God So Loved the World

Even if we accept that God is real, why believe that he has personally revealed himself to mankind? In God So Loved the World, Fr. Robert Spitzer, S.J., probes this major question. He shows how it is reasonable to believe that the Creator has revealed himself because he is completely intelligent and completely positive. As such, he is in possession of a completely positive virtue—namely, love.

Fr. Spitzer then explores whether it is rational to believe that God is unconditionally loving, and if so, whether it follows to believe that God would want to make a personal appearance to us in a perfect act of empathy. He then reviews all of the world religions to see if there is one that presents such a God. This leads us to the extraordinary claim of Jesus Christ, who taught that God is the unconditionally loving Father.

Jesus’ claims go further, for he said that he himself is also unconditional love, and that his mission is to give us that love through an act of complete self-sacrifice. He also claimed to be the exclusive Son of the Father, sent by God to save the world, and the one who possesses divine power and authority. Fr. Spitzer does an in-depth examination of Jesus’ forgiveness of sinners, his teachings, his miracles, and his rising from the dead. He also examines Jesus’ gift of the Holy Spirit, which enabled his disciples to perform miracles in his name and is present among us today.

This is part 3 of Father Spitzer’s four part series that include Finding True Happiness and The Soul’s Upward Yearning.