The Rise and Fall of Unconditional Love
Does God love you and your fellow travelers on Earth unconditionally? Do Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love all Their children completely, without condition or limitation, no matter what you (they) do, did, or didn’t do?
I asked five active members of the Church that question. One said, “Yes.” One said, “Is this a trick question?” One said, “I don’t know.” One said, “No. That is why He gave us commandments. If you obey, you are blessed.” One answered by quoting 2 Nephi 26:33: “He inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile.”
I know my sampling was small, but I think it shows the confusion between God’s universal love and His conditional love.
Knowing the doctrine about God’s love is crucial. In 1844, Joseph Smith taught, “It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the character of God.” Here is the critical point: If we mortals assign a characteristic to God, we had better, as Joseph said, “know for a certainty” that it is doctrinal.
Doctrinal certainty about God’s love is that His love is infinite, never withheld or withdrawn. Nephi said, “I know that he loveth his children” (1 Nephi 11:17), and the Apostle John concisely said, “God is love” (1 John 4:8). However, God offers more to those who return His love by keeping His commandments.
Doctrinal certainty of God’s love is that He provided the plan of salvation with three degrees of glory and a final judgment.
Doctrinal certainty of God’s love is that He sets standards: “Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:5).
Doctrinal certainty includes Ten Commandments, Beatitudes, Articles of Faith, and the promise that if you keep the commandments you will prosper in the land. (This if/then promise is found 22 times in 1 Nephi, 2 Nephi, Jarom, Omni, Mosiah, Alma, Helaman, and Ether.)
In 2001, Elder Bednar said, “The scriptures do not teach that God’s love is unconditional.” Is Elder Bednar wrong? Doesn’t 2 Nephi 26:33 quoted above imply unconditional love? No, it is an invitation: “He inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness.” The all is a list of all who are invited: “black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile.” It is an invitation to everyone, everywhere, to come unto Him.
Alma taught the distinction between whom God invites and whom He commands: “And now I, Alma… speak by way of command unto you that belong to the church; and unto those who do not belong to the church I speak by way of invitation, saying: Come and be baptized unto repentance, that ye also may be partakers of the fruit of the tree of life” (Alma 5:61-62). Not-yet-members are invited. Members, because they have made covenants, are commanded. The bar for members is high: “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required” (Luke 12:48, Doctrine and Covenants 82:3).
Alma used the word “come” four times in the scripture above. Jesus invites “Come unto me” 28 times in the Book of Mormon, four times in the Doctrine and Covenants, six times in the New Testament. Often our Savior is painted with his arm outstretched, welcoming, inviting, bidding, “Come unto me.”
Since unconditional love is not scriptural, where did the concept come from? Erich Fromm, a psychoanalyst and professed atheist coined the phrase in 1934. In 1956, he wrote The Art of Loving that contrasted a mother’s unconditional love with a father’s conditional love. Within a few years, religious leaders made the leap from a mother’s love to God’s love. During the 1960s and 1970s, the phrase became like comfort food; it just felt true that God would love you no matter what you did or didn’t do. Therapists began using the concept of unconditional love to help patients build self-esteem, another popular term that is also non-scriptural.
Unconditional love was introduced into Latter-day Saint culture in the October 1971 General Conference. Between 1971 and 1999, it was used 37 times, then one time in 2001, one time in 2003, one time in 2008, and the last time in 2015.
The 2001 Elder Bednar quote above and an article in 2003 by Elder Russell M. Nelson changed the trajectory. Elder Nelson wrote: “While divine love can be called perfect, infinite, enduring, and universal, it cannot correctly be characterized as unconditional.” He then showed how Nehor, a Book of Mormon antichrist, “promoted himself by teaching falsehoods,” and used the argument that “all mankind should be saved at the last day to woo people with deception.”
This is the order of heaven: “There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated — And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated” (Doctrine and Covenants 130:20-21).
This is divine law: “And unto every kingdom is given a law; and unto every law there are certain bounds also and conditions. All beings who abide not in those conditions are not justified” (Doctrine and Covenants 88:38-39).
This is God’s testing: “We will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them” (Abraham 3:25). The Lord “loveth those who will have him to be their God” (1 Nephi 17:40).
This is the warning: “I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise” (Doctrine and Covenants 82:10).
If we do the “if” part, the Lord does His “then” part, the equation promises a future for covenant-keeping Latter-day Saints beyond mortal comprehension. “He it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him” (John 14:21). “And he that receiveth my Father receiveth my Father’s kingdom; therefore all that my Father hath shall be given unto him” (D&C 84:38). Put another way, we can become “joint-heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:17). And simply: “I am a child of God. His promises are sure, if….” (Hymns, 1, verse 4).