[Avodah] God of Love, vs. Just God

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

I wrote:
> My feeling is that He is a just God, as RMYG writes, but in
> addition, He is also a loving God. Here's my logic: As humans we
> suffer from not having the ability to scan the entire scope of
> the human experience so as to understand the love of what Hashem
> does, but He is always loving, our perceptions notwithstanding.

R' Moshe Y. Gluck asked:
> R' AM, forgive me for saying this, but your logic does not seem
> logical, unless it is going completely over my head; it seems
> more like conjecture than anything else. Could you elaborate?

No apologies needed; I'm glad to explain. *I'm* sorry for not being clear enough.

I was simply commenting on RMYG's original suggestion that He is *not* a loving God. If I understood him correctly, the only evidence he offered was the question: "How can a Loving God do ___(many terrible things)_____ to me?"

Now, was that a real question or a *rhetorical* question? WADR, RMYG seems to be using it as a rhetorical question, meaning that a Loving God would NOT do such things, and therefore we must find other ways to describe Him, such as a Just God.

But I prefer to take it as a real question: How can a Loving God do such things? And my answer is: We are too short-sighted. I'll admit that it is difficult/impossible to understand how can a Loving God do such things, but that's only because we have not yet reached the end of the story. If we do ever merit seeing and understanding the whole story (which might not be possible), then we will indeed see the love that He put into those acts.

It seems to me that this is very similar to the idea the RMYG himself was saying: God often seems to be unfair, but if we *would* be able to scan the entire scope of the human experience, then we *would* be able to see Him as a Just God. I don't see any difference between these these misperceptions of Him, and so I figured that whatever wording one uses for His Fairness would also apply to His Love.

Akiva Miller

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