Claim. People cannot fully understand God’s parental love until they become parents and love children of their own.
Elaboration. SMM says children cannot know parental love until they have babies and a family; only then do they understand how their parents loved them (CSG 4.4 §5, Blessed Family 934). He applies the same logic to God: “Without children, you are in an incomplete state. You cannot understand God’s love.” Marriage and descendants allow parents to bequeath love and stand proudly before God in the spirit-world. The section closes with a four-position claim: those who avoid children cannot establish the four-position-foundation and cannot know “God’s heart of loving people.” Parenthood is therefore epistemic as well as generative: it teaches what God’s love feels like from the parent’s side.
See also. blessing, four-position-foundation