Does God Have Emotions? Part 4

Can man make God angry or make him joyful?  This matter becomes more complex when we take into consideration that God knows all thoughts and actions of His creatures in all history simultaneously.  How is it possible for Him to be angry, let’s say with four billion people in a sense like man’s anger and at the same time pleased with five million people, also in a human sense, at the same time?

You say, “Remember, Pastor Rich, God’s mind is totally immense, so that He is not subject to human limitations.”  You are so right.  There is no warrant to conclude that God is extremely similar to man in some ways, while bound by many of man’s limitations, but that He is completely similar to man in other ways, as if he has none of man’s limitations. 

Therefore, we have to say that some form of divine impassibility is necessary. If God is angered by our sins, it is only because He wills to be angered by them, and not because His mental state is subject to our will or beyond His control.   Yes, even if we do affirm that God has emotions, they are all under His control, and they will never compromise His divine attributes.   Since God’s emotions are fully under His control, He does not have them in a way that is similar to man.

Because of the modern influenced by psychology to defend believing in a God with emotions, they are eager to acknowledge the biblical passages that make references to God with a physical body as instances of anthropopathism.   But when they come to passages that suggest emotional feelings in God, they are not eager to suggest anthropopatheism.  They can get along with a God not having a physical body, but not a God that is void of emotions.  There appears to be a shady form of hypocrisy that is often overlooked.

End of Part 4