I was specifically referring to the new aspects I have brought to the discussion in my latest posts. So neither you nor I have the faintest idea whether posters agree or disagree with those aspects and arguments. The arguments put forward in the three scenarios are completely new to the thread. You are not in a position to speak for others so please desist.
In addition, don’t you think that it would be more helpful to actually engage in the substance presented which included a reply to yourself showing the Greek text which indicates instruction to be affectionate one to another in direct contradiction to your earlier post? But no, you seem to wish to score some cheap point and ignore the important issues.
Yes, I admit I was clumsy and too loose with my language in my rushed ‘signing-off’ statement. It was my stupid way of trying to express my inner turmoil at being confronted with many fellow travelers, whose opinions I respect and who I need to learn from, who have a completely different mindset on what I see as a crucial issue.
For me, this topic is as fundamental and disturbing as the issues involved in Calvinism.
So, nice one Paidon. You win. You are more intelligent and erudite than myself.
Now, if you have anything to say which may further this discussion, or if you actually would like to explain why you say we are not instructed to be affectionate when the text says we ARE (as I posted many days ago and you ignored) please feel free to post again on this thread, otherwise perhaps you would leave the posting to those who might be more helpful.
Still catching up, although I see that there might finally be someone (Johnny) who thinks that we may have no Christian duty to ever like someone. Up until now, no one in the thread was advocating that–although Cindy inadvertently wrote something like it, but in context she meant a temporary condition under present circumstances, not a question of the ideal state we ought to be working for and hoping in God for which she was agreeing with Pilgrim about. In Johnny’s case that seems to be a factor of his stance that emotional liking isn’t something we have any control over therefore would be non sequitur to regard it as a duty; but then later (as Pilgrim noted) he seems to agree that we can work to adjust our emotional attitudes toward people (especially where we perceive ourselves to be the ones in the wrong). So, eh, not sure where that leaves him yet. Will need to wait for his reply, possibly with clarifications.
Some brief points of note while I’m catching up:
1.1.) Most of the size of my reply isn’t due to researching per se, but due to commenting on the structure of the thread as it has developed (including a detailed apology to Pilgrim where appropriate–but also including detailed defenses against his unprovoked attack against what I was writing in conversation to WAAB). I do have some Biblical research in the reply however.
1.2.) I’ll want to extend my commentary to address Pilgrim’s new reiterations, which I regard as being both important and fairly well put.
1.3.) I’ve been holding off to allow more room for discussion, since I would rather not distract the overall thread discussion with defenses against Pilgrim’s charges against me and (what he insisted on regarding as) my beliefs. On the other hand I do not regard it a small matter to be accused of the stinking sin of hatred, being deceived by (and compared to) Satan, deluding myself, etc., especially in connection to my role as administrator–and I say that self-critically as well as defensively. (I especially say that when the accusations are being leveled at things I was saying self-critically against myself and in protection of my opponents, and in contradistinction to what I was actually saying. Thus my defensiveness about being charged with such accusations; but self-critically I do recognize myself as a sinner, so neither can I simply dismiss such charges from that direction as though it is impossible for them to apply to me.)
1.4.) Consequently most of the reply will probably be attached in a sequence of pdfs so as not to flood the thread. The apologies will not be tucked away like that, however.
1.5.) I mentioned this in an earlier post (which is why some members already know it’s being worked on and have mentioned it themselves subsequently); but Sonia thought I had meant to drop that into a different thread and so moved it back there instead. No great loss. But I thought I should take the time to explain the discrepancy. (And to work up a more detailed version of the previous comment while I’m at it. )
2.) That’s a very interesting and pertinent observation, and accurate so far as I recall; but since I’ve been offthread for other reasons, allow me to be the first (?) to answer one of your earlier repeated challenges: yes, I am entirely willing to affirm that under some temporary circumstances God, while still loving me, does not in fact like me. And that this is my fault, not God’s in any way.
This also means that I am entirely willing to affirm that God can and does like one person (up to and including opponents of mine) while disliking another (up to and including me, depending on circumstances); and not only what we do but who we are personally in doing what we do. (I also acknowledge that this may involve God both liking and disliking the same person at the same time in different ways and for different although related reasons.)
This would be obviously nonsensical if liking and loving are essentially the same thing and/or if loving is only a subset of liking (so that they are asynchronously identical, all loving being liking but not all liking necessarily being loving); and possibly also nonsensical if loving develops from liking into something categorically different than liking (while still of course being related to it) regardless of whether the loving was still mixed with liking (although that would seem unavoidable on this theory).
But since none of those are my position, the question goes back to whether (a) my actual position is coherent and accurate as to facts (i.e. true love is primarily an action, especially at the level of God’s Trinitarian self-existence, from which emotions should properly follow); and (b) whether this subsidary position (that God can temporarily and to various degrees and in various ways dislike people whom He also truly and eternally loves, even while also most likely liking them too in consequence of His loving) is coherent (and accurate as to facts) with the position it is subsidary to.
(For example, it would be pointless to accuse me of invalidity on the ground that I am claiming love/like to be essentially the same thing and/or loving depending on liking, because I am absolutely not claiming that.)
3.) At the same time I’m sympathetic to Johnny’s caution about ascribing emotions at all to God. I’m a hardcore metaphysician, so I know there has been a lot of debate among Christian theologians about this over the years; and I know all the ins and outs about what is at stake with divine impassivity as well as the ins and outs of what impassivity ought or ought not to involve; and how the question of God’s emotions (or not) factors into all that; and I think I can say I have a pretty good handle on how that all pertinently connects to the topic of the Incarnation, too.
3.1.) On one hand I’m a hyper-orthodox trinitarian theist (thus also a supernaturalistic theist) who’s very very picky about my theological coherency on that topic, and so I understand that if any kind of supernaturalistic theism is true, that means God cannot be affected involuntarily by external stimuli, which (as Johnny points out) eliminates many of the important causal factors of our emotions as creatures (even in an ideal state, but especially also in our fallen condition)…
3.2.) …but which does not eliminate Incarnational factors (which on the other hand introduce issues that anti-Trinitarian apologists have trouble with)…
3.3.) …and which does not eliminate other factors at the level of God’s own existence, such as the voluntary self-sacrificial submission of the Son in various ways (including for God’s own active self-existence, but also for God to create any system of not-God reality); and such as active experiential appreciation of situations and qualities by God (to which our own “emotions” as creatures approximate in a derivative fashion)…
3.4.) …besides which it is an indisputable fact that the scriptures, especially (but not limited to) the OT, routinely speak of God in strongly emotive behavioral language. This may or may not be metaphorical–if YHWH says His bowels are troubled in grief over wayward Israel, for example, that might be poetic description or it might refer to Incarnational reality in various ways–but it is there (and lots and lots and lots of it) and ought to be feasibly accounted for in some way. Moreover, since God is the topic, then even where/if the language is metaphorical, I have been taught (and agree) to expect the reality to be more real than the language suggests (even if the language is not literally true), not less so. (Few people on the planet are going to be more of a Lewisian scholar than I am, and I learned from my teacher very well. )
3.5.) Meaning I agree with Pilgrim that, among other things, the Incarnation indicates we had better not outright dismiss the concept of God having emotions on anthropomorphic grounds…
3.6.) …but on the other hand, being very well aware of that sort of thing, by the same token I’m not much in favor of dismissing the many scriptural indications of God disliking people either! (Not merely what they do, but who they are in what they are doing.) Often at great intensity. Among other emotive descriptions such as grief, and fondness, and wry or affectionate or even mocking humor.
Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander: if I’m asked (which I agree with) to take scriptural evidence of God emotionally liking people seriously (as Christ or otherwise), I’m going to take scriptural evidence of God emotionally disliking people seriously, too (even if that dislike is only temporary).
But I’ll have more to say about that later. Today I need to work on closing up shop for Memorial Day weekend.
What I’ve been trying to say – maybe unsuccessfully – is that I don’t think there’s a fundamental difference between what Pilgrim is saying and what I and at least some others are saying. When I say the difference is over semantics, I mean it’s a difference over the words we prefer to use.
I’m not saying we should purposefully ‘dislike’ someone and harbor dislike towards people – but sometimes we find we do dislike them. And then I’d also say that there are some people who might deserve to be disliked because they are in an active state of consciously choosing evil.
Now, I think Pilgrim would say that we don’t really dislike the person himself, we dislike their actions and choices. Ok, technically, perhaps that’s true. But my preference is to simply say ‘I dislike the person’. (Not that I actually go around saying I don’t like certain people – that would be a very unusual thing for me to say!) But my sense of ‘dislike’ does not distinguish behaviors from the person himself.
However that’s when intentional love steps in and says, “Even though this person is ‘unlikeable’ to me for some reason – whether they have earned my dislike or the dislike is due to some sinfulness of my own – I will choose to love that person anyway.” My choice is to not abandon the person, to not repay evil for evil, to not act upon my dislike, but to seek the best for them and do good to them. Love covers.
My dear old thing. Thanks for your posts in response to mine. I fear we are not going to agree on this unless we recalibrate the discussion. Your last post clarifies the reason why. As Sonia has repeatedly and quite correctly pointed out, and despite what you said earlier about us “not just dealing with semantics”, there are:
a) huge semantic differences between the ways we can define and understand the verb ‘to like’.
b) huge semantic differences between the way you and I are using the verb ‘to like’ in this thread.
Now I’m no Noam Chomsky. But I am a writer. I am pretty sure of my ground here (as you are when you speak of mathematics).
You say:
I disagree. I say:
All my arguments are predicated on this definition of ‘like’. And I stand by them. As far as my arguments are concerned, the goalposts have moved. In fact, we’re not even playing on the same field.
But anyway. You have repeatedly issued the challenge for somebody to answer your scriptural arguments, including to “sidestep” Romans 12 v10. But under my definition of ‘like’ there is no need to sidestep this verse, because it has no bearing whatsoever on what I’m arguing.
You translate this verse as “Love each other with genuine affection”. The NIV translates it “Be devoted to one another in love”; the KJV “Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love”; “the YLT in the love of brethren, to one another kindly affectioned”.
The Greek word translated as “affectioned” and its variants is φιλοστοργοι transliterated into English as philostogoi, from the Greek root φιλόστοργος (philostorgos, Strong’s 5387).
Strong’s translates this word as “devoted, loving dearly, kindly affectioned”. Thayer and Smith’s Greek lexicon defines it thus:
“the mutual love of parents and children and wives and husbands
loving affection, prone to love, loving tenderly
chiefly of the reciprocal tenderness of parents and children”
Now it seems to me that that there is barely a gnat’s whisker of difference between φιλοστοργοι and the word translated as “love” in Romans 12:10 – φιλαδελφια (philadelphia; Strong’s 5360; English translation “love of brothers or sisters, brotherly love, in the NT the love which Christians cherish for each other as brethren”). So you could very well give a loose translation of Romans 12:10 as:
“Love each other with brotherly love.”
So I would say that by defining ‘like’ as you do as “includ[ing] a positive emotional component (ie ‘affection’)”, you are rendering the original question – which let us remember was ‘can we love yet dislike?’ – meaningless. For what you are essentially asking is ‘can we love without loving’ – which is an absurd non-question.
You demonstrate this when you ask:
Of course the sort of love described in 1 Cor 13 includes “affection towards”, and it includes “liking” in the way you define that word – but not the way I define it!
So once again, it is indeed a question of semantics. It’s all about how you define the words ‘love’ and ‘like’.
Now both you and Jason raise some further interesting questions, which I will try and address in a separate post later. But let us please get this fundamental semantic question quite clear in our minds, otherwise we cannot have a sensible discussion at all.
All the very best, with φιλόστοργος *and * φιλαδελφια
Never have I suggested or even hinted that we are not instructed to be affectionate. Indeed, I even quoted one in which we are so instructed in order to make my point.
If it is important to you that we be affectionate as instructed, perhaps the next step for you, is to put it into practice.
I voted in the affirmative… that it is possible to love and to dislike simultaneously. And I suppose I am also among the camp who sees much of the disagreement here as primarily a matter of semantics.
But as to core of the discussion… I do not believe pilgrim’s contention, as I’m currently understanding it, that agape loving someone necessitates… at all times… feelings and actions of affection makes much sense.
Was Jesus expressing affection to the Pharisees when He called them the offspring of vipers? Or when He called them whitewashed tombs? Or when He called them hypocrites and blind guides? That would be a strange way to show affection. And it would be an equally strange way to treat someone you like. In fact, I think Jesus made it quite clear that he didn’t much like the Pharisees at all and that He considered them to be His enemies.
It’s equally clear to me, though, that He did indeed quite actively and devotedly love them. He wept for them, and, in fact, He died for them. And He made one of their own His greatest evangelist. He loved the Pharisees quite perfectly, actually, even if they mistook His very real and actual dislike as hatred. (Sorry, pilgrim, but I see a pretty distinct difference between the two! )
The question remains, however, what it means in **practice **to **us **to love our neighbor as oneself and for **us **to love **our **enemies. And that’s especially so in the case of a neighbor we come to find that we dislike. I sympathize with Pilgrim’s reluctance to concede that we can dislike while still endeavoring to love. In fact, I much admire his stance, because I believe it shows the kind of heart’s desire that should be present in every child of God. Even if we can wrap our minds around the righteous anger of our Lord toward the Pharisees, and even affirm it, could we dare reserve such an option for our imperfect and far-too-often hypocritical selves? I think not. I’m sure most here, if not all, would say the same. And have not most people had the experience of having a negative first (or second, or third, or name your ordinal!) impression of someone turn out to be totally and utterly wrong?
Still, even if I appreciate pilgrim’s reluctance to concede his point, I don’t think agape love requires that we like every person, any more than it required that Jesus like the Pharisees.
I think we should be absolutely clear here. I did not interrupt a conversation between the two of you.
WAAB wrote a question which was open to all readers: WAAB:
This was in response to Alex, Tim, David and Eric. You (Jason) had not even posted on this thread when WAAB raised this open question. I gave my answer to WAAB’s open question which was in opposition to your answer. Jason:
Once again, your statement is very misleading.
Firstly I made clear my belief that ‘dislike’ is a euphemism for ‘hate’. Then, on the issue of using alternative words , I said: " Just as a rose by any other name doth smell as sweet, so also hatred by any other name is a stinking sin."
I assume that we are all in agreement that hatred of another person is a sin and that sin gives off a displeasing aroma to our Holy God? Then the only rational reason that your heckles may be raised is IF I picked you out personally and accused you individually and personally of this sin. But I most certainly did not do this.
Compared to Satan?? Role as administrator?? I haven’t the faintest idea what you are thinking of, but just so that our readers are clear that non of my statements singled you out in any way but were directed at myself, us as christians, and the whole of humanity in that we are ALL sinners (some only differing in that they are aware of that fact), here is the post:
I clearly included myself in any deception and, as it happens, I believe that I deceive myself (or Satan deceives me) probably on a daily basis. Your accusations are incorrect.
But I am particularly disappointed at you re-kindling this issue as it had been put into the hands of the Admin board weeks ago and they had dealt with it very fairly and to my satisfaction.
If you were dis-satisfied with their judgement, then would it not have been better to PM them privately?
Let’s go back to the origin of this thread in order to understand how the word ‘like’ was being used.
The thread actually originated in a thread called “Forgiveness…” where a husband became aware that grossly inappropriate advances were made on his wife. I will not go into more detail but it is clear and understandable that there would be strong feelings (in the husband and author of the thread) against the man who acted wrongly towards his wife.
It was in this context that the phrase “Love whilst disliking” was first used.
Perhaps Johnny, you might be able to tell me which of the two definitions (yours or mine) for the word ‘dislike’ or its counter-part ‘like’, we might have been dealing with?
Voluntarily deleted the introduction to my long defense and catch-up commentary, on June 1st, hoping that doing so will be more helpful in several ways.
The meaning of love, as in in Romans, after Johnny’s post and the distinction between love and like are now clear enough for me! I am fascinated as to how this debate will come to a concensus as surely God would wish.
Johnny please would you add the Greek and translations/definitions of the word “love” as used by Jesus when he commands us to love our enemies and love our neighbours.
Thank you
Voluntarily deleted around half of Part 5 to my long defense and catch-up commentary, on June 1st, hoping that doing so will be more helpful in several ways.
(Some portions have been kept where relevant to Pilgrim’s quotation of another part afterward.)
"Now, if you love those who love you, what credit or reward is that to you? Aren’t the traitors doing this, too!?
"And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you?? Even sinners do the same!
"And if you greet your brother only, what are you doing more than others? Don’t the pagans do that, too!?”
Jesus’ rhetorical questions here from GosMatt 5 would be pointless if He was supposed to be contrasting these actions to loving people we’ve first grown fond of instead. And He does call what we’re expected to do “beyond all this” as loving our enemies. I do not think you will find much in the surrounding contexts of the Sermon on the Mount (in GosMatt or its abbreviated Lukan parallel report) indicating that first we must grow emotionally fond of our enemies so that then we can love them. Nor does being emotionally fond of those we love always obviously factor into Jesus’ instructions there. Otherwise Jesus would be saying that beyond loving those who love us, we should love those whom we are emotionally fond of, too! (The two categories are admittedly not necessarily identical: we could be loved by people we are not fond of yet. But if we love those we are already emotionally fond of, what are we doing more than traitors, sinners and pagans??)
Or again from Matt 18:21ff: Peter comes to Christ to complain about the command to forgive our brothers if they seek repentance up to seven times. This is not the complaint of someone who is affectionately fond of his brother!–but Jesus expects him to forgive his repentant brother vastly more than that many times, and nothing in Jesus’ subsequent parable involves Peter first becoming emotionally fond of his brother. True, if Peter already liked his brother, or came to like him, then he wouldn’t have so much (or any) trouble with forgiving him. (On the contrary then the temptation would be to excuse the brother for sake of the pleasant-feeling emotion, without actual repentance from his brother.) But proposing a situation where Peter clearly does not like his hypothetical brother, Jesus instructs him to forgive his repentant brother anyway. Not to learn to like his brother first before forgiving him.
I 100% agree. I also notice that your example doesn’t involve Jesus coming to have this emotional attachment to them first and then coming to love them afterward. He had this emotional attachment to them because He already loved them.
I also notice however that Jesus went on to furiously denounce His opponents among the Pharisees before leaving the Temple on Wednesday. Those were at least some of the specific men plotting to murder Him, and I agree He was weeping over them, too, emotionally, out of His love for them. Are you willing to agree that Jesus was angry at them out of His love for them? And if so, do you consider Jesus’ anger at that time to be only a strongly fond feeling of affection for them?
What part of that context indicates love as primarily a strong emotion to you? I see plenty of places where love {agapê} acts in emotional ways, but nowhere that it indicates love is primarily a strong emotion.
But if you think it means this in context, do you also think this more excellent way is the love of God Who is love? And if so, do you think God Who is love is primarily a strong pleasant emotional reaction, instead of an action for the true intention of well being between persons (which consequently generates emotions)?
Are you saying that Jesus was not capable of disliking those same people temporarily later when He condemned them with the Greater Condemnations in thunderous denunciation? And if you say He was capable of it, was He wrong to feel anything other than pleasant emotions toward them?
I have no doubt that when I am sinning impenitently, God dislikes ME!–and greatly so, in proportion to my impenitence and injustice toward other people.
Do you believe that when Jesus threatened (analogically) to vomit the sinners in the church of Laodicia out of His mouth, that Jesus was only feeling pleasant affection toward those people in that circumstance?
Not one person here is sidestepping it, since everyone here agrees that this is the ideal situation that we ought to be working toward, even if we don’t like the person affectionately yet.
But since you mention sidestepping: Romans 12:9, “Abhor evil, cling to what is good”. Considering the number of times in the scriptures when people are called evil, why do you deny it is proper sometimes to feel unliking emotions toward people when they are doing evil? Or do you think God is doing wrong when He throws vengeance on the wicked in His wrath? (Romans 12:19) Or do you think God only has (God’s version of) pleasant affection emotions toward the wicked when He wraths against them? Is God sinning the stinking sin of hate any time He says He has wrath toward someone, and represents His attitudes by the language of emotional anger?
To this I could add that Paul doesn’t act like he’s only feeling pleasant affections toward the people persecuting the Christians (which by referential context includes the non-Christian Jews) at 2 Thess 1:6-10, much less toward the son of destruction who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called “god” etc. (2:3ff) Or when, relatedly, Paul was handing over false teachers in the church to the whole-ruination of the flesh (such as at 1 Cor 5), do you think he only felt pleasant emotions of affection toward them? And if not, was he sinning the stinking sin of hate? Do you believe Jesus only felt pleasant emotions of affection toward the scribes and Pharisees whom He directed the warning about the sin against the Holy Spirit that shall not be forgiven?–and if not, was He sinning the stinking sin of hate?
I’m picking those examples on purpose because I actually argue for universal salvation by reference to those verses even though they’re commonly used. And I am extremely well aware of the verses in Isaiah 27:4-5 (because I’m the person who cites it most on this forum) about how God has no wrath in Himself but only fights against those who go out to war against Him with thorns and thistles to burn up the thorns and thistles. But there is a difference between God doing wrath and God being wrath; and that verse is set smack in the middle of a bunch of prophecies about God acting with wrath against sinners (up to and including Satan). So even though I myself cite that verse as an important evidence about God’s wrath, I wouldn’t use it to deny that God has wrath toward people. (Neither have you used that verse for that, but I wanted to forestall a potential reply.)
Notice how perseverance comes before godliness. Doesn’t this support the idea that godliness is a subset of perseverance?
Notice how knowledge comes before self-control. Doesn’t this support the idea that self-control is a subset of knowledge?
Notice how moral virtue comes before knowledge. Doesn’t this support the idea that any knowledge is a specially strong subset of moral virtue?
Some of the elements of that list could be construed as plausibly following from each other as a subset, but others would be much more difficult to construe as plausibly being nothing more or other than a subset of preceding sets. Consequently it remains an open question whether agape, God’s own true love, is only a specially strong subset of “brotherly kindness” (or “genuine affection”). Which can be partially tested by asking in return: doesn’t 2 Peter 1:5-7 support the idea that God’s own love is only a specially strong subset of pleasant emotional affection?
(Answer: no. God’s agape, which is God’s own self-existence, is not based on having pleasant emotions about someone or something. And our agape ought to be based on God’s agape, therefore not ultimately on someone having pleasant emotions about something.)
Then you must either deny against extensive scriptural testimony (mostly but not entirely OT) that God acts in anger toward people; or you must deny that God ever stops acting in anger toward persons.
Since (almost…???) no one from the beginning of the thread was denying that ideally perfect Godly Love should ultimately include a positive emotional component toward the loved person, and since I was especially insisting that it would be un-Christian of me not to aim for that goal, which insistence (quoted for reply by you) shocked and terrified you (when you started this line of the thread), I think it would be a fine idea if you firstly ensured you are not addressing different topics from what we have been talking about.
If I missed someone seriously saying somewhere that perfect Godly Love should ultimately not (sometimes or ever) include a positive emotional component, I’ll join you in opposing them, too. Since I specifically called that un-Christian against my own dislikes of people.
In my case, only insofar as I don’t recognize true love to depend for its existence on emotions, thus does not derive from emotions, although emotions properly derive from it. Those emotions would be emotions of true love, not the action of true love, and I have routinely affirmed that such emotions are something Christians should also aim for.
Only in my case insofar as the primary intention is welfare for the other person, not selfish exploitation of the other person’s welfare. I deny that emotions should not properly follow from that, although I affirm that depending on circumstances those emotions may (temporarily so long as the circumstances continue) involve dislike of the person rather than liking. But I also affirm that liking the person should be one of the goals of true love, and that true love makes a point of checking whether the problem is with one’s self, and even (except in the special case of God and perhaps sinless angels) focusing on that self-introspection rather than on perceived sins in the other person. (Which I explicitly said in my reply to WAAB. Which shocked and terrified you somehow.)
But hopefully you would come (one way or another) to emotionally like the other person eventually (due to your repentance or their repentance or successful adjustments of attitude and tastes or any combination thereof).
The salient question then is whether you regard this Christian duty to work towards the welfare of a person you dislike (thence to change your dislike about the person to liking) to be true altruism toward the other person or to be selfish exploitation of the other person’s well being primarily for your own benefit.
The latter would allow you to avoid the conclusion that it is possible to truly love someone before you emotionally like them; the former would mean I (and most everyone else in the thread) am correct about it being possible and even Christian to love someone without having to like them (keeping in mind the immediate qualifications I myself instantly went on to give where I myself affirmed it would be unChristian to dislike them, such as considering this state of affairs to be permanent.)
Except there are in fact some times when this is true. We shouldn’t be primarily concerned with that, especially as penitent pilgrims, but it’s unrealistic to think that culpability never lies with the other person.
(Or if you really think so, then you should have been the first person to put this into practice when charging me multiple times in this thread with various culpabilities. )
Even when you’ve talked about redirecting your criticism to yourself, you still do so in light of something the other person is personally being responsible for.
Remembering that for the first person you attacked on this thread as hating with stinking sin etc., true love is first and foremost a work of God (and only derivatively a work of ours, and only by God’s grace, and only in cooperation with God); I think you’ve been presented with better descriptions of salvation by works than this concept.
And remembering that the majority of partakers on this thread who regard love as a work not only most likely agree with that (I don’t recall any exceptions, but it’s a long thread ), but also (with myself) utterly agree that we cannot earn God’s love and salvation from our sins by first loving God or by first loving our neighbor or by any other way, then I think you’ve been presented with better descriptions of salvation by works than this concept, too.
Salvation from not-liking someone is only salvation from our own sins if any dislike is a stinking sin; which is going to run you into numerous scriptural contradictions with God’s occasional dislike (as well as hatred) of people; but which notably the majority of partakers on this thread don’t agree with you on anyway. But even if we did, we wouldn’t say that by working to emotionally like someone we thereby earn God’s salvation from our sins, much less that we can do so apart from God’s gracious empowerment of us to truly love other people. So again you’ve been presented with better descriptions of salvation by works than this concept.
It certainly wasn’t anything actually in one of my posts that conjured this hideous scenario, although you conjured it up from what I actually wrote anyway; which makes me suspicious that you conjured it legitimately from something Johnny wrote either.
But in any case I was specifically writing against what you’re calling the eternal limbo concept (over-against my own dislike of opponents) when you decided to be shocked and terrified by what I had written. Or rather by the opposite of what I had written.
d.) The Sermon On The Mount concept
By God’s gracious empowerment and in cooperation with God’s active help we act in true sacrificial well-being toward people we happen not to emotionally like yet, thus doing more than what pagans and traitors manage to do, coming to like them eventually as situations change in us and/or them (though the Sermon doesn’t talk about those kinds of feelings per se), with our primary responsibility being to deal with the logs or the motes in our own eyes rather than with the logs or motes in the eyes of our brothers. Which happens to be what I was talking about with WAAB when you launched into a diatribe about what shocked and terrified you in (supposedly) what I wrote to WAAB. And which I think the majority of partakers in this thread have been trying to talk about, too, in various ways.
You haven’t been very clear about the difference so far. It started out as like/love, then slowly came around to love being a stronger subset of the emotion of liking, then came to be a vaguely but categorically different thing that develops dependently from the emotion of liking–along with the occasional lapse into acting truly toward the well-being of others before liking them, which you denied is true when we take that position.
Which acknowledges the distinctive difference between true love and emotional liking to be action primarily for the well-being of the other in one case and emotion in the other.
That young minds can tell when a teacher doesn’t like them yet is nothing to the point; they may or may not be able to tell thereby whether the teacher does truly love them or is only exploiting their benefit for his own primary benefit, but that could still be true the other way around: they might not be able to tell when a teacher who pretends to like them doesn’t truly love them but is only exploiting their responses to his apparent liking of them either.
That the teacher has an obligation to learn to emotionally like his students (including to pray for such a gift from God), I affirm is a Christian duty, precisely on the ground that such an emotional response helps fulfill the action of fair-togetherness between them as persons.
If on the other hand you think your opponents mean ‘love’ in the sense of selfishly exploiting and manipulating the ‘other’ for our own benefit, then not only are you drastically wrong, but you were the one who suggested to me (calling what I thought I was agreeing with you about “completely wrong”) that it could be a Christian duty to do that (instead of what I thought you were talking about and was trying to agree with you on) until we could learn to like the other thereby.
If it was a sham they were cooperating in by insisting on wearing the mask (which would be a good metaphor for sin), then insofar as they chose to do so they were to that degree becoming the mask. (There’s even a well-known story trope for it.)
True love does involve remembering that the mask is not who they ought to be and loving them anyway; but emotionally liking them while they insist on wearing the unlikable mask is not discontinuous with emotionally liking the person who is under the mask. (Just as Jesus can weep over the Pharisees, although that isn’t a pleasant feeling of liking, whom He will be emotionally very upset against in the next few days.)
Is it unusual for a debate to start off first with a vote?.
Now that we have debated at lenght, may I suggest it would be fair now to have another vote.
With loving affection to all!
Michael in Barcelona
P.S for dear Brother PILGRIM - I have at last dug up a family file showing that my great-great-grandfather John Frederick Witty was the first Vicar of St Matthews in your home town of Sheffield. He started his Ministry there at a school in Carver Street and it was during his time that money was raised for the Church building (as I believe it stands today) which was completed and consecrated on 6th June 1855 at the cost of pounds sterling 3,297. Until his retirement in 1856 he was still asking for subscriptions for the last 200 pounds! The foundation stone was laid 1st June 1854!
Hi Michael
Good post! Remembering that this topic started from the strongest possible justifications for feelings of hatred ie that one’s genuine and literal beloved (-wife, rather than any fantasy figure) had been maliciously assaulted by a third party, I have no doubt that the original question was whether we could ‘love’ whilst harbouring the most intense and passionate feelings of dislike. I too am interested in Johnny’s answer to your post and my own. I imagine he is too busy to contribute at this time but I look forward to some rational input very soon. It will be good to get this thread back on topic.
Thanks both for your stimulating comments. I am indeed ultra-busy at work at the moment, staying up in town in a hotel (yawn) because of the late nights (yawn ). But I hope to be able to relax at the weekend, celebrate the Jubilee, and get stuck in to all the interesting conversations and discussions I have had to neglect on the forum of late - this being one.
I really do think there are some vital issues at stake here, things which cut to the very heart of what it means to be a follower of Christ. So I’m glad we’r investigating this subject.
But I thought I should take the time to explain the discrepancy. (And to work up a more detailed version of the previous comment while I’m at it. 
)
). But I hope to be able to relax at the weekend, celebrate the Jubilee, and get stuck in to all the interesting conversations and discussions I have had to neglect on the forum of late - this being one.