Emotions in the Christian Life
Ethics professor Robert C. Roberts says that emotions play a major role in incorporating Christian spirituality into a believer's life. He defines emotions as concerned-based construals. Emotions like joy and contrition are based on two things: what one percieves about a situation and what they value. A person who believes in divine providence and is concerned about the kingdom of God will respond with emotions differently to certain situations (i.e. a promotion, a friend's death) than would a non-believer or one who is less mature.
What Roberts assumes is the priority of emotions in a Christian's life. Some other evangelicals have relegated emotions to the caboose of our walk: feelings are add-ons, by-products, whereas behavior is what matters. But can this position square with the many commands in scripture to have emotions (e.g. "Rejoice in the Lord")? One must decide: are our feelings important, or should, as the common admonition goes, emotions be factored out of most of life's equations?
I think feelings/emotions are IMPORTANT! I think they are like a little warning light on your vehicle to let you know something's going on. I think f/e are a unique quality about being human and made in the image of God. Humans are the only creations with the capacity to experience f/e and to take that away would take away part of our unique 'humanness' and God given identity.
ReplyDeleteokay, those are some of my thoughts with kids running around and people talking all around me. :)
Thank you, Rachael. Your thoughts are sharp and articulated well. To be human is to be an emotional being, who can feel in a way similar to God. So, if I follow where you're going, to be void of emotion is to be less human than we ought, and therefore less like God.
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