Emotions and Divine Immutability

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The question is two-fold in origin. On the one side I have my background in the theology on the openess of God. Something that I have been trying to reconcile and edify through the teaching of the church. An uncomfortable process. I worked with this issue about a year ago only to put it down for the sake of sanity and inconclusion.

It came up again as I was speaking to a credible patristics professor about our upcoming Christology class and we spoke about the trinitarian controversy before the Christological controversy where they questioned the relation of the Son to the Father. The key point of debate being whether Jesus as divine could suffer. Suffering concludes change which conflicts with a stoic understanding of divine immutability. The classic answer being that the humanity suffered and the Divinity didnt. But then in the Christological controversy we see that the question of who was/is Christ(divine or human) is how can Christ be divine and human at the same time.

The controversy moved into its first stage where the movements were the Radical unity (Homousias), the Moderate unity(Gregory of Nazianzus and other caperdocians) and the Subordinationists.

anyway, Im not going to pretend I am smart and understand church councils. But a theme was that we could now say the Divine could suffer. to love is a passionate thing, to love is to feel passion and suffering is a part of that experience. Christ in his existence shows the Divine being experiencing change and emotion. I see clear change and emotion in the old testament. (Things that some write off as anthropromorphisms, which i cant sit with) I can read through the New advent understanding of divine immutability and say the essence of the divine and who the divine is can not change, but to experience is not change unless I by into the greek stoic model of experience leading to change and being a negative. To my understanding a relational, personal God who created the world, assumed human form(Gregory) experienced human suffering(hebrews) died and continues to guide an imperfect church can and needs to experience.

ok, sorry about the babble..




How would you hold to a stoic understanding of divine immutability yet hold onto the concept of God experiencing legit emotions as cited during the christological controvery

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:'(

[rkwright]

rev good to see you back! I always enjoy your threads, I'll be watching this one closely. I'm not sure if I'm qualified to answer your question though, sorry. But I will think about it and give you my best shot! Hopefully someone like Myles or Jeff will jump on this, though I haven't read much from either of them lately. Phatmass seems to be on a dry spell for good discussions.

EDIT: just wondering... whats your best guess to your own question?

Edited August 27, 2006 by rkwright

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wright,

I am by no means qualified to answer on behalf of the Church. My background in the evangelical community under Boyd does give me a bias that I am not sure if I have worked thru entirely.

My problem is that I take the same angle as Archbishop Rowan Williams(anglican) with this issue and I feel that the essence and nature of the Divine is not changed by experience. I feel that legit emotions do not harm the Divine, but rather the Divine would experience emotions in their true form. "experience" is not a bad thing. It can change a temporal being, but not the Divine. The Platonic thought(Apollinaris I believe) was that when a change happened the being would change either for the good or evil. Unchanging, or a stoic nature was seen as perfect.God being perfect adapted a stoic nature. I dont feel that is proper when we see change such as creation, the fall or heaven, Old test interaction, the incarnation and the work of the Spirit. (the father is stoic but HS and XP can experience change? so are they less perfect?)

Anyway, I feel that God, in a true relationship with humanity, individually and corporately. Does in fact experience emotions. Empathatically with us, and literally when we cause him pain or joy.

The issue comes back to God "out of time" or God "uneffected by time" the water moves around him, but he doesnt move. I feel there is no "out-of-time" the past is done, the future has yet to be determined. Only the now and the openess of the yet to be

ok, now that should get a response..

[quote name='rkwright' post='1051757' date='Aug 27 2006, 07:33 PM']
Hopefully someone like [color="#FF0000"]Myles or Jeff [/color] will jump on this, though I haven't read much from either of them lately. Phatmass seems to be on a dry spell for good discussions.
[/quote]

Or L_D, or Phatty, or Thes...

last time I brought up an issue near openess i was able to trigger at least 17webpages..

my goal is to come to an understanding within the Church, help me here.

[batteddy]

God AS GOD does NOT "feel" emotions, which are, as you said, physical passions...mere electro-chemical reactions in the brain. We should not be anthropomorphic. As God, he is way above fleshy passions and any talk of "anger" or "jealousy" in the bible is analogical.

But remember, "Love" is more than an emotion. Although there is an emotion we commonly call "love", it is really more like "affection". True love is an act of the Will, which in God is eternal. It is an act of the spiritual will towards the good of another. It may or may not be accompanied by the "feeling" of affection.

Nevertheless, God took on a human nature, and in his human nature, the second divine person suffered. A single divine person, or "hypostasis" suffered, but he suffered AS a man, not AS God.

There is no admixture, confusing, or comingling of the two natures in the hypostatic union. God died a HUMAN death. But that still means God did die. There was only one ontological subject involved; namely, the Second Person of the Trinity. But God died as a man. There is no contradiction there.

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thank you, I am going to fiddler this quickly because I am trying to work thru this issue.

[quote]God AS GOD does NOT "feel" emotions, which are, as you said, physical passions...mere electro-chemical reactions in the brain. We should not be anthropomorphic. As God, he is way above fleshy passions and any talk of "anger" or "jealousy" in the bible is analogical.[/quote]

-I disagree here. First of all, I dont see emotions stricktly in the sense of physical emotions. The "passions" as the fathers spoke of were when the flesh lost control, often related to an emotion, but not the sole expresion of an emotion. Physical attributes of the emotions could be the electro-chemical signals, but if we were to break down all soul-related functions by possible physical signs then we have no intellect, and how far do you want to go from there? Suddenly we are at the kantian concept of none-spiritual evolution drifting into bizarre radical darwinism. Because we can "possibly" tell emotions based on the chemical/electro charge does not limit them to only that. Rather, I see our emotions as being part of our substance. In our fallen state we do not have full control of emotions or understanding of them, but what are emotions? Why dont we assume that in being created in the image of God emotions are part of that image? The fullfillment of our emotions and the perfection of morality is found in the Divine. We do not need to view the flesh as limited and evil. We can see ourselves as fallen and therefore we have a perverted understanding of things, but emotions are what seperate us from the animals, and it was the Divine that set us apart. The old test often attributes emotions to the Divine. Even to the point of God desiring us to understand the hurt he feels (minor prophets and their prostitute wives) I have and will argue that God changes his mind based on how we react and respond as well. (God is not caught off guard, he knows the possibilities, just not which one...another thread) These are changes that we clearly see and I think it is improper exegesis to assume them as anthropromorphic(we have discussed this before, and we can again)

[quote]Nevertheless, God took on a human nature, and in his human nature, the second divine person suffered. A single divine person, or "hypostasis" suffered, but he suffered AS a man, not AS God. [/quote]

-So the son has the potential to change and so does the spirit but the father doesnt? isnt the son egual in nature to the father? The logos being the reflection of the father? also, is it orthodoxy to say that the humanity only sufffered and the divine didnt? Are we allowed to seperate an experience? I see this as the same problem that happened during the Christology Crisis. We cant say the humanity suffered and then claim the divine is the perfect priest who can relate in all our temptations yet has not been tempted.

[quote]There is no admixture, confusing, or comingling of the two natures in the hypostatic union. God died a HUMAN death. But that still means God did die. There was only one ontological subject involved; namely, the Second Person of the Trinity. But God died as a man. There is no contradiction there.[/quote]

This sounds more like the Homousias and their belief of the radical seperation of man and divinity. Basically that the divinity wore a human like a man in a spacesuit. It was determined that this left out the key concept of the divinity having a full experience of humanity. thus, this was considered wrong.The true conclusion was set around phil 2 and the language of the Nicean creed. There is a mixture where neither loses its properties, but they are not uneffected by each other. The divinity experienced. Gregory of Nazianzus(or Athantius maybe?) says that what wasnt assumed wasnt healed. The message of the Christology is the transformation of the body.

sorry if that doesnt flow right. Check back with me.

thes?, L_D? Myles?, Jeff? I dont mean to be a jerk and re-open this issue but I am struggling with this again.

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hmm...why did this die? clearly I am either in error or confused..(**smacks self over the head with trusty cane)

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The question is two-fold in origin. On the one side I have my background in the theology on the openess of God. Something that I have been trying to reconcile and edify through the teaching of the church. An uncomfortable process. I worked with this issue about a year ago only to put it down for the sake of sanity and inconclusion.

It came up again as I was speaking to a credible patristics professor about our upcoming Christology class and we spoke about the trinitarian controversy before the Christological controversy where they questioned the relation of the Son to the Father. The key point of debate being whether Jesus as divine could suffer. Suffering concludes change which conflicts with a stoic understanding of divine immutability. The classic answer being that the humanity suffered and the Divinity didnt. But then in the Christological controversy we see that the question of who was/is Christ(divine or human) is how can Christ be divine and human at the same time.

The controversy moved into its first stage where the movements were the Radical unity (Homousias), the Moderate unity(Gregory of Nazianzus and other caperdocians) and the Subordinationists.

anyway, Im not going to pretend I am smart and understand church councils. But a theme was that we could now say the Divine could suffer. to love is a passionate thing, to love is to feel passion and suffering is a part of that experience. Christ in his existence shows the Divine being experiencing change and emotion. I see clear change and emotion in the old testament. (Things that some write off as anthropromorphisms, which i cant sit with) I can read through the New advent understanding of divine immutability and say the essence of the divine and who the divine is can not change, but to experience is not change unless I by into the greek stoic model of experience leading to change and being a negative. To my understanding a relational, personal God who created the world, assumed human form(Gregory) experienced human suffering(hebrews) died and continues to guide an imperfect church can and needs to experience.

ok, sorry about the babble..




How would you hold to a stoic understanding of divine immutability yet hold onto the concept of God experiencing legit emotions as cited during the christological controvery


**jeff, how would you answer this. How is Rowan Williams wrong?

[Myles Domini]

Thanks for the plaudits rkwright. Up until now I've refrained from getting too involved in debates around here. Since I returned to Phatmass I've barely posted in the debate table and thats for a myriad of reasons, most especially in order to curb certain vices. However, the reason I've been generally silent on Rev's threads is not merely because I'm trying to alter my habitual disposition but also because I dont feel its neccessary. As Rev says he could go to New Advent and read off the sort of response I would supply him with. He doesn't need me to simply summarise the typical Catholic response since he's already aware of it. Believe so that you may understand, do not try to understand that you might believe. I could go through the motions with you Rev but at the end of the day I think it would be far more beneficial for us both if we went away and prayed for one another. Ultimately it will be Divine Grace and not arguments that allows you to accept what the Church teaches.

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i dunno Myles. I have spent alot of time in prayer on this and it just leaves me in agony.

Also, I do not see how anything on New advent would help with the idea that during the Christological controversy they held that the divine could in fact experience emotions.

[Myles Domini]

[quote name='Revprodeji' post='1133807' date='Dec 2 2006, 10:55 PM']
i dunno Myles. I have spent alot of time in prayer on this and it just leaves me in agony.

Also, I do not see how anything on New advent would help with the idea that during the Christological controversy they held that the divine could in fact experience emotions.
[/quote]

[quote]How blessed are you![/quote]--Fr John Corapi

I onced watched Fr John Corapi on EWTN retelling the story of how someone had come to him asking for prayers because their soul was beset by doubts. Fr John said 'ok', naturally. One week later the person comes back complaining that Fr John's prayers haven't worked. Fr John smiled knowingly anticipating what was coming next. Terrible things had happened, more doubts, more challenges to faith. The person asks Fr John "how did you know?" Fr John replies how do you expect to have your faith strengthened if you dont exercise it? Its gotta be challenged. Faith as the letter to the Hebrews tells us in things unseen. You may not be able to see the "why's" of the matter but if you trust the authority upon which its based then acceptance is a must regardless of incredulity.

As for New Advent they should have an extensive entry on Christology. Moreover, they have a myriad of primary texts in the 'Fathers' section including Pope St Leo the Greats famous [url="http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3604028.htm"]28th letter aka the Tome[/url] and his [url="http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3604124.htm"]124th letter[/url] sent to the court of Constantinople in 461 as Pope St Leo's final statement of Christology.

To say that anyone thought the Divine could experience emotions, even in Christ, is completely inaccuate. Whoever told you this must not have any real appreciation or understanding of the source texts. Even though Apollinarius' Christology seems to logically entail this I dont think even he accepts it. St Cyril's communication of idioms does not include it and Nestorius is doing his absolute best to avoid it.

I recommend you reference[url="http://www.monachos.net/patristics/christology/index.shtml"]The Christology Controversy[/url] section of monachos.net. The owner of the site, Dr MC Steenberg, is a Russian Orthodox scholar and fellow of Greyfriars, University of Oxford. He's an old tutor of mine and a good friend. His summaries of the whole thing are a more than adequate guide to the topic.

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I give up

We have been working on this issue for what...a year now? I feel more lost on it than I can have imagined. No matter what we do I see white as black, I describe white in language of black. I cant process white without the scope of black. Im frustrating the flying carp out of you guys. Wasting tons of time with this. I can not even bring myself to attend church with this shadow. Im stumbling worse than I wanna tread. I cant let my reconciling destory my christianity. There gets to be a point in cancer treatment where the doctor stops the chemo and tells that patient that the fight is over, enjoy what you have left.

thanks for everything...

Edited December 3, 2006 by Revprodeji

[Myles Domini]

[quote name='Revprodeji' post='1133935' date='Dec 3 2006, 09:29 AM']
I give up

We have been working on this issue for what...a year now? I feel more lost on it than I can have imagined. No matter what we do I see white as black, I describe white in language of black. I cant process white without the scope of black. Im frustrating the flying carp out of you guys. Wasting tons of time with this. I can not even bring myself to attend church with this shadow. Im stumbling worse than I wanna tread. I cant let my reconciling destory my christianity. There gets to be a point in cancer treatment where the doctor stops the chemo and tells that patient that the fight is over, enjoy what you have left.

thanks for everything...
[/quote]

Well, I dont know about you Rev but I am not becoming frustrated. If you see your brother in need are you not supposed to help? As I said if you need help with the Christological controversy have a look at what Dr Steenberg has written on it. It is one of the subjects he teaches here at Oxford and I assure you that what he says is trustworthy.

My friend do me a favour, si? Download this EWTN series, [url="http://www.ewtn.com/vondemand/audio/file_index.asp?SeriesId=6133&pgnu="]A Knight for Truth[/url], on the life and times of Dietrich Von Hildebrand and listen to it; paying [u]particular[/u] attention to programs #2 and #3. I'm sure you'll get something out of it.

[Guest JeffCR07]

It seems to me that an equivocation is being made whenever someone makes the claim (as above) that "God suffers." What is really meant when we say that "God suffered" is that Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, suffered, and that He is God. Now, the suffering of Christ is explicible because he has both a human nature and a divine nature within his one Person. It is in his human nature that he suffered. Now, because the human nature constitutes a part of his Person, we rightly say that the Person of Christ, who is God, suffered.

This, however, does not allow us to make the equivocal leap to argue that, say, God the Father or God the Holy Spirit suffer. The redemptive suffering of God is a unique aspect of the Second trinitarian person. When talking about these two persons, in whom there is no human nature, it is necessary for us to recall that an absolutely critical aspect of any true christian theology will be the recognition of theology's apophatic nature. Whenever we predicate anything of God that is similar to the natural order, we are simultaneously predicating an even greater [i]dis[/i]similarity. Thus, when we say of God that He is "Father" we are not saying that He is a Father in any biological or natural sense. Rather, we are predicating "Father" with a [i]super[/i]natural meaning, as necessarily begetting the consubstantial son.

Similarly, whenever we predicate emotions of God, such as repentance, sorrow, wrath, etc, we must always remember that whatever similarity there is between God and Man, there is always simultaneously an even greater dissimilarity. Thus, it would be folly to think that when we say of God that he is "repentant" we mean [i]exactly[/i] what we mean when we say of a man that he is repentant. Rather than being univocal, the meaning is analagous.

This is not a "tongue in cheek" explanation of these "emotions" in God. Rather, it is a subtle understanding that pays to God the respect that is due, for we must never make the mistake of thinking God in his transcendence to be of the same kind as a mere creature. Thus, emotions as they are understood in the natural sphere are not predicable of God the Father or God the Holy Spirit. Rather, they are predicated univocally only of God the Son - this is part of what makes the Incarnation such a powerful and important aspect of Christianity.

Your Brother In Christ,

Jeff

[scardella]

Perhaps I'm being a bit simplistic here, but here goes nothing:

Why would "emotions" in God be necessarily a change? The only reason He appears to change is that we ourselves change. His love for us expresses itself differently at different times only because we ourselves are a work in progress. If we were static, then His love for us would not have to be expressed in different ways.

For example, say you have a child, who is sometimes an angel and sometimes a terror. If your love for him were perfect, you would still react differently based on his behavior. When he is behaving, using the potty properly, etc. you reward him, but when he is not behaving, you do not. You may be angered or delighted, but your love for him never changes. The anger or delight that you experience does not necessarily change your substance or the perfection of you.

Does this make sense?