Unconditional love

In Christianity, the term "unconditional love" may be used to indicate God's love for a person irrespective of that person's love for God. The term is not explicitly used in the Bible, and advocates for God's conditional or unconditional love, using different passages or interpretations to support their point of view, are both encountered. The civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was quoted as saying "I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality".[7]

The main use of "unconditional" in Christianity is the assertion "That God so loved the world..." In other words, God loves the world enough to suffer for us without preconditions. There is then the postcondition of actually accepting that Grace.

The two together are not fundamentally different from psychology's unconditional positive regard with the added proviso that some actions are inherently flawed and that only God knows the true nature and consequence of our actions. However, psychology's unconditional positive regard allows one to fail utterly since the psychologist can not demand that we take care of the whole world since the psychologist has no fundamentally better idea of how to do that than the patient does.

The consequence is that we need to be in a relationship with God who does know how. However, this view is not particularly supported by scriptures found in the Bible. Jesus himself said that receiving his love is based on conditions, specifically the condition of following his commandments (example at John chapter 15 verses 10 and 14). Other conditions are found throughout the Bible.

In Buddhism one of the most important concepts is called Bodhicitta There are two kinds of Bodhicitta. They are Relative and Absolute Bodhicitta.

In Relative Bodhicitta one learns about the desire to gain the understanding of unconditional love, which in Buddhism is expressed as Loving-Kindness and Compassion. The point is to develop Bodhicitta for all living (sentient) beings.

Absolute Bodhicitta is a more esoteric Tantric Teaching. Understanding the principle of Loving-Kindness and Compassion is expressed when one treats all living beings as if one was or had been (in former lives) their own mother. One's mother will do anything for the benefit of her child. The most loving of all relationships may be that between a mother and her child. Of course if all beings treated all other living beings as they would their own child then there would be much less enmity in this world.

The importance of this cannot be overstated. At every moment one has the opportunity to make a choice how to act, and to be completely mindful of one's actions means that in every interaction with another being one will consciously act with Loving-Kindness and Compassion toward every other being no matter what the nature of that interaction.

Hinduism and Buddhism, the Sanskrit word Bhakti is apparently used by some to refer to the concept of unconditional love, even though its root meaning seems to be "participate". Bhakti or Bhakthi is unconditional religious devotion of a devotee in worship of a divine.

In Islamic belief, unconditional love can only be directed to Allah. The highest spiritual attainment in Islam is related to the love of God. "Yet there are men who take (for worship) others besides God, as equal (with God): They love them as they should love God. But those of Faith are overflowing in their love for God."[8]

O lovers! The religion of the love of God is not found in Islam alone.
In the realm of love, there is neither belief, nor unbelief.[9]

In Islamic Sufism, unconditional love is the basis for the divine love Ishq-e-Haqeeqi, elaborated by many great Muslim saints to date. Prominent mystics explain the concept in its entirety and describe its hardcore reality.

Rabia of Basra was the one who first set forth the doctrine of Divine Love known as Ishq-e-Haqeeqi[10] and is widely considered to be the most important of the early renunciants, one mode of piety that would eventually become labeled as Sufism.[11]

She prayed:

"O Lord, if I worship You because of Fear of Hell,
then burn me in Hell;

If I worship You because I desire Paradise,
then exclude me from Paradise;

But if I worship You for Yourself alone,
then deny me not your Eternal Beauty.[12]

Ishq itself means to love God selflessly and unconditionally. For Rumi, 'Sufism' itself is Ishq and not the path of asceticism (zuhd).[13] According to Sultan Bahoo, Ishq means to serve God unconditionally by devoting one's entire life to Him and asking no reward in return.

Neopaganism in general, and Wicca in particular, commonly use a traditional inspirational text, Charge of the Goddess, which affirms that the Goddess's "law is love unto all beings".

Mohism, China c. 500BCE, bases its entire premise on the supremacy of such an element, comparing one's duty to the indiscriminate generosity of "The Sky", or "Heaven", in contrast to Confucianism which based its model of society on family love and duty. Later schools engaged in much debate on exactly how unconditional one could be in actual society. (cf "...who is my neighbour?" in "The Good Samaritan" story of Jesus of Nazareth )

Unitarian Universalism, though not having a set religious creed or doctrine, generally accepts the belief that all human begins are worthy and in need of unconditional love though charity in the community and spiritual understanding. The Unitarian Universalist Association explicitly argues this in the Seven Principles, where the "inherent worth and dignity" of all humans is a regularly-cited source arguing for unconditional love.