Abegunde Julius Taiwo, a Urantia Book (The UB) student and leader in Nigeria, once posed a good question on Facebook (used by permission): “Is loving God an emotion, a feeling, or a decision?” He followed it with his insights into the Bible and The Urantia Book texts.
Jesus said the greatest commandment is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (UB 174:4.2, Luke 10:27; Mark 12:30; Matthew 22:27) He was reaffirming teachings already found in Judaism, skillfully combining “Old Testament” teachings from Deuteronomy 6:4-5 with Leviticus 19:18.
But can love be commanded? How can we make ourselves love someone? It requires work; it is something we “achieve” as this The UB passage tells us:
“You cannot truly love your fellows by a mere act of will. Love is only born of thoroughgoing understanding of your neighbor’s motives and sentiments. It is not so important to love all men today as it is that each day or each week you achieve an understanding of one more of your fellows, and if this is the limit of your ability, then you are certainly socializing and truly spiritualizing your personality.” (100:4.6)
As Abegunde went on to share with us in his Facebook post, “Since love is commanded, then it must be within our power, in Christ, to love. Love, therefore, is a decision we make. Yes, love will often be accompanied by feelings, but emotion is not the basis of love. In any given situation, we can choose to love, regardless of how we feel.”
Psychologist and philosopher, Erich Fromm agreed, “Love is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise. If love were only a feeling, there would be no basis for the promise to love each other forever. A feeling comes and it may go. How can I judge that it will stay forever, when my act does not involve judgment and decision.” (from 1956 book, The Art of Loving)
“Some days there won’t be a song in your heart, sing anyway.” (Emory Austin)
The story of Mother Theresa’s “dark night of the soul” became well known from letters published after her death. In the depth of her ministry to the poor of India she lost her faith, her emotional connection to God. Yet she continued. As was written, she “persisted in radiating invincible faith and love while suffering inwardly from the loss of spiritual consolation (Carol Zaleski in First Things, http://www.firstthings.com/article/2003/05/the-dark-night-of-mother-teresa).” She maintained loyalty to the commandment to love without the experiences of ecstasy and feeling, a determination to go on that ensured the love in her original vision was given to the world.
“Though it may be good at times to think specifically of the kindness and excellence of God … it must be cast down and covered with a cloud of forgetting. And you must step above it stoutly but deftly, with a devout and delightful stirring of love, and struggle to pierce that darkness above you; and beat on that thick cloud of unknowing with a sharp dart of longing love, and do not give up, whatever happens.” (The Cloud of Unknowing, anonymous work of the 14th century)
Next, Part II, will explore: what is the Truth about love?
