Charity QUESTION from Mike on October 26, 2001 Commandment: Love Thy Neighbor:
Can one love someone and still dislike that person?
ANSWER by John-Paul Ignatius, OLSM on February 8, 2002 Dear Mr. Mike:
Yes.
Loving thy neigbhor is NOT talking about a feeling. Love is NOT an emotion. Love is an act of will that we decide to do or not do. We are to make an act of will to love all people. The defintion of true love is 1 Cor 13 (which doesn't have a single feeling word in the definition. Notice that the words to describe love are all verbs).
But while we are required to have Christian Charity toward all people, we don't have to like them.
We are to love our enemies -- even ben Laden -- but we don't have to like him.
We are to love all, but we don't have to be buddies with everyone. The bible says that in as much as it depends upon us we should be friendly to all.... we CAN act like Christians toward people, even it we don't like them.
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