Wednesday, September 20, 2006

hatred

God on hatred: "God loves all who hate evil" from Psalm 97:10, The Message.
More evidence that God loves me, since I definitely hate evil (I guess that is to say that God loves the part of me which hates evil). And from my perspective, where is the beginning of evil? Right here. And God I hate it. And I guess God hates it right along with me. Which means, at some level, God feels about me the same way I feel about myself, only he does it better and more wisely and more knowingly and with less fear.
Questions. Is is possible to legitimately hate evil if you start anywhere but "right here"?
See the whole chapter here http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%2097;&version=65;

2 comments:

Megs said...

yes. because there is objective evil. such as the lord's resistance army in uganda and all the children who've been tortured and made to commit atrocities in their army and killed. and, whether one is able, like you, to introspect along with bonhoeffer and say that, if we are to make a dividing line between good and evil, or one is not, or one sort of is, or one sort of isn't, there is extreme evil visible to people all along this spectrum. i suppose there might be people, like those leading the lord's resistance army, who perceive evil as good, and good as evil, or who delight in evil, or who are controlled by evil... i personally don't like evil and wish it vanished. i like john 17 and jesus' protection prayer for us ... i feel especially vulnerable to evil because i have two precious, vulnerable little girls. as do you!! i forgot for a moment i was writing on your blog bens! i love you!!! i pray jesus protects our little girls from evil, and us, and all those in our blogging community!

Benjamin Ady said...

hmmmm. Is it possible, sweetest Megs, that there is a sort of continuum of awareness of self evil, and that those who are most able to introspect evil are most enabled to refrain from committing it, whereas those who are most unable to introspect evil are those who are least able to stop committing it? This has been true for me, in that as I have grown able to introspect evil, I have simultaneously been enabled to stop committing it. So maybe those LRA guys are furthest down the road of not being able to introspect evil--the road to hell, as it were. thoughts?