If you hate someone, you hate God

[JD27076]

My priest, during a homily, or maybe a class, told us that if we hate someone, we hate God too. He says that sense Jesus told us that the two most greatest commandments were Love God and Love thy neighbor. So if you hate a neighbor, you hate God. He says some more stuff but that just a blur because I was trying to figure out his ideology here.

**Anyways, my question is. How can this be possible since God hated Esau?
(Malachi 1:3)
**
Thanks.

 

[patrick457]

Not a direct answer, but here’s something to ponder.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

 

[Trishie]

Esau reaped the consequences of his own choices.
Esau should not have sold the gift of his birthright,
it was his own choice to do so, therefore he relinquished the blessing of the eldest son to Jacob
'34 Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew. He ate and drank, and then got up and left. So Esau despised his birthright. (Genesis 25)
Jacob claimed the birthright at the time of his father’s death, and Esau didn’t like that, but he did voluntarily give it up to Jacob earlier in his life. There will be those who object to my link, but it does answer your question I hope.
gotquestions.org/Jacob-Esau-love-hate.html

americancatholic.org/Messenger/Apr2010/Wiseman.asp

"Scripture also speaks of God experiencing sadness and anger, but Christian theology has historically understood this to be non-literal language.
God in his divine essence experiences infinite beatitude, and this beatitude would be marred if he experienced anguish in his divine essence. This is analogous to the way in which, once we are glorified in heaven, we will be aware of the fact that not all humans are saved, but it will not “ruin heaven for us.”
Further, Catholic theologically has historically understood God as not containing passions. There are things in God that may be said to correspond to the passions, but he doesn’t experience them the same way that we do.

HERE’S AQUINAS ON THAT POINT.

God does have DELIGHT AND JOY and LOVE, but he doesn’t HATE anything. He is HAPPY, is HIS OWN HAPPINESS, and has the SUPREME FORM OF HAPPINESS.
In understanding these realities in God, we must recognize the vast difference between him and us and that these things aren’t the same in him as they are in us. For example, in the case of love, we love things by recognizing the good qualities someone has and being attracted to those good qualities. In God’s case, Aquinas would say, God’s love is not attracted to the good qualities someone already possesses. Instead, it is manifest in bestowing those good qualities on the person. His love is active, whereas our is reactive.

When it comes to things like sadness or anger on the part of God, these have been historically understood as signifying things in a different manner as well, not as things that are literally painful to God, marring his beatitude. Thus when Scripture speaks of God being grieved by men’s sins, it is understood that he recognizes the reality and severity of their sins, and when it speaks of him being angry, it is understood that bad consequences are visited on those who are sinning or that bad consequences would be visited on them or they are liable for bad consequences, even if something happens to stop those bad consequences from happening (e.g., someone making atonement or intercession that shields the sinner, as with Job and his sons and daughters or Moses and Israel or Jesus and the whole human race)."

Ludwig Ott has more on this in Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma if you have a copy of that."
jimmyakin.typepad.com/defensor_fidei/2007/03/does_god_feel_p.html

 

[Todd_Easton]

Your priest’s remarks seem in accord with 1 John 4:20-21:
If any one says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him, that he who loves God should love his brother also.

Malachi 1:3 is an example of hyperbole.

 

[John7]

if we hate someone, we hate God too. He says that sense Jesus told us that the two most greatest commandments were Love God and Love thy neighbor. So if you hate a neighbor, you hate God.

I would disagree with the underlined above, here’s why

Mat 22:
36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

The two are placed one after the other but the first is the great commandment. It’s not correct to say ‘the two great commandments’, or 'the second of the two great commandments, but the one Great commandment and the other which is like unto it. The second is like it in that they both talk about love, but they aren’t the same with respect to priority, you can’t interchange the two in terms of priority, ie, that my love for my neighbor is greater than my love for God or at the same level. If you do that then you might be breaking the first of the 10 commandments (?) which says, ‘you shall have no other gods before me’, nothing should have priority over God. So that if I love my girlfriend more than or at the same level that I love God, then i’d say its problematic. But certainly the second of the commandments is a reflection of the first great commandment, read 1 John 4:20 in the post above

this doesn’t mean though that love for God and for brother is or has to be on an equal standing.

that’s why I think love for God is more important, is greater.

oops I just noticed the OP is about hate…

 

[MarcoPolo]

See the following by Cardinal Journet on grace and keyword search “Esau” also.

Other posts herein have been excellent. Consider also that Esau was a figure for Israel. He as the older sibling (Gentiles the younger), lost the status as “firstborn” - in short, salvation (our “inheritance”) was no longer via the Old Covenant. The Biblical authors’ use of hate is, as Todd mentioned, hyperbole, and can be understood as the figure of God’s expansion of His people to Gentiles and as such the figure of how Israel lost the firstborn privileges in a sense.

The Navarre Bible commentary on Romans and Galatians states:*These examples [like Jacob and Esau] taken from sacred history help the Apostle explain to the Jews why they should not be surprised to see the Gentiles being called to the faith.*For a personal perspective, I expounded on that on a paper in my master’s class, for which I got an A . You can read it here if you like - again, keyword search “Esau” to jump to the pertinent parts. In short, Esau is representative of the “vessels of wrath” in Romans 9 - and such a vessel is one who clings to works of law for salvation instead of belief in Christ. So in a sense, when it says God hated Esau, we can understand it that He “hated” the recognition of works of law as a means to salvation.