The Third Premise: God is Loving

For God to be worthy of total trust and devotion, regardless of troubled times or disturbing questions, three things must be asserted: that God is real (given that the definition of any god includes a role in creation and immense power), that God is infinitely and flawlessly intelligent, and that God is just as infinitely and unfailingly loving. If God is not intelligent, then His plan can easily fail and it doesn't matter how present He is or how good His intentions are. If God is not loving then it would be foolish to trust Him since He does not care what end would meet in His plan. If He does not exist then He isn't even there to be trusted. It has already been proven that God exists and that His intelligence is absolute, all that remains is the matter of love.

Just as the creation and current state of the world prove the first two premises, so they also support the third. In order for scientific and philosophical truth to have any firm basis, God must be of an infinite and utterly complete nature. He must exist without any need for an explanation of His existence. If this were not the case then each scientific or philosophical explanation would have basic statements of fact that themselves would require explanations which would involve statements of fact which would require further explaining. While some would argue that such never-ending puzzles do exist, it must also be recognised that they can only be found within artificial systems. According to a number system based on ten, one-third has no end since no amount of division or multiplication can ever make three into one. However, just because the digits are endless does not mean that the number itself possesses such qualities. In a number system based on 6, one-third would have a specific and limited amount of digits. Similarly, if one were to cut a slice of bread into thirds, the slices could actually be exact thirds instead of three parts and then a little leftover slice. The conclusion that must be drawn is that while man-made systems of measurement and thought may have limitless explanations, the natural world cannot.

This fact (made already in the article regarding the first premise) is essential in understanding the qualities of God; if all truth has a specific origin that neither has nor requires any further explanation, then that origin must be the cause of everything else to exist and thus it must be God. Furthermore, if God is of such a nature that He simply is, then He could have no need for us. We could not be an experiment because His intellect is absolute and would immediately reach the correct conclusion of any question. The notion that we were created out of boredom is out of the question because if such a being could actually be bored (which is unlikely considering that He is the foundation of not only scientific but also philosophical truth) there would be nothing that could surprise Him and He would be fundamentally incapable of harboring any illusion that anything would, thus making our existence completely pointless. Even the idea that we were created to love Him is absurd because a need for our love would imply that He required something outside Himself, which is once again opposed to His basic nature. The only reason an infinite being could ever have for creating us is, as C. S. Lewis wrote, "that God may love us." In this scenario, the Almighty has not acted out of a need or requirement but rather out of a desire that is perfectly in line with His nature as the maker (or, more appropriately, the incarnation) of morality. He has decided that this action will result in a somehow better or more complete existence yet He could continue existing just as easily without ever making us.

In the "Ender's Shadow" series, Orson Scott Card once placed the main character in a situation where he had fallen in love with a girl and wanted not only to have her but also to father children. At the same time, he had a genetic affliction resulting in seemingly inescapable death at or around the age of twenty years old which he had sworn to never pass on. In the end, he realized that the only reason he could possibly care whether or not his children might inherit his condition was that he was already overcome with love for them even though they were not even concieved. He concluded that if he really loved them that much, then the only choice was to give them life, even if that life might be cut short.

The world in which we live is very much like that affliction and God is very much like that inevitable father. The primary difference is that while that father can't have any certain knowledge of the fate of his children, an all-knowing God would have a perfect plan leading not to doom but to a new and joyful existence. In both cases, the mere fact that the decision accepts that the loved ones will endure pain and is made in spite of that shows the depth of the decision-maker's affection. C. S. Lewis once made a distinction between kindness and love in which he stated that kindness was simply the desire for people to be comfortable. Love, by contrast, desires the betterment and elevation of its subject, a goal that may sometimes require pain. If God's love were at all petty, we would have no free will but instead be kept in a state of unthinking pleasure. Ther would never be any choice to reject God and thus no growth but instead a fake perfection. Thus, the impossibility that God would have created us out of any motive but affection and the fallen state of our world can indicate only a God of deep and sincere love within the nature of the Creator.

However, in all these clever arguments and philosophies there is one unanswered challenge, one hole that can bring the whole intellectual structure down. This hole is the assumption of love as the central theme of morality. If righteousness is not based primarily upon love, then there may be another reason for the creation of the world. There may be another reason that we were given free will. There might not be a reason to trust God. The entire argument assumes that love is the supreme good but what if it isn't?

It is this point that is most important for the Christian in their walk. This is not because it is essential to the truth of the argument as a whole since every detail is important to the argument as a whole. Rather, this point is vital because it is the only one that demands not just a theistic worldview, but a Christian worldview. Out of all the major religions, only Christianity holds love to be the most fundamental of virtues. In Hinduism, one achieves salvation by conforming to one's proper role in life, whatever that may be. In Islam, paradise is reached by following divine laws. In Buddhism, nirvana is sought through self-denial. The only other religion that can be said to treat love with the same reverence as Christianity is Jewdaism, yet at the same time this can only be regarded as certain if Jesus's words (in this case his defining of the two greatest commandments) are recognized as having theological weight.

Multiple historical records speak of a real Jesus of Nazareth who held radical beliefs contrary to the Pharisees and who was believed by many to have performed miracles. Most scholars consider it a historical fact that this Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, that he was crucified as a heretic, and that many followed him after his crucifixion claiming that he had risen from the dead. To give the old, but nonetheless logical argument, if it is true that Jesus said all that is attributed to him, the only possibilities are that he was a liar, a madman, or the Messiah.

If Jesus was a liar, there appears to be no logical reason for him to have told such lies. Jesus was in direct conflict with the rulers of Israel, his life was repeatedly threatened with more than words, and he is never said to have gained any substantial wealth as a result of his teachings. When the Pharisees sentenced him to death, he made no effort to defend himself or to repent in return for mercy. That Jesus might have lied about himself to convey greater truths is just as faulty a theory since the majority of his teachings centered around the prediction of his death and his role as the Son of God and the rest of his messages left no room for such a bending of the rules (consider how such deceptions would have stood up to the standards discussed in the Sermon on the Mount).

If Jesus was a lunatic, he was a very unique one. By definition, the logic of a madman must involve some logical fallacy far outside the realm of rational errors. Thus, a lunatic may at first give the appearance of genuis but the longer one listens to them the more noticable those fallacies become. Yet if Jesus was mentally imbalanced, he must have shown no sign during his ministry or else his disciples would have denounced him. Not only were Jesus' disciples intelligent enough to lay the foundation for his church, they were also born into a culture that required its children to memorize its entire holy book. If Jesus had ever made a single scriptural blunder, they would have known it. Instead, these men followed Jesus not only to his death but to their own as well.

Now there also may arise the claim that the Bible is inaccurate and that Jesus did not actually say all that was ascribed to him. The truth of the matter is actually that the Bible is possibly the most accurate and well-preserved record in the ancient world. Despite the claim that the Bible was written hundreds of years after Jesus' death (a lie based on the fact that the Bible as a collection of books was assembled hundreds of years after his death) the Gospels were actually written within thirty or so years of the crucifixion and were based on eyewitness accounts. Furthermore, the events described in the Gospels were witnessed not just by a few but sometimes hundreds and then sometimes even thousands of people. If the writers of the New Testament had gotten events wrong there would have been countless challengers, especially given the fact that both the Pharisees and the Roman empire would have loved to see the new faith discredited. Today, most Bibles have notes informing the reader of other possible translations of unclear verses. Not only that, but books are readily available discussing the original languages of the various books, thus limiting even more the linquistic wall between ancient writer and modern reader. In essence, the New Testament was undoubtedly accurate during the time of its writing and remains almost perfectly preserved nearly two-thousand years later.

Finally, with each premise wholly and dutifully represented, debated, and confirmed, it can be said that while there is still room for debate, the supreme worth of God is not a claim to be dismissed, it is not a superstition devoid of reason, and it is anything but irrelevant.