The Logic of Love

Introduction

The Logic of Love is written for those who embrace love–the desire and willingness to do well for others–as the most important value in life. The tools of logic are used to fabricate a paradigm of spiritual family from the material of commonly shared experiences. This structure is held together with love.

The Logic of Love demonstrates how faith in God can be a logical extension of love. If you do not have faith in God, this book offers an approach to faith that does not play upon your emotions or ask you to believe testimonials. In fact, it is written from an agnostic perspective. If you do have faith, but have trouble communicating to others that this is reasonable, the ideas presented here can help you express your faith to others as a logical and loving approach to life. This is a conversation about spirituality that is based on nothing more than love and freewill. It is not about trying to prove the existence of God. It is about exploring the possibilities and making a choice.

My challenge is to use words such as love, God, and faith in a clear and consistent manner. Though there is nothing unusual about how I define these terms, for most people these words are loaded with layers of personal meaning. We create individual definitions for words relating to spirituality because these words reflect our own understanding of life. Given the diversity of spiritual experience, we naturally allow words to take on various shades of meanings. For now, please accept the way I use these terms. My goal is not to create crystallized definitions designed to transcend time. It is only to show how holding love as the highest value can logically support faith in God.

This book presents an internally consistent theistic paradigm and considers which of the three gnostic paradigms–atheism, agnosticism or theism–best complements the value of love. It provides a foundation for understanding that faith in God is not only a reasonable choice, but also a choice that is a logical outgrowth of love. The internal consistency of atheistic and agnostic paradigms is assumed and, therefore, will not be explored in depth.

Valid reasons exist that admonish us to approach the subject of faith cautiously. Life is filled with what seems like needless suffering. Atrocities are, and always have been, committed in the name of God. Religions have failed to co-exist peacefully with each other. Superficially, the condition of our planet suggests that we do not enjoy the loving care of an all-powerful, all-knowing God. There are reasons that make faith in God look like a bad idea. But, if love is espoused as the highest value in life, then I believe we can find even better reasons for having faith. This is what I would like to share with you.

Go to Part I: Defining Love, Logic, Freewill, and God

Go to Table of Contents