The Topography of Divine Love: a Response To

In an article that recently appeared in this journal, 1 Jeff Jordan explores the topography of divine love, as he calls it, and does so in an effort to challenge a proposition that he acknowledges to be widely accepted among theistic philosophers, namely: (L) If God exists and is perfect, then God’s love must be maximally extended and equally intense (p. 53). If (L) is true, as I and many other non-Calvinists believe it is, then any theology that would restrict God’s love to a limited elect is clearly mistaken. So anyone who believes that God freely confers his saving grace on some even as he freely withholds the same degree of grace from others will no doubt have a strong incentive to reject (L) and thus to agree with Jordan in this matter. In fairness, I should perhaps point out that nowhere in the paper we are currently considering does Jordan explicitly endorse a doctrine of limited election. But he does say this: “If the divine love cannot be maximally extended and equally intense, it may not be surprising, or perhaps as surprising, that God saves a particular sinner but not another who is no less a sinner” (p. 68). Such a statement may seem milder than Calvin’s statement: “For as Jacob, deserving noth-