Letters

God's love (letter)

Justin Ford

Contents - May 2000 - Buy a copy now Editorial: Australian Catholic Bishops' Conference - Michael Gilchrist Australian Catholic University student survey - Michael Gilchrist News: The Church Around the World How do we know whether a sacrament is valid or not? - Fr Peter Joseph The priesthood: John Paul II's Holy Thursday Letter sets guidelines - Pope John Paul II What are the foundations of a good Catholic education? - Dr. John J. Haldane Understanding the Incarnation - Msgr Peter J. Elliott Books: Francis Thompson: author of 'The Hound of Heaven' - Michael Daniel How the future John Paul II saved a Jewish girl's life - Zenit News Service Letters: Women's report: a reply (letter) - Dr Marie McDonald Letters: Nothing to do? (letter) - Frank Mobbs Letters: More on Adelaide (letter) - Margret E. Mills Letters: Women in the Church (letter) - Marie Kennedy Letters: 'Day of Pardon' (letter) - Paul MacLeod Letters: Reply to Fr Frank Brennan (letter) - Richard Egan Letters: God's love (letter) - Justin Ford Letters: EWTN visit (letter) - Mike Keating Letters: Mixed marriages (letter) - John Schmidt Letters: Archbishop Pell defended (letter) - Fr Kevin Ryan Letters: Year of the Lord (letter) - Fr Chrysostom Alexander Books: 'Three Inns of Everlasting Happiness' by Fr Fabian Duggan - Catherine Sheehan (reviewer) Books: 'The Wisdom of Adrian Fortescue' ed. Michael Davies - Michael Daniel (reviewer) Books: 'The Legacy of Pope John Paul II' ed. Geoffrey Gneuhs - Anthony Cappello (reviewer) Books: 'The Ever-Illuminating Wisdom of St Thomas Aquinas' by Peter Kreeft et al - Tracey Rowland (reviewer) Reflection: Mary's divine motherhood: central to God's plan of salvation - Sr Mary Augustine Lane OP

Fr G. H. Duggan (March AD2000) rightly insists on the necessity of keeping the commandments if we are to retain the virtue of charity and the life of grace, without which we will be eternally deprived of the vision of God. However, as other correspondents have pointed out, this doctrine must not lead us to deny God's unconditional love. Catholic teachings exist in a certain tension with one another, and error often results from emphasising one aspect of the truth to the point of denying some other aspect, which at first sight seems incompatible with it.

"Conditional love" is generally understood to be the sort of love which is altered if the one loved does not fulfil our wishes or expectations; "unconditional love" is that which remains unchangeable regardless of the actions of the one loved. The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) and the First Vatican Council (1870) both defined God's absolute unchangeability, which seems to rule out any "conditional love" in him.

Our sin can prevent the created gift of sanctifying grace from remaining in our soul, but it is powerless to change God's infinite love, which is nothing other than his uncreated essence.

According to St Thomas, "God loves everything that exists" (ST I, 20, 2) and this "by an act of the will that is one, simple and always the same" (I, 20, 3). In a human sense, Scripture occasionally speaks of God changing, being angry or even hating, but these must be understood metaphorically (St Thomas, SCG I, 91, 96).

John 15:10, which Fr Duggan quotes, does not mention God changing his love for us, but implies that we might cease to abide in his love. In other words, by sin, we can close ourselves off from God's love, refusing to receive the life which God never stops offering. By analogy, the sun can continue to shine, but we can choose not to abide in the sunlight, by shutting ourselves in a dark room. Hell is essentially this free self- exclusion from God made definitive and eternal (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1033).

JUSTIN FORD
Bentleigh, Vic

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 13 No 4 (May 2000), p. 15