akimel said:
Several years ago I wrote a blog article titled "
Finding the God Who is Love." I referred to the writings of a well known Catholic theologian, Herbert McCabe, but I could just as easily have invoked St Isaac the Syrian.
Of course God's love for humanity is unconditional. If it weren't, there wouldn't be a good reason to be a Christian, except for fear of damnation. But the gospel is not about terrorism, despite what the Old Testament may sometimes lead us to believe.
That's what the doctrine of the Trinity is all about: God is love. It's not about resolving a metaphysical conundrum about how one can be three and three be one. This is one reason why the East will always need St Augustine. Whatever flaws his Trinitarian reflections may have had, he understood that the doctrine of the Trinity is all about love. Fortunately, St Gregory Palamas assimilated his insights into his own trinitarian reflections (without attribution, however). It's all about unconditional love. Nothing else is worth preaching.
Father a beautiful article thank you for sharing it. We are in agreement in all those things the article mentions and the ones you mention here as it relates to the love of God towards mankind. The main reason of that agreement being operating within the specific meaning we assign to the words condition and unconditionally. when we are saying ‘ conditional’ if we are referring to meritability then God’s love can never be earned or lost by what humans do or fail to do. That is the Truth in the Gosple. We can not earn God’s love or lose it by what we have done. in that sense ( i.e. the conditions being our actions and or inactions) God’s love towards mankind is unconditional. We must ask then why it is so? Then we see that God loves us because we come from Him who is Eternaly in Loving communion with Himself he loves all the works of His hands, he Loves us because He is our Creator, Our Father. He is the Condition, Love is the Condition of the un-conditionality of Love. I will try to explain what I mean
The word condition in our daily usage, when it refers to love is so associated with merit of the person's action being aligned with sin and/or sanctity that it is very hard to separate ourselves emotionally at least from such self-centered perspective(ie under such perspective we dont belong we do not give,rather we accquire, we buy,we earn). Under normal circumstances a mother is said to love her child unconditionally, whether that child acts good/bad. Now we can be satisfied with this explanation and say the mother’s love is unconditional! However that would be missing the one obvious condition of such love’s existence namely: the mother child bond, that reality of the mother being connected to the child with that maternal bond in exclusion of all the children of others. She loves her child because that is her child he belongs to her as she belongs to him. think 'my Beloved is Mine and I am His'.This perspective becomes a bit helpful when we look at our relationship with God as well. God is Love, and because of Who He is, He created us to make us His Family. He is Our Father; We are created in His Image and Likeness. Capable to respond to Love, to have free will etc we are created out of the creative power of the Triune Communion of Love and we are made by Wisdom for the purpose of sharing in that Communion to the extent we can in our nature.
We take great pride if pride is necessary as the Apostle says

, in this condition of our relationship with God that we are His Children and He , Our Father. so here when we speak of God’s love being conditional we are not speaking about our actions, rather His action (His Love) that made Him our Father, and we His Children. Because the Triune God loves, He Creates and that He Creates He loves because He created them. that is the Condition of His Love.He loves the works of His hands because they are the works of His hands. Our being belongs to Him, and He cannot hate himself because at the core we remain unaltered, our nature remains what He has given us,no matter what we might have done or fail to do i.e both the sinner and the saint remain human although the saint is in the path that makes humans Truly humans, fulfilling the purpose of creation itself : the Union with God through Grace. In the face of the suffering of the misguided sinner who rejects his purpose and potential for the ultimate good, the Creator suffers yet allows what love must allow: freedom and not tyranny over the beloved.
If by condition we are referring to merit, then It is true we can only preach the unconditional love of God towards mankind as God’s love is not circumscribed by the actions of man, no matter how highly man thinks of himself ( in either being a sinner or a saint) mankind cannot shake or alter the Love of the Creator towards Creation. However if by Condition we are referring to the reason for our Loving relationship and our very existence, then we see that He will forever with unshakable love will love us
because we are the works of His hands.
Thank you father for reading this far.asking your blessings.