'Hate the Sin but Love the Sinner': Not Scriptural, Not Catholic Doctrine
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'Hate the Sin but Love the Sinner': Not Scriptural, Not Catholic Doctrine
Contrary to much popular belief, the catchphrase "hate the sin but love the sinner" is not of biblical origin, and caution should be given to its connotations. The tendency it too often leads to today is to view the sinner as a victim of his sin, rather than the author of the sin he commits.
"Hate the sin but love the sinner" is a paraphrase taken from a letter written by St. Augustine giving instruction to a religious order of nuns on certain means of discipline to be observed in the correction of unlawful practices by their members.
A careful reading of St. Augustine's letter makes it clear that the paraphrase "hate the sin but love the sinner" was not meant as a panacea to serve in the place of either condemnation or punishment of a wrongdoer. Its purpose, rather, was to inform that righteous condemnation and punishment, in the proper Christian sense, was not from malice but for the greater good of the offender as well as the community. Sin is definitely not a zero-sum game as justice and rectification for every sin must be realized, whether in this life or beyond.
"When the good are overly merciful to the bad, the good eventually become the bad."
This old proverb comes to mind often of late in listening to the commentary of considerable of the faithful, both clergy and laity, who demonstrate their ignorance of Christianity by invoking the "hate the sin but love the sinner" cliché while self-righteously condemning any who dare to make critical judgments of those culpable of evil activities.
As if to say the Ten Commandments were not given by God as standards by which man is commanded to judge himself, as well as others. "By their fruits you shall know them" (Mt. 7:16).
"Hate the sin but love the sinner" is a seemingly compassionate catchphrase tailor-made for today's milieu in which human behavior is no longer judged by the criteria of right or wrong, but rather from the vagaries of environment or psychophysiology (a pseudo-science that has been successful in masquerading psychosis and sanity as one and the same). These are delusions put forth which serve well to waylay right conscience and subvert accountability for evildoing.
In our celebrated age of psychoanalysis, however, the phrase "hate the sin but love the sinner" has objectives quite foreign to that of its author, St. Augustine.
Our modernist spin-doctors have inverted its meaning to that of indulging the sinner and allaying his warranted accountability and castigation.
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