God in Evangelical Christianity

B95000 said:

>>>>>And so God can very well simultaneously love unconditionally, and have a reasonable, available and universal condition for salvation (i.e. Jesus is the Way) to satisfy His justice.  It is God's justice that demands the condition of the Sacrifice for sins.<<<<<

I knew one of you would step in the fallacy trap.....I'm gonna first call you "B"for short. Second you have two contradictions in one paragraph.
First off you mention that "God can simultaneously love unconditionally yet have a condition for Salvation." First off that is a logical fallacy. Yes God can love simultaneously and yes ther can be a condition for salvation but that is not plausible logically. It almost makes sense as a father letting his son burn but he will not douse the flames out until he cites his ABC's correctly.

B: With all due respect Israfil, you're being trite in your metaphor.
Now, I say man, you're telling me there's logical inconsistency in saying God loves all of us and yet has set up a condition for salvation.  But that's like saying the parent that loves their child must not ever have any conditions upon them.  Of course they must and do and that is, in fact, part of their love for them!  The child is free to love the parent back or not - with all the attendent consequences of that.  It is the same for our Heavenly Father.

Like laws that are clear if God specifically stated in clear Hebrew (or whatever language spoken) that this was the way it would have been clear. However the laws were not clear and various groups do not share this view.

B: That's why it all comes back to true faith - God imputes faith as righteousness, as he did with Abraham.

So is God not going to allow the Muslim not to attain paradise because he doesn't believe Jesus is his God rather than a prophet?

B: I've already answered this question.  The Muslim of sincere faith in God (Allah) will be saved through Jesus' sacrifice, just like the Christian.  It is my view that if a Muslim were to encounter Jesus the way many do or the way Jesus really is then they too would bow their knee and say as Thomas said, "My Lord and My God."  But all these things are up to God..I'm basing my views on Romans 2 and 3 however.

If not then this is conditional love. You made the mistake by equating unconditional love and conditional laws because unconditional love the emotion superceeds laws.

B: I've addressed this with the example of the parent above...consequences still have their effect despite God's very real, unconditional love.

logically God wouldn't unconditionally love the child rapist muderer if he continues to break his laws.

B: God has already unconditionally loved his children.  He doesn't stop loving His children, but neither does he stop the consequences for evil actions.  Call that conditional if you want (especially if you believe in determinism theologically) but even so, it is God who decides when a person falls outside the purview of His love.  So technically, since we're going there, God's love is great, the width, breadth, length and height, no one can know (as it says in one of the Epistles) but the point at which it intersects with justice or God's judgment it ceases to be absolutely unconditional (but that has more to do with the point of judgment) - let's put it this way - in this world the good gifts of God falls on the righteous and the unrighteous...God is loving us - in this life - unconditionally.  But if we want to enter God's heaven, we'd best heed to the conditions for that.

So where are we with this?  His love, for a time within life on this planet, that time known only to Him, is unconditional - at the proper time (death, etc.) he places a condition on entrance into His presence, into His kingdom, the responsiblity for which lies fully with each individual and for which all are without excuse.

So God's love mingles with His judgment perfectly.

Notice I use the latter portion of the example and how it differs from yours. Your latter portion of your remarks refers to religious creed which is not a universal law. Univerally not every human subscribes to that religious tenent hence it is not a universal. However, majority of the humans on the planet believe in One God. To me that is more universal than a creed that specifically pertains to a religion.

B, God is conditional and God has made specific commands of humans to follow. If God were unconditional there would be no laws, because his love would superceed those laws and he would forgive every sin and every transgression. God is conditional because he prefers the good over the bad. God is conditional because he prefers the monotheist over the atheist. God is conditional because he picks certain individuals to bring his message rather than the whole of humanity. To say his love is unconditional yet his laws are conditional are not only different categories of application, because they are contradictory...Try again!

B: In an aboslute or ultimate sense I can see that you are correct - but I would maintain God has a great love for all humanity and that this perfectly mingles with His judgement.  Yes, the concept of 'unconditional love' seems compelling and is certainly promised once the faith condition is satisifed.  Perhaps, this is where the 'unconditional' comes in - once the first, great condition is satisfied - ensuring the believer will not stray far - no matter what that believer does (within the understanding that they are a true believer and act as such primarily) God will love them unconditionally.  (This would suggest that God doesn't demand (immediate) perfection of the believer...

Perhaps then, God's eternal love has one great condition for His children - faith in Him.

Good discussion though!