Love's Endeavour, Love's Expense [Paperback]

W H Vanstone (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd. (August 31, 1977)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0232513805
• ISBN-13: 978-0232513806
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #436,020 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Life-Changing View of the Love of God, August 10, 2000

By 

Pamela B. Garrud "seeker963" (United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Love's Endeavour, Love's Expense (Paperback)

...this book ... is still in print in the UK. But beware. Although this book is short, it is theologically and philosophically dense. It consolidates a life-time of reflection on the Love of God by a much-celebrated British writer and theologian who eschewed the life of academia for that of an urban (Anglican) parish priest.

It is extremely difficult to review this book in which one idea is chain-linked to the next. Broadly, Vanstone's reflection is that true love gives everything it has, to the point of being spent, while simultaneously allowing the object of it's love to be and become in complete freedom. And God, needless to say, is True Love.

I don't agree with everything Vanstone says; I have a hard time, for instance, of thinking of God being totally exhausted in the act of loving his creation. Nonetheless, what this book did for me was to answer the question: "Is it true that God actually cares and participates in our reality? And if the answer is yes, how does God do this without violating the free will of those God loves?" For me, the net result of reading this book has been to make both God and God's love more real and less ethereal.

The manner in which this message is brought home is, however, relentlessly intellectual. This is not a book to read for easy, uplifting inspiration, but rather for challenging intellectual inspiration.