Could God Hate?

[Dimmesdale]

If God is Love, Absolute Love, then does it make sense that he hates bad things?

I heard some time ago the example given of, if you love children, you're naturally going to hate child molestation. Etc.

Obviously it doesn't make sense for God to "love" child molestation, or any other such inherently negative and evil things.

But does it follow that God must hate those things?

To me, this simply isn't logical.

If God is Love, than Love, by definition, can't turn into hate. Love can only be Love. Love can only be itself.

So what kind of stance could God have in relation to evil things?

My answer: none.

Not, the stance of callousness, or indifference, but of exemption. God simply is not present in any way with regard to evil subject matters. He exempts himself, in other words, and ceases to deal with them. He takes himself out of the equation altogether. That is one of the reasons he does not come to this God-forsaken earth (usually) for precisely the reason that it is God-forsaken. And when He does come, there is always some kind of buffer between him and evil. We and God are never quite on the same page. Even if we say that God has emotions of anger, wrath, etc... These emotions, seen in a higher sense, are actually covert displays of love, to the spiritually alert sight of faithful knowers.

So, that's my answer. I think it makes a tremendous more amount of sense than the God burning babies in hell, etc.

[Dimmesdale]

But the Abrahamic Theist rejoins: But, Love is an Act of the Will, not an Emotion.

I would have to disagree. I would have to say it is both.

I don't agree with the view that we can Will Love to others and at the same time will their distress. Sometimes we have to will distress, but that is in reaction to certain states of affairs that need mending in no other way. States of affairs that partake of the very nature of fallenness, illusion, sin, chaos. War, for instance, is an employment of some righteous Hate to further a necessary end. But in and of itself, this exercise of the will is not spiritual, and it is not in the least Loving. In fact, it seems to me that true Love this way would be besmirched. It would be a contaminated specimen. An adulteration of the worst kind. Hate may be necessary to defend Love, but the two are different, partaking of different categories. That is what I think.

[Dimmesdale]

Or, you could say that the original movement of the will to take some sort of defensive action IS loving. Say, making the preliminary plans for war. But when you get down to the brute facts of the battlefield, in the sweat, heat and destruction which that field affords, you must (unless you are perfectly enlightened) utilize those lower affects in order to do the dirty work....

..And it remains dirty work. Unless of course you are enlightened.

[marke]

To love good one must hate evil. God says He hates all the unrepentant wicked.