Comments on Gracepoint Forum: Why Did God Give Us Feelings?

The God of the Bible has a lot of feelings too, an...

2009-06-11T22:58:35.370-07:00

The God of the Bible has a lot of feelings too, and he is very transparent with his emotions. And the Bible does says that Mankind was created in his image, so we were created to have God's heart and his feelings as well. God probably gave us feelings so we could share in his feelings and relate with him.

I have just recently found a message Ravi Zacharia...

2009-06-07T02:38:31.705-07:00

I have just recently found a message Ravi Zacharias gave on this here(though a little more focused on why we sometimes feel despair despite our faith). What I found most enlightening was David's approach to this whole emotion subject, and his clear standpoint of voicing it all to God. I would state some conclusions here, but to me there seems to be so many factors, and emotions such a widely raging topic. I can agree with the fact that a simple 'value system' model doesn't explain all that much, given how many ways our faculties can be broken. Other than that I'm not sure where to go with it for now.

Any other comments welcomed.

2009-06-05T10:58:21.713-07:00

Any other comments welcomed.

I think you are approaching this issue in the righ...

2009-06-05T10:56:32.325-07:00

I think you are approaching this issue in the right way when you think of emotions as evaluative. But just like how our minds can also be broken (so that we can't think clearly), our emotions can also be broken so that we can't feel correctly or properly.

Although your emotional response can be a window to your soul and your value system, it can also be that your emotional world is simply broken overall. So you simply don't feel much of anything, and the overall sense is just this underwhelming sense of detachment from life. In that case, I am not sure if we can really determine our value systems from our emotions. What such a person needs is healing.. Because the effect of that kind of spock-like emotionlessness is quite negative -- which is detachment from life, and you will find it difficult to relate to people and feel things like empathy, joy or sorrow.

Regarding the "usage" of emotions in church services, etc.. I agree that people can skip the understanding step and just go for the emotions. And people do. But that is the responsibility of the individuals to make the emotional connection to a particular content. When the church preaches a message, demonstrates the cross and the meaning of the cross, and plays music that accompanies all of that, the individual sitting in the congregation should be held responsible to connect his emotions to the content. Just because there are individuals who don't care about the content but just go for the emotions, that does not mean that the church should not try to encourage a proper emotional response to an appropriate degree. Of course, if a church just goes for the emotions without providing any content, then it would be problematic. But I would think that individuals who skip the understanding part would eventually be revealed, because emotions without understanding are short-lived.

Hope that helps a bit.