Oh, they are far more tricky than that. At least the Edward Feser type Scholastics. They just define love as whatever god does.
Basically, the logic is that to love someone is not to wish that they get what they want to get, but to wish that they get what is actually good for them. What is actually good for them is what is in accordance with their natural goal, telos, and this does not even contradict common sense much, to the Scholastic the natural goal of horses is to run fast, eat grass, mate etc. and yes, indeed if we wanted to build a horse heaven it would be huge grassland for long runs. So so far it even checks out for the common-sense observer.
Then they just say natural goals are determined by god and QED.
Scholastics say a true god cannot be unloving by definition, in any logically conceivable universe, because it would imply he does not want what he wants (helping beings to reach natural goals he himself determined) In other words, they think the map / language logic is something superior to reality.
You know of Edward Feser! God, I hate that guy (pun intended). If I didn't respect books so much, I would have torn many pages out of The Last Superstition. His expression of Scholasticism is absurdly simplistic. But you lay out what Feser would say very well. I don't find him an accurate expositor of Aquinas at all; he's ridiculously uncomfortable with ambiguity and so makes his arguments by fudging definitions and appealing to intuition. He's the opposite of a decent scholastic.
I would venture to say that the majority of medieval scholars don't do w...
Does anyone know of an apparently defensible response to the following question?
How does a theist distinguish by any imaginable experience between an omnipotent and loving Being, and an omnipotent Being that just wants you to believe it is loving?
Or, if you prefer:
Out of all potential omnipotent beings that want you to believe that they are loving, what observation can distinguish those which actually are loving?
Also, are any of you aware of another who has posed this question?
EDIT: I'm confused at the apparent disapproval of many. Is it because the question refers to religion?