Is Love the Cause of Hatred?

The answer may surprise you. Our instinct is to recoil and say, “Of course not!” But St. Thomas Aquinas explains that it is so: “Love … precedes hatred; and nothing is hated, except through being contrary to a suitable thing which is loved. And hence it is that every hatred is caused by love.” (Summa Theologica, I IIae 29.2, respondeo).