Introducing Christian Doctrine by Millard Erickson

Emotion and feelings are the same thing. Some will disagree with this, but that is ok if they want to be wrong. Really...there are many views on this. You may want to read Jay Adams, “Competent to Counsel” , or “The Use of the Scriptures in Counseling”. Find it here..
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Emotion not only changes from a high range to a low range, but it is based on change it self. If there is no change in life there is no emotion. The feeling we get when love hits us, only means change as happened not only outside our body, but our body changes as well. If it did not change, we would not “feel” the love come up on us.

To have human emotion means I can be aroused within my body from what I see, hear, smell, taste or feel. The see, hear, taste, smell, feel is also based on what I have experienced and therefore know. A young child will touch a hot stove because he has no idea what hot is. Once he knows, he changes. An expression of love toward a game of basketball when I only hear others talking about it, means I know something about basketball. Other wise, I cannot love basketball. Before I know about basketball as a child, I had no feeling about it. After a few years of playing the game, I changed to love it.

Love can make my heart race, my stomach have butterflies, can make me faint, can make me cry, can make me laugh, can make me sing, can make me jump and run and act like a stupid person. Emotion changes people.

As a human I can love ice cream for years, and have some bad ice cream and never like it again. In fact I could end up hating ice cream the rest of my life. Once I loved it, but based on what I experienced in the bad ice cream, my emotion, drives me to hate it.

If God has emotions just like humans, this means God will change just like humans. I say NO WAY!!

Gods love is at 100%. It is never at 50% because I did something wrong. This I can count on. God can have anger toward me, but still love me 100%

Now non-Calvinist may want to stop reading from here on out.

Gods love never stops!! Gods love is never “loved less”. There are no degree in Gods love. Those he loved from the beginning He will always love…..no matter what they do.

Others…He gives over to their own lust. (Romans 1) Others He says depart from me forever!! Cain he told would never see His face again. But the ones he loves He calls back. The sheep hear His voice.

END OF CALVINIST STATEMENT..

I will say again, it is clear God has emotion of some kind. It cannot be the same as our own. Gods love and anger is something we can only picture in part based on how we view love and anger. But we are not God and will never understand His love this side of glory. But I am sure of this, God is not driven by His emotions as humans are.

 

That truth is not something unique to Calvinism but it is the same truth Non-Cals attest to as well. And of which I also agree.

 

I would say that what keeps God's wrath from being poured out is His perfect plan. It is not an emotion that keeps His wrath "in check" so to speak. He has a plan that will be followed, and He will accomplish His plan. Look at the many times His wrath was foretold in the OT.... it was not love that kept Him from pouring out His wrath.... it was His perfect plan. Of course that is not to say that His common love of mankind is not an outworking of His perfect plan... because it is. Again, He causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust.

 

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