This is a very interesting discussion, one to which John (Pilgrim) directed me on the current thread on Chick tracts. (Which I neither like nor love. I hate them. 
)
As others have said, there are a number of linguistic complexities that need to be ironed out before we can get to the heart of the debate itself. First, the grammatical: the word ‘like’ used as a preposition, conjunction, adjective or adverb is of no relevance to this discussion. (I think you gave the example “time flies like an arrow” somewhere early on, John).
But even when used as a noun or verb, ‘like’ can be irrelevant; for example, when asking somebody the question “would you like a cup of coffee?” - they might not, even though they might actually love coffee.
Which brings us – like it or not – to the issue of semantics. There’s no getting round this one. If we do not make a proper distinction between the verbs ‘like’ and ‘love’, and agree that they describe different attitudes or behaviours, or at the very least different degrees of affection or preference, then we cannot have a debate at all.
So I will take it as read that even in questions of pleasure, preference, attitude or behaviour – which is what we’re really concerned about here – eg “I like ice cream” / “I love ice cream”, ‘like’ and ‘love’ can be and very often are used interchangeably, without doing violence to the English language.
So, having got all that pedagogy out of the way 
, let us cut to the chase here: is it possible for me to act in a godly way, and love Joe or Josephine – even (some might say especially) if they are my enemies – while actively disliking them?
My answer is emphatically yes. Yes, it is perfectly possible to act in a fully Christian way, to act as Jesus did, while disliking somebody. That is my personal opinion. I will try, briefly, to explain it.
But before doing so, I would pose the question of whether we should even be talking in terms of God ‘liking’ or ‘disliking’ Josephine. Does God have ‘likes’ and ‘dislikes’? Surely not. Surely to talk in such terms is an absurd anthropomorphism. As God’s ‘attitudes’ are not influenced by His genetic inheritance, upbringing or environment, He does not, by definition, have preferences at all, in the sense that we have them. (Perhaps I should say here that the moment we use any language at all in our attempts to understand or describe God we are doomed to failure. But we must use such tools as we have …)
The Bible tells us God is love. God loves all people, good or bad, Christian or no, with an unconditional love. That is basic Christian doctrine. (Unless, of course, you are a Calvinist ). So to say that God loves Joe and Josephine is a statement of fact. But to say God ‘likes’ Joe, but doesn’t ‘like’ Josephine, is, I humbly submit, a meaningless statement. Does God ‘like’ Joe because Joe is an affable and humorous chap whose company God enjoys? Does God ‘dislike’ Josephine because she’s a bad tempered grump who’s always moaning about her lot? Surely not. It is as absurd to talk about God liking Joe more than Josephine as it is to talk about Him ‘liking’ okra but ‘disliking’ chocolate.
Hence I would say that to describe our ‘liking’ or ‘disliking’ somebody as godly or ungodly is, strictly speaking, meaningless.
But nevertheless, is it possible for me to truly love someone, to love them with agape love – as is my explicit, bounden Christian duty – while actively disliking them? Does loving Joe somehow necessarily entail *liking *him? I would say no. And here’s why.
Whether or not I like someone or something is not primarily a matter of will. It is not something I do, it is something my personality and my body do to me. Consider this example:
I ‘like’ Joe. Joe and I have things in common. We both ‘like’ cricket. We are both mildly anti-establishment. We both abhor reality TV shows. I like Joe because he’s the sort of person whose company I enjoy.
But I don’t ‘like’ Joe’s sister Josephine. Josephine and I have lots in common. We both like cricket. We are both mildly anti-establishment. We both abhor reality TV shows. And yet Josephine is somebody whose company I don’t enjoy. Why not? I don’t know. I just don’t like her.
Why do we like the people we like? Well in one sense it’s fairly obvious. If Josephine generally behaves in a mean, obnoxious or otherwise ‘unlikeable’ way, if she’s arrogant and rude and a bully, we’re probably not going to like her very much. But she might be sweet, kind and generous, and we still might not like her very much! We might just not ‘click’ with her. And the reasons for this are so complex that I doubt we or anybody else would ever be able to untangle them.
They may be partly genetic. They may be partly environmental. They may simply be purely down to our personal preference, whatever *that *means.
But should I like Josephine? Is it my Christian duty to like Josephine? Again, I would say no. Clearly, I am not called to like Josephine’s arrogance or rudeness. But am I called to like her despite these faults? I see absolutely no reason – either scriptural or moral – why I should. Yes, as a Christian, I should love Josephine. And, as CS Lewis has pointed out, this probably means behaving towards her as if I actually did like her. Indeed, the more I love Josephine, the more I may grow to like her, despite her faults (which of course will be no worse, and may well be far less, than mine).
But as long as we accept that the words ‘like’ and ‘love’ define different attitudes and behaviours, as long as ‘like’ means ‘have a preference’ for, I can perfectly well continue to ‘like’ Joe more than I ‘like’ Josephine, without ceasing to act in a Christian way towards either of them. To annul my own personal preferences, to neutralise them in the name of love, is to deny my unique personality as a human being. If I like everybody and everything equally, I am not me anymore.
It matters not that both Joe and Josephine bear the image of God within them. I can love them both because they do. But I need not like them both because they do.
In closing, I would say that one might argue that I will never be able to truly love Josephine unless I try my best to like her. I disagree. It’s the other way around. I will only get to like Josephine by loving her, by using my will to behave in a loving way towards her.
We are commanded to love our enemies. We are not commanded to like them.
Shalom
Johnny
PS I found it blooming difficult writing this post without inadvertently using the word ‘like’, which I found both amusing and interesting. The spectrum of use and meaning of the word is so broad, so pervasive, it really does make accurate discussion and analysis very hard …
Edited to correct confusion of like and love in a couple of places. Just goes to show what I mean!
