Does God feel emotional pain?

[Confiteor_Deo]

But as another user pointed out He feels anger. That is an emotion.

As porthos pointed out, God cannot have emotions because He is unchanging. The human mind & language cannot express the divine perfectly, and so we sometimes use human terms and apply them to almighty God despite the fact that they are quite limited in their ability to express Him, but they help us to grasp the message. It is like how a triangle or clover is used to explain the Holy Trinity; the mystery of the Trinity is far beyond the simplicity of a triangle but it helps us to understand despite it not actually pertaining to the Trinity.

 

[7_Sorrows]

And the answer remains the same. It’s an anthropomorphism, that is, expressing what we can observe of God in limited human terms. God cannot get angry, unless he is somehow infinite anger. But he cannot be not angry at one moment, angry the next, then not angry the following. That’s change, that’s movement, and with God, change is impossible.

God has revealed himself as Love, not anger.

He sure got angry in the Old Testament!! Numerous times.

 

[porthos11]

He sure got angry in the Old Testament!! Numerous times.

Anthropomorphisms. Limited expressions of what human beings see of God in human terms. They do not express the full truth of the immutable God.

 

[TimothyH]

You guys are making this way harder than it has to be.

Jesus is God. Period.

***Jesus wept. *(John 11:35)

Forget about the hypostatic union. God wept.

-Tim-

 

[porthos11]

You guys are making this way harder than it has to be.

Jesus is God. Period.

***Jesus wept. ***(John 11:35)

Forget about the hypostatic union. God wept.

-Tim-

This doesn’t help the discussion, and neither can you disregard the Hypostatic Union, a core mystery of the faith. It IS that hard, because we are talking about the nature of God himself. Simplifications do not help, and there is no “period” when it comes to understanding God better, even though we never will fully accomplish this in this life.

Jesus, as man, has emotions and wept. But Jesus is also God, and we need to keep in mind the rules about the communication of idioms. Jesus, as God, as is the case with the Father and the Holy Spirit, is immutable and does not have emotions.

The context of the OP’s question appears to ask as to whether God, i.e. as God, has emotions. The answer to that is no.

 

[Elizium23]

You guys are making this way harder than it has to be.

Jesus is God. Period.

***Jesus wept. ***(John 11:35)

Forget about the hypostatic union. God wept.

-Tim-

Does God suffer?

From the dawn of the Patristic period Christian theology has held as axiomatic that God is impassible—that is, He does not undergo emotional changes of state, and so cannot suffer. Toward the end of the nineteenth century a sea change began to occur within Christian theology such that at present many, if not most, Christian theologians hold as axiomatic that God is passible, that He does undergo emotional changes of states, and so can suffer. Historically this change was inauguratedby such Anglican theologians as Andrew M. Fairbairn and Bertrand R. Brasnett. Within contemporary Protestant theology some of the better known theologians who espouse the passibility of God are Karl Barth, Richard Bauckham, John Cone, Paul Fiddes, Robert Jenson, Eberhard Jüngel, Kazoh Kitamori, Jung Young Lee, John Macquarrie, Jürgen Moltmann, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Richard Swinburne, Alan Torrance, Thomas F. Torrance, Keith Ward, and Nicholas Wolterstorff.

Among Catholic theologians, while they may differ as to the exact manner and extent of God’s passibility, one nonetheless finds a strange mix of theological bedfellows. They include, among others, Raniero Cantalamessa, Jean Galot, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Roger Haight, Elizabeth Johnson, Hans Küng, Michael Sarot, and Jon Sobrino. Of course one must add the host of Process Theologians who, following the lead of Albert North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne, hold, by the very character of their philosophical position, that God is by nature passible and so can suffer. This theological shift has been so overwhelming, so thorough, and has been achieved with such unquestioned assurance that Ronald Goetz has simply, and in a sense rightly, dubbed it the “new orthodoxy.”

What has brought about such a radical reconception of God? How, in only one hundred years, has the Christian theological tradition of almost two thousand years, so readily and so assuredly, seemingly been overturned? There are basically three factors that have contributed to this change: the prevailing social and cultural milieu, modern interpretation of biblical revelation, and contemporary trends in philosophy.

 

[porthos11]

Does God suffer?

No, unfortunately, they are incorrect. There is an appeal to it but God sympathizing with suffering does not require us to overturn the orthodox understanding of the immutable God. Introducing any possibility of change into God contradicts the very perfection of God. We find our comfort and God’s solidarity with human suffering in both his timelessness and the Incarnation, where Christ bore our suffering and healed us by his stripes. It is by his entering eternity that our sufferings are joined to his.

Only the classic explanation suffices. God is not passable, otherwise, he isn’t Perfect or Infinite. And if he is neither of those two, then he is not God.

 

[Elizium23]

No, unfortunately, they are incorrect. There is an appeal to it but God sympathizing with suffering does not require us to overturn the orthodox understanding of the immutable God. Introducing any possibility of change into God contradicts the very perfection of God. We find our comfort and God’s solidarity with human suffering in both his timelessness and the Incarnation, where Christ bore our suffering and healed us by his stripes. It is by his entering eternity that our sufferings are joined to his.

Only the classic explanation suffices. God is not passable, otherwise, he isn’t Perfect or Infinite. And if he is neither of those two, then he is not God.

I’m not sure which “they” you are referring to, but the article author does come to the orthodox conclusion after spilling much digital ink. First Things is a top-notch publication.

 

[porthos11]

I’m not sure which “they” you are referring to, but the article author does come to the orthodox conclusion after spilling much digital ink. First Things is a top-notch publication.

Sorry. The they I was referring to were the modern ones the author quoted who advocated the passable God. Yes the article concludes with the orthodox position.

 

[Michael_Mayo]

No, unfortunately, they are incorrect. There is an appeal to it but God sympathizing with suffering does not require us to overturn the orthodox understanding of the immutable God. Introducing any possibility of change into God contradicts the very perfection of God. We find our comfort and God’s solidarity with human suffering in both his timelessness and the Incarnation, where Christ bore our suffering and healed us by his stripes. It is by his entering eternity that our sufferings are joined to his.

Only the classic explanation suffices. God is not passable, otherwise, he isn’t Perfect or Infinite. And if he is neither of those two, then he is not God.

How is capacity to suffer not perfect or infinite? Where is that in Catholic teaching? It seems to me to be more aligned with Greek Stoicism, apatheia and all that. God as portrayed in the Old Testament, is certainly one who is moved.