Wanting someone to improve or change seems to be, at some level, a rejection of who they now are. Is it possible to love someone perfectly, to accept, embrace and treasure them just as they are, yet want and encourage them to change?
The Millennial Star
Well, considering that God loves us unconditionally, yet wants us to change, I would say that unconditional love still includes the possibility of wanting the object of that love to change.
Love, however, (to me) isn’t really about change. Love is about a desire for some sort of union with the object of the love. God’s love is an unconditional desire to have all of us return to live with him again. Gods love is not a “you’re fine just as you are” – God is not a New Age guru.
However, IMHO, to many people try to turn “unconditional love” into a new age concept, where we must accept people as they are and are not allowed to condemn their behavior in any way whatsoever. In all, I think God and Christ should be our exemplars. The old cliche is “love the sinner, hate the sin” – but there’s still a lot of truth in that phrase.
Not only are they not mutually exclusive, but, I would argue, are mutually inclusive. One cannot exist without the other.
As Kierkegaard said, “Worldly wisdom is of the opinion that love is a relationship between persons; Christianity teaches that love is a relationship between: a person—God—a person, that is, that God is the middle term…to help another person to love God is to love another person.”
OF course – then there’s the whole debate about whether God’s love is truly “unconditional” – a few recent General Conference talks have dealt with this. My response is: Depends on what you mean by love. IF you mean God’s desire to bring you into his presence, than it is unconditional. If you mean God’s approval of your actions, than no it isn’t unconditional.
I think the recent GC talks were reactions against those who seem to argue that since God loves us unconditionally, it’s okay to indulge in sinful behaviors (like active homosexuality, the swindling of the poor, teach opinion as doctrine, or other things). Whether that odd argument has actually been made depends on who you ask.
I might love my children unconditionally, but I cannot choose to eliminate the pain that their bad behaviors will bring to their lives.
I don’t think God loves us less when we sin. But He cannot protect us from the consequences. Loving is not the same as condoning.
Interesting question. I think it’s certainly possible, but rare, for mortals to love unconditionally and desire our loved ones to be freed from their flaws. There’s a big difference in loving and hoping our loved ones change and improve for their happiness or loving and trying to change our loved ones for “their own good”.
i agree- You can love someone unconditionally, but still desire a change from them. The difference as far as change goes is that when you love someone unconditionally, if they don’t change, you still love them, but the changes you want are to make THEM better for their own good, not for your own whims or desires. does that make sense? I know what i want to say, but my brain just doesn’t know how…
I think the problem is that people confuse love with acceptance of acts. I may love a child who has started abusing drugs. It doesn’t entail that I’ll accept his actions in taking drugs.
The issue really becomes in our culture a desire for acceptance regardless of ones acts. Further, far worse, is the complaint that if God loves us God would simply allow us to do what we wish and take away the consequences. This is a rather pernicious aspect of our culture. Unconditional love means loving us regardless of what we are doing, but wanting us to be the best we can be.
Isn’t there a way to separate our essence from our acts? I don’t think God loves me as a whole– I think he loves his vision of me, the good things about me, my potential, my willing spirit. But I don’t think that ‘unconditional’ means he loves us warts and all.
That presents a new question: What parts of us does God love? Is there some conceptual way of distilling the essence of our lovability and figuring out what he does not love? There’s not a very bright line to be drawn there.
I think this is exactly what the Savior is talking about when He invites us to come unto Him and assures us that He is “meek and lowely in heart”. In other words, if we come to Him with all of our weaknesses and frailties He’s not going to make it his business to beat us over the head with how bad we are verses how good He is. I like Joseph Smith’s desciption of himself as one who was meek and lowely in heart. I can’t remember the exact quote, but it had to do with walking into a man’s home and being accepting of his circumstances.
I agree with Bryan in that the change we desire for others has to do with wanting them to be happy–happy in a way that only living the gospel can provide. But then again, we have to be careful in how we measure another’s “happiness”. I like to think that the road to heaven is like a game of solitaire. Yes it has a basic iron-clad structure, but with in that structure an almost infinite number of variations may be played out, depending on the hand one is given, before reaching the one resolution which constitutes winning the game. IMO, unconditional love has to do with helping another win at their own game–which may require a loving pointer here and there once in a great GREAT while.
I like this phraseology I first heard a few months ago: “God loves me exactly the way I am, but He loves me too much to leave me the way I am.”
A few months ago as an enagaged person about to get her endowment out, I was quite nervous for the experience. As a convert who had read much anti-mormon material in which many people had left the church over their negative experience with the endowment, I had long feared that mine would have a similiar effect on me. This led to conversations with my fiancee on whether he would still wish to marry me if the endowment caused me leave the church. I would sometimes think that if the answer was “no” (which it wasn’t) than that would mean his love was conditional.
I think our belief in the necessity of temple marriage is one example of acceptable (or unacceptable, depending on your opinion) conditional love.
The more you love someone, the more you hope for his future happiness. And when you see him pursuing a course that will certainly lead to great unhappiness, you can become desperate to see him change his ways. In such a situation, he can easily mistake your desperation as a lack of love. As a result, unconditional love can often be falsely perceived as conditional love.
However, often what parents see as “love” (wanting children to be a certain way, do certain things for their own good) is really a denial of agency. Satan, in fact, wanted us all to have perfect lives and do everything right.
Heavenly Father wanted us to learn for ourselves from our experience.
The trick is not the love, but the manifestation of the love. I think we all, when we are in tune can recognize the love of God and see that he loved us the same even when we were in sin. But in our own expression of love we often manifest self-love more than other-centered love, the way God does. It’s hard to know often how to express what we feel. And especially when people we care for choose self-destructive actions, it is hard to know what to do. Often no matter what we do the other will accuse us of not loving them. But then many accuse God of the same.
I think of a great quote – that loving someone means you put their need & happiness above your own. That you truly want what is best for them. If the one I love is doing something that gets in the way of “what is best for them” I certainly don’t love them less, but I would love for the behavior to change.
However, if you are in a relationship and it is all about “needless” change, (ie) I wish he would dress better, not be a nerd, not wear sweats in public; then I would question the level of love you have for that person. Or, at least, your idea of what unconditional love really is.
I think General Conference talks (or Ensign) have focused recently on the question of “unconditional love” because of the interpretation which is placed on the “unconditional” part. As was mentioned above, some seem to interpret it as complete approval of anything the loved one does. And they then go on to imply, “if it is not that, then it isn’t unconditional”.
Some parts of God’s love are unconditional; but others are conditional. Otherwise, we would have to say that God loves Lucifer exactly as He loves Jesus Christ. And that thought makes “reason stare”.