Biblical verses like Leviticus 20:23, Psalm 5:5-6, Psalm 11:5, Proverbs 11:20, and several others like them make it rather clear to any reader of the Bible who stumbles upon them that the Christian deity hates even as he loves--and only a fool would think that these different attitudes are mutually exclusive. Unfortunately, the church is full of fools, as it always has been. Hatred is as misunderstood by the typical Christian and non-Christian as love is. The very thought of a deity harboring hatred for any person at all is enough to ironically invoke the kind of rage and panic that the irrational can so easily turn into hatred. All the same, it is quite evident to anyone who reads the Bible thoroughly and does not make assumptions about its claims that Yahweh is indeed said to hate in Proverbs and elsewhere.
Proverbs 6 lists out some of the things that God is said to literally hate, and one of these things is a person who has shed innocent blood, a clear admission that God hates some kinds of people in addition to sinful acts and motivations. A subjective discomfort with hatred, a bent towards theological ideas prioritizing love to an invalid extent, and assumptions about Biblical interpretations that are not true by logical necessity (in that a God without hatred is neither the only conceptual possibility nor what the uncaused cause must be) are all obstacles to evangelical Christians just admitting that the God they love has more to its attitudes towards humans themselves than affection. All it takes to understand that Proverbs 6 affirms divine hatred without contradicting is basic reading and rational contemplation.
The aforementioned Proverbs 11:20 states that God "detests" those whose hearts are perverse, further clarifying that it is folly to pretend like even a book like Proverbs opposes or ignores the concept of Yahweh's hatred. It would be impossible for someone not biased against the idea of hatred to read through the Bible without encountering the multiple verses that so plainly insist that God does not just love humans, and some of these blatant statements are found in a book of the Bible that many Christians might least expect it from. Proverbs, of all places, is actually a significant book when it comes to the theology of divine hatred that is much closer to the forefront of Christianity than most would dare to even think of.
The evangelical myth that God hates things that the Bible does not oppose whatsoever (like profanity, sexual attraction, and so on) is not the only major error in the church pertaining to what God hates. Any supposedly Christian ideology in conflict with the Biblical fact that Yahweh is said repeatedly to hate not just sin, but at least certain classes of sinners themselves is nothing but a delusion passed off as the heart of Christianity. Anyone could love and hate the same truths, persons, or aspects of themselves, and thus, while paradoxical, it should not be ultimately surprising to any thoughtful Christian (in other words, the only kind that could be deserving of any sort of praise for their sincerity) that God hates some of the beings that disregard truth and justice even as he loves them for their potential.
No comments:
Post a Comment