Love of God
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Part of a series on |
| God |
|---|
|
Theistic approaches Specific conceptions Experience and practices Related topics |
The love of God (divine love, theophilia) is a central notion in monotheistic personal conceptions of God. It may refer to either of the interrelated concepts of the love of God towards creation, and the love of creatures towards God. 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.
An experience of divine love is central in mysticism. Medieval German mystics, women in particular (Mechthild of Magdeburg, Hildegard von Bingen), express divine love as a burning passion. Similarly, Julian of Norwich in her Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love (ca. 1393).
In Christianity, God's love is expressed in Greek as agape, famously in John 3:16 "God so loved the world" (ουτως γαρ ηγαπησεν ο θεος τον κοσμον). The term theophilia or theophilos being meant as the cultural transcendence of the Greeks from the love of wisdom (philosophy) to the love of God (theophilia).[1]
Goethe expresses the sentiment of love of God alongside the opposite sentiment of hatred of God in his two poems Ganymed and Prometheus, respectively.
In Greek Orthodox Christianity the concept is the catalyst that drives the relationship between man and God. The relationship between man and God being referred to as theosis. Theophilia is the love of God, Philokalia is the love of beauty (as manifestation of God) and also as a set of Eastern Orthodox ascetic religious text, centered on the idea of using theoria (contemplation of Beauty and or God) called Hesychasm to cultivate true beauty and therefore the love of God. Theoria being the manifestation or experience of God in the life of the person as the highest beauty.
[edit] See also
- Love (religious views)
- Unio Mystica
- Mystical theology
- Christian mysticism
- Divine filiation
- Agape
- Ahava
- Bhakti
- Misotheism
[edit] References
- ^ 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 sopho, one who knows, would be excessive: this attribute may be applied to God Alone : but one well call him philosophos. Thus "actual knowledge" is reserved to God; finite man can only be the "lover of knowledge," not himself the one who knows. 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." Science, Politics, And Gnosticism by Eric Voegelin Publisher: ISI Books ISBN-10: 1932236481
