“”Self-love is the form and root of all friendship. Well-ordered self-love is right and natural – so much so that the person who hates himself or herself sins against nature. To know and to appreciate your own worth is no sin.” Thomas Aquinas
Some religious teachers build their theologies around the central idea “What am wretch am I.” Hating oneself, subscribing to a self-hating theology, is not Aquinas’s teaching, and it is not healthy psychology either. Authentic self-love is the very basis of friendship – how can we love others well if we have not learned to love ourselves well?
Aquinas goes further: Self-hatred, he says, is a sin against nature. That is strong language. But consider this self-love in the context of the rest of nature – does any tree or whale, horse or eagle, blade of grass or star hate itself? No. As Mechtild says, they seek only to fulfill their true natures, to do the work of being the best possible tree, whale, horse, eagle, and so on. It is false and pseudo-humility to hate onself. We need to come to ourselves and appreciate our own worth and to help others to do the same. There lies authentic friendship.”
From Christian Mystics by Matthew Fox
Chorlton Unitarians 