[On Russell M. Nelson’s “Divine Love,” Ensign, February 2003, 20-25:]
However, there is an easy way to resolve these contradictions:
by recognizing that “love” is equivocal in these statements. In fact, Elder
Nelson hints at the equivocal nature of divine love when he states that there
are “higher levels of love” that are conditional. In particular, when the
gospel and epistles of John refer to the divine love that abides in us if we
keep the commandments, “love” refers to an abiding fellowship of indwelling
intimacy wherein the lover and the beloved live their lives in each other. It
is the highest form of love. We can refer to this type of love as fellowship.
On the other hand, those scriptures which speak of love that is universal in
the sense that God loves all persons means that God is committed to the best
interests and highest good of all others. God seeks the salvation of all
persons in this sense: “For [peaceable life] is good and acceptable in the
sight of God our Saviour; who will have all men to be saved, and to come
unto the knowledge of the truth” ((1 Tim. 2:3-4). “For God so loved the
world, that he gave his Only Begotten Son” (John 3:16). In these
scriptures, we have instances of what we may call universal love, or
love that is committed to and seeks the best interest of all others. Moreover,
it seems that, when we are commanded to love each other as Christ has loved us
or to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, we are asked to love all others
in the sense of universal love. Universal love is not contended with merely
working toward what is in another’s best interest, for it seeks fulfillment of
the relationship and therefore seeks to bring others to abide in love in the
sense of fellowship love.
Thus, it seems to me that there is something right about what
Elder Nelson says. There is a sense in which God’s love is conditional.
Fellowship is available only to those who accept God’s love freely and abide I the
commandments which teach the conditions of such an indwelling relationship of
intimate love.
Blake T. Ostler, Exploring Mormon Thought: The Problems of
Theism and the Love of God (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2006), 20-21
