What if perfecting is just a by-product of God's love for us? His initial focus is His love for us, and the perfecting comes from that love, not the reason for His love. The idea that He loves us so much, that He is continually shaping and molding us into perfection but the perfection is not the initial focus, the love is.
Sorry if this goes in circles, but what do you think?
Sorry if this goes in circles, but what do you think?
posted by Ella at 12:23 PM
4 Comments:
I think I agree with you, but I was also under the impression that the was what Lewis was saying also. In the first couple of chapters Lewis was comparing the "benevolent grandfather" figure of God to the God that really loves us. He went on to point out different aspects of love which included the thought that with real love the lover desires the best for the beloved, the best including that the beloved become the best that he/she could be. In Lewis' view this seems to be one of the characteristics of real love. So, I agree with you that the original attention of God is to love us,and in loving us He perfects us, desiring for us to reach our potential. But also I think Lewis would agree as well.
Yes, Lewis's aim is to say that God's love for us and his desire for our perfection are closely connected. And maybe the former is primary: it's because he loves us that God wants what's best for us. In class we were worrying about whether Lewis is right here, whether that's the whole story about love. I was suggesting that we also think about love as accepting people the way they are. In at least some cases, we don't approve of a love that seeks to improve the beloved. Perhaps we need both of these ideas together somehow? Perhaps love means accepting you as you are AND wanting what's best for you, but neither forcibly perfecting you nor making my continued acceptance of you dependent on your movement toward perfection? Anyway, it strikes me that this is an issue to mull over for a while. What do you think?
I get what you're saying here. Its like a potter who shapes his bowl or something. He doesn't do it to make a perfect bowl, he does it because he loves what he's doing. But I suppose that isn't really the same either because God doesn't probably love the process, but he does love us. Hmm, good thought.
I would go the other way. God's love for us is a by-product of His perfecting us. God seeks above all to glorify Himself, because "every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that He is God" (Phillipians). He wants to perfect everything, including nature to His glory, for even nature glorifies Him. In perfecting us, He could have chosen another way to do it instead of doing it through His awesome love. But for some reason known only to Him, He has decided to glorify Himself through perfecting all of creation, and not only that, but He wants to perfect us, of all the ways that He could possible have chosen, by His love for us.
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