{"product_id":"2940012968661","title":"THE REVELATION OF ETERNAL LOVE Christianity Stated in Terms of Love","description":"Scanned, proofed and corrected from the original edition for your reading pleasure.  It is also searchable and contains hyper-links to chapters. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e***\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn excerpt from the beginning of the first chapter:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Fulness Of Love\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTHERE are many ways of approaching the doctrine of God and the creed that is based upon it. On this occasion I propose to start from St. John's statement — God is love. In support of it we may quote our Blessed Lord Himself. His whole teaching is based upon the fact that God is His Father and our Father. God is Father: God is love.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe must, then, at the start inquire how far this statement takes us. What do we understand by love? This is a question we can answer out of our human experience or, at any rate, out of our own knowledge of human ideals. It is a practical, as well as a metaphysical or psychological, question: and a practical answer is all that is needed for our present purpose.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe may begin our answer by noticing the difference between love that is not fully returned, and love that has found its satisfaction. Love that is not fully returned implies an unequal relationship between two persons, one of whom pours himself out in the service of another without receiving an equal service in return. As an example of this we may take an ideal mother and a somewhat self-centred child. In such a case the mother's whole being is gladly, freely, wholly, given to the child; while the child's being is grudgingly, and only within limits, given to the mother. There is a relationship between them that may rightly be called a relation of love; but it is not a perfect relationship: the two terms of it are not equal in their degree of self-surrender. In a perfect relationship of love the two terms, or centres of active love, show each to the other the fullest possible self-surrender, the two offerings being mutually adequate.\u003cbr\u003eThe relationship of love that may be called perfect, as between human beings, is that of the ideal husband with his ideal wife. His whole being is given to her; her whole being is his; and each one finds self satisfied and complete just in the measure that it is lost in the other, and comes back again from and with and in the other's self. Their love is thus one, and one only. It is one love in which the two centres of active love are become one. Fulness of human love is this one, joyful love in which two are become one. The joy of love is the joy of each in finding, in one and the same beloved, an object to which to surrender the whole being and a subject from whom the whole being comes back enriched, completed, perfected.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLove, at its highest, is the perfect relationship of joyous satisfaction in which a human being finds himself fully in another to whom he has freely given himself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI lay stress upon this word relationship, or relation. Love is essentially a mutual relation, in which two are as one. Two human beings stand alone. They meet. As two centres of active love they are mutually attracted, with the result that a relation is set up between them that we call love. Each one of them has become a term of a love-relation, and in that relation is the fulness of love in which the two centres of love are one, while yet their individualities remain....\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e***\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eContents:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Fulness of Love\u003cbr\u003eCreative Love\u003cbr\u003eCreated Centres of Love\u003cbr\u003eCentres of Sin\u003cbr\u003eThe Response of Love Incarnate (i)\u003cbr\u003eThe Response of Love Incarnate (ii)\u003cbr\u003eAtoning Love (i)\u003cbr\u003eAtoning Love (ii)\u003cbr\u003eThe Spirit of Love\u003cbr\u003eThe Kingdom of Love\u003cbr\u003eThe Temple of Responsive Love\u003cbr\u003eThe Authority of Love","brand":"Leila's Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47182170063088,"sku":"2940012968661","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012968661_p0.jpg?v=1763586146","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012968661","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}