I just picked up Calvin's "Institutes of the Christian Religion", that I had gotten away from reading while I read several other books. This passage stuck out to me. It is very profound.

Ironically many of my Catholic friends don't like Calvin, but Calvin quotes Augustine, who they respect greatly, almost continually. This quote is Calvin quoting Augustine. The longer passage is great, but this is the summary quote. Ch XVI, section 4, near the end.

"Thus in a marvelous and divine way He loved us even when He hated us. For he hated us for what we were that he had not made; yet because our wickedness had not entirely consumed his handiwork, he knew how, at the same time, to hate in each one of us what we had made, and to love what he had made.