When We Say ‘God is Love’: A Study on the Centrality of Love in the Doctrine of God & Its Ramifications

Abstract

This dissertation attends to a theological question: can we say that divine love has priority in our understanding of God, and if so, how? I look to several theologians, both recent and historical, who claim that love does have priority yet substantiate their claims in different ways. The first chapter puts three recent authors into conversation to ascertain the roots, or underlying theological ideas, needed to claim love’s priority in a doctrine of God. Gaps remain, however, and I turn to the writings of two medieval authors that complement and enhance what emerged from the first chapter. In the final chapter, I give my own synthetic account of divine love, drawing from the first three chapters while adding my own contributions. I ultimately argue that divine love – understood as God’s willing the good of creatures – ought to have priority in a doctrine of God, and that this priority yields theological and spiritual consequences that enrich rather than cheapen other descriptors, like justice. My account is an offering to the ongoing theological conversation about divine love, its relation to other attributes, and its ramifications.