Christians are taught to "love the sinner, hate the sin," a phrase
meant to separate a person’s worth from their wrong actions. But
this teaching raises difficult questions about human nature,
morality, and the true meaning of love and hate. In this essay, I
will explore why this core Christian idea is not only confusing but
also reveals deeper contradictions and problems within religious and
moral thinking.
When we think of somebody doing evil, we don't think of their motives such as revenge or profit so much as that they simply gave into an urge or prompt to do harm and destroy. Though some pretend to think that there there is no more to evil than what you can get out of it, people do sense part of it is trying to profit from evil for its own sake. Doing evil for its own sake and for a purpose are compatible. How? You think this useless thing can be contained and wreak wanton abuse and hurt on others so that the "evil for its own sake" bit does not affect you. The person firing an atomic bomb intends reckless chaos for its own sake but it is put into a framework and that is where you seek to create control around the mess not from the mess that you will use for your goal and advantage.
One thing that people mean by love the sinner and hate the sin is, "If you hate the only person you hurt is yourself." That is obviously wrong and we only say it for society says it. We know we are only following a mistaken norm and it is not what we really think. If everybody around you hates you you will be affected even if they do not act on the hate. And it can be said that real hate is more than a feeling for actions speak more than words or feelings. So if another hates you they will hurt you.
Christian DA Carson writes: “Many Christians use the cliché "Love the sinner, hate the sin." However, we must realize that this is an exhortation to us as imperfect human beings. The difference between us and God in regard to loving and hating is vast. Even as Christians, we remain imperfect in our humanity and cannot love perfectly, nor can we hate perfectly, in other words without malice. But God can do both of these perfectly, because He is God! God can hate without any sinful intent at all. Therefore, He can hate the sin and the sinner in a perfectly holy way and still be willing to lovingly forgive at the moment of that sinner's repentance and faith (Malachi 1:3; Revelation 2:6; 2 Peter 3:9).”
So not only is love the sinner hate the sin suspect from the human viewpoint it is also suspect from the religious view! So if an atheist sees through it the Christian has extra reason to see through it. Those who make careers out of loving sinners need stern correction. It is good that Carson admits that Christians have malice towards sinners. You can be moral without accepting the idea of sin - sin is an attempt to create evil and thus destroy God who never creates evil or lets it be evil. It is a crime against God. The idea is that evil is not a thing but goodness in the wrong place for God's creation only has good in it. Thus evil is an attempt to create the destruction of God. If there is a malice in the non-religious person who sees evildoing not as sin but as evil there must be worse in the person who sees it also as sin. They are even accused of would be God-murderers.
What is harmful and what harm means differs from person to person. All agree though that the most important danger to you is yourself and your unconscious impulses and actions. Wrongs done to others are wrongs done ultimately to yourself. So it follows that sin and harm can overlap but are not the same thing. So you shouldn't even be thinking of the sin. It is about the harm that the person is doing to themselves.
Love the sinner and hate the sin treats you as a diagnosis not a person. You are diagnosed as sinner. And then you are cruelly left confused for then you are told that it is about the sin not you. You are not just a sinner. There is more to you than that. When sin is treated as a diagnosis then it hardly makes sense.
What do you do then? Is person-first language the right approach? That would mean not saying John is a sinner or sinful. You would simply say John has a sin. That takes away any chance John has for feeling shame and guilt. He will sin more if he thinks he is going to be excused.
What if the sin is suicide? To say committed suicide is said to suggest a moral or legal law was broken. That is what committing suggests. So you may say the person died by suicide. And you cannot call a suicide attempt failed for not all attempts at suicide are fully intended. Failed implies they should know to do it right the next time.
Avoid pity. You cannot say a person is suffering from their sin or a victim of their sin. You can say they are living with the sin. And pity is not possible if the person chose to sin knowing what they were doing.
A person-first approach in relation to sin treats it like a flu and is very mistaken. It shows that Christians are hard to believe when they say they hate your sin for they love you and it is about you. And if the hate you feel for sin cannot be helped and hate breeds hate so it should get worse it will be people you will end up not being able to help next. In practice, hating the sin against your will goes with hating the person who has created and performed the sin.