Mr. Renaissance in his early spiritual blogs on perfect love shares as M. Buber writes God "may properly be addressed, not expressed", quoted in W. Herber's intro page 19. He has given answer to the paradoxal idea, whether God can make a rock too heavy to lift. Our language is beset by models not meant to be falsifiable science. If salvation is of the moment, the end times can happen anytime. But thousands of years can pass for certain events to be set down. The divide of two loves is like a legality.
C.S. Lewis wrote about the Four Loves, and Mr, Rena's blog forum on the internet archive may have a review, characterizing their relational language towards God. Lewis didn't make it about originality although it came through others who read after much spiritual works. 'Jolly beggars,' pain and pleasure are like 'glades and hedges'. A diner with foods of tearful and fancy altogether at last. This is a stark difference from Zarathustra/Zoroastrian teaching, which uses complete antagonism against the good.
Traditionally, charity is the highest form and God is a friend of charity. Every creation is included as much as it brings God credit. I will submit there are three loves. In order from greatest to least: true love, fair love, and free love. These are not necessarily discrete forms of love, as they can also be continuous.
@Of-Ants-and-Imps
It is indeed difficult, if not impossible, to encapsulate the boundless in words. I am sure that is why all mystical traditions eventually fall back on poetry, and abandon prose, to express, not describe, the profundity of the experience of boundless love.
@moonbus saidI think you're correct in saying that poetry expresses "boundless love", in words, but I believe boundless love is ultimately expressed in and by a person, namely, Jesus Christ.
@Of-Ants-and-Imps
It is indeed difficult, if not impossible, to encapsulate the boundless in words. I am sure that is why all mystical traditions eventually fall back on poetry, and abandon prose, to express, not describe, the profundity of the experience of boundless love.
Jesus Christ is the consummate expression of God's infinite and boundless love.
God is love.
@josephw saidJesus ascended into heaven three days later, leaving desolate disciples behind. There is a better example of boundless love in the Hindu religion: Bodhisattva. This was a spirit which had attained the blessed state and was prepared to be accepted into Hindu heaven, when he saw that many other souls were not ready. SO Bodhisattva sacrificed his own salvation and vowed to stay in the incarnated state to help others until the very last mortal had made it into heaven, then Bodhisattva would go last of all. Now that is boundless love.
I think you're correct in saying that poetry expresses "boundless love", in words, but I believe boundless love is ultimately expressed in and by a person, namely, Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ is the consummate expression of God's infinite and boundless love.
God is love.
@moonbus saidSo where is this Bodhisattva? If he is incarnate, then it seems his "attained" "blessed state" isn't so blessed. After all, without resurrection nothing is certain about a mere mythological being.
Jesus ascended into heaven three days later, leaving desolate disciples behind. There is a better example of boundless love in the Hindu religion: Bodhisattva. This was a spirit which had attained the blessed state and was prepared to be accepted into Hindu heaven, when he saw that many other souls were not ready. SO Bodhisattva sacrificed his own salvation and vowed to stay ...[text shortened]... l had made it into heaven, then Bodhisattva would go last of all. Now that is boundless love.
Jesus purchased salvation with his incarnate body for all, who believe, and sealed the deal with his own resurrection.
That is boundless love.
@josephw saidOf course, that could also be myth.
Jesus purchased salvation with his incarnate body for all, who believe, and sealed the deal with his own resurrection.
That is boundless love.
@josephw saidYou Christians just can't get your minds round the idea that Hindus have just as much invested in their belief in Hinduism as Christians have invested in Christianity, and that both religions are allegories and metaphors. There were no talking blue elephants, and the resurrection didn't really happen; Jesus is dead and his bones were laid to rest in a tomb in Jerusalem. They'd still be there, but for an unfortunate accidental discovery which was not controlled by the local archaeological authorities at the time.
So where is this Bodhisattva? If he is incarnate, then it seems his "attained" "blessed state" isn't so blessed. After all, without resurrection nothing is certain about a mere mythological being.
Jesus purchased salvation with his incarnate body for all, who believe, and sealed the deal with his own resurrection.
That is boundless love.
The proof of pudding is in the means of obtaining the pudding?
Rationalist, deductive thought helped produce early mathematical and technical 'knowledge' in residence with the theistic doctrine. Not until some late medieval retrospection did "sciences" develop, each comprised of natural disciplines, in a spread along with theology study, culture, etc.