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toddpedlar · #46 (**permalink**) 04-03-2008, 03:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by panta dokimazete

Quote:

Originally Posted by victorbravo

BTW, the Matt. 22:40 quote also clearly establishes that the two commands are logically independent of each other (otherwise Jesus would have said something like: "on this one commandment the other necessarily follows").

I think you proved my point by attempting to refute it.

see bolded

Quote:

Matthew 22:34-40

The Great Commandment
34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" 37And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38This is the great and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."

Quite honestly, JD, I think your bolded part doesnt do what you think it does. The second is "like unto the first" only because it instructs us as to HOW we are to love. The thing to which our love to God is compared is not necessarily AT ALL related to the thing to which our love to neighbor is compared.

BTW, when I say "not necessarily" there I'm not expressing a lack of certainty, as we usually mean today when we say "not necessarily" - i.e. I'm not saying "well, it could be, but it ain't necessarily so".

Rather, what I'm emphasizing is that with these two verses juxtaposed, there is no NECESSARY connection between the two. Loving God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength is unquestionably a good thing - these two verses together do NOT NECESSARILY mean that self-love is good or bad. This is because there is no NECESSARY connection between the two things to which our love to God and our love to neighbor are compared in verse 37 and in verse 39, respectively.