One of the phrases I have liked the least in youth ministry is “unconditional love.” At first, my discomfort with the phrase and the concept was that is what not particularly theological nor scriptural. This agitation has been in the background of my thoughts for the past 10 years, and I have discovered my discomfort with it in turning back to the postmodern philosopher Jaques Derrida.
One of the things that bothers Derrida about gifts and gift giving is that all gifts seem to place a demand on the person who receives them. For him, he wants to arrive at the concept of the pure gift, the gift that is given without the possibility or necessity of reciprocity and obligation. In the background of this thought is the search for pure freedom, a freedom that negates hierarchy and what could be considered the burden of obligations.
Within this context, we should ask ourselves, Is God’s love unconditional? Which is to say, is there no conditions on God’s love? Is God’s love a pure gift that places no demands upon us nor require us to perform to meet his approval?
First, in the Old Testament covenant, the gift of the law and the revelation of God through Moses and the prophets carries with it a clear series of obligations and requirements. It is very conditional which is to say that God demands a response of faith and obedience. In theology, we speak of religion as the obligations which we owe to God.
Some might argue that the New Testament is distinct in this regard because the gift of grace far exceeds the Old Covenant. But doesn’t the new Covenant place even more demands on the believer than the old? Not only does God demand of us fidelity to the external obligations that we accept by entering into relationship with him, but he demands that he take the central place in our hearts and reach into the very depths of who we are.
God’s love is gratuitous, which is to say that we have not earned our salvation and his love by our works, but it is deeply flawed to say that there are no conditions attached, no obligations assumed.
Others object to this notion of love’s demand by arguing that a thought trap most people have is that they feel they must earn love by performing, or a performance based idea of what love is or should be. The truth of a disordered childhood is that some people never feel like they can do enough to please their parents, and ultimately to please God. Flowing from this wound in our childhood, some argue that viewing God as a father we must please by our good works is theologically wrong and the path to bad mental illness.
But is it? Is the problem of many of us that we feel like we must perform to please God and our parents, or is the problem that the good we did was never affirmed and received? Our works do please God, and in a sense we earn God’s love. The challenge is that our works are often incomplete and mixed in their execution and their fruit. But a good parent and a good God, and our God is good, is pleased by our imperfect works.
The problem is not that we were trying to earn love, but that our striving was never properly understood nor received by our parents. This is why many people struggle to see God looking down upon their little tokens of love and devotion with delight in our imperfect efforts. Good works are pleasing to the Lord, and by them we merit an increase of grace. The mystery of our works is that it is God’s grace which compels us to perform them.
God first loves us and pours his grace into our hearts, and then his grace moves us to acts of devotion and service. In our works, he crowns his own works and is pleased. The problem is not that people are trying to please God and earn his love, but rather they profoundly misunderstand the nature of God in which he receives them.