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From: root@trwatf.UUCP (Lord Frith)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Samuelson on Moral Relativism
Message-ID: <840@trwatf.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 8-Apr-85 10:40:24 EST
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Posted: Mon Apr  8 10:40:24 1985
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> The concept of ``hating the sin but loving the sinner'' is good for deep
> thoughts. Personally, I don't think  that I have ever done this. I hate
> the sin, hate the sinner -- but when the sin goes away (or I realise that
> I was wrong in thinking that what someone else way doing was wrong) so
> does the hatred.

For me that depends on who the sinner is.  If I have a deep love for
this individual then I CAN love them REGARDLESS of the sin (and I do
mean unconditionally).  When you know someone well enough and, indeed
have such an all-encompassing love for them, then you can understand
where this "sin" (I hate that word) stands in their lives.  The
"person" is more important than the ancillary "sin."  If that person is
mired in sin through and through, of course, I wouldn't have had anything
to do with them in the first place.  It's a question of degree.

> Of course, my list of things that I will hate anybody
> for is rather short. I am curious as to whether anybody (still alive
> now) has actually managed to hate the sin but love the sinner. I can
> regret the sin but love the sinner, but when I turn on hatred it seems
> to be consistently both or neither.

Yes, when someone accepts sin whole-heartedly then you say to yourself,
"that filth-bag.... he's accepting sin whole-heartedly... well *I*
won't have anything to do with him!"  Depends on the individual again.
Even in this case there are those that I will pine away for regardless
of what they have consiously accepted.  Not that I can be oblivious to
the sin either... I simply won't throw the baby out with the dirty
bathwater.

> So this makes my list of ``things I think Christianity demands of you
> that are not humanly possible''. But maybe I just don't know how.

Sorry to say it Laura... YOU DON'T KNOW THE TRUE NATURE OF THE FORCE...
oopppsss, sorry.

Seriously, I think in this case perhaps you don't know how.  Love is
not the sort of thing you can create intellectually, but it CAN be
understood intellectually.  That's how I can articulate my
experiences.

This is all very similar to God's treatment of man.  He does NOT love
just everyone unconditionally.  He would like everyone to enter into eternal
life and live with him... but not if you don't measure up to his style
of being.  I also get the impression that he doesn't favor just everyone
equally.  Perhaps God finds that he can love some more than others,
and treats them as such.  This wouldn't be surprising.  Those you love,
you favor.

But does God hate the sinner and the sin at the same time?  What if they
become one in the same?  Can man REALLY sink so low that his very being
becomes pure sin?  Seems unlikely.
-- 


UUCP: ...{decvax,ihnp4,allegra}!seismo!trwatf!root	- Lord Frith
ARPA: trwatf!root@SEISMO

"And he made the stars, too, and the world is one of the stars"