Love of God

Love of God can mean either love for God or love by God. Love for God (philotheia) is associated with the concepts of worship, and devotions towards God. Love of God can mean either love for God or love by God. Love for God (philotheia) is associated with the concepts of worship, and devotions towards God. The Greek term theophilia means the love or favour of God, and theophilos means friend of God, originally in the sense of being loved by God or loved by the gods; but is today sometimes understood in the sense of showing love for God. The Greek term agape is applied both to the love that human beings have for God and to the love that God has for man. The teachings of the Bahá'í Faith hold that the love of God (philanthropia) is the primary reason for human creation, and one of the primary purposes of life. The love of God purifies human hearts and through it humans become transformed and self-sacrificing, as they reflect more the attributes and qualities of God. `Abdu'l-Bahá, the son of the founder of the religion wrote:'There is nothing greater or more blessed than the Love 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.' The Old Testament uses a rich vocabulary to express the love of God, as a concept that appears in many instances. 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 31:3). However, the exegesis of the love of God in the Old Testament has presented problems for modern scholars. 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. Both the terms love of God and love of Christ appear in the New Testament. In cases such as in Romans 8:35 and Romans 8:39 their use is related in the experience of the believer, without asserting their equality. In John 14:31 Jesus expresses his love for God the Father. This verse includes the only direct statement by Jesus in the New Testament about Jesus' love for God the Father. In polytheism, that which is loved by the gods (τὸ θεοφιλές) was identified as the virtuous or pious. Socrates famously asked whether this identification is a tautology (see Euthyphro dilemma). In Greek, philotheos means 'loving God, pious', as philosophos means a lover of wisdom (sophia). 2 Timothy 3:4, using the word philotheos in the plural form, speaks of certain people as φιλήδονοι μᾶλλον ἢ φιλόθεοι (lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God). The word Theophilos was and is used as a proper name, but does not appear as an adjective or common noun in Greek, which uses instead the form theophilês, which means 'dear to God' but also 'loving God'. However, Eric Voegelin used theophilos to mean 'lover of God': 'In the Phaedrus, Plato has Socrates describe the characteristics of the true thinker. When Phaedrus asks what one should call such a man, Socrates, following Heraclitus, replies that the term sophos, one who knows, would be excessive: this attribute may be applied to God alone: but one might well call him philosophos, 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, the philosophos, becomes the theophilos, the lover of God.'