Can you love on command?
Matthew 22:36-40 (KJV)
36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
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Jesus should know, --- if intelligent at all, that an emotions like love cannot be commanded or demanded from people.
Whatever force was driving Jesus to put that command into our reality, be that force or God real or myth, could not have been a very intelligent force.
You recognize those you love and who return the emotion by works and deeds.
Can one be effectively ordered to love knowing that true love, as with true faith, must have deeds, works and reciprocity?
Imagine you never doing anything for those you love. They would and could not know you love them. Imagine those who profess loving you without them ever showing it by actions. You could never know that they love you.
Can you love on command a God that is not here and unable to share that love?
Can you love your neighbor without doing something for him?
Is love a one way thing or must it be returned to be real love?
Are the so called great commandments unworkable rhetoric?
You should know that I think we are basically all living those commandments in a partial and blind way, as we are collectively helping our poorer neighbors. It is the intellectual efficacy or veracity of those commands that I question.
Regards
DL
