Fear and Love
I never quite understood how our need to fear God (Prov. 1:7, etc.) could be compatible with John’s words in 1 John 4:18: “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.” Obviously we could be dealing with different definitions of fear. But it recently occurred to me that in some sense it all comes down to what love actually is, and what it would mean to love a divine being.
To love is to know. Indifference to knowing or understanding someone points to a lack of love. Love is like a magnetic force that draws you to someone, not just physically, but imaginatively and intellectually. The longer you love someone, the more deeply you know them.
If we love God, we want to know him and know about him. But God is not a creature, so our love and knowing will necessarily be different toward him. We love and attempt to know him as the complete “other” that he is. Fear of God is simply what happens when you love God for who he is. If you understand that the loved being is not a creature, but the all-seeing. all-loving, all-powerful, everywhere present, always merciful God that actually is, then you can’t help but also fear him. To viscerally, personally know these things about him is to fear him. But there’s more to it than that.
There is a lengthy section in the Summa where St. Thomas catalogs different kinds of fear, considering their definitions, and which are appropriate to feel toward God. I won’t attempt to unpack all of Thomas’s distinctions, but one interesting move he makes is to identify love as the source of fear. Thomas says, “Now fear is born of love. For Augustine makes it clear that a man fears lest he should lose something which he loves.” Connecting this with what he says elsewhere, to be punished by God is to be separated from him. Therefore, we can’t love God without also feeling the horrible possibility of losing him; this is the fear of punishment. Just as when we love people in this life and fear losing them, so our fear of being alienated from God drives us to keep his commandments, to honor fellow-image bearers, and to live a holy life.
Throughout the Old Testament, the fear of God is associated with obeying and keeping commandments. Ecclesiastes 12:13 says that the whole duty of man is to “fear God and keep his commandments.” Then in the New Testament Jesus says, “if you love me, you’ll keep my commandments.” And John says, “But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.”
As we are made perfect in love, our confidence that we can “have boldness in the day of judgment” increases. As we more fully align with his will and commandments, we become more confident that we will not lose God, but that we are becoming more like him. Perfect love casts out not the feeling of fear, but the basis of fear: the possibility of punishment and alienation. That unsettled-scared feeling that comes from not knowing if we are right with God gives way to a deep assurance of our being right with God. This assurance is characterized by reverence, awe, and gratitude. That, I believe, is the sort of fear that we are aiming at.
When we are children, our fear of the Lord begins as a simple fear of negative consequences. Ideally as we grow, that fear morphs into an appropriate loving fear of the One who stands behind the consequences. The real test is when we’re able to see and obey that One, even when doing so will result in punishment or alienation among people. If we are unable to do that, then we are in thrall to the fear of man.
As we live in the world, our fear of God also becomes a firewall against the fear of man. If we fear being alienated from God above all else, what do we care whether a human dislikes or alienates or punishes us? Not that we are callous toward others. We might grieve a broken relationship because the chain of love that links God to us and others has broken. But if we have that link between us and God, we have everything.