We Choose to Love

The hallmark of a Christian ought to be love. Many think the distinguishing aspect of those who follow Christ is faith. Faith cannot be dismissed at all. Faith is essential. Faith is the beginning but not the end. One cannot stop at faith and call it good. Faith can also be defective. Someone can believe in Jesus as in ‘I believe that Jesus existed’ or ‘I believe that Jesus taught many wonderful things.’ All of these are true, but they are only some of the facts that form the content of the faith. Embracing only some of the Nicene Creed that we profess every Sunday is insufficient and adding beliefs that contradict the testimony of the Scriptures or the witness of the Church would also result in a deficient or even heretical faith. While the Creed is not a totally comprehensive expression of the content of the faith, rejecting the Resurrection or Jesus’ miracles would be problematic as would adding teachings that Jesus never taught, such as if Jesus were alive today He would approve of abortion, irregular marriage, exploiting women and children, or hating of some people for what ever reason we think is justified.

It should be clear that hate is no more justified than adultery. Jesus parks these two sins next to each other in the Sermon on the Mount. In both cases, Jesus clarifies and expands on the Ten Commandments by teaching that lust equates to adultery while hatred equates to murder (Mt 5:21-30). This should not be shocking, but it did shock many of the Jews that heard Jesus teach on the sinfulness of lust and hatred. It should not be shocking because adultery is preceded and fueled by lust and murder first requires hatred. In both cases what lies in the human heart matters even if it is not acted upon. ‘I did not touch her’ or ‘I did not strike him’ might be legitimate defenses in a legal court but they won’t hold up in the divine tribunal.

Indeed, both lust and hatred are serious defects in our love for our neighbor. Given that God loves the one who lusts, the one who is lusted after, the one who hates, and the one who is hated, defective love of our neighbor is a defective love of God. This is seen, as was noted last week, in the First Letter of St John: “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1Jn 4:20). In other words, one cannot legitimately hate his fellow man and claim to love God. And it would be a mistake to think that ‘I love everyone except Eloise Crabapple’ or ‘I only love my family and my friends.’ Yes, love begins at home (a paraphrase of 1Tim 5:8) and, yes, maybe Mrs. Crabapple is a terrible person, but love knows no limits. Some people will test or challenge our love, but love calls us to rise above our aversion, our loathing, and our revulsion because God demands this of us.

But what is hate? If I dislike Eloise Crabapple because of her harsh and bitter personality, have I hated her? Hatred and dislike are not the same thing. Disliking someone might be a natural aversion to an aspect of another, such as their demeanor, their bad breath, their opinions, or their behavior in general. Disliking is more of an involuntary reaction, even an emotional response, to the qualities of another. We do not have the ability to like someone who we find unlikeable. We generally cannot like everyone all of the time. Even husbands and wives struggle at times to like each other, but that does not mean they hate one another. They married someone imperfect and those imperfections sometimes breed emotional anger and disappointment. Those imperfections may make them unlikeable from time to time but not unlovable.

The primary distinction between dislike and hatred lies not in the one who is disliked or hated but in the one who dislikes or hates. Dislike is a natural, often personal response to the other. Hatred is chosen, hatred is deliberate. Dislike does not engage the intellect or the will per se, but hatred is certainly an act of the will and often involves the intellect. When the intellect and the will are involved, mortal sin is a distinct possibility. An aversion to Eloise Crabapple may not be chosen, but choosing to despise her, to wish ill upon her, or even to take pleasure in ill that befalls her certainly crosses the line from dislike to hate. For the Christian, hate is always avoidable while love is always possible. Literally, the choice is ours.

—Fr Booth