Persons have emotions. Even unborn babies respond emotionally to certain stimuli. But when we think of the Holy Spirit we don’t think of a person, we think of a force or energy. This is largely because, in our minds, the Spirit does not have emotion.
We don’t think the Spirit has emotions for two reasons. First, on a popular level, we simply do not read our Bible’s close enough. Our preconceptions of the Spirit as a force and shadowy ghost color our ability to see those texts which speak of the Spirit’s emotion. Second, on a more academic level, Classical theism has, since Augustine, argued that God does not really have emotions. That is, all those texts which speak of God being angry, or happy, or regretful are anthropopathic: primarily human passions or emotions cast on God. God does not really feel anger, in Classical theism, “anger” is just a human way of explaining certain theological realities.
This is largely because in Classical theism God cannot change. Having a vast array of emotions leaves open the possibility of changing from one to another. God is perfect and any change from perfection is imperfection. Since emotions require change, this would necessitate that God moves about in various levels of imperfection.
To me, this betrays more of a Platonic view of perfection than a biblical view of perfection. For Plato, for everything on earth there was a perfect heavenly reality. The earthly things could change, fade, improve or destruct, but the heavenly reality would remain perfectly changeless. Augustine, taking this idea, placed it upon God – God, the ultimate heavenly being, cannot change. And if God cannot change, then God cannot feel real emotion b/c that necessitates change.
The biblical view of God, one that is more Hebraic than Greek,[1] is that God is not Immutable (that is unchanging). Rather God can change and still be perfect. Perfection does not require changelessness according to the Bible and genuine personhood necessitates emotion and thus, change.
There are many Scriptures that people use to prove that God does not change. They are all similar to “God is the same yesterday, today and forever.” What these texts really demonstrate, however, is not that God doesn’t change or have emotion, but that, from a faithfulness perspective, God will honor His covenants. When he makes a promise, you can be guaranteed that He will keep it. His character does not change, even if His emotions do.
That said, allowing God to have emotions is important in this discussion because for us to recover a notion of the Spirit as a living person, we must recover the Spirit’s emotions.
Just a quick list of the Spirit’s emotions should suffice for now:
Deep Agony: Ephesians 4:25-32. Compare with Christ in Matt. 26:37, where the same word is employed to describe Christ’s agony during the Passion.
Intense Desire/Jealousy: James 4:5. This is also Paul’s word for a longing to see someone whom he has been separated from.
Groaning that demonstrates solidarity with out weaknesses: Romans 8:26
Insult or outraged: Hebrews 10:29. The word here is a hapaxlegomena, so the exactly meaning is ambiguous. But either translation communicates emotion.
Ability to participate in loving union/fellowship: Philippians 2:1.
Desires that war against the flesh: Galatians 5:17
Love: Romans 15:30.
Let us not shackle the Holy Spirit by our theological presuppositions or our inattention to biblical texts. Viewed in light of good biblical exegesis, the Spirit is a person who expressed genuine emotion. I know our “assumptions about what is ‘proper’ for the divine nature to be like can make it difficult for us to take seriously what God’s nature is like as revealed in the gospel.”[2] But let us make an effort to see Spirit as revealed in Scripture: emotions, change and all.
[1] I’m not bashing Greek philosophy here! I’m just critiquing it. There are many great ideas in Christian theology (such as the Trinity) that we have formulated using the tools of Greek philosophy.
[2] Clark H. Pinnock, Flame of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit. (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 1996), 31.
Tom,
Interesting post, one thing that has troubled me about much of religous studies is how so much of it veers away following the Biblical text – and into the philosophical. How we define God in terms of philosophical categories, as opposed to Biblical understandings. I love what you said about God being immutible, because the God of the Bible is a dynamic person – not a passive stoic in the sky.
The God of the text is not a philosophical idea, he is completely wrapped up in his creation-as oposed to being detached. God is leaning foward watching to see what we’ll do next! It is in this view that God shows excitment, dissappointment, and anger.
Good word!!
Hey, I read your Xanga page. But I do like this one better. Hope you can continue the e-mail notices.
Cheers
Dan,
I completely agree. I don’t know that I would posit too stark of a contrast between biblical and philosophical categories – but certainly, at times we’ve allowed them to become too close. Without philosophical categories, we cannot conceive the Trinity or the relations of the Trinitarian persons. So, to some degree it is necessary. On the other hand, there’s always the danger that our philosophical categories will become the foundation instead of the tool. This can be problematic – as is the case with the immutability of God.
Tom,
I think you can use the RSS feed and still get updates. Either that or give me a special place in your ‘favorites’ or ‘bookmarks.’
Hey Tom, just thought I’d drop you a line. I like what you’ve got here… I’m a philosophy and preseminary double major here at Cedarville… and I really am glad that I’m doing both. I want to keep away from allowing philosophical ideas dictate my hermeneutics. It’s crazy how Baptist, evangelical, “traditional”, and narrow-minded I was before I started really studying the Bible for what it is. Thanks for this.
Thanks Dave. I’m glad this was helpful for you. I completely understand what it means to read the Bible in a narrow-minded way. I’ve been there before and it scares me. I liked the way you talked about not letting philosophy dictate your hermeneutics. That is a tough task, indeed. But it is always good to at least be aware of the philosophy’s influencing our reading of the text.