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please comment on these two phrases - 7/15/2008 12:25:57 PM
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Prairiehiker
Posts: 979
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These are two popular phrases we often here today. Both are seemingly right, but also seemingly contradictory.
1. Love is a decision. It's an action, not an emotion.
2. You can't force someone to love you.
If love is a decision and an action directed by will, then you can make someone display loving behaviours. They can even decide on their own to act lovingly. Is that love then?
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RE: please comment on these two phrases - 7/15/2008 12:37:30 PM
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stamper_ben
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The agape love that Christ tells us to have for each other is in fact a choice we make. Choices are action. But it will not be a choice if it is forced.
Eros and phileo love is different I believe. Those kinds of love are at a different level.
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RE: please comment on these two phrases - 7/15/2008 12:49:45 PM
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preserved
Posts: 1058
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Prairiehiker
These are two popular phrases we often here today. Both are seemingly right, but also seemingly contradictory.
1. Love is a decision. It's an action, not an emotion.
2. You can't force someone to love you.
If love is a decision and an action directed by will, then you can make someone display loving behaviours. They can even decide on their own to act lovingly. Is that love then?
Love becomes a decision if one has to decide whether or not to love someone...God created us to love everyone....so then that removes the decision..
Love is not an action....we are to show love towards one another. If you have to act like you love someone...that is not love...
Emotion is what is within your heart...whether to be happy, to grieve, to laugh, etc
You also cannot make someone love. You can help somone to love but you cannot make them..it's from within the heart
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RE: please comment on these two phrases - 7/15/2008 1:30:13 PM
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slushie
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I think stamper_ben said it very very well. If it's forced, then it's NOT a choice.
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RE: please comment on these two phrases - 7/15/2008 1:34:29 PM
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CoeurdeLeon
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quote:
then you can make someone display loving behaviours.
I'm pretty sure I don't agree with this but maybe I'm not thinking along the same lines you are. Could you give an example of what you mean?
As far as I know, we can't "make" anyone do anything. We can't make someone else make the decision to love. We can only control our decisions, not anyone else's.
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RE: please comment on these two phrases - 7/15/2008 1:50:32 PM
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buckifn
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of course some people can put on a fake display of emotions, but it won't last forever...because who we are is what eventually comes out..the good...the bad...and the ugly.
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RE: please comment on these two phrases - 7/15/2008 5:49:36 PM
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YZGUY
Posts: 263
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quote:
These are two popular phrases we often here today. Both are seemingly right, but also seemingly contradictory.
1. Love is a decision. It's an action, not an emotion.
2. You can't force someone to love you.
If love is a decision and an action directed by will, then you can make someone display loving behaviours. They can even decide on their own to act lovingly. Is that love then?
Love is both an action and an emotion. It is a feeling and it is actions. I Cor 13:4-7 shows what it is: being patient, kind, other oriented, protects, trusts, hopes, perseveres. You place your trust and your hope, you strive to persevere. Also, "God so loved the world..." Love is an emotion, a strong desire for or affection for another. So it is both. But I do not think you can have the heart-felt action without the emotion. "For God so Loved the world that He gave..." The emotion of love leads to the action of love.
It is possible to perform the action but fake the emotion: "They honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me."
You cannot make others display loving behaviors, but you can change the way you feel and act towards someone...to love them by choosing to do so by an act of the will. Love is not something that you just fall into and out of that you have no control over (like the weather), It has to involve the will to some extent. Otherwise, I would be fearful that God would fall out of love with me...but He is love, and we are created by Love and to love. Therefore, IMO, we cannot not love. Our love is directed towards self, or God and others. God knows our love is self-focused, so he commands us to shift the focus of our love onto Him and others, because that is what we were created to do and how we expeience the most joy. Just some thoughts...
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RE: please comment on these two phrases - 7/15/2008 6:56:14 PM
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Liveloved
Posts: 1364
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quote:
These are two popular phrases we often here today. Both are seemingly right, but also seemingly contradictory.
1. Love is a decision. It's an action, not an emotion.
2. You can't force someone to love you.
If love is a decision and an action directed by will, then you can make someone display loving behaviours. They can even decide on their own to act lovingly. Is that love then?
Love is a decision. True. You can't force someone to love you. True. You can choose to love. You are who you have control over. You can choose to act in love toward any and everyone. It is not dependent on feelings. In fact, feelings need to often be set aside. Choose to love as I Cor 13 tells us. Love IS patient. Love IS kind. Love IS NOT jealous or boastful. All of those are chosen actions---not feelings.
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RE: please comment on these two phrases - 7/16/2008 10:31:54 AM
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MWD
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I'm splitting your first question into two parts.
> 1a. Love is a decision.
False. "Love" suggests an involuntary, positive emotional response.
> 1b. It's an action, not an emotion.
False. It can initiate subsequent action, but it clearly is not the action itself.
> 2. You can't force someone to love you.
True. But if you'd used "influence" instead of "force," I might've answered differently.
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RE: please comment on these two phrases - 7/16/2008 1:23:44 PM
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deermousie
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The Bible has 4 different words for love:
eros - passion "I love you because you turn me on"
phileo- friendship "I love you because you do something for me"
stergi- parental love "I love my children"
agape- unconditional love "I love you no matter what you do or don't do"
Jesus loves us unconditionally (agape), He asked Peter if he loved (agape) Him and Peter said "I love (phileo) You." The last time He asked Peter He said, in effect, "Do you even phileo Me?" It takes on a whole bigger picture in the original Greek that we miss in the English.
So Prairiehiker's question:
quote:
1. Love is a decision. It's an action, not an emotion.
2. You can't force someone to love you.
Agape love is a decision, because it's not based on what you get from the other person, and there doesn't have to be an emotion involved. You might not get anything from the person you love. God loves us, but there was a time in each of our lives when we didn't love Him. It was God's decision, and He showed it most clearly on the cross, paying for sin that we didn't even know about then (and probably didn't care about for a long time).
Phileo, stergi and eros can be a knee-jerk reaction because of a stimulus outside ourselves. We get something and we respond: we love. Maybe. And if the stimulus stops, we might stop loving. But agape love comes from God and isn't based on what we get so it isn't going to go away based on what we don't get.
Can you force someone to love you? I don't think so. Even God doesn't do that. We have free choice. A Christian can choose to love (agape) in obedience to God's Word. We can "buy" the friendship or erotic love of others (tempt them because they like what they are getting from us) sometimes but it's only as steady as the person's character permits. And the way you get them is the way you keep them.
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RE: please comment on these two phrases - 7/16/2008 1:37:44 PM
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contend4christ
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quote:
but He is love, and we are created by Love and to love. Therefore, IMO, we cannot not love.
I agree, I think we are actually more like the vessels through which his love flows. Love is something so powerful we would like to get it in a box, were we have it all defined neatly. The only way to really get some type of idea on it is to get an understanding of God since he is love. So I doubt we will ever in this life get love in a box, having it completely understood. But based on the source, love is not a decision but it leads to certain decisions. It is not just a fickle emotion either, in fact we see its far more. God displays many emotions in scripture all while he himself is love. This is why we know we love others when our actions line up with his actions. As far as not being able to force some one to love, it depends on what the idea of force is. I agree with MWD, influence is more like it. The love of God on a heart he himself regenerated, is one strong influence and I don't know who could fight it. All in all though, to claim any type of all encompassing knowledge of love would be to have an all encompassing knowledge of God which is not going to happen.
< Message edited by contend4christ -- 7/16/2008 1:48:43 PM >
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RE: please comment on these two phrases - 7/16/2008 4:11:14 PM
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DaveW
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I agree with both statements.
As others have said here, the english word "love" covers a lot of territory, from the emotional to the decisional to the obligation. The kind that God commands us:
This is my commandment that you love one another...
is a decision and you can force no one to make that decision. It is their choice.
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RE: please comment on these two phrases - 7/18/2008 3:04:02 AM
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Katie-Scarlet
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1. Love is a decision. It's an action, not an emotion.
2. You can't force someone to love you.
1. Love is not a decision. Love simply is, it exist. There are many types of love. We can decide to act on it or not act on it. To allow it to grow or squash it down.
2. True you cannot force someone to love you because love itself is what it is, it will exist or not exist. In the case of romantic love it can occur or not we don't control who we fall in love with when it is real love it happens or it doesn't if its forced then it is not real love.
We don't control love we just control how,with whom and when we choose to act on it and allowing ourselves to feel it, share it etc. You can't make yourself love someone becasue love is natural. If you change your way of thinking and feeling and seeking God, change will occur in your life and then love will also come but then it is not forced. You have changed so then your willingnes to allow love to be changes.
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Are you ready to join the war? Know your enemy, prepare yourself.
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RE: please comment on these two phrases - 7/21/2008 9:44:32 AM
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creationtalk
Posts: 588
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Prairiehiker
These are two popular phrases we often here today. Both are seemingly right, but also seemingly contradictory.
1. Love is a decision. It's an action, not an emotion.
2. You can't force someone to love you.
If love is a decision and an action directed by will, then you can make someone display loving behaviours. They can even decide on their own to act lovingly. Is that love then?
Love is a decision. There are many times you may not feel love toward someone, but you can decide to act toward them IN LOVE. This applies to a marriage that is struggling or any other relationship/human interaction.
No, you cannot force someone to love you. Dictators around the world and for centuries have forced their people to display love and/or worship...while in their hearts they are praying for/plotting his death. Even if I force someone to act loving, they are not loving. Love is not the action, though we SHOW love through our actions. Someone can also choose to act loving, without making the decision to love...this can be a ploy to gain something from another. However, how many times have we seen cases of people who loved the person who abused them? This is an act of will.
Example:
Husband A tells his wife, Oh honey, I love you so. You are so precious to me. Then punches her.
Husband B has never once said a loving, romantic thing to his wife. He washed the dishes for her while she was busy with the children. He brought home take-out one night when he knew she had a hard day and was tired.
Which one truly loves?
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RE: please comment on these two phrases - 7/21/2008 9:45:56 AM
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bluestone
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There are different types of love.
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