“"sed oderit uitium, amet hominem"
In Chapter 2 he makes this statement concerning a phrase that originated with Augustine of Hippo:
Habakkuk prayed to God, "Your eyes are too pure to look on evil, you cannot tolerate wrong." And in some sense, God also hates sinners. You might ask, "What happened to 'God hates the sin and loves the sinner'?" Well, the Bible happened to it.
David Platt - Radical, 2010 A.D.
I was going to write down my thoughts about this, but I decided instead to paste a few other quotes from Christians through the ages (and one from Christ himself) and let you decide what you think about this:
For a Christian is a man who knows no hatred or animosity at all against any one, has no anger or revenge in his heart, but simply love, mildness and beneficence; just like our Lord Christ and our heavenly Father himself is, whom he here too takes as his pattern.
Martin Luther, Commentary on the Sermon on the Mount. 1530 A.D.
As love is to good, so is hatred to evil; we wish good to them whom we love, and evil to them whom we hate. If then the will of God cannot be inclined to evil, as has been shown (Chap. XCV), it is impossible for Him to hate anything. ... What is found naturally in all active causes, must be found especially in the Prime Agent. But all agents in their own way love the effects which they themselves produce, as parents their children, poets their own poems, craftsmen their works. Much more therefore is God removed from hating anything, seeing that He is cause of all. ... Some things however God is said, to hate figuratively (similitudinarie), and that in two ways. The first way is this, that God, in loving things and willing their good to be, wills their evil not to be: hence He is said to have hatred of evils, for the things we wish not to be we are said to hate. ... The other way is by God’s wishing some greater good, which cannot be without the privation of a lesser good; and thus He is said to hate, whereas it is more properly [called] love.
Thomas Aquinas - Summa contra Gentiles, Circa 1260 A.D.
It is clear, then, that the man who does not live according to man but according to God must be a lover of the good and therefore a hater of evil; since no man is wicked by nature but is wicked only by some defect (lit. vice is a corruption), a man who lives according to God owes it to the wicked men that his hatred be perfect (Psalm 139:22), so that, neither hating the man because of his corruption nor loving the corruption because of the man, he should hate the sin but love the man. For, once the corruption has been cured, then all that is left should be loved and nothing remains to be hated.
Augustine, City of God - Circa 413 A.D.
You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Jesus - Matthew 5:43-48 Circa 30 A.D.”
Magnetic wrote this review Monday, September 12, 2011.
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