Prime Motivation of the Universe is Love

• Assumptions – God is love 1 John 4:8– love requires another – love is a choice and requires free will John 3:16

• If these three assumptions are true, then the Pre-existing eternal Creator Love Being had a need to create love beings with the same capacity of love

• Love demanded that another type of Love Being be created with the same:

• capacity• legitimacy• tenacity• intensity• expression

Jer 31:3 I have loved you with an everlasting (eternal thatis not limited to temporal time): Therefore, with lovingkindness have I drawn you

LOVE

Eternity past Eternity future

Love is Eternal

Rev 4:11 for you (God) have created all things for your (God’s) pleasure

Point 1: It was enjoyable for HimPoint 2: Love was a good reason/motivation for Him to create

LOVE

Eternal past

Creates space, time (temporal not eternal), matter

Eternal future

Why were we created?

Rev 4:11 for you (God) have created all things for your (God’s) pleasure (we were created for His pleasure)

Gen 1:26 and God said, let us make man in our image, after ourlikeness….

image and likeness: the “created love being” had to have the same capacity for love as the “Creator love being”

Love has to have the ability to be rejected for it to existIt is a choice => free choice

LOVE

Eternal past (no other love beings exist)

“Creator Love Being” creates first “created love being”

Eternal future

John 14:15 if you love me you will obey my commands (love is tiedto disobedience); if you disobey, you do not love: Adam, first Love Being, disobeyed and hence rejected love for the first time

God made a plan though that if a “Created Love Being” wouldreject love, He would come into the creation and forge a pathfor reunification of love. Love was that important.

If you were the only “Created Love Being” who rejected love,He still would have come. It was planned from the foundation of

earth Eph 1:4 He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world.

LOVE

Eternal past

First “created love being” disobeys and therefore rejects love

Eternal future

Loss of Love Relationship

John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His onlybegotten son, that whoever believes in Him will not perishbut will have everlasting life

The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ was the meansto restore to original design of the love relationship between twoentities that had the capacity to love

LOVE

Eternal past

Creator Love Being interjects himself into the creationfor loves sake to restore the path of a love relationship

Eternal future

Restoration of Love Relationship

In eternity past, the Creator Love Being was alone. For love tobe truly exercised/fulfilled, He created love beings with the samecapacity to reciprocate love in the same dimensions and attributes that love demands, whether it is exhibited fromthe Creator Love Being or from a Created Love Being

The created love beings existed in the space, time, matter continuumas an experiment for love to be fulfilled: some rejected and somereceived the love

In eternity future, love is fulfilled as those created love beings how received love will be

with the Creator Love Being forever

LOVE

Eternal past Eternal future

Love History

Summary

LOVE

Eternal past Eternal future

Love is the Prime Motivation of Universe

This is why Christianity is the best philosophical belief system one could have: it is purely motivated out of love.

Ramifications exist if love is rejected=>sin and death

space, time, matter continuum

Ramifications of Rejection of Love

• Why does abuse, evil, wickedness, pain, torture, etc. exist if God is a God of love? (Question raised by an atheist) Why do bad things happen?

• Epicurus: God either wishes to take away evils and is unable; or he is able, and is unwilling; or he is neither willing nor able; or he is both willing and able. If he is willing and unable, he is feeble, which does not agree with the character of God; if he able and unwilling, he is malacious, which is equally at odds with God; if he is neither willing nor able, he is both malicious and feeble and therefore not God; if he both willing and able, which is alone suitable to God, from what source then come evils? Or why does he not remove them?”

Lack of undestanding of Love

• Liebniz: “God has created the best of all possible worlds.”• Liebniz: “We cannot see such an order so long as we do

not enjoy the correct point of view, just as a picture in perspective is best appreciated only from certain standpoints and cannot be seen properly from another angle.”

• The correct point of view’s is obviously God’s view and it is motivated by love, which requires free will.

• Free will is crucial to the definition of love; for love to exist, it has to have the capability for it to be rejected. There is cause-effect designed into the universe: there are bad effects that arise when love is rejected. There are consequences for actions, both when love is received and rejected.

• The free will aspect of love is so important that God will allow this evil for love to be fulfilled.

Ramifications of Rejection of Love• We were designed to give/receive love• Rejecting love=>consequence of going against design• Rejection of love/God is a rejection of His protection,

promises, and intimacy• Hosea 4:6 my people have rejected knowledge (intimacy);

because you have rejected knowledge, I will reject you….• Gen 4:1 Adam knew Eve (to know was sexual intimacy)• Context: Husband (Hosea)-wife (Gomer) relationship and

the parallel of God-Israelite relationship and Christ-New Testament Church

• Eph 5: 25, 28, 33 Husbands love your wives even as Christ loves the church…so even husbands need to love their wives even as their own bodies…this is a great mystery, but I speak as concerning Christ and the church

LOVE

Eternal past

“Created love being” born in Adam (rejection of love; sin)

Eternal future

Ramifications of Receiving of Love

Death (separation from God and love)

1 Cor 15:22 For in Adam we all dieJohn 3:17-18 For God did not send his son to condemn the world; but that it might be saved (delivered). He that believes in Him is not condemned, but he that does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name (character) of the only Son of God1 Cor 15:47 first man (Adam) second man (Jesus)1 Cor 15:45 first Adam, last Adam (Jesus) a quickening spirit

In Christ

LOVE

Eternal past

any created love being in Adam (rejection of love; sin)

Eternal future

Ramifications of Receiving of Love

Death (separation from God and love)

In Christ

2 Cor 7:2 we have wronged no man (Paul said this)Acts 7:58-60 Stephen was stoned and died at Paul’s feet (Saul at that time) Did Paul lie? He had wronged Stephen……and others.No…..Acts 7:58-60 he was in Adam, 2 Cor 7:2 he was in Christ2 Cor 5:17 All things are new: we not only have a new future, we have a new pastPsalm 103:12 as far as the east is from the west, so are our sins away from us

Jesus spoke of the prime motivation of the universe

Matt 22:36-40 you shall the love your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and Strength and love your neighbors as yourself (2 greatest laws of which the whole law and prophets submit)

Vertical love: relation of Created Love Beings with Creator Love BeingHorizontal love: relations between Created Love Beings

10 Commandments communicated by Moses: first 4 were related to vertical relationships and second 6 were related to horizontal relationships

Hundreds of commandments communicated in the Pentateuch

Matt 22:36-40 you shall the love your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbors as yourself (2 greatest laws of which the whole law and prophets submit)

Deut 6:5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mightLev 19:18 Love your neighbor as yourself

Old Testament References to 2 Most Important Laws

New Testament References to 2 Most Important Laws

Greek=agape

Hebrew=ahevet

Different Kinds of Love

1. agape: unconditional love: parent’s love for their children

Matt 22:36-40

2. phileo: brotherly love

Heb 13:1 Let brotherly love continue

3. eros: sexual, romantic love

Song of Solomon 8:6 love is as strong as death…many waters cannot quench love , neither can floods quench it

4. like: C.S. Lewis discussed that this might be the lowest form of love: eg. I love eggs.In fact, it is probably not love because it does not require another love being.

Aspects of Agape Love

Mat 5:43-46 you have heard that it has been said that you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemies, but I say to you, love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you; and pray for them which despitefully use you andpersecute you.

1 John 4:20 if a man say I love God and hate his brother, he is a liar; for he that does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen.

The most you love God is the least you love your worst enemy

John 15:9-17 As my father has loved me, so have I loved you; continue in my love. If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my father’s commandments, and abide in his love…..this is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. ……these things I command you that you love one another

Romans 8: 35, 37-39 who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or sword? …No, but in these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us fromthe love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The Love of God is always in operation focused on every Created Love Being, even if it is rejected, even if the most important needs of the created love being are not met: food clothing, and shelter.

Aspects of Agape Love

Attributes of Love (Agape) Reciprocated from one Love Being to Another

• I Cor 13:4-13 – Patient– Kind– Does not envy– Not prideful nor arrogant– Proper behavior, respects others– Selfless– Not easily provoked– Thinks no evil of others and gives others benefit of the doubt– Does not rejoice in sinful activities– Rejoices in truth– Bears all things– Believes all things– Hopes all things– Endures all things; it doesn’t fail; it outlasts everything– Of the 3 most fundamental quantities: faith, hope, and love, love is the

greatest (most important)– Why? Because it is the Prime Motivation of the Universe