You have misunderstood the teaching of the Bible. You said, "In order to make sense of that statement you need an objective reference point, and as soon as you use it you defeat your own argument: love isn't an objective point, love is whatever God is or God says." This is incorrect. Love IS an objective point. It is what God is. Since God is constant (immutable), his nature exists as an objective reference point—the very thing you seek. We have made the term "love" fluid by using it in various ways, but there is an immutable objective standard of love as grounded in the character of God. the New Testament writers used only one of the Greek terms for love in reference to God (agape), because it was the highest concept of love that we had language for, so it was used to describe the ideal love. "Love" of pizza and pedophilic "love" are distortions of the ideal, of which God is the objective standard, the immutable reference point. Neither God nor love is a meaningless or useless label, because we have both terms and concepts to comprehend the ideal and give meaning both to his being and the attribute he manifests.

> love, just like peace and justice, exist whether or not people experience them or reciprocate them.

You miss my point entirely. Love is a label we prescribe to things or behavior. You acknowledge it is fluid, which is the core issue here: if your definition of love doesn't align with that of the person you're trying to tell god is love, then they can't make sense of it. In addition, you've already conceded my point: you liken love to behavior you agree with. That is to say, you point and say "this behavior is good, therefore love, God is like that". Without this point of reference, "God is love" means nothing. It doesn't matter what the Bible says because it's a claim, not the evidence.

If you tell a pedophile God is love, in his mind God is loving kids in a sexual way. God is repulsive. In order to make sense of that statement you need an objective reference point, and as soon as you use it you defeat your own argument: love isn't an objective point, love is whatever God is or God says. If you can objectively identify love, God is a meaningless and useless label.

Love, just like peace and justice, exist whether or not people experience them or reciprocate them. Whether or not any particular individual has experienced or reciprocated love, others of their contemporaries have. A triangle as an ideal, as well as abstract and physical examples of triangles, exists even if an individual hasn't seen one.

I agree that the definition of love is somewhat fluid. Even in our society what we mean when we say we love pizza or our favorite movie is not what we mean by it when we say we love a person. And even at that, our love for one person may be different than our love for another. No matter. It doesn't change what we all understand to be the ideal of love, which every culture has.

If we were in ancient Greece, we would know they have four terms for love (in contrast to our one in English). The love shared between a man and his little boy servant may have been eros, but they may have never used "love" for that situation. But they knew what love was. They had storge, philos, and agape to explain the ideals of love.

So when I point to love, my definition aligns well whether one is a Muslim, a Hindu, a Roman or Greek, A Christian, an American, or an aborigine. God is the reference point, and we are designed to be relational creatures, and we all know what love is. Motherhood, romantic love, and true forms of genuine love exist wherever humanity is, as well as abuses of love, lesser forms, and distortions of it. But the distortions don't detract from the ideal that we all know.

> you take the behavior of us as a social species, assert that this behavior comes from a God creator and claim ownership without justification.

It's not without justification at all, nor is it nonsensical. Any trait that exhibits itself across the species regardless of era or location gives evidence that it is a trait beyond any individual or culture, but part of the fabric of what it means to be human. In other words, there is both evidence and justification to assume love, like a sense of right and wrong, is a transcendent characteristic of humans, a necessary relational part of humanity ( a value we all share)—a metaphysical necessity—and therefore something above and beyond each individual person, and even each culture, since all cultures in all eras know and practice love.

> It's also a nonsensical statement because according to your own world view we exist in a fallen sinful imperfect state.

There's nothing nonsensical about it. If we examine the biblical picture, God created us out of a heart of love, and desired that we live in love relationship with him. He invested all humanity with a desire for loving relationship, even between humans (not just between us and God). We are capable of and desire love as part of our nature, even apart from God. We, with our free will, chose to rebel against his love and "fell" into a sinful, imperfect state. In that state God still loves us (Rom. 5.8; Jn. 3.16) and has taken reconciliatory actions to draw us back to a loving relationship with himself. There's nothing nonsensical about it.

And what about those that have not experienced love OR do not reciprocate it? Our definition of love tends to be fluid and varies from society to society. If we were in Ancient Greece, it might be that if you told me God is love, I would understand that to mean that God is the love shared between a man and his little boy sex servant. Sounds repulsive by today's standards and it is harmful for obvious reasons but it was practiced back then. Or better, perhaps when you say God is love a gay couple would equate that to the love between them.

So you see, when you point to "love", your expectation and image of what that is will not always align with an outsider to Christianity. In fact, love looks different even amongst Christians of different denominations. So the label has no meaning without a reference point, and a reference point outside of God, according to your world view, is illogical.

Furthermore, you take the behavior of us as a social species, assert that this behavior comes from a God creator and claim ownership without justification. It's also a nonsensical statement because according to your own world view we exist in a fallen sinful imperfect state.

I would respond, "I think you're not telling the truth. You certainly know love because you have experienced it, both in receiving and in giving. You have been loved by someone in your life who selflessly cared for you, who sacrificed for you, and who put your welfare above their own. You have observed moral goodness and justice in others. By the same token, you have shown love to others, displaying these same attributes towards another."

Our ability and propensity to engage others in loving relationships is a function of our being made in the image of our Creator, who doesn't just behave in love but has love as his nature. He is the source of our drive to engage in loving relationships not only with each other, but with animals and our environment. We are wired for relationship.

Okay, so if you say "God is love" and I say "I don't know what you mean", how do you respond?

Wrong again, my friend. To describe God with attributes is nowhere near self-refuting. A personality is describable, by definition (a personality without a description is not a personality), and it's illegitimate and false to declare that all descriptions are circular and self-refuting, at least any more than is inevitable. All questions of existence—or, more accurately, knowledge of existence—are fundamentally circular. In order to know a thing, we have to know what it is, and we also have to know HOW we know what it is. To know whether things really are as they seem to be, we must have a procedure for distinguishing appearances that are true from appearances that are false, which is what I have been saying. But to know whether our procedure is a good procedure, we have to know whether it really succeeds in distinguishing appearances that are true from appearances that are false. And we cannot know know whether it really does succeed unless we already know which appearances are true and which ones are false. And so we are caught in a circle.

You can't verify your procedure without first having knowledge, but you can't get any knowledge without first verifying your procedure. Kant would say the only option is to pick one or the other and run with it (choose a procedure that you assume but cannot prove will yield true knowledge, like positivism does with science; or choose some tenets of knowledge that you assume are true even though you can't verify them, which is called foundationalism and is the process used in nearly all of philosophy). The way to verify (or contest) truth in a Kantian system isn't to verify (or contest) the first principles, but to test for coherence: a system based on faulty assumptions (or an inaccurate procedure) will eventually either contradict reality, or contradict itself.

My definition starts with an assumption (the concept of God, a philosophical and theological ideal). We have to start with an assumption to have a discussion: God exists. Secondly, we can proceed to how God is defined: "an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, eternal, incorporeal, spiritual being who is also holy, just, love, imminent, transcendent, and personal, the creator and sustainer of the entire material universe. He exists outside of space and time, and yet can function within them. He is consistent within himself and cannot be or act in self-contradiction."

Let's talk about this. I can't talk about love without establishing God first. This is not circular or self-refuting because I have begun with assumptions (God exists, he has certain immutable attributes) that are not the conclusions (therefore God exists, therefore God is God), but they do presuppose certain properties of God. The Christian portrayal of God is love, when other notions of God do not portray him as such (competing presuppositions of first principles).

In other words, you want both the knowledge AND the means by which it is obtained. You're ASKING for a circular argument, and that's what is self-refuting. You're putting me in an artificial box of your own making, and then refusing to let me tell you I'm in a false box.

You want to know how I exemplify the label. It's as if you asked me to define a triangle for you, but refuse to let me tell you that it's a close geometric figure with three-sides, and may have similar angles, but not necessarily. If I said to you, "A triangle is a triangle. A triangle just is," that would be meaningless. But when I define it for you, you claim I'm being self-refuting. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

The first premise of any ontological argument is that existence predicates idea. The theological premise is that God exists. That premise stands alone as an ontological reality. In addition to his existence (like the ideal concept of triangle), I can add to that reality by defining the characteristics of that reality (closed figure, 3 sides) by saying God is love, meaning his actions are moral, good, and just, making willful choices to selflessly and sacrificially serve others for their benefit and welfare. This is how I would explain this character trait to an outsider to Christianity. God has these properties because these can be observed from the way he interacts in history with people with whom he has established a relationship, as recorded by the prophets. You call this self-refuting, presumably because you've rejected the metaphysical premise of ontological knowledge, and have a priori already rejected any possible answer. My argument isn't circular or self-refuting, at least any more than is inevitable. At worst, my first principles are not coherent with your, but that's no surprise. The burden of proof is on the coherence of the system, not on the truth of the first principles; these are arbitrary and untestable, by definition, for all systems. The expression "God is love" is coherent with the ontological claim that God exists, and that he exists not in a nebulous form but with immutable attributes. It's no different than claiming there is an ideal figure we call a triangle, and that this figure can be understood by explicating its definitional attributes. When you say "God isn't love," it's as if you are saying "A triangle isn't three sides. A triangle just is." Nonsense, by reasoning. We understand its ontological reality because of the definition, not without it.

> There are many ways that God has been variously defined, and so the term "God" is too ambiguous to stand on its own.

True, but that's not my problem and it's also a non sequitur. You'll see why in a moment.

> To say "God is God" is a meaningless tautology, but to say "God is love" is bringing a descriptive definition.

No it doesn't. Not unless you already understand the label "love", and love means whatever God says, therefore God is love means God is God. Love as a label cannot exist outside of God, in your world view, so what do you point at to explain to somebody what God is like? The love for a child? Why? Is that love because God says so or does God say so because that's what love is?

> Therefore, to say "God is love" is not to say "God is God". It's to say that the God of the Bible, in contradistinction to other gods, has love as a character trait

So how do you explain this character trait to an outsider to Christianity? What do you point at and why, to exemplify the label? See, any way you articulate it you inescapably go back to the same root cause: the trait is meaningless without context, but according to your world view there is no context outside of the nature of God. It's a circular and self-refuting argument. God isn't love. God just is.

Thanks for your patience, but I believe you have misunderstood as well. There are many ways that God has been variously defined, and so the term "God" is too ambiguous to stand on its own. For each belief system, "God" must be defined by the attributes recognized in Him by the belief system itself. To say "God is God" is a meaningless tautology, but to say "God is love" is bringing a descriptive definition, as recognized by Christianity, to an otherwise ambiguous term.

"Love" also is a multifaceted term variously defined by context and definition, needing explanation in each usage. To claim love for pizza is a different dynamic than to claim love for a spouse. So also, the phrase "God is love" is not the ultimate subjective divine command (it isn't a command at all, but an admission of an attribute), but a recognition of a character trait, as I said in my previous post.

You are also mistaken to assume that the phrase "God is love" is a decree. Love is not whatever God decrees, as if it's a version of the Euthyphro Dilemma.

Therefore, to say "God is love" is not to say "God is God". It's to say that the God of the Bible, in contradistinction to other gods, has love as a character trait, and every action he takes has love in its grounds because he cannot act contrary to his loving nature. His love finds expression in everything He says or does.

You miss my point. Love by what standard? God is the only standard for morality in your world view, correct? To say God is anything is to say "God is God" because no standard can exist outside of God. So to say "God is love" is to say "God is God". It's incomprehensible because by definition love is whatever God decrees. It's the ultimate subjective divine command.