To say that something is "unconditional" is to say there are no conditions pertaining to it that would change it.
Un-conditional love is a kind of ridiculous notion. Here is why.
(Later I'll mention how our love for Jehovah's organization was conditioned).
Love is a strong emotion that follows from the value we place on somebody or some thing. We are informed about it and we trust our information is correct. We then place a value.
To value is to set conditions. Things are good, better and best or worse and worse to worst. Those are conditions which affect the value. Our "feelings" follow our values. If we are mistaken (and don't know it) the feelings blindly mirror the identical feeling of a truth.
But, conditions are all important to values. Example:
I work as a bookseller (in a used book store.) When we value a book to price it we first examine the condition of the book; then, the condition of the market.
To set an absolute value on a book or art or a person is illogical because of the varied conditions under which the thing itself changes over time. All value is, therefore; "conditional". As the conditions change; the price will change.
Romantic love is an idea that is fairly recent historically. It stems from the notion that idealizing people into absolutes makes for a broadening of the experience of loving them. The age of chivalry emerged from the French balladeers telling tales of Roland. The English had Camelot. A romantic age followed. Why? Because it was more beautiful to contemplate as a concept than mere humping!
But, this idealization is quite objectively removed from the real world and real people. Going off to slaughter Arabs in the Crusades was ugly. But, the knight who carried his fair lady's glove became enobled by the righteous quest of trumped up romantic ideals.
A mother can love her child quite naturally. But, if the child grows into a serial killer who disdains all things beautiful she would be valuing her memory of the babe in arms and not the actual person he became.
Like religion itself, the concept of "absolute" anything is illusory because all things are contingent.
A better way to discuss and think about this question is to substitute the word "justice" for "love".
For there to be justice, all parties must get what they deserve according to their actions. Actions are often mitigated by intentions. So, hitting and killing somebody with your car can be either murder or manslaughter (depending on your intention).
Loving somebody often entails (in the immature) projecting your ideals upon them and then pretending the person embodies those ideals. At some point their actions will demonstrate the accuracy of such a regard.
The callow and shallow thinking among us are in love with the grandeur of the absolute because it swallows up all doubts and grants a kind of (unenforceable) certainty and assurance. Such foolish certainty ignores all changes and pretends there is safety in a fixed idea which we cherish.
But, the mature and careful thinkers among us know the opposite of that. We, for example, who saw that our love for Jehovah's organization and his "truth" was pretentiously hollow and based on mere imagination---we, allowed ourselves to change our point of view based on new realizations.
Others remain in place and pretend that their faith and their governing body are "absolutely" correct. They force themselves to trust because that will not permit facts of change to alter their view.
This is a good case study in how "love" is injustice when it is absolute.
Terry
