Does God Have Emotions?

[TCGreek]

If God displays emotions, he's not immutable.

This is a classic either/or fallacy.

We say God is Spirit.
So Are we.
Our clay bodies are only shells, housing the real us, which are spirit-beings.

Let's not forget that.

So if that's the case, our emotions are not real either.

 

[russell55]

Your right. The Bible specifically says that God is immutable. But it does not say that God has emotions.

Well, it does say he has qualities or affections that in human being are called emotions. Scripture tells us God is grieved or angry or joyous or delighting or hating, so I don't think it's wrong to talk about God having feelings or emotions. But of course, he has them in a way that transcends our own experience with emotions as finite, changeable beings.

His immutability states that He is a God that changes not; whereas emotions change all the time.

Ours do, because we are changeable and finite. But how do you know God can't have the kind of emotions that an unchangeable, infinite being would have. Emotions that are constant and perfect. Perhaps he has eternal infinite love, love that doesn't grow or diminish, because it is infinite, but love that is eternally revealed among the members of the Godhead and in time revealed to human beings. Perhaps he has infinite wrath against sin—it doesn't grow or diminish—which he expresses (or not) as he decides.

Our God is an intelligent God, even as we believe in Creation by Intelligent Design. Someone had to design this wonderful universe that we live in; but He didn't necessarily have to do it with emotion. There is no sign that the universe (for example) was created with emotion, or that even man was created with emotion.

But doesn't creation reveal its creator? Aren't human beings made in God's image? Aren't we analogous in some ways to him, so that qualities we have are little pale (and since the fall, marred) shadows of qualities God has? So that we have them like God, but in the way finite, changeable creatures would have those qualities.

What is love? There are three different Greek words in the Bible descriptive of love; only one of which is descriptive of God, and that is agape. It is a self-sacrificing of oneself.

Self-sacrificing is not love. It's an action that comes from love. God loved, and so he sent his son.

Feelings sometimes accompany love, but not always.

For us, love wafts and wanes, so that we don't always feel it. But then we don't have perfect, constant love. Our emotions are only shadows of the kind of affections God has.

Emotions are directly tied in with the body.

Ours can be, but how do you know that's the only way emotions or feelings can be had? We have lots of things that are like God—we have wills, for instance, and the ability to think. But we have neither of those things in the same way God does. We are, in those ways, a little like God, but he is not, in those ways, like us. He has those things on a whole other realm than we do. Our wills change and our minds change, but his cannot because he is immutable. But that doesn't mean he doesn't really have a will or a mind, does it?

Why can't he have emotions, just emotions that are way above and beyond our emotions? Emotions that are not peckish or fitful, ebbing and flowing. Emotions without mood swings. Emotions that come from his own purposeful, voluntary choice. Emotions that are always in his control. Emotions that he never has against his will.

God doesn't have beaviorial changes in the body. He is a Spirit.

But the scripture uses emotional language to describe God. It is undoubtedly anthropopathic language, but that doesn't mean the language isn't meant to communicate something to us. What does it mean when it says God delights in something? How do we know it's not a feeling that our delight is a small shadow of? Our delight comes and goes, but does that mean that the kind of perfect, constant delight God would have isn't true delight and isn't an emotion, just the kind of emotion a perfect, eternal, Spirit would have?

 

[russell55]

So God is angry, then he's sad, then he's joyful, then he's angry?

No, he's constantly all of those things in a perfect, complete way. He doesn't change, but he reveals different emotions in time according to his will.

What makes him change? If something external makes him change his emotions, then he's not immutable and furthermore, he has moods.

No, nothing external can make him change. That's why the confessions say God is impassable--he doesn't have passions. But when they said that they were defining passions as something that is drawn out of a person against their will. When they said that God was impassable, they didn't mean to suggest that God has no feelings or emotions.

There are lots of anthropomorphisms in the Bible describing God; I think we view His wrath, joy, sorrow, through the filter of our emotions because we cannot truly know the immutable nature of God.

Yes, we do filter them through our emotions and come to wrong conclusions about them. That's a mistake. But it's also a mistake to strip anthropomorphisms of any meaning whatsoever. If scripture says God has the emotions of joy, sorrow, wrath, then he does, but necessarily, as an immutable being, in ways that are different than we do.

 

[donnA]

God's love? God's care?
"Casting all your care upon him for he careth for you.
Is there no emotion with God at all?

The bible says God is love.

 

[donnA]

I think we probably shouldn't define God based solely on our human understanding, I think God is more then we can possibly understand, which means whether or not His has emotions means something a little different then it means for humans having emotions. We can never fully understand God. And remember nothing is impossible with God, emotions or not.

 

[TCGreek]

I think we probably shouldn't define God based solely on our human understanding, I think God is more then we can possibly understand, which means whether or not His has emotions means something a little different then it means for humans having emotions. We can never fully understand God. And remember nothing is impossible with God, emotions or not.

When the dust is settled, I'll have to agree with you.

 

[DHK]

But the scripture uses emotional language to describe God. It is undoubtedly anthropopathic language, but that doesn't mean the language isn't meant to communicate something to us. What does it mean when it says God delights in something? How do we know it's not a feeling that our delight is a small shadow of? Our delight comes and goes, but does that mean that the kind of perfect, constant delight God would have isn't true delight and isn't an emotion, just the kind of emotion a perfect, eternal, Spirit would have?

Here are some of the factors that I thought that I should consider.
What is an emotion?
As far as the KJV is concerned the word "emotion(s)" is not found in the Bible.
The only verse that has the word "feeling" in it is:

Hebrews 4:15 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the "feeling of our infirmities"; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.

Not to question the omniscience of God, but it appears that the author of the book of Hebrews is saying that Christ had to experience experientially what God had never been able to experience--the emotions of man. God became man. As man now God could "feel" pain, hunger, thirst, as well as joy, sadness, etc. Now He is able to truly sympathize with us, having gone through all that we have gone through, and yet remained sinless at the same time.

Does this verse suggest in some way that God did not have the feelings of man previous to Jesus Christ?

 

[Benjamin]

Does this verse suggest in some way that God did not have the feelings of man previous to Jesus Christ?

I believe in a sense it does; the Word being the vehicle which God does interact with us within time, and time having a beginning with creation. The Word, and if you will “Wisdom” of God was in the beginning, so I would not think of this in the sense that God did not have feelings “previous” to Jesus Christ as He was/is God in Divine Nature from eternity.

I don’t hold to the “Classical” theological view or “interpretation” of God’s foreknowledge as something set in stone. I believe God’s Nature does not change, but does not necessarily mean that God’s mind doesn’t change, not in the sense that God can learn, but in the sense that all things within time are not determined and He interacts within time with His creatures as a truth factor. (No Marcia, that does not make me an Open Theist, I am not, Grr... )

Along that, I believe that God does have something similar to what we would call emotions, but that they are perfect emotions, just as His Love is perfect love.

I agree with this from russel55:

It is undoubtedly anthropopathic language, but that doesn't mean the language isn't meant to communicate something to us.

 

[TCGreek]

Along that, I believe that God does have something similar to what we would call emotions, but that they are perfect emotions, just as His Love is perfect love.

True.

It is undoubtedly anthropopathic language, but that doesn't mean the language isn't meant to communicate something to us.

Put another way, something must have already existed to be couched in another form.

 

[russell55]

the author of the book of Hebrews is saying that Christ had to experience experientially what God had never been able to experience--the emotions of man.

Christ was able to "sympathize with our weaknesses" because he was tempted like we are. And yes, Christ experienced human emotions, which are different than God's emotions, since God is not like us.

God's emotions are settled attitudes to things in his creation, while ours come and go. His emotions are always rational, while ours are often irrational. God is never overcome or blinded by his feelings, and we are.

But just because God's emotions are not like ours are doesn't mean they're not emotions. Scripture tells us God delights some things and hates others. It uses word of emotion to describe God's attitudes or affections. God chose that language of emotion because it's the best way to describe to us something about God.

So instead of saying God doesn't have emotions at all, I'd think it'd be better to say God doesn't have emotions that are like our emotions and that it's impossible for us, finite like we are, to understand exactly what those emotions are like.

 

[webdog]

I think the shortest verse in the Bible shows God has emotions.

 

[Aaron]

Your right. The Bible specifically says that God is immutable. But it does not say that God has emotions.

It doesn't say we have emotions either.

His immutability states that He is a God that changes not; whereas emotions change all the time.

Our emotions are the unreliable ones, proceeding, as they do, from corrupt hearts.

Our God is an intelligent God, even as we believe in Creation by Intelligent Design. Someone had to design this wonderful universe that we live in; but He didn't necessarily have to do it with emotion. There is no sign that the universe (for example) was created with emotion, or that even man was created with emotion.

My point was that accepting the fact of spirit with a mind is no more "difficult" than accepting the fact that a spirit has a heart (emotions).

Forget Merriam-Webster, and go to the Scriptures to develop your ontology.

Spurgeon has a good piece that might help: http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/articles/impassib.htm

 

[Aaron]

Not to question the omniscience of God, but it appears that the author of the book of Hebrews is saying that Christ had to experience experientially what God had never been able to experience--the emotions of man.

You statement not only questions God's omniscience, it denies it altogether to suggest that there was something that God did not completely and wholly understand.

No, the reason that Christ "had" to be touched with the feeling of our infirmities was so that WE might have confidence in the fact that He does understand. In warfare, only the Captains that have suffered as those under their command can win the hearts of their troops.

 

[DHK]

It doesn't say we have emotions either.

Our emotions are the unreliable ones, proceeding, as they do, from corrupt hearts.

My point was that accepting the fact of spirit with a mind is no more "difficult" than accepting the fact that a spirit has a heart (emotions).

Forget Merriam-Webster, and go to the Scriptures to develop your ontology.

Spurgeon has a good piece that might help: http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/articles/impassib.htm

From the link you gave, I like this explanation that was given:

We cannot completely grasp what Scripture means, for example, when it tells us that the eternally unchanged and unchanging God became so angry against Israel at Sinai that He threatened to annihilate the entire nation and essentially void the Abrahamic covenant:

And the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people: Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation. And Moses besought the Lord his God, and said, Lord, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and with a mighty hand? (Exodus 32:10-11).

Two things are perfectly clear from such an account: First, we are not to read this passage and imagine that God is literally subject to fits and temper tantrums. His wrath against sin is surely something more than just a bad mood. We know this passage is not to be interpreted with a wooden literalness.

How can we be so sure? Well, Scripture clearly states that there is no actual variableness in God (cf. James 1:17). He could not have truly and literally been wavering over whether to keep His covenant with Abraham (Deuteronomy 4:31). Moses' intercession in this incident (Exodus 32:12-14) could not literally have provoked a change of mind in God (Numbers 23:19). In other words, a strictly literal interpretation of the anthropopathism in this passage is an impossibility, for it would impugn either the character of God or the trustworthiness of His Word.

Nonetheless, a second truth emerges just as clearly from this vivid account of God's righteousness anger. The passage destroys the notion that God is aloof and uninvolved in relationship with His people. Even though these descriptions of God's anger are not to be taken literally, neither are they to be discarded as meaningless.
In other words, we can begin to make sense of the doctrine of impassibility only after we concede the utter impossibility of comprehending the mind of God.

The next step is to recognize the biblical use of anthropopathism. (Since our thoughts are not like God's thoughts, His thoughts must be described to us in human terms we can understand. Many vital truths about God cannot be expressed except through figures of speech that accommodate the limitations of human language and understanding.)[16]

The anthropopathisms must then be mined for their meaning. While it is true that these are figures of speech, we must nonetheless acknowledge that such expressions mean something. Specifically, they are reassurances to us that God is not uninvolved and indifferent to His creation.

However, because we recognize them as metaphorical, we must also confess that there is something they do not mean. They do not mean that God is literally subject to mood swings or melancholy, spasms of passion or temper tantrums. And in order to make this very clear, Scripture often stresses the constancy of God's love, the infiniteness of his mercies, the certainty of His promises, the unchangeableness of His mind, and the lack of any fluctuation in His perfections. "With [God there] is no variableness, neither shadow of turning" (James 1:17). This absolute immutability is one of God's transcendent characteristics, and we must resist the tendency to bring it in line with our finite human understanding.

 

[Gold Dragon]

I googled an interesting article on this topic by a lecturer at the Reformed Theological College in Australia on whether verses about God's emotions should be interpreted literally or figuratively.

Trowel and Sword: Does God have real feelings?
Steve Voorwinde

...
In taking all of the Bible's references to God's emotions metaphorically, Calvin was not alone. He was following a tradition that went all the way back to the very beginnings of Christian theology. The Church Fathers had so reacted against the antics of the Greek gods (such as the lusts of Zeus, the incontinence of Aphrodite, and the cowardice of Ares) that by default they had opted for the description of God provided by the Greek philosophers. Such a God has been described as 'heartless, graceless, and faceless.' He was apathetic and without compassion. In their efforts to distance the God of Israel from the immoral gods of Greek mythology, the Fathers had unwittingly embraced the cold God of Greek philosophy. Rather than run the risk of ascribing unworthy emotions to God, they would rather he have no emotions at all!
...
This very brief historical sketch places Calvin's comments in a context. His view was typical, rather than exceptional. He was representative of a consensus that had dominated Christian theology since the days of the early Fathers. This consensus was not decisively challenged till the twentieth century. Following the horrors of World War 2 Christian theologians found it increasingly difficult to believe in a God who was remote and emotionally uninvolved. The challenge was spearheaded by two prominent theologians in the Lutheran tradition - Jurgen Moltmann in Germany and Kazo Kitamori in Japan. In the aftermath of Auschwitz and Hiroshima the biblical evidence stood in urgent need of re-examination. The breakdown of the age-old consensus, based as it was on Greek philosophy, had begun.

This has led to one of the most significant theological developments in recent times. At long last theologians are beginning to take God's emotions seriously. Bible verses that for centuries - if not millennia! - had been taken metaphorically are now being read literally. So great has been the change that Kitamori has spoken of 'the revival of the Jewish way of thinking as against the Greek.' The result has been a God who is near, who is involved, and who suffers with humanity.
...
But this re-evaluation of the Bible's picture of God brings with it some problems of its own.
...
For Christians there is a further deterrent against simply projecting our own emotions onto God. How do we know that God is not fickle and capricious on the one hand or unfeeling and distant on the other? The answer of course lies in Jesus Christ. He is the perfect image of God. Therefore in him we see more clearly than anywhere else not only God's love, compassion and joy, but also his sorrow, anger and zeal. Because of Jesus we know beyond the shadow of a doubt that God does have real feelings. He is passionate and full of pathos. The emotions that Scripture attributes to him are to be taken at face value.
...
A careful reading of the Old Testament shows that God's emotions do not occur randomly. They come in a distinct pattern. That pattern is covenantal in character. The Rev. Michael Flinn of the Reformed Church of Dovedale, New Zealand, has done some significant work on this and I am indebted to him for this insight. The emotions of God are invariably related to his covenant with his people.

It is out of love that he enters into the covenant (Deut 7:6-13). His jealousy or zeal arises from the intensity and exclusiveness of the covenant bond (Exod 20:4-6). When his partner breaks the covenant he reacts with anger/wrath (Exod 32:10-13). Subsequently it is in compassion that he restores the covenant relationship (Deut 30:3). When the covenant is restored, he again rejoices and delights in his covenant partner (Deut 30:9, 10).
...

Agree or disagree, I think there are some excellent insights in this article.

 

[Marcia]

This is a classic either/or fallacy.

We say God is Spirit.
So Are we.
Our clay bodies are only shells, housing the real us, which are spirit-beings.

Let's not forget that.

So if that's the case, our emotions are not real either.

I have to really strongly disagree that we are spirit beings! We are not spirit beings; we are body/mind/soul unities. Angels are spirit beings.

Our bodies are not only shells; they were created by God and will be resurrected as was the body of Jesus. This is one of the main differences between Christianity and Eastern religions, Gnostic beliefs, New Age, the Mormons and others -- that our body is part of who we are and we will eventually have a body forever (albeit in a glorified state). Those other religions all downgrade the body or make it an illusion or temporary.

 

[Marcia]

But just because God's emotions are not like ours are doesn't mean they're not emotions. Scripture tells us God delights some things and hates others. It uses word of emotion to describe God's attitudes or affections. God chose that language of emotion because it's the best way to describe to us something about God.

So instead of saying God doesn't have emotions at all, I'd think it'd be better to say God doesn't have emotions that are like our emotions and that it's impossible for us, finite like we are, to understand exactly what those emotions are like.

Your statements are the closest to what I think (along with DHK). I think it's partly a semantic thing - I think of God's love, wrath, mercy, etc. as His attributes - part of His nature and who he is, and not emotions. It's okay that I don't use the word "emotions" to describe this because the Bible doesn't.

I also liked the excerpt from Spurgeon that was posted.

 

[SaggyWoman]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/list_of_emotions
lists random emotions. Does God exhibit these?

 

[Aaron]

I have to really strongly disagree that we are spirit beings! We are not spirit beings; we are body/mind/soul unities. Angels are spirit beings.

Our bodies are not only shells; they were created by God and will be resurrected as was the body of Jesus. This is one of the main differences between Christianity and Eastern religions, Gnostic beliefs, New Age, the Mormons and others -- that our body is part of who we are and we will eventually have a body forever (albeit in a glorified state). Those other religions all downgrade the body or make it an illusion or temporary.

No, TC is dead on.

 

[TCGreek]

I have to really strongly disagree that we are spirit beings! We are not spirit beings; we are body/mind/soul unities. Angels are spirit beings.

Our bodies are not only shells; they were created by God and will be resurrected as was the body of Jesus. This is one of the main differences between Christianity and Eastern religions, Gnostic beliefs, New Age, the Mormons and others -- that our body is part of who we are and we will eventually have a body forever (albeit in a glorified state). Those other religions all downgrade the body or make it an illusion or temporary.

Marcia,

Neither does my statement deny the fact of our earthen bodies.

Do we cease to exist when physical death occurs? No at all! We just not in our earthen vessels.

Paul seems to agree with what I'm arguing:

"For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands." (2 Cor 5:1, TNIV, emphasis added)

Paul refers to the body as the "earthly tent we live in." Notice the difference: 1. the earthly tent; and 2. We live in.

Paul makes a clear distinction.