Inclined By Nature to Hate...My Neighbor
I am inclined by nature to hate God and my neighbor. In that light we must now also consider the love for our neighbor. Is there love for the neighbor outside of faith in Christ? It is undeniable that such love shows in various ways that people without true faith are able to love one another dearly. Moreover, it would certainly be unjust if we qualified such love as pure egoism, for a kind of altruism – a loving of the neighbor for his own sake – is possible. That means however a love for that neighbor as one sees him and as he himself imagines the person to be. Yet, without faith we always see our neighbor improperly, for we do not see him as from God and for God. We consistently need to maintain therefore that in such a case a person never really knows his neighbor but has an erroneous and flawed picture of him. Our neighbor truly becomes known to us only through faith in Christ. If a person should ever imagine, even for a moment,...
