Concept of God's Emotions

[nfinke]

Having an issue with the idea of God feeling.

God is obviously described as feeling many different emotions in scripture. I can definitely see how a perfect being who can lack in no good thing would love us. But many times God has felt wrath and anger which I think are understood as a lacking of patience or kindness, which doesnt seem to square with God’s nature.

It seems like God has to feel love (though on a higher level than we are capable of) for salvation to make sense. Ive even heard the Holy Spirit described as the personification of the love between the Father and the Son. But I dont know how to square the idea that God apparently loves me more than it is possible for me to comprehend, but if I were to deny Him on my deathbed, and were sentenced to eternal suffering in hell, by His nature he wouldnt even feel mildly upset about that. There will no doubt be a great number of people who will be suffering without relief for trillions of years and He will feel no remorse even though He loved them infinitely. I dont understand what love means if you dont seem to have the capacity to hate.

 

[MeganCecilia]

Anger isn’t a lack of patience or kindness. We are allowed to be angry but not to sin when we are angry (meaning to hurt others or have our anger lead to sinful actions). So God is rightfully angry but his LOVE replaces that anger with mercy. Also God wants and desires the salvation of everyone. So he is certainty sad when someone denies him and goes to hell. He doesn’t want anyone to end up there.

Think it of this way. A child breaks something valuable of the parents. They lie about it and don’t tell them. When the parent finds out, they will be upset!! Say the child instead decides to tell the parents that they broke the item and that they are sorry. Yes the parent may be upset about the item broken, but they love their child and see that they are truly sorry. So they instantly forgive.

God is like this too. He is angry when we do certain things, but he loves us so much that he forgives us when we come to him and ask for his mercy. It isn’t a lack of kindness when he is angry, it is the opposite. Parents can disciple their child out of love for them so the children can grow and be better.

 

[porthos11]

All references to God’s emotions are anthropomorphisms: accommodations of language for the benefit of the audience.

God is absolutely immutable: there is absolutely no change in him as he is Pure Act. Since he is absolutely immutable, there is no movement in God, no change, no growth, and no emotions.

What we perceive as God’s anger or joy or grief are just that: perceptions, because we are limited: we are mutable, finite, and temporal and need to see and express things in finite, mutable, and temporal terms.

 

[englands123]

I like to picture God as my Father & best Friend . No matter what happens he is there to help me pick up the pieces in life. As his experiences is far greater than my own.

In prayer I can hear him guiding me and there are times when I refuse to take on board what he has said. Occasionally I can hear his anger and frustration towards me to.

Great example , a while back I cheated on my long term partner. My guilt was huge and even though through confession the Church had forgiven me. I could not forgive myself all the pain I had caused.

My Father (God) had strong words at the time telling me , the doors were shutting on you. But now they have been reopened Do not return to your wicked ways or the door will be closed for good.

You see I had cheated on nearly every partner I ever had. Married twice. So I can tell you what Gods voice sounds like when he is frustrated.

Then one day after 3 years of not cheating , during mass I witnessed Jesus looking right at me. From the large crucifix above the alter.

He said I will release you now from your bonds and chains of guilt. Stay alert on the right path and I will return and collect you at 80 and do not fear nothing I am with you always.

Not 81 not 79 , but 80.

Suddenly a bright light from the window shone right where I was sitting. My guilt had gone just like that after 3 years of agony.

I’ve told everyone and they think I’m mad. But I told them wait and watch my Farther will come and get me at 80. My local priest smiled when I told him what had happened.

So yes God does get angry but it’s out of love nothing else. I was 42 when I last cheated and now I am 47.

 

[kapp19]

I think @porthos11 is familiar with the Bible. The problem with your claim is that it means that God can change - and is therefore, well, to put it simply, not God. Scripture also teaches - all over the place - that God is unchanging.

https://www.openbible.info/topics/immutable_god

-K

 

[englands123]

All Christians understand Jesus is (God through the Holy Trinity)

Jesus felt anger , frustration and pity. Whilst there was much joy and laughter along the way he also felt much sorrow when lazarus died.

Yes God can have emotions and to think otherwise is wrong teaching in my humble opinion.

 

[porthos11]

Gods emotions are real, they are not anthropomorphisms. God can have emotions if he wants to and we have no right to limit him and there is nothing that says otherwise except human opinion. The Bible is absolutely jam packed with Gods emotions…love, hate, grief, rage, anger, mercy, pity, jealousy, vengence, and more.

They are anthropomorphisms. It is a divinely revealed dogma that God is immutable.

Emotions would imply movement, and therefore change within the Godhead, something which is incompatible with the dogma of God’s immutability.

It has always been held from the dawn of Christianity that God is immutable and impassible.

 

[porthos11]

All Christians understand Jesus is (God through the Holy Trinity)

Jesus felt anger , frustration and pity. Whilst there was much joy and laughter along the way he also felt much sorrow when lazarus died.

Yes God can have emotions and to think otherwise is wrong teaching in my humble opinion.

Now we move into the Hypostatic Union. In Christ, yes, God can be said to have emotions (as per the communication of idioms), since Christ is a divine Person. However, Jesus, although a divine Person, has two natures: fully God and fully Man. The emotions themselves stem from his human nature, so to avoid confusion, it is always best qualified that Jesus, as man, has emotions. Jesus, as God, does not.

 

[JerryZ]

GOD does not “feel” anything HE does not have emotions like we humans have. Lacking a human body with the hormones and neuroreceptors in the brain he cannot possibly “feel” pain, anger, pleasure, etc. Jesus on the other hand having a human anatomy should be able to have feelings and emotions while He was here on earth.
In the Bible people would ascribe these emotions to GOD to convey a message to the audience. How do you describe that when you sin you offending the majesty of GOD? You would describe in human terms so that the audience can comprehend. So for the question of what love is. First of all is it not the physical attraction that one feels for another human being we tend to confuse that with love or even worse with the short lived pleasure derived from the sexual act.
To Love like GOD loves us is to will the good of the other.
We too can love in this way. It is extremely hard for us but not for GOD or anyone who has achieved that level of spirituality of being connected with GOD.
Also time is a construct of the Universe we live in. Once we die time ceases to affect us.
Peace!

 

[porthos11]

Hi,
I believe you are incorrect. Can you show me a Biblical passage or infallible church document that states forthrightly and clearly (not simply immutable) that God has no emotions. If so, I will apologise. If not, then it is simply your incorrect theological opinion.

thanks

No, I am not the one who is incorrect. There is enough Biblical and Patristic proof that God is immutable.

Now if you admit that God is immutable, then you must admit that God is impassible. It’s as simple as that. You cannot reconcile immutabiilty with passability: it’s just not possible. Otherwise, you admit to movement, and therefore, to change in God, at which point he would not be God. The doctrine of God’s impassibility is a direct corollary to his immutability. For an object to be passible, it must be affected by external influences, which is what happens when you admit that God reacts emotionally to the actions of men. This is impossible for God, because God, as Pure Act, cannot affected by outside influences. There is absolutely no change, no potentiality, and therefore no movement in God. This means God cannot shift from one emotional state to another.

I do not need to accept your demand to find an explicit teaching that lays out Divine Impassibility in black and white. It ought to be sufficient for Catholics to admit that what is logically drawn from revealed truth is itself true.

And besides, I am not the first to state this. This is hardly a novel idea; greater minds than mine have always held this. It’s one thing to oppose me. It’s quite another horn to toot if you oppose St. Thomas Aquinas: Summa Contra Gentiles, Book 1 Chapter 89. Or St. Augustine, who clearly states that “far be it for us to admit that the impassible nature of God suffers any vexation.” (On Patience, 2).

Does God Have Emotions? | Catholic Answers Magazine

 

[porthos11]

“None of these divine psychological characteristics were in their biblical contexts understood as being mere metaphorical descriptions or the result of any supposed divine accommodation.” Trent Horn just shot himself in the foot giving the true version of his incorrect assumptions.

“God did experience human emotions through the human nature he assumed through his Incarnation as Jesus Christ”. Now Trent Horn agrees with me.

God had all his perfect emotions from eternity past and He still has them. That is the essence of God. How do we know?

Sorry, but I take St. Thomas as an authority on this. He doesn’t need to prove himself to you with a Church document because his reasoning is sound.

I also think he’s a better authority on the subject than you or I.

I have already addressed the emotions of Christ. Those stem from his human nature. The Incarnation does not deny the immutability or impassibility of God.

And I do not have to accept your assertion that there “should be plenty” of Church documents. The Church does not write everything down if there is no major heresy against it, and on this matter, there were none. The immutability and impassibility of God has been held from the Fathers down to the Reformers, one of the doctrines that has no interconfessional divisions among Christians.

Yes, God has an eternal love for good and hatred for evil. However, those are not passions (aka emotions). God’s Love and his Goodness, as his attributes are indistinguishable from his Essence and so are his very being. They are not things he feels, but they are God’s Substance itself; they are things he IS. It is wrong to call them emotions/passions, and St. Thomas handled this very well in ST I.20.1. He explains how and why God is Love without Love being a passion in God. God’s hatred for evil follows from this, as a love for evil is contrary to his very nature. If you insist on God having emotions, then you have to admit to change in God. Then what kind of god is it you worship, who is neither perfect nor eternal?

Sorry, but you are not going to convince us of your position as you stand against Aquinas, one of the most brilliant minds of the Church, and Augustine before him.

My suggestion is that you study and read the nature of God, rather than insisting on opinions that have been rejected by Christian minds way more brilliant than either of us. There is a lifetime of learning to be had.

 

[RidgeSprinter]

Having an issue with the idea of God feeling but for totally different reasons.

God wiped out 25 million with his Black Death in 6th Century
another 75 to 120 million in middle ages with Black Death
and 80 thousand in 19th century.
30 million by HIV in late 20th Century.

 

[EugeneCharles]

Good day!
When my parents got angry with me they would tell me they are angry because they love me and don’t want to made the worst of me. Let’s say God has both motherly and fatherly love, He is caring but strong, He is gentle but mighty. God is a parent He doesn’t want to lead His children astray so He disciplines us and made various ways to show His love. There are gentle ways but there are ways that can make us humble enough. A parents love was consisted with both gentleness and discipline.

 

[kapp19]

Why not show me the official Church document that says God is not a zebra?

If you can’t - well, is it just your incorrect theological speculation that God is not a zebra? Even if you say it’s obvious, well, if it’s so obvious then shouldn’t be pages of texts about it?

Nope. Not how it works.

It’s obvious… study the texts… and I gave you a set of Scripture verses, which I suppose you chose to ignore. Well, Malachi 3:6 is the Scriptural authority for St. Thomas - “I am the Lord, I do not change.” Emotions are changes. They imply composition - at least of potency and act - which means that anything which changes has parts, which parts must be put together by another, which means it is not God… God is not a zebra, and God does not have emotions.

-K

 

[englands123]

It looks like we will have to agree to disagree.

As mentioned above: the church teaches God has no emotions.

But I like you love God and find that difficult to understand.

I ‘m guessI guess no one knows fully 100% .

 

[porthos11]

It looks like we will have to agree to disagree.

As mentioned above: the church teaches God has no emotions.

But I like you love God and find that difficult to understand.

I ‘m guessI guess no one knows fully 100% .

Sorry, but agree to disagree is not the right attitude here.

When the Church teaches something about God, it is for our benefit, and it is for us to humbly submit and seek to understand the teaching more.

This is important because as the Catechism tells us, we need to purify our language (and I add, thinking) as our understanding grows. We are able to love someone only as far as we know that someone, so if we have a false image of God, then we are not loving God as we ought. We need to grow in our knowledge of him in order to grow in our love for him. We cannot love what we do not know.

Many Christians do not know that God is simple, immutable, impassible, transcendent. They think God is eternal in terms of linear time. Some think the Trinity are just three roles played by the same person. Do they love God? Sure. Are they loving God less? Yes. Because their love is formed only by what they know, and they are not loving him as they ought, because they don’t have the correct knowledge of him.

We may not know or understand 100%, that is true. He is God, we are finite. That does not mean we remain stuck on an incorrect notion when we are able to learn something new. Our love for God demands that we adhere to what HE reveals of himself, not our preferred notions and images of him.

 

[porthos11]

You and Decon Jeff and kapp19 keep insisting that because it is not proven then it must be true! Because it is somebody’s opinion it must be true! Because Dogmatic Theology or the Bible or the Church have never defined it then it must be true! Sad.

No, we are not making that claim. Stop making ridiculous and obnoxious assertions. One of these you’re talking back at is a Catholic Deacon, a member of the clergy.

We are claiming it’s true because it’s proven. It’s proven from Scripture, from reason, and from logic, all tools of truth. Truth is not found only in Latin-titled documents. It is also found in Scripture, in reason, in logic, in the Doctors of the Church, and the sensus fidelium. Not everything is defined, and yet a lot of these things revealed as true. And the impassibility of God is a core part of dogmatic theology, if only you could pick up a book and read.

You are purposely limiting yourself to a select set of sources, and as such, are limiting your understanding and insight. Divine revelation is not limited to infallible proclamations.

Do you seriously expect us to believe you rather than St. Thomas Aquinas? Who do you think you are?

I have not used a flag on you yet, but you watch your tone.