Talk:Love of God

I cant help but notice that this page only centers on the christian god, just like all other religious things written by Americans.

THIS JUST IN: CHRISTIANITY IS NOT THE ONLY RELIGION TO HAVE EVER EXISTED IN HUMAN HISTORY! BREAKING NEWS!

Despite my tone in this note, I fully support NPOV in all things on this site. This page needs to speak of a generic, unnamed deity, in order to maintain a NPOV.

Ƿōdenhelm (talk) 20:36, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Full agreement here, but it should also be noted that "theophilia" does not mean "love of god" in the sense of divine love, love from God, but rather the act of people loving God and the sentiment that God is worthy of love. This should be fixed, but in general this page needs a lot of work. Craig zimmerman (talk) 19:02, 15 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't see anything Christian about the article whatsoever. Is it a Bahai POV?  The POV is not neutral.  Christianity certainly does not lump itself into the category of "monothestic religions" along with various idolatries and misconceptions.  A generic  unnamed diety is not NPOV; it is a myth and anti-Christian.  Probably this article should be scrapped.  (EnochBethany (talk) 06:31, 9 July 2012 (UTC))


 * Yeah. I'm an Anglo-Saxon Heathen, and naturally we honor all of the gods, not just centering on one... If anything, from my point of view, the page ought to be "Love of Frigga," since she's the one who provides divine love. In any case, yeah, it needs reworking into a more encyclopedic page, which would either establish this concept to one specific set of beliefs, or if it is to be a broad topic, then it needs to be free from a specific set of beliefs. —Ƿōdenhelm (talk) 00:25, 18 February 2008 (UTC)


 * "all the gods"? God is not one of the gods.  gods are finite, like pagan gods.  God is infinite.  And He has no other gods before Him.  Claimed gods are either imaginary or demonic or a mixture of both.  I don't see any way this article could have a NPOV.  I say scrap it.(EnochBethany (talk) 06:36, 9 July 2012 (UTC))

"is a central notion in monotheistic personal conceptions of God." I can deal with this better. It clarifies which specific sect of belief it belongs to. —Ƿōdenhelm (talk) 04:54, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Theophilia
Theophilia would be love TOWARDS a god or gods, not FROM a god or gods. One who loves gods is a theophile. cf. pedophile, audiophile

I explained this in my edit summary, yet was reverted as vandalism. Was it an autorevert?

"Although the normal Greek word to signify a lover of God would be "philotheos" ("philo", to love, plus "theos" (God)) as "philosophos" meant a love of wisdom ("sophia"), the term "theophilos", which more usually signifies one whom God loves, is sometimes used to mean a lover of God.[2]"

Would that make coprophile one who is loved by feces? 75.118.170.35 (talk) 14:40, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Is what is affirmed in the Gnosticism section and its cited source correct? If so, there is your answer.  If not, that section must be amended.  Platia (talk) 17:14, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Liddell and Scott gives philotheos as meaning "loving God, pious", not as "loved by God". It quotes not only classical and post-classical secular writers for use of the word with this meaning, and also . It gives theophilês, the adjective from which the noun theophilia would be derived, as meaning "dear to the gods", but it gives as a secondary meaning "loving God", quoting several writers who used it in this sense.  So it appears that what the Gnosticism section says is correct.  Platia (talk) 18:00, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, it means that in Greek, but what about in English? A pedophile is not one who is loved by children, regardless of what order it would be in Greek. There's a difference between the Greek "theophilos" and the English "theophile". 75.118.170.35 (talk) 20:52, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

English rules of conjugation do directly apply to Greek. I sourced the definition from Professor Voegelin's book stating that theophilia is in direct conflict with gnosticism because gnosticism is misotheism. Mr Zimmerman and me and dab have all tried to behave as gentlemenly as possible. I have asked Mr Ioannes Tzimiskes‎‎ to help though. LoveMonkey (talk) 01:17, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The question is not whether English rules apply to Greek, but rather, as Anon questions, whether Greek rules apply to English. Although I concluded that the Gnosticism book was right about the meaning of theophilia/theophile (and somehow, it seems, thereby gave annoyance to LM), perhaps we should discuss instead "love of God", for it is this that is the title of the article. That surely is ambiguous/bidirectional. Surely, as well as meaning love for God, it means love from God.  "The steadfast love of God endures all the day" (Ps 52:1); "I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever" (Ps 52:8); "nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God" (Rm 8:39); "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all" (2Cor 13:14); "In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him" (1Jn 4:9); etc.
 * [By the way, "friend of God" is also ambiguous: it can refer either to someone whom God treats as as friend regardless of whether that person responds with friendship, or it can refer to someone who does show friendship towards God.] Platia (talk) 21:19, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It seems that not only in the Greek of 2000 years ago but also in today's English "theophilia" is used to mean "dearness to God" (or, in Interpretations of Greek Mythology, p. 192, "dearness to the gods"), i.e. the situation of being loved by God, and not only "love for God", the situation of someone who loves God. It would be helpful if we had some sources for the uncited statement that Greek Orthodox use "theophilos" and "theophilia" in the active sense of loving God; but it would be decidedly more interesting if the editor who inserted that uncited statement would show that the Greek Orthodox never use these words in the passive sense of being loved by God, of being dear to God. The comparison of "theophilia" with "philokalia" is most unhelpful, since the true parallel to "theophilia" would be "kalophilia", not "philokalia".  As things stand, I can only conclude that all these words, whether the "phil" is at the beginning or at the end, can be taken in either an active or a passive sense.  Platia (talk) 20:29, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

The issue is that gnosticism very clearly teaches a hatred fo the creator God rather that God be Adoni or that God be Zeus. Between Irenaeus and Plotinus you have no justification for your behaviour. Theophilos is the opposite of misotheism. In this edit you posted WP:OR that is wrong and has no place here on wikipedia. Your justifications above appear to try and validate your OR. Again gnosticism teaches a hatred of the creator a hatred of God not a love of God or Gods. LoveMonkey (talk) 13:19, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Using Eric Voegelin to source a position in complete opposition to his
Please post what Voegelin was trying to obviously say in his obvious book about gnosticism since your quoting it obviously you have read and understand it's obvious message. Since you posted on your mytalk page.
 * ==Gnosticism== on what a book whose title says it is about Gnosticism says about Socrates, Phaedrus and the like, without omitting a single word of it! And then no response to my attempts to engage the complainant on the article's Talk page

LoveMonkey (talk) 13:25, 17 February 2009 (UTC) Here's the Voegelin entry into the gnosis article which I created from Voegelin's own bio page...Hardly at all stating that Voegelin took the position that you source with his work stating the Nazis are lovers of God...

Eric Voegelin
Eric Voegelin, partially building on the concept of gnosis as used by Plato and the followers of Gnosticism, along with how it was defined by Hans Jonas, defined the gnosis of the followers of Gnosticism as religious philosophical teachings that are the foundations of cults. Voegelin identified a number of similarities between ancient Gnosticism and those held by a number of modernist political theories, particularly communism and nazism.

Voegelin identified the root of the Gnostic impulse as alienation, that is, a sense of disconnection with society, and a belief that this disconnection is the result of the inherent disorder, or even evil, of the world. This alienation has two effects:
 * The belief that the disorder of the world can be transcended by extraordinary insight, learning, or knowledge, called a Gnostic Speculation by Voegelin (the Gnostics themselves referred to this as gnosis).
 * The desire to create and implement a policy to actualize the speculation, or as Voegelin described it, to Immanentize the Eschaton, to create a sort of heaven on earth within history by triggering the apocalypse.

Voegelin’s conception of gnosis and his analysis of Gnosticism in general has come under criticism from recent research, including that of Professor Eugene Webb of the University of Washington. Webb, a researcher and teacher in the field of the study of religion, has written several academic monographs on Voegelin’s thought and a book devoted to the exposition of his philosophy as a whole. In a recent article entitled "Voegelin’s Gnosticism Reconsidered", Webb puts Voegelin’s use of the terms gnosis and Gnosticism under close scrutiny. Webb explains that Voegelin’s concept of Gnosticism was conceived "not primarily to describe ancient phenomena but to help us understand some modern ones for which the evidence is a great deal clearer." Webb then goes on to state his belief that today "the category (of Gnosticism) is of limited usefulness for the purpose to which he put it…and the fact that the idea of Gnosticism as such has become so problematic and complex in recent years must at the very least undercut Voegelin’s effort to trace a historical line of descent from ancient sources to the modern phenomena he tried to use them to illuminate." LoveMonkey (talk) 13:33, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The long addition above may not be the peace of God, which "surpasses all understanding", but it does surpass my poor understanding. I take it that it concerns a mistaken edit that I presume Philopithekos (or should it be Pithekophilos?) has by now rectified.  Editors constantly rectify mistakes by others.  Platia (talk) 19:15, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Mankind's love of, for God is theophilos, God's love of, for mankind is philanthropia
There are two different terms in existence. LoveMonkey (talk) 18:33, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

That's correct. --Ioannes Tzimiskes (talk) 14:31, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
 * If in place of "theophilos" (a person who loves God) you put "theophilia" (love for God), which is what I suppose was meant, I don't think anybody denies it. Of course, "philanthropia" applies not only to love for mankind shown by God, but even by human beings, as in the Greek proverb, Η φιλανθρωπία είναι ο πατέρας της προσφοράς/θυσίας ("Philanthropia is the father of self-sacrifice"). It is translated as "kindness" in : "The natives showed us extraordinary kindness; for because of the rain that had set in and because of the cold, they kindled a fire and received us all." Platia (talk) 15:32, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

THE ARTICLE IS DEFECTIVE BY CONFUSING THE ROOTS PHIL- WITH AGAP-
The central root for love of God & God's love for man is agap- (noun agape, verb, agapao). Phil- has to do with fondness or friendship, liking someone or something. Agape is described in 1 Corinthians 13. Is this article some kind of religious shill of Bahai-ism? Another issue is that "Love of God" is ambiguous. Love of God can be man's love for God or God's love for man (objective vs subjective genitive in grammar). The whole article needs revision or better, scrapping. (EnochBethany (talk) 06:27, 9 July 2012 (UTC))
 * Philo- is an existent prefix. Does agap- exist as a prefix?  Esoglou (talk) 06:56, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

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Love people love to pray for people 2603:6010:FA22:6D4C:75D1:4725:C0C1:57 (talk) 01:00, 12 April 2023 (UTC)