Our understanding of God’s unconditional love for creation
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Our faiths teach us that The Creator loves creation unconditionally. But what does this Love of God for Creation mean? Many people compare it to (or understand it in terms of) human love. This comparison of Divine Love and human love seems to be erroneous because human love seems to mostly be conditional. We love someone because of the circumstances or their response to us and if matters change so does our love (as the high divorce rate attests to).
In Islam when considering The Creator the qualities of Love and Mercy are used interchangeably. And the idea is that Allah Loves us beyond our imagination. I was reminded of this when again watching a beautiful little video titled ‘A Land Called Paradise’ . There is a young man in it who puts up two placards about himself. The first one reads ‘I am a total idiot’ and the second one reads ‘But I am pretty sure God still loves me’. He is right; God’s love for us is unconditional. In the Qur’an every chapter but one begins with the phrase that is usually translated as ‘In the name of God Most Gracious, Most Merciful’. However, this translation doesn’t capture the full essence of the verse. The verse is a reminder to us to take heed of The Creator’s love for us and aspire and respond in kind. Someone has beautifully expressed its meaning in the following words:
With every breath that we breathe, may we be ever aware of the Divine Presence, the Source of all that we receive.
With every step that we take, may we always honor the Light which guides us, the Source and Nourisher of all of creation.
Every moment of this life is filled with your eternal radiance my Beloved, You are the Beneficent One who endlessly showers all of creation with nourishment and blessings, and the One who generously rewards those who live in harmony with Your Divine Will.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could show our love for the Creator in these terms in all our earthly actions?
Khalid Shah, 50, is an American Muslim who came to the U.S. 32 years ago. He and his wife have lived in the St. Louis area since 1990, and have been active in a variety of interfaith activities as well as in the local Muslim communities. They have both spoken about Islam at a variety of houses of worship. After working as an engineer for most of his career, he is currently a small business owner. 
Mr. Shah, from what country did you come here from 32 years ago?
I am so happy to read your articles Mr. Shah. It amazes me how closely many of Islam’s and Christianity’s beliefs apparently are. I also enjoy reading Ms. Dolan’s articles. The two of you are relatively new-comers so I just want to welcome you and let you know, in my opinion, that you are both tremendous upgrades to this blog section.
what country did you come here from 32 years ago?
Wonderful reverie. I believe.
Thank you mogoid for your kind words. I know Pamela puts a lot of effort into her blogs and she would be happy to hear this as well. In the Qur’an Allah says to people of different faiths ‘Compete with each other for excellence’. Hopefully we will compete not to put each other down but to raise each other up.
“Hopefully we will compete not to put each other down!” Oh do you mean the way you put Christians down?
Still waiting to find out where you came from Mr. Shah.
I always thought that grace was unconditional love and mercy was more of a pardon.
And if mercy is a pardon what are we being pardoned from?
Also how does God, being perfect,reason perfect love with perfectly just?
Can the two exist together?
The insight is in the meaning.
Grace is love “freely given”.
Mercy is “forbearance” or witholding judgement, as is forgiveness for us. This is not a pardon.
We, by nature, accept ourselves as imperfect. We do this to create a space for ourselves for judgment and blame. We are not created imperfectedly by God.
Perfect is “to be complete,” in whatever way we are. In God’s image we are created complete, as is God is complete.
We make oursevles less than perfect (complete) in not accepting our completeness only in that we are not God.
Just is “to be guided by truth.” God is not guided. God is. In other words, God is not perfectly just. This is our view of God.
God is, and in this, God is truth. Or in God’s own words, “I am.”
In this same light, God does not reason. God is. There is no cause or justification in God. God is being.
We collapse our view of God into God, and assign our qualities to God. We reason to justify, and assume God does the same. God has no need for reason (cause), or justification.
They exist as choices in being.
For us, God is a light to truth, shining on what we hide from ourselves. If it occurs to you as not clear, then you are not God. God and truth are then available to you, or not. Its a choice.
Grace vs Mercy
Grace is usually defined in theology as “unmerited favor”, and is specifically related to the Grace of Salvation. The christian doctrine of Grace is actually about the remission of original sin. I don’t think there is a parallel concept in Islam, please correct me if I’m wrong, Khalid.
Mercy is an aspect of Justice. I don’t remember who it was who wrote, “I consider that God is Just, and I tremble for fear” or words to that effect. Mercy, therefore, is about God’s JUSTICE. When most any of us actually consider what the JUST penalty for our acts would be, we will automatically beg for mercy.
Grace and Mercy are similar concepts, both having to do with God choosing to give us something we don’t deserve, but I think the meaning is somewhat different, depending on our different religious understandings.
‘Bismillah Ar-Rahman Ar-Raheem’ which is the transliterated phrase at the beginning of each chapter contains two similar attributes of the Creator. Raheem means Merciful and so does Rahman. Historically Muslims have interpreted Rahman as a quality of mercy on a enormous scale, mercy on a level not possible for a human being to display. However my teacher, Dr Diab, who had studied Quranic Arabic deeply, went further and suggested once that Rahman implies that Mercy is a separate creation on par with the creation of the universe. This may give some inkling of how unimaginably vast the quality of divine mercy is.