RE: Is God Altruistic? Is God Happy?
March 23, 2019 at 7:03 pm
(This post was last modified: March 23, 2019 at 7:05 pm by Belacqua.)
(March 23, 2019 at 9:00 am)Rogue Wrote: Is there really someone here trying to argue that Yahweh is emotionless? Wow, just wow. So when the buy-bull says god so loved the world, that was a lie? The important thing to remember about the text is that it says we were made in God's image. Please explain where emotions come from if not from God. Thanks.
I think it is more plausible that God just does not exist. and man created gods in his image.
If you ignore the OT the NT is null and void because the OT prophecies a Messiah. Is there a Messiah or no?
Most theologians of whom I'm aware say that God has no emotions. This is standard in classical theology. The OT is to be read as parables, fables, puzzling stories.
When they say that God loves the world, it's different from saying a person loves another person. They say that God is goodness itself. God emanates the world as an act of goodness. In this way God is behaving like a person who loves you, because he is giving goodness.
The way people love is different. People love by desiring. We desire to be with another person, or we desire her happiness, or we desire her health, etc. This is what we do when we love. God lacks nothing, so he desires nothing. Still, by being only good, he is sending goodness to all.
The main difference is that people are contingent and God is only essence. Contingency means that people are changing, they could be different, they are affected by other things. God, being only essence, is only what he is and has no contingency. Emotions are motions. They are the change of the changeable heart -- but God doesn't move or change.
When Christians say something like "He so loved the world that he gave his only son," the love here just means that God is so good by his essence. Not that he wants something for the world.
This is what theologians say.
I've had trouble getting people to think about God in some way other than the simple Sky-Daddy Tyrant that so many people use, but what I've described here is the theology of Dante and many others.
