If God is all good, and God is all power, then why does evil exist? This problem, called the logical problem of evil, is widely recognized as countered by the free will defense, which states: If any creature God creates will necessarily go wrong (or sin) at some point, and the result of such sin is evil, then any world God creates containing beings with libertarian freedom will necessarily contain evil. At heart of the free will defense (and many other theological issues, including salvation and spiritual maturity) is the concept of libertarian freedom. Alvin Plantinga explains:

What is relevant to the Free Will Defense is the idea of being free with respect to an action. If a person is free with respect to a given action, then he is free to perform that action and free to refrain from performing it; no antecedent conditions and/or causal laws determine that he will perform the action, or that he won’t. It is within his power, at the time in question, to take or perform the action and within his power to refrain from it. Freedom so conceived is not to be confused with unpredictability. You might be able to predict what you will do in a given situation even if you are free, in that situation, to do something else.[1]

The free will defense, then, raises the question: Do humans have libertarian freedom? The importance of the question is illustrated by Anthony Flew’s counter to the free will defense. Flew contends the statement “’God made people so that they always choose the right’ is logically compatible with ‘humans have free choice.’”[2] If these two statements are logically compatible, then God could create free creatures who never go wrong (or sin); hence the free will defense would fail.

Defending libertarian freedom, or incompatibilism, however, is difficult. Virtually any action or volition can be defined in a way that supports either a compatibilistic or incompabilistic view of the relationship between man’s freedom and God’s sovereignty. Love, however, appears to be an exception to this rule. This paper argues love gains value from and is definitionally tied to libertarian freedom. Without libertarian freedom, high value love doesn’t exist.

The first section of this paper introduces the problem, including a representative argument against love being related to libertarian freedom. The second section will consider love as a form of action, and provide a defense showing that freedom of action increases the value of love (even if a compatibilistic version of love is available). The third section will consider a defense of libertarian volitional (or even emotional) love. The fourth section will provide a definitional defense, beginning by examining the meaning of love in the context of God. The final section is a conclusion.

The Centrality of Love

God’s love is tied to salvation by Jesus in John 3:16, John in 1 John 4:9, and Paul in Romans 5:8. Man’s love for God is tied to obedience; 1 John 5:3 says, “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.”[3] Karl Barth states “there is nothing beyond love,” and “Love is the essence of Christian living.”[4] Love is tied to freedom throughout Christian history; for instance, in an article on the unchangeableness of God in 1879, Dorner says, “Without freedom there is no love.”[5] In a more recent commentary, David Case and David Holdren claim the freedom to choose is essential to love.[6] Anthony Hoekema also argues the relationship between freedom and love is important in Emil Brunner’s theology.[7]

Theistic answers to the problem of evil (booth defenses and theodicies) often rely on libertarian freedom, or the ability of a free creature too choose the contrary, to create epistemic distance between God and evil. For instance, Bruce Little contends free human choices are responsible for evil in his Creation Order Theodicy, supporting libertarian freedom to the freedom to choose love, saying “this relationship between man and God was to be one of mutual love; man must be free to enter into that relationship or it would not be a relationship of love.”[8] Swinburne grounds his theodicy more fully in the value of love as a free choice, [9] stating: “We value the willingly generous action, the naturally honest, spontaneously loving action.”[10] Gregory Boyd grounds his theodicy in freely chosen love, saying:

God created the world for the purpose of displaying his triune love and inviting others to share in it (cf. esp. Jn 17:20–25). I shall argue that it was not logically possible for God to have this objective without risking the possibility of war breaking out in his creation. By definition, I will contend, the possibility of love among contingent creatures such as angels and humans entails the possibility of its antithesis, namely, war. If God wanted the former, he had to risk the latter.[11]

Norm Geisler argues for the necessity of libertarian freedom to choose love:

But in view of God’s omnibenevolence, it follows that grace cannot be irresistible on the unwilling, for a God of complete love cannot force anyone to act against his will. Forced love is intrinsically impossible: A loving God can work persuasively, but not coercively.[12]

These answers presuppose there is some necessary reason or strong justification for tying love to libertarian freedom. In each case, the argument is made that if love is not freely given, in a libertarian sense (which means the person giving the love can choose the contrary, to refuse to give the love), then it isn’t truly love.

But why should there be a relationship between libertarian freedom and love? Moses Silva argues that love, faith, and righteousness are related: “This usage brings ἀγάπη very close to concepts like faith, righteousness, and grace, all of which have a single point of origin in God alone.”[13] Silva’s argument that all three originate in God would seem to imply a compatibilistic view. In fact, Ben Holloway provides two specific arguments that love does not require libertarian freedom:

Either love is defined as some species of a state of affairs or as a human action. If it is some mental or emotional state of affairs, then one’s version of free will is irrelevant. If it is a human action, then the argument is reduced to an argument about the nature of free will or the necessary conditions for moral responsibility.[14]

Contrary to Holloway, there are good reasons to accept a connection between love and libertarian freedom; two lines of argument will be used to counter Holloway’s contention in the following sections. Holloway’s second line of argument, love as a species of action, will be considered first. His first line of argument, love as a form of volition, will be countered with two rejoinders, one based on moral considerations, the second based on a definition of love developed in reference to God.

Love as a Species of Action

According to Holloway, “if love is a set of duties performed by actions, then love is a species of actions. If this is what is in mind, then the compatibilistic answer remains the same. Human actions are free iff they are in accord with the desire of the agent and not coerced.”[15] The differentiation between love as volition and love as action is supported by William Dumbrell in his discussion of the love of God in the Tanakh:

Love, however, is more than mere affection or devotion. Love always appears in association with some activity: walking in the Lord’s ways (10:12), keeping the Lord’s commandments (5:10), obeying the Lord’s voice (13:4). Love thus demands that the person engage in practices that demonstrate covenant fidelity… Trustful behavior (love) stemming from a changed heart (fear) is what Deuteronomy seeks.[16]

Holloway uses marriage as an example of this case. Does anyone doubt their spouse loves them simply because they have promised, before God, to do so? This problem might be more keenly felt by extending Holloway’s metaphor to arranged marriages, and asking: are arranged marriages any less loving than marriages entered into voluntarily?

The first point to consider is whether marriage is a good example of compatibilistic love. Certainly marriage binds a person to a certain course of action regardless of their feelings or volition at a specific point in time, but a voluntary marriage, at least, is entered into by people who know this will likely be the case at some point in the future, and yet still bind themselves to the relationship. To broaden the question: can a relationship entered voluntarily at one point be considered free only in a compatibilistic sense at some point in the future? Not if libertarian freedom includes provision that prior actions can either restrict or broaden future choice of action. Little, for instance, claims:

In some cases, such choices may determine an unalterable course of events which cannot be reversed by another choice, such as jumping out of a window on the thirtieth floor of an apartment building. Libertarian freedom, however, maintains that man has the ability to make authentic choices from the options permitted within his circumstances and God’s providence. His choices may be limited, but not his ability to choose.[17]

Which seems to allow marriage to fall within the range of libertarian freedom. Marriage is both a restriction—you must love this person—and a broadening—you may love this person in a way unique among people—and so would seem to fit into actions taken in libertarian freedom that binds future decisions. As such, there is no reason to believe marriage, entered voluntarily, is good model of compatibilistic freedom.

Arranged marriage may seem to be a more difficult case at first glance. However, to assume arranged marriage is a good example of compatibilistic love is to assume that all arranged marriages result in high value love. There is little to support this contention; arranged marriages don’t appear, on their face, to always produce love, either volitionally or in action. A person may still choose to (or not to) exhibit loving actions (or volitional love) within an arranged marriage. Further, a person who exhibits loving actions in an arranged marriage could be acting out of love for their spouse, or they could be acting out of love for their family, their community, themselves (self-respect), or they could even be acting to prevent rejection. There is no way to determine which of these motivating factors might be driving loving actions.

Moving beyond marriage as an example, the incompatibilists rejoinder to Holloway’s argument is this: love freely chosen is more valuable than love arising from any form—including compatibilistic forms—of determinism. John Hosler, in The Billiard Parlor Evangel,[18] uses libertarian love in a defense of God against the apparent evil in the world. He proposes a situation where a young man must choose between two girls, equal in every respect, except one has a button on her shoulder that—when pressed—makes her express her love. The second girl, by contrast, openly and freely expresses her love for the young man. Hosler argues the love of the second girl, who expresses her love without any compulsion, is the more desirable, saying: “It is the option to hate that makes true love possible. It is a wife’s option to hate her husband that makes her love valuable.”[19]

Joshua Rasmussen, while answering a related objection to the moral value of libertarian freedom, offers a more fully developed argument for the value of love chosen in the face of contrary possibilities (or rather, love chosen in libertarian freedom). Rasmussen examines the case of Sally, who likes daffodils, and wants her husband to buy her some. Rather than waiting on her husband to do so freely, however, Sally chooses to pour love potion into her husband’s drink causing him to buy her daffodils. The question Rasmussen poses is: is Sally’s husband love more, or less, valuable to Sally because of the love potion?[20]

While the husband’s actions might still be considered free (he did, after all, marry Sally, presumably knowing she has the potion), Rasmussen contends his love is less valuable than it might otherwise be. Rasmussen says: “moral freedom does not contribute to the greatness of the best being because it does not contribute to the greatness of any being. It does, however, enable some valuable kinds of loving situations…”[21] By shifting the focus from the existence of love to the value of love, Rasmussen makes a strong case for the increased value of even freely chosen acts of love; some actions are simply more valuable when undertaken in libertarian freedom.

Love as Volition: A Moral Rejoinder

Returning to the two-fold classification of love, Holloway argues that love as a volitional choice reduces to the same case as any other volitional choice, saying:

Given, the compatibilist conception of free will, the LFW proponent does not make an additional argument by suggesting that love would not be possible if compatibilist free will is true. Rather, the argument from love reduces to the argument about the nature of free will and moral responsibility.[22]

Holloway is indicating human moral responsibility here, but it is also possible to look at love and coercion from the perspective of God’s moral responsibility. Returning to the example of Sally’s love potion, the question can be asked: is Sally morally right in changing her husband’s desires in a way that will cause him to buy her daffodils? Within the context of marriage her actions might be considered moral, as her husband has previously agreed to love her (through the marriage). On the other hand, what if Sally were to give the love potion to a man she desired, but who was not her husband? Or if she loves daffodils so much that she uses the love potion to obtain them even with men who she doesn’t love?

This line of questions becomes more difficult when applied to God. Is God justified in causing a person who would otherwise not love him to do so? Geisler argues God is not morally justified, saying:

All Calvinists believe in some form of irresistible grace: Strong Calvinists believe grace is irresistible on the unwilling, and moderate Calvinists believe it is irresistible on the willing. But in view of God’s omnibenevolence, it follows that grace cannot be irresistible on the unwilling, for a God of complete love cannot force anyone to act against his will. Forced love is intrinsically impossible: A loving God can work persuasively, but not coercively.[23]

Returning to the problem of evil, Geisler is essentially arguing that a compatibilistic can escape the horns of the dilemma and maintain a compatibilistic view of God’s sovereignty and man’s freedom only if God’s omnibenevolence is abandoned, or (as Geisler maintains) they move to a universalist position of salvation.

Jeff Jordan describes the wideness and flatness of God’s love as its topology, describing the omnibenevolent view in the proposition: “If God exists and is perfect, then God’s love must be maximally extended and equally intense.”[24] Jordan accepts God’s love cannot be “flat” in this way, and hence rejects God’s omnibenevolence.[25] He reasons God’s love is variegated, rather than equally spread to each created person, saying: “If the divine love cannot be maximally extended and equally intense, it may not be surprising, or perhaps as surprising, that God saves a particular sinner but not another who is no less a sinner.”[26]

Love as Volition: A Definitional Rejoinder

Holloway’s argument relies on a specific definition of love: “Either love is defined as some species of a state of affairs or as a human action.”[27] The author takes his classifications of love from Bennett Helm, who divides love into union, robust concern, valuing, and an emotion.[28] While these seem to be good definitions of love as far as they go, from a Christian perspective it is better to build a definition of love from the character of God. As Henry notes: “God’s interpersonal love for himself and for his creatures is the measure of all that passes for love in the universe he makes and preserves; it is the shaping principle of his creative and redemptive work.”[29]

Love Defined through God

To understand God’s love, it is best to turn to the Scriptures, and work from there to a full definition of what love means. This section will assert God’s love is essential, volitional, emotional, self-giving, and free.

God’s Love is Essential

1 John 4:8 informs us that “God is love.”[30] This passage states that love is not “outside of God, but is predicated of him.”[31] Brunner says of this passage:

Only now is it possible to express the most daring statement that has ever been made in human language: “God is Love”. This implies that love is not a “quality” or an “attribute” of God; God does not share with other beings the quality of being “loving”. Rather, Love—that is, the love of which the Bible speaks—is the very Nature of God…[32]

As love is essential to God, rather than accidental, God cannot not love. This point is taken in contrast to the argument against the omnibenevolence of God. More directly, God cannot not love some of his creatures; he may say to them, “thy will be done,”[33] but this doesn’t mean God’s love towards them has ended. In the end, God will respect their decisions (made in libertarian freedom), and assign them a place apart from his presence—Hell.

God’s Love is Volitional

1 John 3:16 states: “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.”[34] Based on this passage, Augustus Strong says: “By love we mean that attribute of the divine nature in virtue of which God is eternally moved to self-communication,”[35] where self-communication is a volition of God. Morris Womack says of God’s love: “This love that God is encompasses intelligence, intention, comprehension, and understanding, because to love in the manner that God (does) not necessarily a love of passion, but a love of intention.”[36] To say God’s love is volitional means it is intentional, or that it serves a purpose that is aimed at the good of others. Strong argues from John 3:16 that it was love that motivated God to send his unique Son to provide redemption.[37]

God’s Love is Emotional

Jesus, in Matthew 23:37, says: “How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings…”[38] There are a number of places in the Scriptures where the emotional side of God’s love is on display; for example, Jesus had compassion on the widow who lost her only son (Luke 7:12), the mourners at the funeral of Jairus’ daughter (Luke 8:52), and stated there is joy in heaven over the salvation of one who was lost (Luke 15:7). While these are often considered anthropomorphisms, many modern scholars disagree, arguing it is not possible to dismiss God’s fondness, or the emotional component of his love.[39] For instance, D.A. Carson says:

I suspect that the understanding of ἀγαπάω as willed love independent of emotion and with commitment to the other’s good has been influenced by the schoolmen and other philosophical theologians of a bygone era who denied there was feeling in God. To have feeling, they argued, would imply passivity, that is, a susceptibility to impression from people or events outside Himself, and this is surely incompatible with the very nature of God. Thus God’s love must be fundamentally different from that of humankind.[40]

Similarly, Leroy Forlines contends that “God feels His love toward us,”[41] and Frame argues that God’s love contains affection and emotional fondness.[42] While Hodge claims that love subordinates emotional to thought,[43] he still says: “Love of necessity involves feeling, and if there be no feeling in God, there can be no love.”[44]

God’s Love is Self-Giving

1 John 4:10 states: “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”[45] The measure of God’s love, throughout the Scriptures, is the sacrifice of God’s unique son on the Cross to cover the sins of those who would accept his offer of forgiveness and new life through faith. Wayne Grudem argues that the definition of love is “self-giving for the benefit of others,” and this “attribute of God shows that it is part of his nature to give of himself in order to bring about blessing or good for others.”[46] Erickson ties the self-giving nature of God’s love to the eternal Trinity, saying: “In general, God’s love may be thought of as his eternal giving or sharing of himself.”[47]

God’s Love is Free

God, who is perfect in freedom, also loves in perfect freedom. John Linndsay says, “God must be set forth as the absolutely ethical Personality, working in freedom, since without freedom there is no love.”[48] Craig Watts claims: “God loves freely, and in freedom he loves absolutely. This is the central Christian confession concerning God.”[49] As God is a se, or has aseity, he is not dependent or contingent on any other being, and is therefore completely free in his will and his love within the limits of his character, except as he binds or limits himself through covenants or decrees.[50] Barth describes the freedom of the love of God in this way:

God’s being consists in the fact that He is the One who loves in freedom. In this He is the perfect being: the being which is itself perfection and so the standard of all perfection; the being, that is, which is self-sufficient and thus adequate to meet every real need; the being which suffers no lack in itself and by its very essence fills every real lack.[51]

Henry argues that God’s love “is comprehended in voluntary relationships that stem from his creative and compassionate personality,” and “the Bible God’s love presupposes the exclusive voluntary initiative of the sovereign divine being whom no external power can manipulate.”[52]

The Interaction of the Aspects

Each of these aspects of love intersect in God. The self-giving nature of God’s love interacts closely with its volitional nature: God is always directing his love at another, rather than himself. Before creation, this consisted of the love directed at other members of the Trinity; after, towards his creation. The self-giving nature of God’s love also interacts with its emotional nature, in that God participates, or empathizes with those he loves, particularly in the experience of the Cross. The volitional nature of God’s love interacts with the emotional by regulating it, as Strong says:

So there is an order restored in the realm of the affections, an order which constitutes a part of our original likeness to God; for God’s love is no arbitrary, wild, passionate torrent of emotion, rushing any whither without reason or method, but a calm, deep river, flowing on in the perfect peacefulness of infinite wisdom.[53]

The volitional aspect of God’s love interacts with its freedom in choosing to freely exercise self-giving; for instance, John 3:16 states God freely chose to give his unique son to give those who place their faith in him eternal life.

While the aspect of libertarian freedom directly applies to the argument at hand, the interaction of the various aspects of love are important to remember. Love’s self-giving aspect is supported by libertarian freedom; self-giving would not be as great if not given freely. Love’s volitional aspect would not be as great if the volitional choice to love another were not chosen freely. Each aspect of love interacts intimately; removing one aspect would change the meaning of love essentially.

Communicating Love to Man

With this definition of God’s love in hand—it is essential, volitional, emotional, self-giving, and free—it is possible to return to the volitional argument for libertarian freedom grounded in love. If man’s love, as a mental state or condition, has the same essence as God’s love, then the love of man must contain all the same aspects as the love of God. While these aspects might be impacted through sin, or be of a lower order, they must all be present for the love of man to be essentially the same as the love of God. To determine if man’s love is related to God’s love in this way, this section will argue that God’s love is communicated to man through the imago deo, that God expects man to love in the same way God does.

God’s Love is Communicated to Man

Among God’s attributes are those that are communicable, included as part of the imago deo, and those that are incommunicable. For instance, knowledge is considered a communicable attribute, which means man’s knowledge is communicated by God to man. While man’s knowledge might have less scope than God’s because man is finite and God is infinite, and man’s knowledge might be marred through the noetic effect of the Fall, these are accidental changes rather than essential ones. Is love considered among the communicable attributes? According to James Garrett, love is “the most communicable of all the communicable attributes of God.”[54] Grudem also classifies love as a communicable attribute, turning to several commandments to love as proof, such as Matthew 22:37–38, 1 John 2:15, and 1 John 5:3.[55]

If love is communicated from God to man, then it must also have the same essential characteristics as God’s love—man’s love must be essential to man, volitional or intentional, emotional, self-giving, and free. Each of these aspects may be constrained (in finitude) or marred (in sinfulness) in some way, but they are all present.

Man’s Love is Analogous to God’s Love

In John 13:34–35, Jesus, speaking to his disciples, states:

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.[56]

And again, in John 15:12–14:

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.[57]

In both of these cases, the essence of man’s love is directly tied to the essence of God’s love. Believers are commanded to love “as God loves,” or rather in the same way.

A more comprehensive passage on the analogy between the love of God and man is 1 John 4, one of the most recognizable chapters on love in the Scriptures. In this chapter, John begins by exhorting believers to love one another in 1 John 4:7, and ends with a command for believers to love one another in 1 John 4:11–12. John provides a second line of reasoning based on confidence in salvation in 1 John 4:13–20, and repeats the commandment to love one another in verse 21. The theme of the chapter is God’s love, tracing “the relationship between God’s love and human love, and to show how human love flows from God’s own love.”[58]

While each commandment to love as God loves draws out the relationship between the love of God and the love of man, it is useful to examine each of the aspects of love individually. Throughout the Scriptures, love is assumed—just as men can choose between serving God and money (Matthew 6:24), men can only choose to love God or some other. The option “not to love,” simply isn’t present; men will love something. Hence man’s love is essential. That God commands men to love shows that love is a choice, or an intention; hence man’s love is volitional. In 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, Paul discusses the giving of the Churches to the brothers who are in need, and using this giving as proof of their love in 2 Corinthians 8:24; hence man’s love is self-giving.

The emotional aspect of man’s love is a more difficult point, as it is with God. Can emotions be commanded? Goettfried Quell argues emotional states cannot be commanded, saying there “is ordered as a law51 that which cannot be the subject of legal enactment.”[59] Jeffery Tijay proposes a contrary view, that love can be, and is in fact, commanded by God.[60] Dana Radcliffe has a helpful line of argument that combines the two.[61] Radcliffe claims there is tension in the natural reading of the love commandments (such as in John 13:34–35), and the ability to command the emotions. However, Radcliffe also observes Kant’s answer that:

Consequently, it can be argued that, because of compassion’s motivational efficacy, the Love Commandment should be seen as obligating one to foster this disposition to feel compassion and to act on it as agape directs.[62]

Hence four of the aspects of love defined in relation to man—essential, volitional, emotional, self-giving—can be affirmed through a close study of the Scriptures.

Conclusion: Human Love is Free

If it is true that four of the aspects of God’s love are also found in man, and if it is true that the various aspects of love are interrelated in an essential way, then it follows that God’s libertarian freedom in love communicates to libertarian freedom in man. This is not to say love is unrestricted in action, or rather “can do anything, or make any choice,” only that man, when presented with real choices, can choose whether to love or not in freedom. Barth notes:

Love is a free action: the self-giving of one to another without interest, intention or goal; the spontaneous self-giving of the one to the other just because the other is there and confronts him. It is not an action which has no ground or basis.[63]

Love as a free action applies to man as well as God. The argument from love to libertarian freedom that underpins the free will defense—“this relationship between man and God was to be one of mutual love; man must be free to enter into that relationship or it would not be a relationship of love”[64]—stands.

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[1] Alvin Plantinga, God, Freedom, and Evil (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989), 330–334.

[2] John S. Feinberg, The Many Faces of Evil, Revised and Expanded edition (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2004), 73.

[3] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001).

[4] Karl Barth, Geoffrey William Bromiley, and Thomas F. Torrance, Church Dogmatics: The Doctrine of the Word of God, Part 2, vol. 1 (New York, NY: T&T Clark, 2004), 408.

[5] Dorner and D. W. Simon, “The Unchangeableness of God,” Bibliotheca Sacra 36, no. 142 (1879): 217.

[6] David Case and David Holdren, 1–2 Peter, 1–3 John, Jude: A Commentary for Bible Students (Indianapolis, IN: Wesleyan Publishing House, 2006), 280.

[7] Anthony A. Hoekema, Created in God’s Image (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994), 53.

[8] Bruce A. Little, God, Why This Evil? (Lanham, MD: Hamilton Books, 2012), 36.

[9] Richard Swinburne, Providence and the Problem of Evil, Kindle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 9.

[10] Richard Swinburne, “Some Major Strands of Theodicy,” in The Evidential Argument from Evil, Kindle (Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press, 1996), loc 1192-1194.

[11] Gregory A. Boyd, Satan and the Problem of Evil: Constructing a Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2001), 16.

[12] Norman L. Geisler, Systematic Theology (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 2003), 370.

[13] Moisés Silva, ed., New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology and Exegesis (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014), 108.

[14] Ben Holloway, “What’s Love Got To Do With Free Will?,” Blog, The Holloway Quarterly, (May 4, 2016), http://www.hollowayquarterly.com/2016/05/whats-love-got-to-do-with-free-will.html.

[15] Ibid.

[16] William J. Dumbrell, The Faith of Israel: A Theological Survey of the Old Testament, 2 edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002), 66–67.

[17] Little, God, Why This Evil?, 14.

[18] John O. Hosler, “The Billiard Parlor Evangel,” Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society 1, no. 1 (1988): 59–70.

[19] Ibid., 63.

[20] Joshua Rasmussen, “On the Value of Freedom to Do Evil,” Faith and Philosophy 30, no. 4 (October 2013): 424–425.

[21] Ibid., 427.

[22] Holloway, “What’s Love Got To Do With Free Will?”

[23] Geisler, Systematic Theology, 2:370.

[24] Jeff Jordan, “The Topography of Divine Love,” Faith and Philosophy 29, no. 1 (January 2012): 53.

[25] There are alternate ways to define, or describe, omnibenevolence; for instance, it could be defined as “God loves each person enough to allow them to make a libertarian free, and finally settled, choice about salvation.” The position of those holding to compatibilism, however, cannot include libertarian freedom, and so falls back to this narrower range of description.

[26] Jordan, “The Topography of Divine Love,” 69.

[27] Holloway, “What’s Love Got To Do With Free Will?”

[28] Bennett Helm, “Love,” April 8, 2005, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2013/entries/love/.

[29] Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, 2nd ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1999), 6:341.

[30] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version.

[31] Gordon R. Lewis and Bruce A. Demarest, Integrative Theology: Knowing Ultimate Reality: The Living God, vol. 1, Integrative Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1987), 1:197.

[32] Emil Brunner, Dogmatics: The Christian Doctrine of God (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1950), 184–185.

[33] C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, Kindle (New York, NY: Harper Collins, 2009), 74.

[34] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version.

[35] Augustus Hopkins Strong, Systematic Theology (Philadelphia, PA: Griffith & Rowland, 1907), 263.

[36] Morris M. Womack, 1, 2 & 3 John, The College Press NIV Commentary (Joplin, MO: College Press, 1998), 1 John 4:8.

[37] Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, 6:340–341.

[38] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version.

[39] The interaction between the emotive nature of God’s love and the impassibility of God is a complex one, and outside the scope of this paper, so it will not be addressed here.

[40] D. A. Carson, “God Is Love,” Bibliotheca Sacra 156, no. 622 (June 1999): 133.

[41] F. Leroy Forlines, The Quest for Truth: Theology for a Postmodern World (Nashville, TN: Randall House Publications, 2001), 74–75.

[42] John M. Frame, Salvation Belongs to the Lord: An Introduction to Systematic Theology (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2006), 23.

[43] Strong, Systematic Theology, 265.

[44] Ibid., 429.

[45] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version.

[46] Wayne A. Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 198–199.

[47] Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2013), 318.

[48] James Linddsay, “Contemporary Theology and Theism,” Bibliotheca Sacra 58, no. 231 (1901): 424.

[49] Craig M. Watts, “Christian Ministry in Its Theological Context,” Themelios 6, no. 3 (1981): 22.

[50] Lewis and Demarest, Integrative Theology: Knowing Ultimate Reality: The Living God, 1:1:199.

[51] Karl Barth, Geoffrey William Bromiley, and Thomas F. Torrance, Church Dogmatics: The Doctrine of God, Part 1, vol. 2 (New York, NY: T&T Clark, 2004), 322.

[52] Henry, God, Revelation and Authority, 6:349.

[53] Augustus Hopkins Strong, Christ in Creation and Ethical Monism (Philadelphia, PA: Griffith & Rowland, 1899), 391, http://archive.org/details/christincreation00strouoft.

[54] James Leo Garrett, Jr., Systematic Theology: Biblical, Historical, and Evangelical, Fourth Edition (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2014), 273.

[55] Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine, 199.

[56] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version.

[57] Ibid.

[58] Marianne Meye Thompson, 1–3 John (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1992), 1 John 4:7.

[59] Gottfried Quell, “ἀγαπάω, ἀγάπη, ἀγαπητός: Love in the Old Testament,” in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel, Geoffery W. Bromily, and Gerhard Friedrich (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964).

[60] Jeffrey H Tigay, Deuteronomy, JPS Torah Commentary (Philadelphia, PA: Jewish Publication Society, 1996), 76–77.

[61] Dana Radcliffe, “Compassion and Commanded Love,” Faith and Philosophy 11, no. 1 (January 1994): 50–71.

[62] Ibid., 54.

[63] Karl Barth, Geoffrey William Bromiley, and Thomas F. Torrance, Church Dogmatics: The Doctrine of Reconciliation, Part 2, vol. 4 (New York, NY: T&T Clark, 2004), 853.

[64] Little, God, Why This Evil?, 36.