I'm not sure I follow you by "ideal" but I think unconditional love is what the savior shows and what he desires us to demonstrate also. If you can treat your spouse that way, then I guess it's ideal. Sometimes my wife does things that irritate me so bad I want to scream, but I still love her unconditionally and in spite of her follies. It's really part of the covenant.
Luke 14: 26
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26 If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. |
I ask this question because I have seen People stay with spouses through everything regardless of how they treat them. If you leave someone after infidelity or violence hasn't love then become conditional?
Dbackers, I guess the question that you propose is this: Dose unconditional love equate to the type of relationship that I have with that person? Can one still have unconditional love for another person even thought there relationship with that person has changed? I think so. I guess if we equate unconditional love with a marriage relationship, then I guess unconditional love becomes to mean a narrow specific defined relationship with another person.
Can someone still have unconditional love to there spouse if she leaves them because of abuse? I think so, because I do not think that unconditional love is tied to our relationship with another person but rather to Christ. I think that we must not be quick to say that because the relationship changes does not mean that unconditional love has to change as well. I think that it is independent of our relationships.
My relationships with people change all the time, yet that does not mean that I do not love them. If we define unconditional love to a strict idea of relationship then we can run into trouble as our relationships change over time. Even in marriage my relationship with my wife changes year to year, and I and my wife change as people. Marriage like all relationships are living and changing. So I think my relating or measuring unconditional love by how my relationship looks or changes can be misleading and damaging to those in them. I think that is why when the scriptures talk about unconditional love they tell us we must have it for all people and God no matter what relationship with have with them. But that is my opinion and experience.
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Dose unconditional love equate to the type of relationship that I have with that person? |
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"Divine love is also conditional. While divine love can be called perfect, infinite, enduring, and universal, it cannot correctly be characterized as unconditional. The word does not appear in the scriptures. On the other hand, many verses affirm that the higher levels of love the Father and the Son feel for each of us-and certain divine blessings stemming from that love-are conditional....The full flower of divine love and our greatest blessings from that love are conditional-predicated upon our obedience to eternal law. |
I do not believe in unconditional love, I think we always set conditions and those conditions are different in each couple. If my spouse abuses me or my kids, I do not see how I personally could feel unconditional love towards my partner. I also agree with Elder's Nelson concept of divine love, we have a thread about it here:
Is God's love conditional or unconditional?
I believe in unconditional love. I personally think that Elder Nelson is wrong and he took a lot of the scriptures out on context. His talk has caused a lot of talk around some LDS communities. But that is my opinion and I know that it may be unpopular. Now that statement is not a knock on Elder Nelson nor a attack on his apostleship, I just believe he just got this plain wrong from a scriptural standpoint. But again that is my opinion.
God's love is unconditional, John says that he is love. It is his state of being.
If God's love were conditional, then the righteous would always be blessed and the wicked always punished. But this is not how the world is. The sun shines and the rain falls on the just and the unjust (Matt. 5:45). One reason why people become atheists or agnostics is that on earth the guilty triumph and the innocent suffer. The Book of Mormon teaches that this is so because mortality is a probationary state in which we must choose good over evil, despite the absence of immediate reward (Alma 12:24).
Remember in the Pearl of great price we see God weeping over the death of the wicked in the great flood, because of his love for them. If God's love is conditional why would he have Christ die for the sinner? The atonement is based on unconditional love.
We must not confuse our relationships with others with unconditional love. Relationships change but our love for those people should not. My relationship with God can change due to sin, but his love for me, does not change. If your wife commits adultery your relationship with her may change, I.e. your level of personal trust and relationship, or marriage, but are you still not commanded to love her? Are we still commanded to love our enemies and those we do despise and do evil to you?
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No where in the Scriptures does God actually say he unconditionally loves us. I know in the general Sense God does unconditionally love (God so loved the World)
On the contrary I do not know of any scripture that says that he does not love us unconditionally. Our relationship with him may be conditional, but his love is not. You must separate love and relationship. Dose God still love Satan? Of course he does, does he have an ideal relationship with him? No he does not.
I guess then if unconditional love exists then the question that I ask is: are we expected to have conditional love towards God? If so what are those bounds and conditions that we must set that God must abide in in order to have our love? Does God have to prove his worthiness to us for our love? Of course not. There is not such talk in the gospel about having conditional love towards God.
Therefore if we are commanded to have unconditional love to God, then we are commanded to do something that God will not live by himself. If we are to become like God then why would we be commanded to have unconditional love for him when he himself does not possess it? That is a logical fallacy and so is the idea of divine conditional love. But that is my opinion and reasoning.