No problem with any of that at all. Totally agree, but our disagreement has not been about this ideal. It is simply the idea of God "hating". If you think for one minute that Jesus countermanded God in his statements, you are not correct. Jesus did not overrule God's laws he personalized them. The "eye for an eye" command dealt with civil law. It said basically that if someone wrongly poked your eye out, his eye got poked out (not BY you, but by the authorities in charge of carrying out legal judgments). There was not a lot of eye-poking-outing because of that. BTW...I think it would be a good idea to put some negative consequences back into our judicial system today. Criminals get away with far to much and literally laugh at how little they are deterred from crime.
Jesus was speaking about the "personal" aspect of vengeance. He said if someone smote (slapped) you on the cheek - an insulting act that was a challenge - you should turn the other cheek to him. He was trying to communicate that we should deal with each other in love and forgiveness. However, Jesus was not saying that civil law should be abolished. He in no way ever said that the legal system of society should cease to work. I would LOVE for all of society to live according to the ways Christ commanded - it would literally change the world - but we know that there are still people out there who will rebel and go against God's commands for holiness.
Getting back to the original issue which was whether or not God hated anything, we know that he most certainly says he does and it is important to acknowledge that he detests, abhors, despises, and hates sin. He doesn't just "love it less" than good, he HATES it. The major reason, of course, is that sin separates us from God, it causes misery, sickness, unhappiness, death and ultimately separation from him for all eternity. That was my point.
What are you talking about? Jesus is saying "do not resist an evil person" (Mat 5:39) when the Law clearly commands otherwise. If you read Deu. 21:14 (KJV) you will notice that the "you" is actually the "though" (singular you), the injured party, who is commanded to take action.
Jesus also says "you've heard it said [my emphasis], love your neighbor and hate your enemy." (Mat 5:43). The "hate your enemy" part is not in the Law, but apparently a popular saying. So, he is not really reversing the law, in this case, but rather a popular attitude.
However, "love your enemies" and "pray for those who persecute you" is totally reversing to the Law which commands that one only love his neighbor (in this case the "one near," i.e. a member of the same clan or tribe, a Jew).
Nowhere in the OT does one call to love one's enemies or to bless those who persecute you. God curses Israel's enemeis (Deut 30:7) and blessing of enemeis is considered an abomination (Num 23:11). So, clearly, Jesus teaches something new in that respect.
“If you think for one minute that Jesus countermanded God in his statements, you are not correct. Jesus did not overrule God’s laws he personalized them.”
Of course not. One doesn’t “countermand” one’s own rules.
“Getting back to the original issue which was whether or not God hated anything, we know that he most certainly says he does and it is important to acknowledge that he detests, abhors, despises, and hates sin. He doesn’t just “love it less” than good, he HATES it.”
35 years in the practice of law have taught me that all choices have consequences; bad choices, bad consequences, good ones, good consequences. We are to this day seeing the spiritual destruction unleashed by the ever expanding heresy arising out of the Protestant Reformation. As the years have gone by for me here on FR, I have become increasingly convinced that many, many Westerners who honestly (I believe) call themselves Christians, in fact worship (and revel in the worship of) a different “god” from the God we Orthodox and Latins worship. It is a terrifying, hate-filled Dagon, unrecognized by The Church of the First Millennium, whose blood lust could only be slaked by the slaughter of an innocent, a creature subject to Necessity and every emotion known to mankind. No wonder atheism is rampant in the West! I don’t see us agreeing on this ever, bb.
The emotion of hate would have to be in God(part of His essence) before sin entered the world or God would be changed- this leaves you with a god of love and hate in his essence which is dualistic,like zeus
If this were the case, what was there for God to hate before sin,bb? Himself?
If you think God only had the emotion of hate in Him after sin than man CONTROLS God's emotions and changes him from love to hate leaving man with the power to control God by his sin
God is pure love,bb.God having an emotion of hate and anger is metaphorical
"God is pure act with no potentiality because, absolutely speaking, actuality is prior to potentiality (something can change from potentiality to actuality only by a being in actuality, and God is the First Being)".- Saint Thomas Aquinas