Romans 12:9

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.

This week I have been reading Handbook of Christian Apologetics, by Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli. It's pretty dry and not very thought provoking, but I'm ploughing through. Sometimes it's interesting.

Reading the chapter on the problem of evil, I came across this little gem:

To love evil is to become evil, to succumb to it. But to hate evil is also to succumb to it. For it is practically impossible (1) to avoid Pharisaic self-righteousness and (2) to hate sins without hating sinners. Finally, (3) to hate at all is to become hard and dark and negative; even hating evil hardens us into haters (p.127).

I agree with premise (1) and (2) - almost. They are not practically impossible; they are just difficult. Point (3) though - I cannot agree with this.

That's why this blog entry is titled Roman 12:9--it commands us to hate evil. And God himself hates. It's just when we start falling into the traps of (1) and (2) that things go wrong.

The chapter also did not once mention Epicurus, though it used his point-by-point exploration of the problem of evil. It referenced a number of other authors who have talked about this exploration and I know, by reading, that at least one of them did mention Epicurus. And a quick search on Wikipedia showed Epicurus's name as the first to appear on the page for the problem of evil...

Other than these points, the handbook is... well, it's okay. I think the evil chapter was just a bit too hippy for me.