Do it with Love.

by gcadmin on Thursday, April 8th, 2021 No Comments

Don’t sentimentalize the word.
Love means to will the good of the other.
Think that. Am I doing this with love?
Am I willing the good of the other?
As I’m involved in this world – Do it with love. – Bishop Barron

Does God love everyone?
YES!
You know you can give a kind of sentimental response to
that or a more strict theological response.
I’ll do Thomas Aquinas –
Love is – willing the good of the other – right?
It’s not a sentiment.
In fact God doesn’t have sentiments but God does have
a will and to exist *is* a good, obviously.
To exist is better than not existing.
Therefore whatever exists has, at least
to that degree, been loved because God has willed it some good.

So Aquinas will say, for example, does God love a rock?
Yeah sure, because God has willed existence for it.
We might say does God love, you know, quarks
and subatomic particles and so on?
Well, yeah, sure.
God has willed goodness to them.

So does God love everyone and everything?
Yeah!
Ipso facto in the measure that things and people exist, they’re loved.
Now the follow-up, the interesting question, and this would be another show
maybe,
Does God love all people, all things, equally?
And the answer of Aquinas, famously is , “NO”.
Now what do I mean?
Well stay with these examples I’ve already given.
Does God love you Brandon more than he loves a rock?
Well yeah!
Clearly!
Why? BECAUSE he’s willed you far more good.
He’s willed you the good of material existence,
Okay,
But also all the other gifts and all the other powers and
all the other abilities.
You have
means God’s willed, more good than he has given to the rock.