Is anger unforgiveness?

[Follower3]

How much of anger derives from unforgiveness? If you have forgiveness in your heart, and can practice forgiving someone immediately, if for example someone steps on your foot, or maybe you see some one abusing a dog, anger won't even come to the forfront, you have in a sense already forgiven them.

Forgiveness stems from Love, and Anger from Fear.
Can we have unforgiveness / anger towards objects? Is unforgiveness / anger towards objects, or events sin? I know I can get mad at my computer, or my coffee cup, or what have you.

1 John 3:15
Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.

Matthew 5:21-22
22 But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment.

By definition if you forgive some one you can't be mad at them anymore, but if you have Love in your heart ( in theory) you won't get mad in the first place.

Or can anger stem from other things?

 

[SolomonVII]

I think that most anger derives from the sheer pleasure of succumbing to emotion.
Anger is experienced as a pleasurable state, and the feelings of dominance derived from the fear and terror response of the object of that anger reinforces the pleasure.

 

[Foxfyre]

How much of anger derives from unforgiveness? If you have forgiveness in your heart, and can practice forgiving someone immediately, if for example someone steps on your foot, or maybe you see some one abusing a dog, anger won't even come to the forfront, you have in a sense already forgiven them.

Forgiveness stems from Love, and Anger from Fear.
Can we have unforgiveness / anger towards objects? Is unforgiveness / anger towards objects, or events sin? I know I can get mad at my computer, or my coffee cup, or what have you.

1 John 3:15
Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.

Matthew 5:21-22
22 But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment.

By definition if you forgive some one you can't be mad at them anymore, but if you have Love in your heart ( in theory) you won't get mad in the first place.

Or can anger stem from other things?

Tough one. Personally I think it is unreasonable to not be angry at the person who is harming people or being unnecessarily destructive. To forgive doesn't mean to accept. It just means to choose not to hold the person accountable for what the person owes or has done or has not done.

I will choose not to strike back. I will choose not to sue. I will choose not to retaliate. That is forgiveness.

There is such a thing as righteous anger. I do believe it is very possible to love somebody and be angry with them at the same time.

 

[St_Worm2]

Hi Follower, there is a Godly anger, of course, which Jesus demonstrated .. e.g. Mark 3:1-6; Mark 11:15-18, but that's not the kind of anger we are normally guilty of unfortunately.

Yours and His,
David

James 1
19 Everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger;
20 for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.
​

 

[St_Worm2]

I think that most anger derives from the sheer pleasure of succumbing to emotion. Anger is experienced as a pleasurable state, and the feelings of dominance derived from the fear and terror response of the object of that anger reinforces the pleasure.

Hi Solomon, I don't believe I've ever experienced pleasure or joy when I've gotten angry in the past, even as a non-Christian. I actually hate being angry. What you describe sounds more like a sociopath or a psychopath to me, like a terrorist, rather than a normal/functional human being.

In Christ,
David

 

[Follower3]

So is getting mad at the dog abuser Godly anger, and getting mad at the guy who stepped on you toe ungodly anger?

I think that most anger derives from the sheer pleasure of succumbing to emotion.
Anger is experienced as a pleasurable state.

I'm going to have to say balogna to that good sir If that is the case why not feel good emotions all the time? those are the ones that really feel pleasurable.

So in this Godly anger is there no HATE of a person? or is it simply a hate of SIN? Was Jesus "angry" at the money changers at the church when he flipped over the tables? did he forgive them later? or was he simply angry at sin? If you are angry at a PERSON for sinning is it sin, or only if you don't forgive them LATER?

Now I have opened up a new array of questions ^-^

 

[St_Worm2]

So is getting mad at the dog abuser Godly anger, and getting mad at the guy who stepped on you toe ungodly anger?

Hi Follower3, no, neither one of those would necessarily qualify as Godly or righteous anger, though I suppose the intent of the perpetrator could raise it to that level. There are times when we are actually commanded to be angry .. e.g. Ephesians 4:26, when the character of God is impugned, for instance. It's really a kind of righteous indignation I guess you could say, anger at sin and evil, but it is never meant to do harm to the sinning person (quite the opposite actually .. wrath and vengeance are for God alone, yes ).

This type of anger, Godly/righteous anger, is based in the love of God and the love of others, which includes (as I just mentioned) the sinner him/herself. This type of anger hates sin of all kinds (ungodliness, injustice, immorality, etc.) not the sinner. However, we always need to be VERY careful when applying it because it is so easy for us to fall into a sinful type of anger ourselves if we are not (and then we become the ones who end up needing to ask for forgiveness ).

One thing that helps with that is knowing that St. Paul's finally admonishment in this short passage about anger must also be obeyed:

Ephesians 4
26 BE ANGRY, AND yet DO NOT SIN; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and do not give the devil an opportunity. ​

So always keep your anger under control and focused on the glory of God .. cf Matthew 5:16. If you feel you cannot do that, you should walk away immediately, or you will surely end up sinning yourself.

Yours in Christ,
David

 

[SolomonVII]

Hi Solomon, I don't believe I've ever experienced pleasure or joy when I've gotten angry in the past, even as a non-Christian. I actually hate being angry. What you describe sounds more like a sociopath or a psychopath to me, like a terrorist, rather than a normal/functional human being.

In Christ,
David

It is not really my insight. It is an insight that came from listening to something Ben Shapiro said.

The context of his comments was in terms of a criticism of modern belief that it is good to express our inner feelings rather than control them, which is what traditional Christian belief systems of morality would expect from us.

I personally don't divide the world into good Christians and evil non-Christians. Even with a conversion experience, there is normally a good degree of consistency between the morality of the person being converted.
Is it/was it the anger that you hated, or was it the guilt that you felt for expressing that anger? That is a question worth contemplating, I think.
Guilt and shame are inevitably experienced as negatives, and tend to be something that we all like to avoid. Sociopaths tend not to experience such emotions in the first place, but for the rest, anger may potentially be experienced as a positive emotion if it is interpreted as righteousness, even if it is obvious to everyone else that it is self-righteousness that is being used to justify the expression of what is often regarded as immoral by the religion.

I will give two examples of how this might work. One example is from the left in politics. The contempt that the left has for Trump has no bounds-well, very few. Holding up a bloodied head of Trump was a bridge too far. For virtually everyone else though, the "Resistance" is regarded as a positive. Anger is a righteous emotion.
From the right (myself included), I likewise experience my anger toward Islamism as a positive.
If it is coming from a place of self-righteousness, then critics label of islamophobe may fit, and the justification is delusion. Same with the Trump hysteria.

Either way, I submit to you that it is not the anger that is necessarily experienced as the negative. It is the guilt that often comes with expressing anger in a Christian, or even a post-Christian society that is the source of the negative feelings about anger. True, sociopaths do not feel that guilt, but neither do the righteous, or the self-righteous.

 

[ToBeLoved]

How much of anger derives from unforgiveness? If you have forgiveness in your heart, and can practice forgiving someone immediately, if for example someone steps on your foot, or maybe you see some one abusing a dog, anger won't even come to the forfront, you have in a sense already forgiven them.

Forgiveness stems from Love, and Anger from Fear.
Can we have unforgiveness / anger towards objects? Is unforgiveness / anger towards objects, or events sin? I know I can get mad at my computer, or my coffee cup, or what have you.

1 John 3:15
Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.

Matthew 5:21-22
22 But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment.

By definition if you forgive some one you can't be mad at them anymore, but if you have Love in your heart ( in theory) you won't get mad in the first place.

Or can anger stem from other things?

I would tend to say it depends if anger has been thought out or is a reaction.

If the anger is a reaction, than that anger does not prove forgiveness comes into play at all because there may be no one to forgive and the anger may be fleeting for a moment and then gone.

If the anger is premeditated and thought about then one has to have thought about it and decided to proceed to the next action which would be feeling and establishing the anger.

So in essence, it depends on the type of anger, IMHO.