Sunday, January 22, 2006

READERS RESPOND : LOVE CANNOT BE DEMANDED

Regarding the observation made in last weeks lesson that love of God can not be commanded, Troy in Richmond, Virginia, sends us this quote from Viktor Frankl's book, "Man's Search For Ultimate Meaning":

"... they [most religions] often depict ... God as a being who is primarily concerned with being believed in by the greatest possible number of believers, and along the lines of a specific creed. ... not only is this order based on a distortion of any sound concept of deity, but even more importantly it is doomed to failure. There are certain activities that simply cannot be commanded, demanded, or ordered, and as it happens, the triad faith, hope and love belongs to this class of activities. They cannot be established at will."