods triune interrelationship and in that God made us, but also in

what we are made of. Love is both intangible theologies and measurable chemicals. Love, as we

understand and know it, has its beginnings in the brain. Psychiatrists Lewis, Amini, and Lannon

discuss the science of love at length with these particular comments concerning brain structure:

As mammals split off from the reptilian line, a fresh neural structure blossomed within their
skulls. This brand new brain transformed not just the mechanics of reproduction but also
the organismic orientation toward offspring Mammals, in other words, take care of their
own The limbic brain also permits mammals to sing to their children And mammals
can play with one another, an activity unique to animals possessing limbic hardware.5

Most of the activities that we associate with love (care, song, play) are rooted in our brains limbic

system. Love begins within the interrelated triune God who, because of this love, then makes all

things. Love is also seen in what we are made of: limbic brains with neurotransmitters that are

3
1 John 4:8b (ESV)
4
Keller, Reason for God, 218-219
5
Thomas Lewis, M.D., et al., A General Theory of Love (New York, NY: Vintage Books, 2000), 25-26
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programmed for love. We truly are programmed or wired for love. Theologians have been pointing

to Genesis 2, It is not good that the man should be alone,6 to communicate this for ages, but

scientists and psychologists have begun to construct an understanding of this as well with attachment

theory and other studies. Lewis, Amini, and Lannon discuss this as well:

The mammalian nervous system depends for its neurophysiologic stability on a system of
interactive coordination, wherein steadiness comes from synchronization with nearby
attachment figures.This necessary intermingling of physiologies makes relatedness and
communal living the center of human life.7

Love began with an interrelated triune God and now it can be seen in our interrelated communal

selves. Love is the beginning, the origin, and the cause of all things, but it is also the effect. What

does love look like when it is lived? Even now, we still have a swirling atmospheric abstract of love.

What does love look like on ground-level? For this we shall press forward in the biblical narrative.

To fully discuss and disclose the story of God in the biblical narrative would be a joyous and

worthwhile venture, yet one outside the bounds of this paper. Therefore, I will mention a few

episodic snapshots and offer up a theme that appears to weave through the narrative as a whole.

Theologians and pastors tell us that creation began in perfect loving community between

God, nature, and man, yet they never hesitate to remind us that it all went wrong. Man and woman

did not reciprocate the love that God had offered them, so the dance of love,8 as Keller calls it, had

the potential of coming to a halt. Yet this is not how the story goes. Instead, we see love literally on

the ground-level as God came walking in the garden in the cool of the day calling to the man and

woman, Where are you?9 In the garden humanity hid but God came looking.

6
Genesis 2:18 (ESV)
7
Lewis et al., Theory of Love, 84-86
8
Keller, Reason for God, 216
9
Genesis 3:8-9 (ESV)
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 In Haran, God meets a man named Abram and promises to bless him, make him into a great

nation, and provide a home for him. In Beersheba, God meets Abrams son, Isaac, to reaffirm the

promises that had been made. In Luz, God meets Isaacs son, Jacob, through a dream to pass on the

promise. In Egypt, Jacobs youngest son, Joseph, rises to power and his family soon joins. The family

grows into a nation, which is overtaken by the Egyptians and cast into slavery.

In Midian, God meets Moses and declares that he has remembered his people and wants to

rescue them. At Sinai, the people are delivered and they make covenant with God. Much like the

garden, it does not take long for the people to lose track of God. Again, they did not reciprocate his

love and they found themselves wandering in the wilderness. Yet, in the wilderness, God meets

Joshua, a new leader, and remains with his people.

Before long, the people want a king for themselves. In Zuph, a prophet of God anoints a

man named Saul to be king. When Saul turns on God, God chooses another king. In Bethlehem,

David is anointed as king and became the great king of Israel. After David, the nation split in two

and their history becomes varied through many kings, some who followed God and some who led

the people far from God. Still, God did not abandon his people; God spoke through prophets; God

continued the dance of love.

Why tell the story of all these places and all these people? It displays a ground-level picture

of love. Love is not merely an abstract ideology. In order to truly be love it must be lived. Love has

location and persons, communication and actions. What does this brief thousand year gloss across

the biblical story display about love? Love has something to do with faithfulness. God never

abandoned his people. God cared for them, sung to them, and some may even suggest that God

played with them. Even when they did not love, God continued loving.

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 This faithfulness is what Esther Meek calls a pledge. She begins her covenantal epistemology

with love. When describing the pledge she writes, Any knowing venture requires the knower to

take responsibility for it, to pledge him or herself to it. Commitment is the way we dispose

ourselves toward the thing we want to know. We take a responsible step of choice to bind

ourselves in covenant with it.10 Regarding covenant and promise she writes that they are persons

acts of love. They are commitments of love.11 So, love has to do with faithfulness, pledging, and

commitment.

Love also has to do with self-giving. In Bethlehem, in Nazareth, in Galilee, in Judea, in

Jerusalem, and at Golgotha, Jesus showed love perfectly by giving up his life. This is not only love

on ground-level but God on ground-level. The biblical story reaches its climax in the cross when

Jesus (God-in-flesh) displays the greatest love by giving himself completely.

Love is the beginning and the middle; it is the cause and effect; it is the origin of all things; it

is also the end and destination of all things. The biblical narrative may reach its climax in the cross,

but is does not reach its end there. It proclaims the resurrection and the ultimate restoration of all

things. Love is a committed and self-giving present, but it is also a coming future. It is a future

which we are living into through our friendships and families, by our serving and our giving. We

now have the opportunity to join God in the dance of love.

That God has shown commitment grants us faith; that God has given himself grants us

hope; that God is with us and will be with us forever grants us love. That is why there is faith, hope,

and love, but the greatest of these is love.12

10
Esther Meek, A Little Manual for Knowing, (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2014), 26.
11
Ibid., 16.
12
1 Corinthians 13:13 (ESV)
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 Bibliography

Keller, Timothy. The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. New York, NY: Dutton, 2007.

Lewis, Thomas, M.D., Fari Amini, M.D., Richard Lannon, M.D. A General Theory of Love. New

York, NY: Vintage Books, 2000.

Meek, Esther Lightcap. A Little Manual for Knowing. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2014.