Have You Heard of the Intelligent Emotions?

[Edwyn]

[Man] was given an inner sanctuary inviolable to all attacks from all creatures; a source of joy, of hope, of love and all the rest, that could and should lord it over the sensible world, using it, as it was meant to be used, as a servant for his high ends. These champing steeds of human activity in the sensible order which we call passions, could and should be a mighty force under the intelligent control of well drawn reins. There is no comfortable middle way for man in this universe; he must be on top of it or at the very bottom.

So did Walter Farrell, O.P., describe the primacy of what he called the intelligent emotions that should be in the lives of Christians in A Companion to the Summa, which is a textbook for understanding St Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae and can be read online.

Unlike the sensible emotions, also called the passions, the intelligible emotions are fully in control of the intelligible appetite, also called the will, and can be used, as can be gathered from the quote, to guide and to influence the passions. This is why St Paul had written, “Rejoice always!” (1 Thessalonians 5:16) as a command. But of course this means the intelligent emotions are also moral; that is, unlike the sensible passions which are amoral, the intelligent emotions can be good or evil. This is why some them are outright sins and even capital sins: examples include sloth (sadness over spiritual things) and envy (sadness on others’ goodness).

The thing is, I have never found anything explicit like it in my readings of various books and even in searching the Internet, and because of this I am appalled: this is the invincible happiness of the Christian, which as a practicioner of it I can anecdotally say it works, and yet nobody’s talking about it.

Have you heard of the intelligent emotions?

 

[Vico]

…
Have you heard of the intelligent emotions?

Per St. Thomas Aquinas, reason should restrain, temper, and order emotions to their proper objects. An emotion consists in a response to something and belongs either to the concupiscible appetite or the irascible appetite. The concupiscible appetite includes six emotions, Love and Hate, Desire and Aversion, Pleasure (Joy) and Pain (Sorrow) and the irascible appetite includes Hope and Despair, Fear and Daring, and Anger.

 

[Edwyn]

And yet what if I tell you that also per St Thomas Aquinas reason has its own emotions, and they can be categorized into the concupiscible and irascible appetites also?

It is as simple as looking at the difference between joy and pleasure: "delight of the sensitive appetite [i.e. pleasure] is accompanied by a bodily transmutation, whereas delight of the intellectual appetite [i.e. joy] is nothing but the mere movement of the will. Hence Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xiv, 6) that “desire and joy are nothing else but a volition of consent to the things we wish” (ST I-II, Q. 31, A. 4).

 

[Edwyn]

Now if joy is just merely a movement of the intelligible appetite, also called the will, then it is easy to see why St. Paul can command us to “Rejoice”. However, it is another thing to “Rejoice always!” since we are only human: our wills are finite, and thus to “will” anything indefinitely is impossible.

Fortunately we are not being called to will something indefinitely into being or to pursue, but rather to rest into which sounds something much easier, since “joy” is to have what our desire wants, and is thus a kind of rest (ST II-II, Q. 28, Art. 3). And yet this generates more problems: on one hand, we must have a kind of joy that though gives rest yet does not retard our pursuit of God; on the other hand, the joy must be substantial or its lack can cause one to sin, because man deprived of spiritual joys goes over to carnal pleasures (cf. ST II–II, Q. 35, Art. 4, Ad. 2), which is a tall order since man’s desire is infinite (ST I-II, Q. 3, Art. 4).

Praise be to God, there is actually a kind of joy that satisfies these, and it is mentioned by St. Paul: “Rejoice in the Lord always” (Philippians 4:4); this joy can be understood more by analyzing what Nehemiah meant when he proclaimed, “The joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10).

continued next post

 

[Edwyn]

[NOTE: I credit the inspiration for the following discussion on Nehemiah to Dr. Donald W. Ekstrand’s essay “Genuine Joy and Happiness”, which truly has changed my life].

The events leading to Nehemiah’s proclamation was eventful. The Jews had been liberated and allowed to return to the Holy Land by the Persian Empire, but Nehemiah learned that they were living in poverty and disgrace, and Jerusalem, especially its walls, was in ruins. Distraught, he asked the King of Persia, who he was serving as wine bearer, to be allowed to go rebuild Jerusalem and uplift his people. The king relented and even gave him men, supplies, and permissions through writing to procure more from the neighboring lands. In spite of several hardships and dangers of intrigue and jealousy, Nehemiah was able to arrive and rally his countrymen to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem by the eighth chapter.

Nehemiah’s work however was far from done: due to years of exile, the Jews had forgotten their own spiritual heritage and even language. He therefore called for a gathering in the center of the city and had Ezra the priest read the Law of Moses to them, which he did from daybreak till noon. The gathered people were struck with profound sadness for they learned they had been sinning against their God for years because they did not know His law. And yet in the midst of their tears Nehemiah proclaimed: “Go and eat what is rich, drink what is sweet, and send out portions to those who have nothing prepared, since today is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10).

Now look closely what Nehemiah meant here: our strength comes from God’s joy, not ours. We are not supposed to make ourselves joyful, but we are supposed to enter into, to enjoy, to share in, to re-joy (rejoice), God’s joy (“Rejoice in the Lord,” Philippians 4:4; also, cf. Matthew 25:21). And what is this joy of the Lord? It should have been clear from the story of Nehemiah: it is our Lord’s joy of saving His people, of saving us.

The joy of the Lord that is our strength is the Joy of the Divine Mercy.

 

[Vico]

And yet what if I tell you that also per St Thomas Aquinas reason has its own emotions, and they can be categorized into the concupiscible and irascible appetites also?

It is as simple as looking at the difference between joy and pleasure: "delight of the sensitive appetite [i.e. pleasure] is accompanied by a bodily transmutation, whereas delight of the intellectual appetite [i.e. joy] is nothing but the mere movement of the will. Hence Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xiv, 6) that “desire and joy are nothing else but a volition of consent to the things we wish” (ST I-II, Q. 31, A. 4).

An emotion consists in a response to something and belongs to an appetite (concupiscible or irascible). Apprehension of the reason results in delight which moves both the intellectual appetite (the will) and the sensitive appetite. The delight of the will is called joy and the delight of the senses is called bodily delight. Some delights are natural (of the body) and some are rational (of the soul). Irrational animals experience bodily delight but not joy.

 

[Edwyn]

We have to clarify something here: the concupiscible and the irascible appetites are NOT the main appetites, but rather the three main types in man are the natural, sensible, and intelligible appetites (ST I, Q. 80, Art. 1). The concupiscible and the irascible appetites are actually just the classification of emotions, i.e. movements inside, an apprehensible (i.e. conscious) appetitive power can have, which means the natural appetite does not have them, but the sense appetite, which apprehends through the senses, and the intelligible appetite, which apprehends through the intellect, do. Therefore the concupiscible and the irascible appetites are not appetites per se but just the movement of the appetitive powers, which is why the are more appropriately called the concupiscible and the irascible passions, because they are apprehensions, or reaction, of an appetite when it takes in information, i.e. when it is being passive, hence the term passion (ST II-1, Q. 22, Art. 1).

Apprehension of the reason results in delight which moves both the intellectual appetite (the will) and the sensitive appetite.

Not necessarily, as I have already shown using St. Thomas Aquinas’ words.

 

[Vico]

…

Vico:

Apprehension of the reason results in delight which moves both the intellectual appetite (the will) and the sensitive appetite.

Not necessarily, as I have already shown using St. Thomas Aquinas’ words.

I am thinking of this, S.T. I, II, Question 31. Pleasure considered in itself, Article 4. Whether delight is in the intellectual appetite?

I answer that, As stated above (Article 3), a certain delight arises from the apprehension of the reason. Now on the reason apprehending something, not only the sensitive appetite is moved, as regards its application to some particular thing, but also the intellectual appetite, which is called the will. And accordingly in the intellectual appetite or will there is that delight which is called joy, but not bodily delight.

 

[Edwyn]

I am thinking of this, S.T. I, II, Question 31. Pleasure considered in itself, Article 4. Whether delight is in the intellectual appetite?

And I have, in saying

Not necessarily,

Since I did quote the latter part of what you posted. This is because what you need for the intellectual appetite’s emotion to go to the sense is that the intellectual emotion must be so strong, or as the translation says, “vehement”, that it “overflows” into the lower, or sense, appetite. As St. Thomas Aquinas wrote in another part:

Reply to Objection 1. The craving for wisdom, or other spiritual goods, is sometimes called concupiscence; either by reason of a certain likeness; or on account of the craving in the higher part of the soul being so vehement that it overflows into the lower appetite, so that the latter also, in its own way, tends to the spiritual good, following the lead of the higher appetite, the result being that the body itself renders its service in spiritual matters, according to Psalm 83:3: “My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God.” (ST I-II, Q. 30, Art. 1)

And this “vehemence” does not always happen, for if it does, then (for example) prayer would not be so hard.

 

[Vico]

…

And this “vehemence” does not always happen, for if it does, then (for example) prayer would not be so hard.

And elsewhere, S.T. I, Q83, A1:

Reply to Objection 1: As we have said above (I:81:3 ad 2), the sensitive appetite, though it obeys the reason, yet in a given case can resist by desiring what the reason forbids. This is therefore the good which man does not when he wishes—namely, “not to desire against reason,” as Augustine says.

In the reference he states in reply to objection 2:

And so from the fact that the irascible and concupiscible resist reason in something, we must not conclude that they do not obey.

 

[Edwyn]

Which is why understanding the intelligent emotions is so important. The irascible and concuscible emotions of the intellect, which are fully in control of the will, can and should be used to moderate and direct the irascible and concuscible passions of the sensitive appetite, but in order to do that one must understand their characteristics and how to use them, and how could anyone do that if they have never heard of the intelligent emotions before?

 

[Sundiver]

You may have heard of the book called Emotional Intelligence by Travis Bradberry, Jean Greaves. Is this what you are talking about?

Also, I have seen some articles involving research into the emotions as a way of knowing. One test in a laboratory had participants sit and watch pictures flashed by that would change their emotional state and heart rhythm. When there was a picture of something about to display, that was disturbing, the heart reacted 6 seconds before the picture appeared. It’s almost as if the heart knew the future.

Personally, I use the emotional states of being to meditate and pray and gather information. It is difficult to do but can be done. You have to silence your interior and wait for the emotions to light like waiting for a butterfly to land in the stillness.
I think I read in some description of the saints that we are perfect when we experience the perfect emotional response for the various events in our lives.