““In his commentary on 1 John, however, Calvin saw more clearly than Packer did exactly where the issue must be joined. The issue is not, as Packer caricatured it, whether the proposition God is love expresses the complete truth about God. The issue is whether it expresses a truth about the very nature or essence of God—whether, in other words, it ascribes (what a philosopher would call) an essential property to the very being of God.””