Reflections on the Nature of God

     Not too long ago, a Catholic radio personality confidently declared on the air that God is without emotion.  He asserted that all dimensions of the character of God (love, mercy, compassion, just anger, etc.) are simply examples of anthropomorphic thinking on the part of man.  The argument continued that, if God had emotions, this would further make Him imperfect, because it would mean that He was subject to change.  It’s true that human words usually can’t begin to capture or define a God who is the “same yesterday, today, or tomorrow”; language often falls flat and meaningless—unless written by those very few like Saint Augustine who eloquently described God in his Confessions as “…the life of souls, the life of lives.  You Live, O Life of my soul, because you are life itself, immutable.”
 
     To explain all dimensions or manifestations of God’s rich character as simply anthropomorphic thinking seems a profound over-simplification.  Take Hebrews 5:7-10, for example. 
 
In the days when he was in the flesh, he offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.  Son, though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered; and when he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, declared by God high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.
 
Perhaps the most striking example of the reality of Christ’s emotions is found amidst garden before His arrest (Luke 22:41-44). 
 
After withdrawing about a stone’s throw from them and kneeling, he prayed, saying, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still not my will, but yours be done.  And to strengthen him an angel from heaven appeared to him.  He was in such agony and he prayed so fervently that his sweat became like drops of blood falling on the ground.  When he rose from prayer and returned to his disciples, he found them sleeping from grief.
 
As religious artist (and my father-in-law) John Collier pointed out, “even if these are anthropomorphic expressions, they are still more like emotions than anything else we might know in our own experience. By denying Him emotions, we make God feel nothing.”  It’s hard to find a more beautiful account of love and tender care than the hen carefully gathering her chicks in Matthew 23:37. It is a reminder of the way in which God desires to shield us all from harm, and it directs our attention to his profound love.  Another profound insight into the loving character of our God is seen in the mysterious passage found in Exodus 32 11-14.  The idea that the prophet Moses is able to convince God to change His mind and “repent” is almost beyond our understanding.  Books could be written on this short passage alone, and it certainly implies that our God may respond to true and heartfelt emotion with a response best described as emotional.  
 
     His love exists, and it is more real than the very air you are breathing.  Anthropomorphic language, on the other hand, tends to make its subject less than real in one’s mind.  As a writer of children’s fiction, I employ anthropomorphic devices to infuse my non-human characters with human emotions or characteristics.  Whether it’s a talking squirrel or a loquacious rabbit, it’s usually a literary device used to understand (or pretend to understand) creatures inferior to ourselves—not the other way around.  To employ this kind of thinking about God is like placing Him within a box.  There also appears to be a lack of reverence when we try to analyze and dissect His very nature and attempt to interpret it in terms with which we are the most comfortable—something like a gnat trying to dissect a galaxy.  Let’s face it, we should not be comfortable before the majesty of God.     
 
     While we have many biblical examples of God's anger and "jealousy" and, most importantly, His deep and profound Love, one of the Catholic radio personality’s central arguments was that external factors will not change God.  On this point, we are in strong agreement.  Some make the misguided claim, for instance, that man mysteriously fulfills God in some way.  They argue that qualities such as love could not be present without the existence man, but this a false and dangerous line of reasoning.  God is love.  Man is dependent upon God’s mercy and grace, but God is entirely independent of man.  As the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us in paragraph 370, “In no way is God in man’s image.”  He does not share our needs or weaknesses, but He sacrificed His very Son in order that we might overcome our spiritual frailties and live forever with Him and the saints.
 
     In Everything You Wanted to Know about Heaven--But Never Dreamed of Asking, Dr. Peter Kreeft makes a distinction between active/willed and passive/reactive emotions and argues that only the active (or perfected) emotions are present within the nature of God.  In other words, Dr. Kreeft is suggesting that God has emotions without change.  In trying to pin down the characteristics of God with our limited understanding, we may at times be in danger of confusing this unchanging nature of God with our Creator's ability to interact and empathize with us. After all, Christ suffered in all things as we suffer. To say that God has no shred of emotion, seems to disregard the human nature of our Savior.  Since Jesus is the second person of the Trinity, isn’t it logical to conclude that God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit all possess emotional qualities?  This also leads us to an interesting theological term called communication of idioms.  As Dr. Scott Hahn points out in his wonderful book entitled Hail, Holy Queen, this rule is what allows us to confidently call Mary the Mother of God.  It’s saying that Christ’s two natures both reflect pure Truth.  Whether they are human or divine attributes, they are all dimensions of the true nature of Christ Himself.  It is by this principle that we may make statements such as God fell while carrying the cross, since God and Jesus are one.  This unity also seems to imply the mystery of emotional consciousness within the Trinity. Couldn’t it be said that the emotions within us represent imperfect reflections of the perfect nature of God—e.g. love, anger, or sadness? 
 
     I also believe that God, outside of our time and space, may still be grieved by deplorable actions taking place on earth.  Our hearts must believe in a God who is pained by these deaths.  This grief, however, does not mean that God is changed.  Look at the tragedy of abortion, and reflect on Sirach 35:17.  “The prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds; it does not rest until it reaches its goal…” Imagine these cries of pain each day from those thousands of persons who will never walk the earth, and whose very continued spiritual existence is so entirely in the hands and mercy of God.  It is these tiny voices which may echo and reverberate through time and space, until they finally reach the very throne of God.  It reminds me of the encouraging words of Revelation 7:16-17. 
 
They will not hunger or thirst anymore, nor will the sun or any heat strike them.  For the Lamb who is in the center of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to springs of life-giving water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
 
  Indeed, we do trust that God hears and shepherds these innocents through the gates of heaven.  Surely, the true and living God hears the cries of the children and has compassion—just as He heard and acted when Herod the king threatened the earthly life of His only Son in that city of Bethlehem.
 
     As one priest put it, the argument may appear to boil down to the idea that “pure spirits simply do not have emotions—period.”  If we take things to such an extreme that nothing outside of time changes or feels anything, however, we're going to have a challenge communicating or accomplishing much of anything in heaven.  For example, if nothing beyond time is subject to change, wouldn't words like "then" cease to have any inherent meaning in the afterlife?  Nothing could be completed, because nothing could be begun. I have to think, at this point, that we must simply put our faith in God. It's a mystery, but we can trust in God's love that the place He has prepared won't seem alien to us, but will be more like coming home than anything previously imagined.  That's part of the reason why I believe in a God with whom a personal relationship is possible and who understands and loves us in a profound way.  His very emotional nature reflects the mystery, depth, and life of this love.
 
     We may struggle in our attempt to even begin to grasp the nature of God and eternity, but we know that our God is love.  He cares for each of us.  I imagine this love and tender care even with the coming and goings of the saints.  It’s like God, the Great Physician, knows when to “administer” or send those persons most needed at that time by the suffering body of Christ.  And it is through the lives of these selfless saints that we catch further glimpses of the nature of God.  We won’t ever begin to really understand the mystery of our Creator in this life.  In fact, we may not even be able to grasp it in the next; it’s all just too big to get our minds around.  When, by God’s grace, we should reach heaven and begin to meet those persons already in the presence of God, persons perfected in Christ and purified of any blemish, it will be as if we are beginning to know and understand God through each person we encounter.  The many “faces” of God will be slowly revealed as we begin to know the one true face of the living God--both directly and through each of those persons we are blessed to meet.