Augustine's questioning has taken a turn from the abstract other to the personal. Who is it that can open up his heart that God come come into him? Only God, by his mercy. I am interested by the idea he brings up that God demands that he love Him and threatens great disaster if he does not love him. We would try to use different language today, I mean, "that God demands that we love Him," makes Him sound cruel and petty and unlovable. Yet even if this be accurate God is right and just and wholly lovely in his demand for our love for He has gone to the greatest possible length to love us first. We ought, by our very nature as creatures, love him as our Creator. He is much more than this though, He is also our redeemer paying with his own blood the ransom of our souls. He has made promises and has proven himself faithful so that any who call upon his name will be saved and more than just being spiritually saved, He promises provision and actively leads us, as the psalm says, "to lay down in green pastures and beside still waters." He is the heart mender, the great physician, the just judge, and the one who has promised that he will redeem all things and make them right, raising up the dead, those who have loved him to everlasting life, those who have hated him to everlasting death, and the creation or re-creation of a new heaven and a new earth where the righteous will live forever. Even with such a thin description as I have written here, ought we not to love Him?
I have to wonder at how Augustine speaks of unbelief.
Edit: Another perspective came into my mind that I must write here. C.S. Lewis noted that those who love God and seek to do his will and become more like Christ find, to their joy and amazement that doing so makes them more themselves. One does not lose one's self by joining with God, God makes you more yourself, you do not lose your identity, your identity becomes sharper, clearer, and stronger. Another reason to love God.
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