Does God have emotions?

[Judson]

Immanance is a characteristic of a transcendent God. He is outside of time and knows everything. However he is also involved in our lives which happen form our perspective in time, but since God is already out of time he knows everything that will happen or has happened because to him it is all heppening and before him all the time.

Here's an example of an attempt to say something of the Archetype that we have no evidence or category for. For a human to try to speak of the mechanism of eternality and omniscience is like a tadpole commenting on space travel. To say that immanence is a characteristic of transcendence, are you saying that it is relegated to functioning according to eternality and omniscience? How do you know this?

We do that. We describe God as he is revealed to us in scripture. That is why we never say God changes or has "emotions" because the bible speaks otherwise.

I think you need to admit that part of your description of God comes from Aristotelian philosophy and logic.

The bible nowhere says God has emotions or changeable feelings.

That's like saying Jesus nowhere explicitly says "I am God." Well, that may be so, but if you take it all in, it says it pretty clearly to me. Have you read the old testament recently? God delights, he burns with anger, he experience, pity, jealousy, pleasure. Of course you will deny all of this under the rubric of anthropopathism, but it's there in the plain text.

He disposition is simply Holy. His love since the bible teaches he IS love is far greater than a mere feeling. That is the kind of thing that the word "emotion" cannot but incorrectly communicate.

Calling God a "He" or a "person", or saying that God "reckons" is inadequate to speak of God as well, but we do it anyway. That's the limits of language. What I see, however, is an inconsistent and arbitrary assigning of things in God which would consititue change (God having emotion) and casting it aside, while permitting other things (like God planning).

I agree that God's love is far greater than a mere feeling, but does this mean that there is no overlap or analogy between his love and ours whatsoever? Again, neither you nor I know for sure. All we can do is say what scripture says, "God loves."

 

[DD2008]

Here's an example of an attempt to say something of the Archetype that we have no evidence or category for. For a human to try to speak of the mechanism of eternality and omniscience is like a tadpole commenting on space travel. To say that immanence is a characteristic of transcendence, are you saying that it is relegated to functioning according to eternality and omniscience? How do you know this?

That is the standard christian answer to atheists on that topic.

I think you need to admit that part of your description of God comes from Aristotelian philosophy and logic.

It comes from the scriptures. The interpretation of the scriptures comes from what I have learned from the Christian theologians.

That's like saying Jesus nowhere explicitly says "I am God." Well, that may be so, but if you take it all in, it says it pretty clearly to me. Have you read the old testament recently? God delights, he burns with anger, he experience, pity, jealousy, pleasure. Of course you will deny all of this under the rubric of anthropopathism, but it's there in the plain text.

There is nothing in scripture that can contradict Jesus being God. But there certainly is the clear theachings that God is omnicient, immutable, omnipotent, etc that teach that he cannot change. That is how we know this paradox is resolved by understanding these statements as anthropomorphic. That is really all I can tell you on that. That is the way scripture is interpreted, the law of non-contradiction.

Calling God a "He" or a "person", or saying that God "reckons" is inadequate to speak of God as well, but we do it anyway. That's the limits of language. What I see, however, is an inconsistent and arbitrary assigning of things in God which would consititue change (God having emotion) and casting it aside, while permitting other things (like God planning).

As we stated earlier, we use anthropomorphisms for that. But emotion isn't a helpful term to describe the righteousness of the infinite.

I agree that God's love is far greater than a mere feeling, but does this mean that there is no overlap or analogy between his love and ours whatsoever? Again, neither you nor I know for sure. All we can do is say what scripture says, "God loves."

Scripture says clearly that God is love and that he who does not love does not know God. (1 John 4:8)

The doctrine of immutability in no way makes God uncaring or unloving instead it illustrates the truth of his perfection in regards to those things.

 

[Judson]

First, I think you're mistaking contradiction and mystery. It is not a contradiction to say that an unchanging being has emotions. This is a mystery, not a contradiction, because within the divine realm these properties may coexist. It would be a contradiction to say that an emotionless being has emotions. The closest thing we have to a contradiction in Christianity is that Jesus is 100% God and 100% man. This is pretty stark, but yet we affirm it nonetheless because scripture affirms it.

Secondly, you are evading the question of whether God's other actions constitute change, like when God reckons, when he speaks, when he wills, when he moves. Does God not do any of these things? When he spoke to prophets audibly, did he not enunciate his words and use pauses and tonal inflections? Why is that not considered a change? Why not dismiss those as "not really happening"? Isn't it a contradiction as well?

Third, you affirm that God loves and cares genuinely. Well, the only way you can affirm this is if you admit that there is an analogous relationship between God's love and ours. We cannot define that connection, but it is there. Part of what constitutes a genuine love and care for another is an undeniable emotional aspect. We do not know of love and care without this essential property. So, as long as we are going to attribute it to God and affirm that it is real, we must admit some overlap between our realm and God's on this issue.

do you agree?

 

[brinny]

what does it mean for the Holy Spirit to woo us?

and what does it mean for the Holy Spirit to intercede for us with groanings?

 

[DD2008]

First, I think you're mistaking contradiction and mystery. It is not a contradiction to say that an unchanging being has emotions.

A contradiction is something unsolvable. A paradox is an apparent contradiction that is solvable. This paradox has long been solved by reformed theologians by the principle that God speaks with humans anthropomorphically.

Here is definition of the word emotion:

e·mo·tion (

-m

sh

n)
n. 1. A mental state that arises spontaneously rather than through conscious effort and is often accompanied by physiological changes; a feeling: the emotions of joy, sorrow, reverence, hate, and love.
2. A state of mental agitation or disturbance: spoke unsteadily in a voice that betrayed his emotion. See Synonyms at feeling.
3. The part of the consciousness that involves feeling; sensibility: "The very essence of literature is the war between emotion and intellect" (Isaac Bashevis Singer).


Link: emotion - definition of emotion by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.
It is not compatible with what the scriptures reveal about God. It contradicts them.

 

[DD2008]

what does it mean for the Holy Spirit to woo us?

We are fallen chreatures whoes natures are now sinful. Our wills are free but not autonomous. They are bound to evil because that is our nature.

In order for a person to be saved he has to be born again. To be born again is to be regenerated spiritually by the word of the Holy Spirit. He takes a dead soul and raises it to life giving it a new nature that can and does exercise the free choice of good as an option.

and what does it mean for the Holy Spirit to intercede for us with groanings?

We are self centered creatures who do not speak to God as we should. That does not mean that God just recently learned that or learnes it every time one of us prayes. He has always known it and his disposition toward it is a display of his righteousness not a display of him learning something he dislikes and then acting on his being moved by emotion.

 

[brinny]

We are fallen chreatures whoes natures are now sinful. Our wills are free but not autonomous. They are bound to evil because that is our nature.

In order for a person to be saved he has to be born again. To be born again is to be regenerated spiritually by the word of the Holy Spirit. He takes a dead soul and raises it to life giving it a new nature that can and does exercise the free choice of good as an option.



We are self centered creatures who do not speak to God as we should. That does not mean that God just recently learned that or learnes it every time one of us prayes. He has always known it and his disposition toward it is a display of his righteousness not a display of him learning something he dislikes and then acting on his being moved by emotion.

thank you for your patience....i pray to God in the midst of tears more times than i can count...many times over my own bumblings, and for being oblivious to His love for me at times....and when i "come to" so to speak i am grieved beyond what my heart can bear, it seems...and i pray, broken, in the midst of tears.....

i cannot explain it, but God, the Father, our Abba comforts me at those times.....and it's as if i lay my weary head on His chest, because i have come back from running off, and i'm "home" again...

can you explain the "comfort" i'm receiving from the Father? i cannot.

 

[Judson]

A contradiction is something unsolvable. A paradox is an apparent contradiction that is solvable. This paradox has long been solved by reformed theologians by the principle that God speaks with humans anthropomorphically.

A paradox and a mystery are similar and have not been "solved" by any means. Examples would be the Trinity, the origin of evil, divine sovereignty and human freedom, the incarnation, the eschatological tension. How have Reformed theologians "solved" to origin of evil? They haven't. Logic and revealtion is very limited in understanding, but it stops at the point where it can go no further.

Contradictions are nonsense statements and are impossible by definition, for example, round squares, or God making a rock too heavy he can't lift it, etc.

I'm still waiting for you to respond to God's others actions, like thought and speech, and argue that God can do these things while remaining utterly immobile. that is the changelessness you are espousing after all, frozen immobility.

Here is definition of the word emotion:

e·mo·tion (

-m

sh

n)
n. 1. A mental state that arises spontaneously rather than through conscious effort and is often accompanied by physiological changes; a feeling: the emotions of joy, sorrow, reverence, hate, and love.
2. A state of mental agitation or disturbance: spoke unsteadily in a voice that betrayed his emotion. See Synonyms at feeling.
3. The part of the consciousness that involves feeling; sensibility: "The very essence of literature is the war between emotion and intellect" (Isaac Bashevis Singer).

These definitions are obviously given in human terms, so yes, they are inadequate to describe the Divine essence, as I have already agreed with. But so is everything we might say about God. Not only that, but any word in one language, when translated to another, fails to carry over the precise meaning as well. This does not mean that translation is nonsense and hopeless. No one thinks this way, so there is no need to be so absolutist.

There are true propositions that can be made about God. Although human language is not adequate to know everything, it is still adequate to know something. God may very well have an analogous to a "mental state" and "physiology". Perhaps emotions do not arise spontaneously, but he sovereignly wills it.

In the end, it boils down to your definition of change, which I have argued is far from easy to define. So far, your definition posits a God who is like a fixed a marble slab. Thus you avoid interacting with the question of how God manages to speak, think and will and yet remain unchanged, according to your definition. If you consider that God's speech, thoughts, and will are also anthropomorphisms, then OK - we have no information about the living God whatsoever; the God who interacts with man is an apparition, an icon of the real thing, but not the real thing himself.

 

[Judson]

thank you for your patience....i pray to God in the midst of tears more times than i can count...many times over my own bumblings, and for being oblivious to His love for me at times....and when i "come to" so to speak i am grieved beyond what my heart can bear, it seems...and i pray, broken, in the midst of tears.....

i cannot explain it, but God, the Father, our Abba comforts me at those times.....and it's as if i lay my weary head on His chest, because i have come back from running off, and i'm "home" again...

can you explain the "comfort" i'm receiving from the Father? i cannot.

Brinny, the unmoved God of the philosophers does not have feelings, and if he did, it is nothing like that which we experience or understand. He may know them like a person knows a mathematical equation, but he does not know them experientially. He is pure will. Because he cannot "change" he does not perform verbs. He simply exists.

The God of the bible is BOTH fully transcendent and sovereign, AND he is fully immanent and present with us. Much of what I said above is true but imcomplete. If Jesus is the exact image of the invisible God, then we can say with full confidence that he is a God who feels, and who truly understands. This God speaks through his Spirit, comforts us in our afflictions, sings over with loud shouts of rejoicing, is grieved at our sin, and delights in his election and love that he was poured out on us. All of these acts of God are real and genuine, they are not empty words.

 

[brinny]

thank you...i did not have a sane father here on earth....God Himself is teaching and showing me what "Father" means, what Abba means..in combination with Good Shepherd, as He tenderly carries li'l ones and leads those gently who are with child....these traits of His are EVERTHING to me....

my life has sorta' been like this....and God is like the loving one who gathers up the forlorn little one in her arms...and me, i'm like the little one, running to hIs arms....He's all i got....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUSzQBaWq0Q

 

[DD2008]

All of these acts of God are real and genuine, they are not empty words.

No one said they are empty words or even implied they are empty words. All of God's words accomplish the purpose for which he sent them. The doctrine of immutability is clearly scriptural and is not designed by philosophers. Your great misunderstanding in this area is that God is perfect and you don't seem to understand what that entails. You should meditate on that in light of what scripture teaches. Our little emotions are far inferior to the righteousness of God. It does not make him a statue, it does not make him, uncaring. Nothing greater than him can be conceived. That's a heavy load to deal with that the word emotion should have noting to do with because it describes him improperly.

At any rate, I have posted so much in this thread that all I'm going to do is repeat myself. God is immutable. There is a great reason that that doctrine stands as it does after being scrutinized by the best minds in the Reformed Tradition for centuries in light of the Holy Scriptures. It is wise to be very certain of yourself before you stand against them as we are all called to speak the truth. There is much you can study on it by readijng your bible, going to Reformed websites and using the search feature, talking to reformed pastors, reading reformed books, or enrolling in a good seminary class.

Unsubscribing.

 

[Judson]

I'll conclude by saying first that the confessional statement on God's immutability does not preclude affections in God that may arise from within his holy and wilful perfection. If it is possible for a being to be one, yet three persons, it's probably possible for him to be immutable yet display genuine affections. It's true that God does not experience emotion and passion like us; it does not move him from outside himself and does not control him.

It is wrong however to say that emotivity is unbecoming of divinity. Jesus displayed emotion which did not destroy his divinity or call it into question in the way a sinful act would have. God's perfection includes his anger for sinners, his pity for the poor, and his delight for his elect.

Amen.

 

[help_the_lord]

Of course he does, it says very plainly in Matthew Christ wept. Have a good day

 

[tt1106]

On the one hand, we are his image bearers on the other it's hard to imaging God emoting. I can't quite piece it together with his omniscience and omnipotence.