We frequently hear about how God is a "loving God" and a "God of love" or even that "God is love." Yet, when reading the Bible we come across several passages that talk about God hating. It seems rather contradictory, and sometimes even a little unsettling to read about God hating. So, what are we supposed to believe? Is he a hateful God or a loving God?
The Opposites
All of our lives we are taught opposites, some of them include:
hot -- cold
wet -- dry
light -- dark
peace – war
life – death
love -- hate
Most of our lives we take these opposites at face value and do not really question them. That is partially due to repetition; when we are exposed to an idea enough times, we believe it (or at the very least are less resistant to the idea). However, if we truly believe that God is love, and we also believe that the opposite of love is hate; then our belief system has a serious flaw in it.
Love's True Opposite
So, first we must disassemble the false pretense that the opposite of love is hate. Here's an example: Because of my love for life (not just my own life, but seeing others live as well), I hate war and violence. When I hear about people being murdered, my heart grieves. I see absolutely no contradiction in that; in fact, my love for life is not complete if I do not hate what opposes life.
Let me introduce love's true opposite: selfishness
I believe the love of God and even the love which we experience in the purest form is really selflessness. Think about it. When we experience real, true love, it always involves another. We may say that we "love ice cream" or we "love that new movie," but those are merely warm feelings of excitement or affection. What I'm talking about is real, deep love—what, in the English of old days, used to be referred to as charity.
A Spiritual Encounter of The Most Natural Kind
We may experience this love/charity around somebody for whom we deeply care or somebody for whom we just acted selflessly and helped out. It isn't always a feeling; in fact, the good feeling we often get after helping someone I believe is not the love itself. Evidence of that is seen when we feel compelled to do something loving/charitable and we know we should do it; yet we don't feel like it. That impulse I believe is love tugging at our hearts, while the good feeling that follows is the cause of acting in love, but not love itself.
The feeling is our spirit aligning to the natural form and closeness to God's spirit for which it was designed. God is love. God made us to be in constant communion with His Spirit (which again, is love). When we act in selfless love, our spirit is moving in its natural, intended harmony with God's Spirit (whether or not a person actually believes in God is a non-issue as we are all spiritual beings and the same spiritual laws and rules apply to us all).
When I studied psychology in college, I learned of an interesting theory to explain “good and bad” human behavior called psychological egoism. It goes something along the lines of this: we truly have no selfless intentions. Everything we do is to either selfishly avoid a bad feeling or to selfishly enjoy a good feeling.
From a humanistic perspective, psychological egoism and psychological hedonism are problematic theories since they deny that there is any authentic good in anyone of us. Though I do not fully embrace the theory, I believe there is some truth to this theory. Since our spirits constantly (and usually unconsciously) yearn to be close to God's Spirit, then in the times that the harmony of our spirit intersects with His, it is no wonder we get a good feeling.
To seek the good feeling as an end in itself, however, should not be the aim as that would indeed be psychological hedonism. The goal is not to strive for those good feelings, but rather to draw closer to our Creator. In seeking His Spirit, we draw ourselves completely into His will, His rhythm, His dance, and a more permanent joy than the occasional high from doing a good deed.
The fact that we are around others when we experience this deep love is also evidence that love is not an isolated, solitary experience: which is why it is not far-fetched to see that love is selflessness, whose opposite is selfishness.
Regarding Selfishness
Selfishness, by definition, is always looking out for itself. It takes without giving; or if it does give, it does so manipulatively in the expectation of receiving something that it wants. It drives us to always look out for our best interests and disregard the consequences of our actions in ways that may harm others.
There is popular philosophy that guides many of our decisions today. We feel we can pursue whatever selfish ambitions or actions we desire, and as long as it does not seem to hurt anyone then it is acceptable. Unfortunately, the result of selfishness is that someone is wronged, and that someone in the end will always be us (in addition to anyone else who may have been directly or indirectly harmed by our actions/words/etc). Whenever we act selfishly, or in sin, we fall out of the rhythm of God's love and our spirit is further separated from His. That's why the Bible states that “the wages of sin is death.”
The Loving Hate of God
Because we sin, we would be eternally damned and separated from God had it not been for his ultimate sacrifice for us on the cross.
Sin cannot stand in His presence just as darkness cannot exist by itself in the sunlight. The very core of our beings would be destroyed by His presence were it not for the grace He has poured out on us. God desperately loves and cares about us and our well-being (eternal and even temporal). He hates sin because it separates us from Him. That is why there are so many "rules" attached to Christianity.
A Couple of Closing Thoughts
In closing I do want to mention a word of caution. God truly is love, and it is not an oxymoron for him to hate as what He hates are the things that are destructive to us. It is also not a sin for us to hate some things; yet we must be very careful because our prideful human hearts can be quick to judge. We should always remember that God is judge, and there is no room on His judgment seat for us. We should hate evil; but we are required to love each other, even our enemies.
"If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen."
(1 John 4:19-20)
Some of the defining characteristics of love:
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
(1 Corinthians 13:4-7)
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