Being Gay

[Guest]

Does God have human emotions?

This is what a poster had to state over at CA (Thread Title: "Does God Hate?")   (Scroll down to #2 - it gave me a smile as well here  )

 

Actually, New Advent had some interesting things to say :

(Anthropomorphism) http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01558c.htm

 Excerpt only: "The Scriptures themselves amply warn us against the mistake of interpreting their figurative language in too literal a sense. They teach that God is spiritual, omniscient, invisible, omnipresent, ineffable. Insistence upon the literal interpretation of the metaphorical led to the error of the Anthropomorphites."

 

__________________________

 

PRIVATE VOWS

http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/topic/132845-home-mass-private-vows/ 

Vocation of The Laity – An Office of The Church HERE

 

[Jack4]

Barb., Selah and others, we would be wasting our time without first having answers to two questions. 

Define love.

Define hate. 

[4588686]

I still got it 

[Guest]

[Guest]

LOVE

HATE

[Guest]

Jimmy Akin  "Does God Hate Sinners?"   HERE               Excerpt only:   "This has led Christians to recognize that when Scripture talks about things as if God is suffering that it is not meant to be taken literally. That we have a truth being expressed, but it is not to be understood as if God were experiencing these things the way we do. As if He experienced anger, sadness, sorrow, frustration, impatience, or other negative emotions that occasionally ascribed to God in the language of the Bible in particularly of the Old Testament.

These are expressions of truths but they’re accommodated to our human understanding of things. To use a fancy term, they’re anthropomorphic expressions. They make God sound as if He were human, when in fact He’s not. "............

............."That’s the fundamental thing we need to keep in mind in analyzing all of these passages. We to recognize that when Scripture talks about God hating things, it’s expressing a profound truth about the reality of sin and the fact that we need to avoid it.

It’s not expressing the idea that God ‘has it out for sinners’ and that He’s just looking to punish them. On the contrary, He’s looking to save them. He’s so willing to save them that He gave His own Son for all of us while we were yet sinners."

 

[Jack4]

5 hours ago, BarbaraTherese said:

LOVE

HATE

Can you quote from the relevant sections in these articles articles where a clear definition is given? 

5 hours ago, BarbaraTherese said:

Jimmy Akin  "Does God Hate Sinners?"   HERE               Excerpt only:   "This has led Christians to recognize that when Scripture talks about things as if God is suffering that it is not meant to be taken literally. That we have a truth being expressed, but it is not to be understood as if God were experiencing these things the way we do. As if He experienced anger, sadness, sorrow, frustration, impatience, or other negative emotions that occasionally ascribed to God in the language of the Bible in particularly of the Old Testament.

These are expressions of truths but they’re accommodated to our human understanding of things. To use a fancy term, they’re anthropomorphic expressions. They make God sound as if He were human, when in fact He’s not. "............

............."That’s the fundamental thing we need to keep in mind in analyzing all of these passages. We to recognize that when Scripture talks about God hating things, it’s expressing a profound truth about the reality of sin and the fact that we need to avoid it.

It’s not expressing the idea that God ‘has it out for sinners’ and that He’s just looking to punish them. On the contrary, He’s looking to save them. He’s so willing to save them that He gave His own Son for all of us while we were yet sinners."

 

Jimmy Akin seems to speak about living sinners, wayfarers. My friend had the damned in mind. 

[Peace]

4 hours ago, Jack4 said:

Can you quote from the relevant sections in these articles articles where a clear definition is given? 

Jimmy Akin seems to speak about living sinners, wayfarers. My friend had the damned in mind. 

Hmm. In you and your friend's seemingly speculative theology, does God also hate those who will be damned before their final judgement (in other words, while they are still wayfarers)? 

If what you assume is true I don't see why God would not also hate them from the moment of their conception, since He knows their ultimate fate even before they are born. 

If that is the case, that is, if God hates these folks from the beginning, why would He send Jesus to die for them?

You would seemingly end up with Calivinistic limited atonement, which I think the Church rejects. 

I don't understand these issues very well, but how does your theology not lead to Calvinism?

[Guest]

10 hours ago, Jack4 said:

Jimmy Akin seems to speak about living sinners, wayfarers. My friend had the damned in mind

Jack, what JA addresses first in his quotation is anthropormorphism which, with reflection, responds to your friend's comments about God having hatred for anything  at any time, or at any point - either living or dead including those in hell.  I do not have means of researching your source (your friend), however Jimmy Akin is easily researched and is regarded as a reliable and sound Catholic apologist.  He is a senior apologist on Catholic Answers.

Re your request for short summary of "Love" and "Hate" :- Likewise, the same quotation from JA, with reflection on his comments on anthropormorphism, means that love and hate are human experiences only in our context and, as such, are complex.  The articles I quoted go into that complexity; hence to understand love and hate as human experiences, you need to read the articles.

The article on "Hate" is quite short, the one on "Love" is longer but worth the read as it does go into the complexity of human love - that type of love we can experience and the type of love (agape) to which we aspire.

 

 

 

Edited September 21, 2016 by BarbaraTherese

[Guest]

Since Scripture tells us "God is Love" (1 John 1:8), the article I posted on "Love" does go into agape, which is not a feeling but an act of the will.  

Does God Love the Souls in Hell? Then Why Do They Suffer?  This blog comes from The Archdiocese of Washington as source.  It is lengthy, but it goes into all questions related to God's Love and the souls in Hell - I thought so anyway.

 

[Jack4]

2 hours ago, BarbaraTherese said:

Jack, what JA addresses first in his quotation is anthropormorphism which, with reflection, responds to your friend's comments about God having hatred for anything  at any time, or at any point - either living or dead including those in hell.  I do not have means of researching your source (your friend), however Jimmy Akin is easily researched and is regarded as a reliable and sound Catholic apologist.  He is a senior apologist on Catholic Answers.

Re your request for short summary of "Love" and "Hate" :- Likewise, the same quotation from JA, with reflection on his comments on anthropormorphism, means that love and hate are human experiences only in our context and, as such, are complex.  The articles I quoted go into that complexity; hence to understand love and hate as human experiences, you need to read the articles.

The article on "Hate" is quite short, the one on "Love" is longer but worth the read as it does go into the complexity of human love - that type of love we can experience and the type of love (agape) to which we aspire.

 

 

 

Can we, with Pope John Paul, define love as a giving of oneself? 

[Guest]

 

DOES GOD MOURN FOR SOULS IN HELL?

4half minute video from Tim Staples, Director of Apologetics and Evangelization at Catholic Answers.

 

[Jack4]

7 hours ago, Peace said:

Hmm. In you and your friend's seemingly speculative theology, does God also hate those who will be damned before their final judgement (in other words, while they are still wayfarers)? 

If what you assume is true I don't see why God would not also hate them from the moment of their conception, since He knows their ultimate fate even before they are born. 

If that is the case, that is, if God hates these folks from the beginning, why would He send Jesus to die for them?

You would seemingly end up with Calivinistic limited atonement, which I think the Church rejects. 

I don't understand these issues very well, but how does your theology not lead to Calvinism?

In case you haven't understood it yet, it is is not "my theology", but a friend's. He is a Thomist, not a Calvinist. He strongly disagrees with Calvinists, eg., on (merely) sufficient grace. 

[Guest]

17 minutes ago, Jack4 said:

Can we, with Pope John Paul, define love as a giving of oneself? 

Yes.

" St. Thomas Aquinas defines it as "willing the good of the other" — the simplest definition of love I've ever seen. Agape is an act of the will, not the feelings."  (see quotation below from Catholic Culture with link - and quoted previously)

 

 

https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=9375  Excerpt only: "(1) THE FIRST AND MOST usual misunderstanding of agape is to confuse it with a feeling. Our feelings are precious, but agape is infinitely more precious, because our feelings are not infinite but agape is. Feelings come from us, but agape comes from God as its ultimate source. Feelings also come to us, passively. They are "passions." Agape comes from God and is accepted actively by our free choice. St. Thomas Aquinas defines it as "willing the good of the other" — the simplest definition of love I've ever seen. Agape is an act of the will, not the feelings. That is why we are responsible for it, and commanded to do it, to choose it. We are not responsible for our feelings. Only an idiot would command us (That's why sexual feelings and desires, whether heterosexual or homosexual, are not sins in and of themselves. Feelings can be "disordered," but sins can come from acting on them.) We are responsible for our agape or lack of it, for agape comes from our free will, our deliberate choice, while feelings come from wind, weather, hormones, advertisements, and digestion. "Luv" comes from spring breezes; real love (agape) comes from the center of the soul, which Scripture calls the 'heart' (another word we have sentimentalized and reduced to feeling). Liking is a feeling. But love (agape) is more than strong liking. God does not merely like us; He saves us, He dies for us. Agape is a deed. Love is "the works of love."

Jesus had different feelings toward different people. But he loved them all equally and absolutely.

But how can we love someone if .we don't like him? Easy — we do it to ourselves all the time. We don't always have tender, sweet, comfortable feelings about ourselves; sometimes we feel foolish, stupid, asinine, or wicked. But we always love ourselves: we always seek our own good. Indeed, the only reason why we feel dislike toward ourselves and berate ourselves is precisely because we do love ourselves! We care about our good, so we are impatient with our bad.

We fall in love but we do not fall in agape. We rise in agape." (to read entire text, go to above link).

 

 

Edited September 21, 2016 by BarbaraTherese

[LittleWaySoul]

19 hours ago, Hasan said:

I still got it 

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