Hey Kell--Thanks for engaging. You deserve a response. I see your comments on my Twitter account here and there and I’m sorry I don’t have the ability to engage more. I’m not sure you’ll be happy with my response, but I don’t want you to think I ignore what you say. 1/9 https://twitter.com/McnallyKell/status/1329566112456069127

1st, as to this idea (that nontheists are incapable of nontransactional love) being offensive—I hope you will agree that most truths usually offend someone. So if a statement is offensive that doesn’t really speak to its truth or falsity. 2/9

2nd, as to this idea being ‘completely false’. Edwards’ “The Nature of True Virtue” is a highly sophisticated philosophical text. It contains no Biblical references—it relies on philosophical reasoning. It is basically an Augustinian argument. 3/9

You have to build your life on some supreme love, some one non-negotiable commitment that precedes and judges all other loves & commitments. What will that be? If it is your family then all other relationships will be transactional-you stay in them as long as it benefits your 4/9

...family. If, as in the secular West, your ultimate commitment is your individual fulfillment, then you stay in relationships as long as it benefits you individually. If it is your racial group, then you relate to all other racial groups only transactionally. 5/9

Edwards then argues that God is the one being who doesn’t love transactionally. There’s nothing we can give him that he needs. He saves us freely, forgives & adopts us. That’s real love. And when this non-transactional love becomes our greatest source of affirmation & identity 6

then we can love equally all he has created non-transactionally. We won’t prefer our race over other races, our individual self-interest over other’s interests, because we don’t need to any more. It’s a very powerful philosophical argument, but in the process, Edwards agrees 7/9

...that God enables nontheists to be capable of great good and love. It’s the doctrine of “common grace” namely, that sin makes believers less good than their supposedly right doctrines should make them, and the image of God in non-believers makes them more virtuous and wise than

their wrong beliefs about God should make them. So in the end, I think Edwards argument is right and hard to refute. But he explains why nontheists are capable of love too. 9/9