IF LOVE IS A NECESSARY EVIL THEN TRUST AND HOPE HAVE TO BE AS WELL
What does it mean to call love a “necessary evil”?
A necessary evil is something harmful or problematic that we accept because it seems unavoidable or serves a greater purpose. Love—usually seen as pure and good—is actually open to becoming a necessary evil. Why? Because love often requires sacrifice, vulnerability, and difficult choices that can cause pain or harm.
Why Love Can Be a Necessary Evil
Love demands sacrifice. Putting someone else’s needs above your own can sometimes hurt you or others, even if the intention is good.
Love can be risky and contradictory. It exposes us to being misled, betrayed, or causing unintended harm despite our best intentions.
We hide selfishness in love. Sometimes what we call love is really self-interest or control disguised as care.
“Love the sinner, hate the sin” shows love’s paradox. Loving flawed people while condemning their actions can cause judgment and division.
Choosing who to love is tricky. Should love be unconditional or only for the good? When love is directed toward those who cause harm, it becomes an unnecessary evil.
Why Calling Love a Necessary Evil Is Dangerous
Normalizes harm. It makes us accept pain and sacrifice as inevitable without questioning better paths.
Blurs morality. It weakens clear ideas of right and wrong, allowing harmful acts to be justified in love’s name.
Leads to complacency. We stop looking for healthier ways to care for ourselves and others.
Creates cycles of hurt. Justifying “necessary evil” love can perpetuate emotional damage, broken trust, and social division.
Desensitizes us. Repeatedly accepting harmful love dulls our empathy and tolerance for suffering.
Why We Should Regret, Not Celebrate, Love’s Necessary Evils
Acknowledge the harm. We must recognize the real pain love sometimes causes, even if it feels unavoidable.
Stay accountable. Regret helps us stay honest about the consequences of our actions and intentions.
Push for better love. We should always strive for love that heals, empowers, and respects boundaries—not love that hurts.
Protect our humanity. Regretting harmful love fosters empathy and the courage to break cycles of pain.
The Bigger Picture: Love, Self-Sacrifice, and Selfishness
Self-sacrifice is often praised but can be harmful if it means ignoring your own needs. You can't help others if you’re depleted.
Self-centredness—being overwhelmed by your own struggles—is sometimes unavoidable, but selfishness—using others—is a dangerous choice.
Love and goodness are complicated. Sometimes they mask harm or injustice when we don’t look closely enough.
So?
Love attracts us but is complex. Sometimes, it forces us to face “necessary evils” that challenge our morals and hearts. But just because something feels necessary doesn’t mean it should be accepted or celebrated. The mark of true love is the courage to recognize its dark sides—and the determination to choose kindness, honesty, and growth instead.
Trust
Trust is an ingredient and companion of love.
So it has to be a necessary evil.
Some say you need to trust people you do not know well to see if they are worthy of that trust. It depends. It is not a reason to trust everybody you meet whom you don't know that well. If trusting strangers is needed it is a pity it is.
Religion says you need faith in God. Let us assume that you really do need this faith. Then trust in God is a necessary evil. It is a feeling. If your head tells you to trust God you will not do it unless you feel trust for him. So the feeling of trust in God matters more than God. It is your idol. God is not really your God, your trust is your God.
Nobody really trusts God as a personal friend. They see the trustworthiness of others or they feel they should take a chance and trust them. They think they see God in those people's hearts and lives and assistance and that triggers a sense of something that they imagine is God. God is really a summary of what good you think you see in yourself and others.
To believers, trust is what matters not God so it is not that God is the necessary evil but trust is. Insisting upon faith in God would be an unnecessary evil for if trust is so good then it doesn't matter what anybody trusts, as long as it is something.
You might have the right to feel trust for God no matter what happens to you - but you do not have the right to feel this way about things that happen to anybody else. If there is no God to help your cancer-stricken friend what right have you to encourage her to depend on God?
Hope
Hope is an ingredient and companion of love.
So it has to be a necessary evil.
When things go really bad we can hope that good may arise because of it or in spite of it. Hope means you are telling yourself that good can arise from it or in spite of it. Hope can be in your head not your heart. You can tell yourself things will not be horrendous forever but you may not feel it.
Hope does not mean that the good will really happen. It only means that being too negative risks making sure it will not happen.
Hope is really what the fuss about God is all about.
But it is obvious that an atheist can have hope too. Hope because it is based on uncertainty and will evoke some fear is a necessary evil.
You don't need God for hope. Hope in God is an unnecessary evil.
Hope that the better will overcome the worst in spite of the worst is the most important and confident form of hope. Hoping the evil will churn out good risks not really caring about the evil and condoning it.
Real hope is based on the knowledge that things can work out better than you'd expect. The best hope trusts in natural causes to make this possible. Hoping something supernatural will intervene or push nature in a better direction is not acceptable. Why? It means you are not trusting in nature alone so you fear nature and need to imagine that the supernatural could get involved. This is a placebo for your fear. But it is not in any way logical. The supernatural might not benefit you or those you love. The plan is for the best but you cannot arrogantly assume that helping you or your loved ones or even your country is really for the best. There are other considerations. You do not need to bring the supernatural into it.
People hope that their loved ones will live beyond death. People should hope that those who seemed to have an unhappy life may have had a better one despite appearances. That kind of hope makes you more anxious to help others have better things. Helping increases your hope and puts it into practice. It reinforces. Earth life comes first. Theories of the afterlife are just possibilities and possibilities don't count. If they did, the possibility that aliens would kidnap you would stop you walking in the country.
APPENDIX - GOD
If God truly represents morality and promotes it, then the reality of necessary evil—which is so widespread and catastrophic—poses a huge problem. When necessary evil becomes so common that it feels like all we do is justify harm for “greater good,” we risk losing our moral compass entirely.
What happens if tomorrow’s world is ruled by this logic, where almost every action is justified as a necessary evil? That’s a frightening future—one where true goodness and justice are overshadowed by endless rationalizations of harm.
So what can we do? The answer is simple but challenging: prove God’s existence and moral authority first. Only then can we confidently and responsibly say that God represents true morality—one that rejects unnecessary evil and guides us beyond harmful justifications.
Without that foundation, our attempts to navigate necessary evil risk spiraling into moral chaos.