Overview of Holiness and Love

This is an overview of the complementary pair, Holiness and Love. The general point is to recognize that God has both attributes in a perfect degree. This is not to say an infinite degree, because they counterbalance one another in the full expression of God's character. To have one without the other causes a loss of perfection, as can be seen in the exaggeration blocks of the dilogic table.

The underlying dilogical concept here is form and content, or form and matter. Holiness provides the form for God's character; love provides the substance or content. There are many other parallels in theology.

"... The fact that God is holy means something to the individual and it means something to the group. It demands holiness in our personal life and holiness in the church in both life and doctrine. All these stand not as isolated factors, but together upon the reality that God is holy.

And yet we must immediately respond that we fall off the opposite cliff if we forget that God is love. There is a great emphasis on love today. It is often viewed as having almost no direction, as being an unmotivated love -- love that is to be equal in all directions. But God's love is not contentless or directionless for the simple reason that God does not "lack content". He has a character. The great statements of truth in the Bible, the great doctrines and the law of God -- these lay down the tracks for love. We can, therefore, fall into heresy in two ways. We can forget either God's holiness or his love, and we cannot say which of these is worse....

This doctrine is very practical. It relates only to our intellectual and doctrinal thinking, but to our practice as individuals and groups. For true love will always produce true holiness both in doctrine and in life. And, on the other hand, true holiness will always produce love both in doctrine and in life. All of this is true, I say again, because neither love nor holiness hangs in midair; they both rest upon the character of the God who is there, the God who is holy and the God who is love. And we are called upon to exhibit his existence and his character at every moment of our lives."

Francis Schaeffer, The Church Before the Watching World, Inter-Varsity Press, 1971.


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