BB-”’God remains unchangeable yet still expresses hate for certain things. I do not see any contradiction in that.””
The problem with this is that God is moved from love to hate something or someone based on an action of sin,therefore sin would have the ability to alter God from love,thus God would be moved from His essence due to a action from another source outside Himself making that outside source have the power to move and change God
A worse scenario would be a God who has hate along with love as His essence,thus being dualistic and thus have imperfection of hate as part of essence-leaving you with an imperfect God
God is Love ,bb.That is His essence,and that love has the power to crush imperfection of sin and rejection of love,it is not hate that crushes sin,it is Love that crushes the unrepentant sinner and that same love can also save the repentant sinner by abiding in the love of our unchangeable loving God(“God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 Jn 4:16)
So, God does not change from Love ,but love effects those who accept it and they do things such as “love their neighbor as themselves” and love punishes those who are selfish and reject love,thus, God is not moved because love never ends or is changed
“Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away”.1 Cor 13;8
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing”.1 Cor 13:1-3
We also see Church Fathers write the following(as Kolokotronis has posted before)
“God is good, dispassionate, and immutable. Now someone who thinks it reasonable and true to affirm that God does not change, may well ask how, in that case, it is possible to speak of God as rejoicing over those who are good and showing mercy to those who honor Him, and as turning away from the wicked and being angry with sinners. To this it must be answered that God neither rejoices nor grows angry, for to rejoice and to be offended are passions; nor is He won over by the gifts of those who honor Him, for that would mean He is swayed by pleasure. It is not right that the Divinity feel pleasure or displeasure from human conditions. He is good, and He only bestows blessings and never does harm, remaining always the same. We men, on the other hand, if we remain good through resembling God, are united to Him, but if we become evil through not resembling God, we are separated from Him. By living in holiness we cleave to God; but by becoming wicked we make Him our enemy. It is not that He grows angry with us in an arbitrary way, but it is our own sins that prevent God from shining within us and expose us to demons who torture us. And if through prayer and acts of compassion we gain release from our sins, this does not mean that we have won God over and made Him to change, but that through our actions and our turning to the Divinity, we have cured our wickedness and so once more have enjoyment of God’s goodness. Thus to say that God turns away from the wicked is like saying that the sun hides itself from the blind.” Saint Anthony the Great
“I say that those who are suffering in hell, are suffering in being scourged by love.... It is totally false to think that the sinners in hell are deprived of God’s love. Love is a child of the knowledge of truth, and is unquestionably given commonly to all. But love’s power acts in two ways: it torments sinners, while at the same time it delights those who have lived in accord with it” +Isaac the Syrian
..And Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote
Saint Aquinas write...
“But even other affections (affectiones), which are specifically inconsistent with divine perfection, are predicated in Holy Writ of God, not properly but metaphorically, on account of likeness of effects. Thus sometimes the will in following out the order of wisdom tends to the same effect to which one might be inclined by a passion, which would argue a certain imperfection: for the judge punishes from a sense of justice, as an angry man under the promptings of anger. So sometimes God is said to be ‘angry,’ inasmuch as in the order of His wisdom He means to punish some one: When his anger shall blaze out suddenly (Ps. ii, 13). He is said to be ‘compassionate,’ inasmuch as in His benevolence He takes away the miseries of men, as we do the same from a sentiment of pity: The Lord is merciful and compassionate, patient and abounding in mercy (Ps. cli, 8). Sometimes also He is said to be ‘repentant,’ inasmuch as in the eternal and immutable order of His providence, He builds up what He had previously destroyed, or destroys what He had previously made, as we do when moved by repentance: It repenteth me that I have made man (Gen. vi, 6, 7). God is also said to be ‘sad,’ inasmuch as things happen contrary to what He loves and approves, as sadness is in us at what happens against our will: And the Lord saw, and it seemed evil in his eyes, because judgement is not: God saw that there is no man, and he was displeased, because there was none to meet him (Isa. lix, 15, “
That God hates nothing by Saint Thomas Aquinas
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, it is impossible for Him to hate anything.
2. The will of God tends to things other than Himself inasmuch as, by willing and loving His own being and goodness, He wishes it to be diffused as far as is possible by communication of His likeness. This then is what God wills in beings other than Himself, that there be in them the likeness of His goodness. Therefore God wills the good of everything, and hates nothing.
4. 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.*
Hence it is said: Thou lovest all things that are, and hatest nothing of the things that Thou hast made (Wisd. xi, 25).
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. So it is said: Think no evil in your hearts every one of you against his friend, and love no lying oath: for all these are things that I hate, saith the Lord (Zach. viii, 17). But none of these things are effects of creation: they are not as subsistent things, to which hatred or love properly attaches. 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 love. Thus inasmuch as He wills the good of justice, or of the order of the universe, which cannot be without the punishment or perishing of some, He is said to hate those beings whose punishment or perishing He wills, according to the text, Esau I have hated (Malach. i, 3); and, Thou hatest all who work Iniquity, thou wilt destroy all who utter falsehood: the man of blood and deceit the Lord shall abominate (Ps. v, 7).*
One of the saddest things about at least some forms of protestantism is that so many of it’s adherents really believe that God “hates”. The origin of this notion is the thoroughly pagan concept that God, like the pagan gods, is compelled and ruled by an implacable Necessity and like them is subject to even the most base of human emotions.
“Love never hates anyone, never reproves anyone, never condemns anyone, never grieves anyone, never abhors anyone, neither faithful nor infidel nor stranger nor sinner nor fornicator, nor anyone impure, but instead it is precisely sinners, and weak and negligent souls that it loves more, and feels pain for them and grieves and laments, and it feels sympathy for the wicked and sinners, more than for the good, imitating Christ Who called sinners, and ate and drank with them. For this reason, showing what real love is, He taught saying, ‘Become good and merciful like your Father in Heaven,’ and as He rains on bad and good and makes the sun to rise on just and unjust alike, so also is the one who has real love, and has compassion, and prays for all.” Abba Ammonas
What a wonderful and orthodox post, SFA. Too bad it doesn’t match the Old Testament God—St. Tomas Aquinas’ brilliant attempt to reconcile notwithstanding.