On the Ministry of John Piper - Mike Riley

[Anne Sokol]

[Alex Guggenheim] But even generally speaking I believe you will find it untenable to continue to insist one cannot live without emotions.

I will just say, i don’t think someone could be non-emotion and still be human in the normal sense or even have a normal spiritual life. If emotions are a part of God, I would not say they are non-essential and merely incidental or intended. They are a part of God’s make-up; he considers them essential to existence, and he made us with them, so I think they are very essential.

It is interesting to see the science of what happens to someone with damaged emotional capacity, you know? It’s a problem.

We will remain opposed on this.

_____________________

[Anne Sokol]

[Riley] Piper, however, insists that right emotions are just as vital as these other essentials. He recognizes that it is possible to believe the right things intellectually and do the right things morally, and yet have no emotional inclination toward God.

[Alex Guggenheim] I would rather stay focused most singularly on the assertion that God demands certain emotions from us. He does not.

[Alex Guggenheim] There will never be a day when any believer stands before Christ at the Bema Seat and our Lord says, “You did not emote enough”. It is ridiculous to say the least.

… But I don’t think God will judge us strictly by our beliefs and actions—he will also judge us for the things that were the desires and loves of our hearts—and that does, humanly, God-ly, involve our emotions. In fact, emotions or affections can be pretty hot indicators of our priorities.

Can you write out quotes of Piper where he states that God commands emotions? that might further the discusion more, esp if they are in context.

I’m no one to judge Piper, but I think he’s a very intense person, which probably contributes to his teaching, but is his teaching a matter of command or emphasis is the thing.

I’m not sure at what point I should confess that I really don’t remember ever reading much of Piper.

I am still thinking of some things.

Again, we will remain opposed on these points. I recommend as Jay does, that you read and investigate Piper thoroughly, this may give you a more satisfying position.

[Anne Sokol] I was starting Piper’s book on Wilberforce—thanks to Jay’s link—and I found this quote by Wilberforce at the beginning of the book.

[Wilberforce] We can scarcely indeed look into any part of the sacred volume without meeting abundant proofs that it is the religion of the Affections which God particularly requires… . Joy … is enjoined on us as our bounden duty and commended to us as our acceptable worship… . A cold … unfeeling heart is represented as highly criminal.

— W I L L I A M W I L B E R F O R C E

so is it heresy?

Both Piper and Wilberforce err on this occasion. They equate joy with emotions. They equate spirituality with some degree of emoting. The Bible does not teach this. Clearly if Piper finds material by others that reflect his views he will quote it.

Emoting will happen but it is not a condition God ever commands. It is an anecdotal matter that follows our being transformed by the renewing of our mind. Whatever emotions we have…we will have. We are not required to conjure them nor will be judged at the Bema Seat for them. Our actions and our thoughts will be judged.

Wilberforce wrote:

We can scarcely indeed look into any part of the sacred volume without meeting abundant proofs that it is the religion of the Affections which God particularly requires… . Joy … is enjoined on us as our bounden duty and commended to us as our acceptable worship… . A cold … unfeeling heart is represented as highly criminal.

— W I L L I A M W I L B E R F O R C E

[Alex Guggenheim] *Both Piper and Wilberforce err on this occasion. They equate joy with emotions. They equate spirituality with some degree of emoting. The Bible does not teach this. Clearly if Piper finds material by others that reflect his views he will quote it.

Emoting will happen but it is not a condition God ever commands. It is an anecdotal matter that follows our being transformed by the renewing of our mind. Whatever emotions we have…we will have. We are not required to conjure them nor will be judged at the Bema Seat for them. Our actions and our thoughts will be judged.

*Let me amend this. I have not read the context of the quote by Wilberforce and we are dependent in this discussion on Piper’s use/interpretation of the quote, an interpretation which I believe is likely prejudiced by Piper’s own misapprehension…but I did not want to get into a discussion on the singular quote, only covering my base here.

Alright, to make this conversation more real, I went through Desiring God and looked up times the word “emotion/s” was mentioned. I won’t post everything I copied and pasted out, but I will start with this.

Footnote, p. 85.

[Piper] As I use them in this book, the words feeling and emotion and affection do not generally carry different meanings. If something distinct is intended in any given case, I will give some indication in the context. In general, I use the words synonymously and intend by them what Jonathan Edwards did in his great Treatise Concerning the Religious Affections, in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 1 (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1974), 237.

Edwards defined the affections as “the more vigorous and sensible exercises of the inclination and will of the soul.” To understand this we need to sum up briefly his view of the human soul or mind:

[Edwards] God has endued the soul with two principal faculties: The one, that by which it is capable of perception and speculation, or by which it discerns and judges of things; which is called the understanding. The other, that by which the soul is some way inclined with respect to the things it views or considers: or it is the faculty by which the soul beholds things—not as and indifferent unaffected spectator, but—either liking or disliking, pleased or displeased, approving or rejecting. This faculty is called by various names; it is sometimes called the inclination; and, as it respects the actions determined and governed by it, the will; and the mind, with regard to the exercises of this faculty, is often called the heart.…

The will, and the affections of the soul, are not two faculties: the affections are not essentially distinct from the will, nor do they differ from the mere actings of the will and inclination, but only in the liveliness and sensibility of exercise…

As examples of the affections, Edwards mentions (among others) love, hatred, desire, joy, delight, grief, sorrow, fear, and hope. These are “the more vigorous and sensible [i.e., sensed or felt] exercises of the will.” Edwards is aware that there is a profound and complex relationship between the body and the mind at this point:

[Edwards] Such seems to be our nature, and such the laws of the union of soul and body, that there never is in any case whatsoever, any lively and vigorous exercise of the inclination, without some effect upon the body.… But yet, it is not the body, but the mind only, that is the proper seat of the affections. The body of man is no more capable of being really the subject of love or hatred, joy or sorrow, fear or hope, than the body of a tree, or than the same body of man is capable of thinking and understanding. As it is the soul only that has ideas, so it is the soul only that is pleased or displeased with its ideas. As it is the soul only that thinks, so it is the soul only that loves or hates, rejoices or is grieved at, what it thinks of.

The biblical evidence for this is the fact that God, who has no body, nevertheless has many affections. Also Philippians 1:23 and 2 Corinthians 5:8 teach that after a Christian’s death, and before the resurrection of the body, the Christian will be with the Lord and capable of joys “far better” than what we have known here.

To make this discussion honest, I think we have to acknowledge that Piper is not just talking about working up a feeling. It’s much more complex than that. It’s desire, affection, inclination connected with thoughts and will. When he says for example, “be happy,” he’s not saying to work up some emotion. He’s saying, get your heart (affections, desires, inclinations) lined up with happiness in the right thing (i.e., God, some aspect of God).

OK, here’s another quote

[Piper, p.301] I am often asked what a Christian should do if the cheerfulness of obedience is not there. It is a good question. My answer is not to simply get on with your duty because feelings [Anne: ie, affections, desires, inclinations of the soul] are irrelevant! My answer has three steps. First, confess the sin of joylessness [Anne: if you’re not feeling it, is it because you’re not thinking it, desiring or willing the right things? I don’t think he’s talking about fatigue or needing to be on the edge of some ecstatic frenzy to be joyful. It can be a quiet thing.]. Acknowledge the culpable coldness of your heart. Don’t say that it doesn’t matter how you feel. Second, pray earnestly that God would restore the joy of obedience. Third, go ahead and do the outward dimension of your duty in the hope that the doing will rekindle the delight. (For more practical counsel on fighting for joy, see appendix 4.)

This is very different from saying, “Do your duty because feelings don’t count.” These steps are predicated on the assumption that there is such a thing as hypocrisy. [Anne: this is an interesting point he discusses earlier in the book, want to comment later] They are based on the belief that our goal is the reunion of pleasure and duty and that a justification of their separation is a justification of sin.

i have to give up the computer, so talk more later.

If I remember correctly, Piper does draw a limit between “emotions” and “emotionalism” in the initial chapters or prologue to Desiring God, and he does spend time decrying “emotionalism”. If I get the chance, I’ll look and see.

[Anne Sokol]

To make this discussion honest, I think we have to acknowledge that Piper is not just talking about working up a feeling.

I, nor anyone else, is claiming Piper is “just talking about working up a feeling”. You have continuously and repeatedly missed or ignored my point. Piper is REQUIRING feelings and often certain kinds or specific feelings. The Bible does not issue any such requirement, ever.

[Piper, p.301] I am often asked what a Christian should do if the cheerfulness of obedience is not there. It is a good question. My answer is not to simply get on with your duty because feelings [Anne: ie, affections, desires, inclinations of the soul] are irrelevant! My answer has three steps. First, confess the sin of joylessness [

i have to give up the computer, so talk more later.You are like a fish who has chomped on a big worm and are caught, hook, line and sinker. Your lack of critical analysis of Piper here will result in your own spiritual injury along the way. I cannot even begin to take Piper’s ineptness apart here but I will. However, I am going to make a point. No amount of proof or argument really is going to make a difference with you, frankly. You have made up your mind and really you aren’t engaging with the point of discovery or mutual acknowledgment of points. But for the record’s sake let’s examine just a couple more gross mistakes by Piper.

1. Piper states, “I am often asked what a Christian should do if the cheerfulness of obedience is not there. It is a good question. My answer is not to simply get on with your duty because feelings [Anne: ie, affections, desires, inclinations of the soul] are irrelevant! My answer has three steps. First, confess the sin of joylessness…”.

Again he makes a most elementary mistake, he refers to “cheerfulness” and “joy” as feelings, they are not, they are states of the mind. They may or may not be accompanied by emotions but Piper simply misses this which results in his injurious misdirection to others.

Secondly, because someone doesn’t “feel” a certain way they suddenly are required to “confess” it as a sin? Really? Really? This is what he is teaching. I’m sorry, show me again where certain “feelings” are required in the Bible. Right, you cannot and you will not because it does not exist.

Feelings may or may not accompany biblical states of minds but when the Bible speaks of joy, peace, cheerfulness and so on, it has in view a state of mind and not the emotions that may or may not accompany it. Yes, it is likely they will be present but that is not what is in view.

On the matter Piper simply begins in error which will always bring him to an place of error at the end of the issue. He believes the premise that certain kinds of emotions are required by God. The Bible at no place and at no time asserts this and we are not judged based on these things. So you can read Piper until you are blue in the face but as long as you accept this unbiblical premise you will be subject to being convinced such arguments are right and the only thing that will result in reading Piper is reading someone who says what you want to hear. But as I said I believe you have already made up your mind. I suspect my interaction with you on the topic may be finding its tomb.

Let me make a closing comment on this post, specifically to the scenario Piper introduced to which I will give the appropriate response. If someone came to me and asked “what a Christian should do if the cheerfulness of obedience is not there” I certainly would not treat it as shallowly, conveniently and indiscriminately as Piper did nor should any one ministering to another with respect to spiritual needs.

The first question to ask is “what do you mean by cheerfulness”? As well, “what do you mean by cheerfulness of obedience”? Where is this taught in Scripture and how is it you have come to believe you specific situation is not meeting this criterion? Someone may be going through some kind of emotional depression that has nothing to do with their positive response to the things of God. An investigation must be made.

But let’s just say what they mean, in the end, is that they obey but they do not enjoy obeying God or that when they do obey God they do not have a cheerful state of mind. Well clearly their problem is not emotional, I certainly can tell you that . And certainly the next step is not to “confess” anything because still nothing sinful has been uncovered, unlike Piper who has already skipped investigation, discrimination and assigned sin where no exists!

The next step, then, is to find out what their motivation is for what appears to be their attempt to live the Christian life. They could be an immature believer, they could be a mature believer but struggling with something, or they could be a wolf in sheep’s clothing who is coming to their religious end, tired of pretending which certainly would not produce a cheerful disposition. There are a million possibilities and it is ludicrous to attempt to prescribe to people that their problem is one of not having the right emotions, hence they must confess this to God (I have no doubt right now a few people reading this can appreciate what is being dealt with and realize the sobriety of what I am saying).

The Bible does not condemn people who lack the emotions that Piper, himself, seems to associate with cheerfulness when one obeys, nor does it call them hypocrites. In fact, this is the height of arrogance. What it does condemn is people serving with duplicity and deception which has nothing to do with emotions but with double-mindedness. Those that attempt to love the world and love God are condemned…but a lack of certain emotions that Piper associates with cheerfulness when we obeys is not condemned.

And this is my overall point with Piper on the subject. He lacks the kind of attending theological perspicacity in his approach necessary in order to make the appropriate distinctions on the matter. His remedies and prescriptions, while at times may include recognizable elements of biblical doctrines, patterns and conclusions, also contain toxic elements that render his solutions in this case to be an inadvisable elixir.

P.S. As to Piper’s use of Edwards, it is a rather epic fail. Edwards clearly appeals to definition that is not emotionally based, rather one the involves the mind and the will which Piper attempts to misinterpret as an echo of his own views. I do not necessarily prescribe to Edwards’ definitions but it is certainly nothing more than an insulting joke to believe what Edwards said reflects Piper’s own misunderstanding. But this is not something you will fail to see with Piper on more than one occasion. His use of the material of others is more than on scant occasion, IMO, taken out of context to fit his arguments.

[Alex] Both Piper and Wilberforce err on this occasion. They equate joy with emotions. They equate spirituality with some degree of emoting. The Bible does not teach this. Clearly if Piper finds material by others that reflect his views he will quote it.

Actually, Wilberforce doesn’t mention emotions at all. He talks about affections.

And in speaking of affections, there can be no doubt that they are of huge importance to God. Matt.22.37

I think there’s alot of talking past one another happening in the thread because we are not operating on the same definitions of key terms.

“Emotions”/”emoting” versus desires, affections and attitudes?

It’s true that desires, affections and attitudes relate very, very closely to emotions/feelings but I think we’re often confusing categories here. I just don’t really know how to sharply distinguish the categories. But Piper is not wrong to claim that if our devotion does not reach a level we can feel, something is terribly wrong. It’s all so interconnected that if we are really devoted, it gets to the same place where “emotions” are felt.

(But I hasten to add that I sympathize with Alex’s point of view perhaps, in that Piper’s observations here do sometimes lead to a kind of judgmentalism on the part of the very openly emotive toward those who feel in a quieter and less demonstrative way. But some of us are not capable of letting these “feelings” out in small or moderate amounts… it’s nothin’ or the fire hose. And the latter makes it really hard to continue to function in, say the pulpit during a sermon or leading in worship)

[Aaron Blumer]

[Alex] Both Piper and Wilberforce err on this occasion. They equate joy with emotions. They equate spirituality with some degree of emoting. The Bible does not teach this. Clearly if Piper finds material by others that reflect his views he will quote it.

Actually, Wilberforce doesn’t mention emotions at all. He talks about affections.

And in speaking of affections, there can be no doubt that they are of huge importance to God. Matt.22.37

It is correct and I certainly don’t assert otherwise, WW did not use the word emotions. The quote in its entirety will more appropriate explain the context of my use of “emotions” though Wilberforce did not use the term (bold mine).

We can scarcely indeed look into any part of the sacred volume without meeting abundant proofs that it is the religion of the Affections which God particularly requires… . Joy … is enjoined on us as our bounden duty and commended to us as our acceptable worship… . A cold … unfeeling heart is represented as highly criminal.

— W I L L I A M W I L B E R F O R C E

He did use the term “feeling” as an antecedent to the word “affections”. This is not to say the nuance between the word “feelings” and “emotions” are not worth discussing but simply to point out there is more to the statement than in what you quoted by me along with my subsequent amendment. I agree, though, that WW is not necessarily agreeing with Piper’s view, Piper simply is using the quote as if he is. Again the context and other material by WW would probably be quite illuminating.

[Aaron Blumer] I think there’s alot of talking past one another happening in the thread because we are not operating on the same definitions of key terms.

“Emotions”/”emoting” versus desires, affections and attitudes?

It’s true that desires, affections and attitudes relate very, very closely to emotions/feelings but I think we’re often confusing categories here. I just don’t really know how to sharply distinguish the categories. But Piper is not wrong to claim that if our devotion does not reach a level we can feel, something is terribly wrong. It’s all so interconnected that if we are really devoted, it gets to the same place where “emotions” are felt.

IMO It is their relationship that is at the crux of understanding the issue. I disagree that our devotion is required to reach a level which we can feel, it may and it may not, and likely will for many but the Bible never issues such a requirement. Piper has no authority to issue such a declaration.

Now I do agree, something may be wrong, but not spiritually and when Piper says there is something wrong, that is what he is talking about, spiritually. We may have an emotional dysfunction but that is not a gauge for anything spiritual nor is it judged that why by God now or at the Bema Seat. And it may be that we do not feel things with our emotions while we are having spiritual problems but the remedy is not adjusting one’s emotions, it is adjusting one’s thinking…“keep on being transformed by having your mind renewed”.

I believe, again, the problem lies with the relationship and roles of the parts we are discussing. The word “affection” I do understand has in view the anecdote of emotions but they are not what causes “affections”, thinking does. The emoting subsequent to such right thinking or production of affections may legitimately be in view, but it must be so anecdotally and not primarily, remedially or prescriptively. There is no such license, precedence or prescription for this in Scripture.

But some of us are not capable of letting these “feelings” out in small or moderate amounts… it’s nothin’ or the fire hose. And the latter makes it really hard to continue to function in, say the pulpit during a sermon or leading in worship.

My experience is that we have been so anti-Charismatic in our Pneumatology that we downplay any kind of emotional experiences, and it doesn’t help that society (in general) also downplays the importance of emotion in the human experience. So I think that Piper’s re-acknowledgement of Edwards and the “affections” (emotions or whatever) has been, in many ways, a necessary restoration/balance.

well, if it makes any difference, i really am not personally invested in defending Piper. I don’t read his stuff, not sure why. Although I had friends who did. and Vitaliy started reading him recently and was learning about sovereignty. I just think that you are finding a “heresy” that is not there. If I say, “Alex G says that emotions are unimportant, irrelevant to life, and God only judges us for our thoughts and actions. The Bible puts no importance or value on human emotions,” would I be mischaracterizing you like you are Piper? (Actually, maybe that IS what you are saying.)

I think you’re saying this:

A says that Piper says: God says that we glorify Him most when we feel pleasurable emotions toward/about Him.

I think I will sleep on this.

BTW, you will be surprised reading a recent publication by Piper that is a departure from his emphasis on emotions. The book is titled, “Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God”.

It may be he, now, is making a shift in his overall emphasis and I certainly do not want to be amiss in crediting those works that I find useful with discretion. This book might provide Piper with an argument of his own against some of his previous assertions.

[Anne Sokol] well, if it makes any difference, i really am not personally invested in defending Piper. I don’t read his stuff, not sure why. Although I had friends who did. and Vitaliy started reading him recently and was learning about sovereignty. I just think that you are finding a “heresy” that is not there. If I say, “Alex G says that emotions are unimportant, irrelevant to life, and God only judges us for our thoughts and actions. The Bible puts no importance or value on human emotions,” would I be mischaracterizing you like you are Piper? (Actually, maybe that IS what you are saying.)

I think you’re saying this:

A says that Piper says: God says that we glorify Him most when we feel pleasurable emotions toward/about Him.

I think I will sleep on this.

Well, you are wrong on all points and it does not seem that you have paid close enough attention to restate them. I have never said the above nor asserted them and I was referring to something Riley said which as an apt characterization of Piper’s a feature of Piper’s teaching over the last 20 years.

[Jay C.]

But some of us are not capable of letting these “feelings” out in small or moderate amounts… it’s nothin’ or the fire hose. And the latter makes it really hard to continue to function in, say the pulpit during a sermon or leading in worship.

My experience is that we have been so anti-Charismatic in our Pneumatology that we downplay any kind of emotional experiences, and it doesn’t help that society (in general) also downplays the importance of emotion in the human experience. So I think that Piper’s re-acknowledgement of Edwards and the “affections” (emotions or whatever) has been, in many ways, a necessary restoration/balance.

Emotions have nothing to do with pneumatology which is precisely why the issue was addressed by E/f’s. Charismatics have implied, in the least, and often directly stated that certain forms of emotions are authentic gauges or conditions of spirituality, and particularly evidence of being either baptized in or with the Holy Spirit or being filled with the Holy Spirit. The Bible prescribes none of that. With regard to the work of the Holy Spirit and our being filled or yielding to God the Holy Spirit, emotions are a meaningless gauge for such a condition.

There is no such thing as a spiritual emotional “balance” as if zero emotions or a great deal of emotions are too extreme and somewhere in between is a biblical place. When we are told, “keep on allowing yourself to be filled with the Holy Spirit” or “keep on yielding to the Holy Spirit” there is nothing emotional in sight. It is an exercise of the mind and will.

You cannot gauge your spiritual condition based on emotions and you certainly cannot gauge whether God’s Spirit is controlling you based on emotions. There is no place, anywhere, that this is taught in the Bible. You may have emotions you may not but none are required and none are judged or presented as a measure or manifestation of that which is spiritual.

We are filled by God’s Spirit by faith. He says for us to yield and so we exercise our mind and will and by faith do so, trusting God that when we yield he fulfills his promised portion of the command, namely that we are filled with his spirit. Emotions are not presented either as a gauge that this has occurred nor as evidence or manifestation of spirituality.

Emotions have importance but not in this context.

Here’s the quote, its from his book. youll have you look it up, it’s late here and I can’t copy/paste—it’s bottom 66-67. I think its basically what Piper is saying but read it for yourself.

http://books.google.com/books?id=sv0rAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA67&lpg=PA67&dq=%22wi…

its interesting, God doesn’t say “feel love to me,” but He tells us to delight in him and to be glad in him and that his joy is our strength, for example. I think emotional response/involvement is assumed in those things. It’s not just some robot/computerized words we insert into our consciousness then mechanically do actions. So I think it’s fair to say that Piper is not telling us that God commands us: “produce certain emotions.” but God does command us to do and think and believe things that will produce emotional responses in us, and if they don’t, overall, in general, it’s a sign that something is wrong.

you probly disagree with that last line.

reading desiring God, I do question piper’s emphasis on God’s happiness. God is eternally, perfectly happy, though he does also experience other emotions simultaeously and perfectly; I’m not sure that his happiness is his main motivator though. piper says God is perfectly sovereign therefore he is perfectly happy. I’m not sure those things have to follow. hes also perfectly holy, and perfectly every-other-characteristic.

I need to read more. think more. maybe i will never sleep again.

BTW, you will be surprised reading a recent publication by Piper that is a departure from his emphasis on emotions. The book is titled, “Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God”.

It may be he, now, is making a shift in his overall emphasis and I certainly do not want to be amiss in crediting those works that I find useful with discretion. This book might provide Piper with an argument of his own against some of his previous assertions.

Or perhaps he hasn’t changed at all, and you have simply missed his point. I am no expert on Piper, but the Piper you are describing here is not the one I have seen in Desiring God, Future Grace, the Pleasures of God, When I Don’t Desire God, The Supremacy of God in Preaching, etc.

No amount of proof or argument really is going to make a difference with you, frankly. You have made up your mind and really you aren’t engaging with the point of discovery or mutual acknowledgment of points.

Or perhaps what you have offered simply isn’t convincing, that is to say, it doesn’t amount to proof or argument of convincing substance. Having briefly read your points here, I am not convinced in the least that you have understood Piper or mounted an argument against him. I am no expert on Piper though. But I would caution you against believing the idea that because someone is not persuaded by you they are therefore characterized by your above description. You might consider that perhaps your arguments aren’t as good as you think they are.

I am partially sympathetic to what Alex is saying, however, not everything. And I think some of the confusion on a lot of this is in definition. What is an emotion, what is an affection, etc? I don’t think we are all talking about the same thing, which is one thing Alex was trying to say earlier. And I think Alex would say what most of us consider emotions are actually actions.

As far as ideas on this, I tend to follow what Berkhof teaches in his ST. If you boil it all down, he says every motion that proceeds from us is either right or wrong. But morality in any motion does not come from how much joy we have in this motion. Morality finds its mooring in God. So whether you have an emotion or not, whether you do something out of duty or love is not the issue, but whether or not it is right or wrong based upon God. (his actual phrase was religion has its seat in the heart…not to be confused with feelings.)

Here is the section from Wilberforce, I think to understand it more, one has to understand 1) the book it is in (the topic of the entire book—“A Practical Preview of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians”) and 2) the chapter “Chief defects of the religious system of the bulk of professed Christians, in what regards our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit—with a Dissertation concerning the use of Passions in Religion”

Im starting the quote from the section after he discusses the two flaws of 1) emotionalism and 2) suppression or non-existence of emotion.

“Of the two most celebrated systems of philosophy, the one expressly confirmed the usurpation of the passions; while the other, despairing of being able to regulate, saw nothing left but to extinguish them. The former acted like a weak government, which gives independence to a rebellious province, which is cannot reduce. The latter formed its boasted scheme merely upon the plan of that barbarous policy, which composes the troubles of a turbulent land by the extermination of its inhabitants. This is the calm, not of order, but of inaction; it is not tranquility, but the stillness of death; [Latin quote … ]

Christianity, we might hope, would not be driven to any such wretched expedients; nor in fact does she condescend to them. They only thus undervalue her strength, who mistake her character, and are ignorant of her powers. It is her peculiar glory, and her main office, to bring all the faculties of our nature into their just subordination and dependence; that so the whole mas, complete in all his functions, may be restored to the true ends of his being, and be devoted, entire and harmonious, to the service and glory of God. “My son, give me thine heart”—“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart:”—Such are the direct and comprehensive claims which are made on us in the holy Scriptures. We can scarcely indeed look into any part of the sacred volume without meting abundant proofs, that it is the religion of the Affections with God particularly requires. Love, Zeal, Gratitude, Joy, Hope, Trust, are each of them specified; and are not allowed to us as weaknesses, but enjoined on us as our bounden duty, and commended to us as our acceptable worship. Where passages are so numerous, there would be no end of particular citations. Let it be sufficient therefore, to refer the reader to the word of God. There let him observe too, that as the lively exercise of the passions towards their legitimate object, is always spoken of with praise, so a cold, hard, unfeeling heart is represented as highly criminal. Lukewarmness is stated to be the object of God’s disgust and aversion; zeal and love, of his favour and delight; and the taking away of the heart of stone and the implanting of a warmer and more tender nature, in its stead, is specifically promised as the effect of his returning favour, and the work of his renewing grace. It is the prayer of an inspired teacher, in behalf of those for whom he was most interested, that their love” (already acknowledged to be great) “might abound yet more and more:” These modes of worship are set forth and prescribed, which are best calculated to excite the dormant affections, and to maintain them in lively exercise; [skip 14 words… .] If we look to the most eminet of the Scripture characters, we shall find them warm, zealous, and effectionate… . their souls appear to burn within them, their hearts kindle into rapture… . The man after God’s own heart must of all abounds in these glowing effusions; and his compositions appear to have been given us in order to set the tone, as it were, to all succeeding generations.” Pp. 65-67

[Riley] It is easy in our approach to our ministries to reduce genuine Christianity to right doctrine and right practice, because these are the easiest to judge based on externals. Piper, however, insists that right emotions are just as vital as these other essentials. He recognizes that it is possible to believe the right things intellectually and do the right things morally, and yet have no emotional inclination toward God. He relentlessly attacks the popular idea that obedience to God should be pursued from the motivation of mere duty, comparing it to a man who buys roses for his wife on their anniversary merely because it is his duty to do so. Instead, Piper encourages a pursuit for God that encompasses the entire person: mind, will, and emotions.

Alex, your use of this quote to springboard this thread is still confusing to me, and you keep insisting on it as proof of your position. I have gone back and looked at this article 4-5 times during this thread, and I still don’t understand why you are using two sentences from this paragraph. Its not supporting what you are saying. the article has two parts, one part of complimentary topics, the second part of cautions about Piper. This parag is in the complimentary section. Riley is agreeing with Piper’s emphasis.

So anyway, this still remains a point of confusion for me.

I’m not sure why you think I’m not interacting with you. Well, maybe I know why. And I’ll try to explain. You have reduced Piper’s stuff into your own language and word choice. And you state it in such a way that I have to agree that, for examlpe, A plus B equals C and that’s what Piper teaches and that’s it.

You say: Piper teaches that God commands us to emote.

You refute: the Bible/God never commands us to emote.

You expect me to interact on that level. I’m saying: I’m not really sure that is the accuate sum of what Piper is saying. I’m not sure you can reduce Piper’s book to that thesis, which is what you are doing, and with your succint rebuttal thereby judge his works as “heresy.”

I dislike repeating someone’s exact words in these types of conversations b/c, if what you are saying is true, then it’s true in different wording, too.

for example, I tried restating your position:

You think that Piper says: God says that we glorify Him most by experencing pleasurable emotions to him.

I actually think this is what you believe about Piper, and I’m trying to restate it. but for some reason, you are not able to restate yourself in these terms. You have you use your exact sentences (Piper says God commands us to emote) and terms in their exact order, and I think that is problematic if what you are saying (about Piper) is really true.

Also, although I grew up hearing your emotional theory from my mom–that right emotions follow right thoughts/deeds, that they are not essential to living daily life, that love is not an emotion, that joy does not equal feeling happy–I am now questioning the validity, or more accurately, the completeness, of that line of thought.

Just think, how on earth would we actually have relationships if we didn’t have functioning emotions? Have you ever read The Giver? It’s a book about a society without emotions.

anyway, those are some more thoughts, I am also in this conversation trying to figure out how to have a better explanation and understanding of emotions for my kids than what I grew up with. I dont think emotions are unimportant and incidental to God. Would I say they are vital to God? That my experience of emotion is very important to him? I guess that depends on what I mean by emotion, and what we really understand about its role in the human experience.

Also, to interact with a bit of your own wording, you say that emotions are intended by God for us to experience. So if you were to write a book about how we are to intentionally experience these emotions, what would it read like?

Can you say God intends us to experience emotions, but He doesnt command us to experience them? One needs to think about that for some time to give an accuate answer.

You see, is it even possible to command an emotional response? Not really; several factors have to line up to produce the emotional response. And you leave Piper on this level. But let’s bump it up.

Can you command someone to desire something? For example, “Susie, I command you to desire to marry Quinton.” “Jack, I command you to desire to be a lawyer.”

And leaving that on a mental or even an action level is incomplete. Susie can say to herself: I desire to marry Quinton. and she marries Quinton. But if there are not accompanying normal emotions in that “desire,” then is it really a desire?

and maybe that’s the rub. I think God made the desire to be experienced on both the mental, active, and emotional level in order to be complete.

It doesn’t mean that Susie will “feel” the same way every day, but there would be an underlying feeling of attraction or desire or love or whatever its called, in order to normally/healthily sustain the marital relationship.

maybe that’s the crux of it.

Just a question for Alex, per the earlier exchange on Wilberforce, devotion and whether devotion must reach the level of being felt.

The question: If our devotion does not express itself in some feeling, how do we even know it exists?

Surely, you’d agree that “devotion,” “love,” “desire for God,” “longing for God,” etc., are not cognitive phenomena. That is, one does not merely think or believe devotion. It is a state of the affections. So whatever it is in us that “desires,” this is where it happens. It is more than whatever in us “thinks.”

I suggest that the “feeling” Wilberforce (and probably Edwards) and others refer to in reference to devotion, desiring God, etc., should not to be equated exactly with “emotion,” but that “feeling” is nonetheless the right word. We do not think it. So some other verb is required. If we don’t think it or feel it, then what verb would properly describe our experience of devotion?

[Aaron Blumer] Just a question for Alex, per the earlier exchange on Wilberforce, devotion and whether devotion must reach the level of being felt.

The question: If our devotion does not express itself in some feeling, how do we even know it exists?

Surely, you’d agree that “devotion,” “love,” “desire for God,” “longing for God,” etc., are not cognitive phenomena. That is, one does not merely think or believe devotion. It is a state of the affections. So whatever it is in us that “desires,” this is where it happens. It is more than whatever in us “thinks.”

I suggest that the “feeling” Wilberforce (and probably Edwards) and others refer to in reference to devotion, desiring God, etc., should not to be equated exactly with “emotion,” but that “feeling” is nonetheless the right word. We do not think it. So some other verb is required. If we don’t think it or feel it, then what verb would properly describe our experience of devotion?

WW or Edwards may have had the understood function of emotions in view or they may have had an inappropriate grasp of them, I do not know and so I cannot speak for them and since there is little, right now, in the way of further explanation on the matter I will leave that part to future enlightenment.

But to answer your question, a good one and a revealing one, one that is an appropriate crossroads, my answer is yes, it is a cognitive phenomenon with one qualification of which I am sure we all have had in view, namely that all such processes, whether it is my position, Anne’s, yours or anyone elses’ proprietary view, are in the context of spiritual enlightenment or spiritual capacity.

So with that qualification I assumed was understood, now stated so that I am not misunderstood, let me state again, yes it is a cognitive function and the emotions that may or may not accompany it should be viewed as anecdotal. Emotions likely, yes, but necessary or the means, no. Their role remains anecdotal. However, in their anecdotal role or subordinate role, they still do have a valid function, I am not devaluing this, but it is not a spiritual function.

I believe the cognitive process itself has been undervalued. Our cognitive process in the spiritual state and under the tutelage or enlightenment of God’s Spirit is no mere academic or intellectual exercise. And it is precisely that to which God speaks in Romans 12:2b where he says, “be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

[Anne Sokol] I’m not sure why you think I’m not interacting with you.

I will tell you why with an example. Below in your post you make the following comment in question form:

[Anne Sokol] Just think, how on earth would we actually have relationships if we didn’t have functioning emotions?

This can only be done with the assumption that I have made such an argument. Not once, anywhere, have I argued for human relationships being intended to be without human emotions nor introduced any such scenario. This means you have imposed upon what I have said, your own schematics and intentions. I have clearly told you I am speaking of the rules and not the exceptions. And even with this exceptional context (an impossible hypothesis at that) in its setting with all of its extremes, it does not approach what I am arguing, namely the proper role, the proper function…the proper relationship of emotions with regard to spirituality.

[Anne Sokol] Well, maybe I know why. And I’ll try to explain. You have reduced Piper’s stuff into your own language and word choice.

I reject your charge here that I have “reduced Piper’s stuff” into my own language and word choice.

[Anne Sokol] And you state it in such a way that I have to agree that, for examlpe, A plus B equals C and that’s what Piper teaches and that’s it. You say: Piper teaches that God commands us to emote. You refute: the Bible/God never commands us to emote. You expect me to interact on that level. I’m saying: I’m not really sure that is the accuate sum of what Piper is saying. I’m not sure you can reduce Piper’s book to that thesis, which is what you are doing, and with your succint rebuttal thereby judge his works as “heresy.”

Show me again where I posted this formula? I did not nor did I post anything like it. If Piper does imply we are required to produce, have or experience certain emotions (I believe he has) and the Bible makes no such command, this is not a circular argument it is a linear one. But clearly it is not all I have presented in the way of the topic or of Piper’s assertions on the matter. There has been much more distinction presented that you left out. It is you that is now doing the reducing. So clearly I never said or considered this is an “accurate sum” of what Piper is teaching. And finally who said anything about heresy? Anne, you are way, way off the reservation on this one.

[Anne Sokol] I dislike repeating someone’s exact words in these types of conversations b/c, if what you are saying is true, then it’s true in different wording, too. for example, I tried restating your position:

You think that Piper says: God says that we glorify Him most by experencing pleasurable emotions to him.

I actually think this is what you believe about Piper, and I’m trying to restate it. but for some reason, you are not able to restate yourself in these terms.

It isn’t your job to restate what I have said but modify it based on what you think I really believe. It is your responsibility to use my exact words whether you like to or not or in the least their precise equivalent. This may be part of your problem in understanding what I am saying. In the process of considering what I am saying and restating it, you modify it and come out with a wrong understanding of what I have said.

And even if you have decided to use words you believe represent my thoughts you are, in my estimation, using words that do not function as appropriate equivalents and are failing to represent what I said. I would prefer, for the sake of the soundness of the discussion and clarity, that you use my words since this appears to be an issue.

[Anne Sokol] Also, although I grew up hearing your emotional theory from my mom–I am now questioning the validity, or more accurately, the completeness, of that line of thought.

Just think, how on earth would we actually have relationships if we didn’t have functioning emotions?

As I said above I certainly have never forwarded the notion that our emotions are irrelevant themselves or that they have no place since they were given by God with a specific purpose. It is the proper understanding of the role of emotions that I have been pursuing, particularly in light of spirituality.

[Anne Sokol] Also, to interact with a bit of your own wording, you say that emotions are intended by God for us to experience. So if you were to write a book about how we are to intentionally experience these emotions, what would it read like?

I must admit I am a bit disappointed in reading this question as if in my posts I have not addressed this to some degree.

[Anne Sokol] Can you say God intends us to experience emotions, but He doesnt command us to experience them?

Right, he intends for them to be experienced in their proper context but does not command them. That is absolutely accurate. Their presence and interaction within our being is understood anecdotally but not commanded.

[Anne Sokol] You see, is it even possible to command an emotional response? Not really; several factors have to line up to produce the emotional response. And you leave Piper on this level. But let’s bump it up.

Can you command someone to desire something? For example, “Susie, I command you to desire to marry Quinton.” “Jack, I command you to desire to be a lawyer.”

And leaving that on a mental or even an action level is incomplete. Susie can say to herself: I desire to marry Quinton. and she marries Quinton. But if there are not accompanying normal emotions in that “desire,” then is it really a desire?

and maybe that’s the rub. I think God made the desire to be experienced on both the mental, active, and emotional level in order to be complete.

Your view that a “desire” must involve emotions is one that I reject and will continue to do so. I will continue to assert that emotions may or may not be present but they are not essential or require to validate “desire” or any other state of mind. I do understand they are likely and/or possible in many cases but certainly not all which is but one of the several reasons any attempt to prescribe or treat as remedial, certain emotions for spirituality, will always fail.

One does not have to have emotions to desire something and this is where we remain opposed. One may have them one may not, but anecdotal experiences do not validate or invalidate one’s desires or any other thought they have.

[Anne Sokol] It doesn’t mean that Susie will “feel” the same way every day, but there would be an underlying feeling of attraction or desire or love or whatever its called, in order to normally/healthily sustain the marital relationship.

I am not discussing marriage, I am discussing spirituality. Again you are veering off the topic to a general discussion that really does not serve the issue. But I will reply, being the generous person I am. Your definition of attraction being a “feeling” is one I also reject. You may have feelings or you may not but attraction is a state of the mentality and the emotions that accompany it, while no doubt pleasurable, are still anecdotal and are not valid sources of judgment or determination regarding one’s attraction to the other. In fact, I assert they undependable and injuriously subjective when relied upon in that manner.

So having been satisfied with Riley’s assessment or summation let’s see what Piper says that may be one of the many reasons his Christian Hedonism doctrine severely errs on the issue we have been discussing (bold mine):

http://cdn.desiringgod.org/pdf/books_bwdd/bwdd_all.pdf (pg 26)

Now let’s bring these two emotions together. On the one hand, we have

desiring, yearning, wanting, craving, longing, thirsting, etc., and on the

other hand, we have joy, delight, pleasure, gladness, happiness, satisfaction,

etc. What is the difference?

Well, John, I will tell you what the difference is, they are not emotions, they are states of the mind. Emotions often come with them but so does sweating, pupil dilation and so on. These are anecdotal affects not the things themselves come from thinking.

It is this failure of Pipers to understand and apply the critical distinction that leads him to the very erring conclusions on the function of emotions that I have been discussing.

An interesting synopsis by Crossway on the Piper series, “When I Don’t Desire God: How to Fight for Joy” states:

http://www.crossway.org/books/when-i-dont-desire-god-dvd/

Yet as John Piper teaches in this DVD and its companion When I Don’t Desire God Study Guide, emotions are commanded everywhere in Scripture. They’re not just instructions to think a certain way but to feel a certain way…Though we don’t have complete control of our emotions, eternity hangs on the presence of proper affections for God.

Really? Clearly the lack of necessary distinction is reflected by Crossway’s presentation of Piper’s material. Maybe Riley is wrong, maybe Crossway is wrong, maybe I am wrong, but Piper’s own words are his own words.

But the truth is, I am not wrong, Piper does fail to make the important distinctions in the relationship between mentality, our will and the function of emotions in the spiritual life as do many believers as a result of this kind of teaching. Ultimately it ends up just where the Crossway statement lands, in a place of unbiblical assertion and impossible execution for the believer, namely that they are required to “feel a certain way” and that their emotions are required to line up in some fashion, if they wish to have the degree of spirituality Piper implies awaits them upon meeting these conditions.

But just for more information, on page pp 81-82 in his Desiring God book Piper states (bold mine):

“Worshiping in spirit is the opposite of worshiping in merely external ways. It is the opposite of empty formalism and traditionalism. Worshiping in truth is the opposite of worship based on an inadequate view of God. Worship must have heart and worship must engage emotions and thought.

Good luck finding emotions being required in Scripture.

As I said about John Piper’s teachings.

He lacks the kind of attending theological perspicacity in his approach necessary in order to make the appropriate distinctions on the matter. His remedies and prescriptions, while at times may include recognizable elements of biblical doctrines, patterns and conclusions, also contain toxic elements that render his solutions in this case to be an inadvisable elixir.

[Alex Guggenheim]

[Anne Sokol] I’m not sure why you think I’m not interacting with you.

I will tell you why with an example. Below in your post you make the following comment in question form:

[Anne Sokol] Just think, how on earth would we actually have relationships if we didn’t have functioning emotions?

This can only be done with the assumption that I have made such an argument. Not once, anywhere, have I argued for human relationships being intended to be without human emotions nor introduced any such scenario. This means you have imposed upon what I have said, your own schematics and intentions. I have clearly told you I am speaking of the rules and not the exceptions. And even with this exceptional context (an impossible hypothesis at that) in its setting with all of its extremes, it does not approach what I am arguing, namely the proper role, the proper function…the proper relationship of emotions with regard to spirituality.

I think this is quite essential to the conversation. you box this discussion into emotion in the realm of spirituality, and that means a relationship with God. So if relationships, as God intended, are possible without emotions, that has a lot to do with our spirituality. We are in relationship with God. Does is require emotions?

[Alex Guggenheim]

[Anne Sokol] Well, maybe I know why. And I’ll try to explain. You have reduced Piper’s stuff into your own language and word choice.

I reject your charge here that I have “reduced Piper’s stuff” into my own language and word choice.

[Anne Sokol] And you state it in such a way that I have to agree that, for examlpe, A plus B equals C and that’s what Piper teaches and that’s it. You say: Piper teaches that God commands us to emote. You refute: the Bible/God never commands us to emote. You expect me to interact on that level. I’m saying: I’m not really sure that is the accuate sum of what Piper is saying. I’m not sure you can reduce Piper’s book to that thesis, which is what you are doing, and with your succint rebuttal thereby judge his works as “heresy.”

Show me again where I posted this formula? I did not nor did I post anything like it. If Piper does imply we are required to produce, have or experience certain emotions (I believe he has) and the Bible makes no such command, this is not a circular argument it is a linear one. But clearly it is not all I have presented in the way of the topic or of Piper’s assertions on the matter. There has been much more distinction presented that you left out. It is you that is now doing the reducing. So clearly I never said or considered this is an “accurate sum” of what Piper is teaching. And finally who said anything about heresy? Anne, you are way, way off the reservation on this one.

I actually got that reasoning from going back through and reading your posts once again very carefully.

In this thread you have said:

[Alex Guggenheim said] 1) The Bible at no place and at no times demands emotions.

2)Clearly here Piper equate emotions as equally capable as our mind and will of initiating pursuit and in fact, sustaining its strive, toward God. The Bible makes so such demand, makes no such equation and it is an elementary mishandling of both an understanding of what emotions are and the Scriptures themselves for Piper to assert as much.

3)Piper is wrong. This is a critical error. Affections may include in its view our “emotions” but affections are not primarily emotions, they are primarily thoughts, it simply is understood that our emotions follow…an idea about emotions I have repeated and are observed constantly in Scripture.

4) asserted by Piper, as explained by Riley which appropriately reflects a teaching of Piper’s, is that we are required by Scripture to produce emotions favorable or reflective of something spiritual. And where the Scriptures give no such command we may not introduce one. This is the most elementary point that rejects this Piperistic error.

5) But I do intend to communicate that it is not our emotions that we can use either as a guage for or an an instrument toward spirituality. And this is what Piper asserts, in part and in great error.

6) But I would rather stay focused most singularly on the assertion that God demands certain emotions from us. He does not.

7) This is because he demands certain emotions be present in others, though the Bible never issues such a requirement, in order to qualify their relationship, walk, love or committment to God.

8) Not because someone might or might not have emotions while believing and doing what is right but because the Bible does not make such a demand and if anyone is guilty of separating emotions into a context in which they do not belong it is Piper!

9) the Bible calls us to believe, not emote!

10) Piper has elevated his unique demands on par with Scripture.

[Alex Guggenheim]

[Anne Sokol] I dislike repeating someone’s exact words in these types of conversations b/c, if what you are saying is true, then it’s true in different wording, too. for example, I tried restating your position:

You think that Piper says: God says that we glorify Him most by experencing pleasurable emotions to him.

I actually think this is what you believe about Piper, and I’m trying to restate it. but for some reason, you are not able to restate yourself in these terms.

It isn’t your job to restate what I have said but modify it based on what you think I really believe. It is your responsibility to use my exact words whether you like to or not or in the least their precise equivalent. This may be part of your problem in understanding what I am saying. In the process of considering what I am saying and restating it, you modify it and come out with a wrong understanding of what I have said.

Alex, that is the exact purpose of restating, to gauge or evaluate one’s understanding. If I am mis-stating you, take what I say, and modify it to be what you think it should be. If you cannot, why not? At least try. I am not the only unable to restate your position, apparently.

[Alex Guggenheim]

[Anne Sokol] Also, to interact with a bit of your own wording, you say that emotions are intended by God for us to experience. So if you were to write a book about how we are to intentionally experience these emotions, what would it read like?

I must admit I am a bit disappointed in reading this question as if in my posts I have not addressed this to some degree.

well, to use your own words, emotions are “anectodal” (a story?), for amplification, and appreciation. You have repeated this several times. And when you say they are intended, you have in mind a passive intention—an amplification, an appreciation.

[Alex Guggenheim] Your view that a “desire” must involve emotions is one that I reject and will continue to do so. I will continue to assert that emotions may or may not be present but they are not essential or require to validate “desire” or any other state of mind. I do understand they are likely and/or possible in many cases but certainly not all which is but one of the several reasons any attempt to prescribe or treat as remedial, certain emotions for spirituality, will always fail.

then we will disagree.

[Alex Guggenheim]

[Anne Sokol] It doesn’t mean that Susie will “feel” the same way every day, but there would be an underlying feeling of attraction or desire or love or whatever its called, in order to normally/healthily sustain the marital relationship.

I am not discussing marriage, I am discussing spirituality. Again you are veering off the topic to a general discussion that really does not serve the issue.

It certainly is a valid comparision and quite relevant to the discussion. The relationship we are created to experience in marriage mirrors the relationship we have with God, intimacy, love, commitment, etc. God uses this language to describe our relationship with him.

[Alex Guggenheim] Your definition of attraction being a “feeling” is one I also reject. You may have feelings or you may not but attraction is a state of the mentality and the emotions that accompany it, while no doubt pleasurable, are still anecdotal and are not valid sources of judgment or determination regarding one’s attraction to the other. In fact, I assert they undependable and injuriously subjective when relied upon in that manner.

Wilberforce (and others), in my estimation, does a lot better job of describing the place/significance of emotion than you do:

[Wilberforce] It is her [Christianity’s] peculiar glory, and her main office, to bring all the faculties of our nature into their just subordination and dependence; that so the whole mas, complete in all his functions, may be restored to the true ends of his being, and be devoted, entire and harmonious, to the service and glory of God.

I disagree with you—emotions are not like fingers that we can live without.

About emotion and reason, i think you are also mistaken. Do you have any other sources, besides yourself, to back up your assertions that all these things like devotion, etc, are strictly cognitive? Look at the Elliot case:

[“We Feel Fine”] Elliot’s intelligence, his ability to move, and his ability to use language were not harmed by the operation. But, like Phineas Gage, Elliot seemed to have lost the ability to make decisions and plan for the future… “The tragedy of this otherwise healthy and intelligent man was that he was neither stupid nor ignorant, and yet he acted often as if he were,” said Damasio [his neurologist]. “The machinery for his decision making was so flawed that he could no longer be an effective social being.”

Damasio struggled to figure out why Elliot had lost the ability to plan and make decisions. After all, his reason stayed entirely intact. Elliot scored above average on a battery of tests to determine the state of his rational mind—for long-term memory, short-term memory, perceptual ability, new learning, language, the ability to do arithmetic, the ability to make estimates based on incomplete knowledge, and logical competence. “After all these tests,” wrote Damasio, “Elliot emerged as a man with normal intellect who was unable to decide properly, especially when the decision involved personal and social matters. Could it be that reasoning and decision making in the personal and social domain were different from reasoning and thinking in domains concerning objects, space, numbers and words?”

It was at this point, that Damasio gave Elliot a test that showed one additional post-operation change. Elliot has lost the ability to feel emotion. The case of Elliot led Damasio to the conclusion that the age-old dichotomy between emotions and reason is false. Emotions are crucial to reason, especially reasoning and social and personal issues. And while too much emotion can obstruct reason, according to Damasio, reduction in emotion can be an equally important source of irrational behavior. “The cold-bloodedness of Elliot’s reasoning,” writes Damasio, “prevented him from assigning different values to different options, and made his decision-making landscape hopelessly flat.” http://books.google.com/books?id=Lz5U6zbGX3wC&pg=PA46&lpg=PA46&dq=Gage+…

[Williamson] On “intelligence” and personality tests, Elliot seemed like a normal, well-adjusted person, but something was obviously not working. After observing Elliot tell his tragic story without feeling anything, Damasio started concentrating on Elliot’s emotional well-being. Damasio began to take note that Elliot always seemed to be detached from his feelings. Everything Elliot did was on the same monotone level: “I never saw a tinge of emotion in my many hours of conversation with him: no sadness, no impatience, no frustration with my incessant and repetitious questioning”(45). An experiment by Daniel Tranel showing Elliot disturbing pictures of injured people, natural disasters, and complete destruction of communities illicited no emotional reaction in Elliot. The most insightful part of this experience was Elliot’s own realization that his feelings had changed. He noted that before the surgery he would have reacted differently, but now he felt nothing… .

This is where Damasio starts thinking about emotion and feeling in decision making, asking whether there were connections with patients like Gage and Elliot who were emotionally neutral, and their inability to function in a community. He hypothesizes that, “reduction in emotion may constitute an equally important source of irrational behavior” (53).

Reading some about “emotional intelligence” was also interesting. I’m sure you’ve studied it already, though.

So, do you have any proof or other sources of information regarding the assertions you are making about emotional/cognitive divisions? It would be interesting.

In parting, from J.I. Packer:

Think now of entrenched intellectualists in the evangelical world: a second familiar breed, though not so common as the previous type. Some of them seem to be victims of an insecure temperament and inferiority feelings, others to be reacting out of pride or pain against the zaniness of experientialism as they have perceived it, but whatever the source of their syndrome the behaviour-pattern in which they express it is distinctive and characteristic. Constantly they present themselves as rigid, argumentative, critical Christians, champions of God’s truth for whom orthodoxy is all. Upholding and defending their own view of that truth, whether Calvinist or Arminian, dispensational or Pentecostal, national church reformist or Free Church separatist, or whatever it might be, is their leading interest, and they invest themselves unstintingly in this task. There is little warmth about them; relationally they are remote; experiences do not mean much to them; winning the battle for mental correctness is their one great purpose. They see, truly enough, that in our anti-rational, feeling-oriented, instant-gratification culture conceptual knowledge of divine things is undervalued, and they seek with passion to right the balance at this point. They understand the priority of the intellect well; the trouble is that intellectualism, expressing itself in endless campaigns for their own brand of right thinking, is almost if not quite all that they can offer, for it is almost if not quite all that they have. They too, so I urge, need exposure to the Puritan heritage for their maturing.

That last statement might sound paradoxical, since it will not have escaped the reader that the above profile corresponds to what many still suppose the typical Puritan to have been. But when we ask what emphases Puritan tradition contains to counter arid intellectualism, a whole series of points springs to view. First, true religion claims the affections as well as the intellect; it is essentially, in Richard Baxter’s phrase, ‘heart-work’. Second, theological truth is for practice. William Perkins defined theology as the science of living blessedly for ever; William Ames called it the science of living to God. Third, conceptual knowledge kills if one does not move on from knowing notions to knowing the realities to which they refer - in this case, from knowing about God to a relational acquaintance with God himself. Fourth, faith and repentance, issuing in a life of love and holiness, that is, of gratitude expressed in goodwill and good works, are explicitly called for in the gospel. Fifth, the Spirit is given to lead us into close companionship with others in Christ. Sixth, the discipline of discursive meditation is meant to keep us ardent and adoring in our love affair with God. Seventh, it is ungodly and scandalous to become a firebrand and cause division in the church, and it is ordinarily nothing more reputable than spiritual pride in its intellectual form that leads men to create parties and splits. The great Puritans were as humble-minded and warm-hearted they were clear-headed, as fully oriented to people as they were to Scripture, and as passionate for peace as they were for truth. They would certainly have diagnosed today’s fixated Christian intellectualists as spiritually stunted, not in their zeal for the form of sound words but in their lack of zeal for anything else; and the thrust of Puritan teaching about God’s truth in man’s life is still potent to ripen such souls into whole and mature human beings.

http://www.apuritansmind.com/puritanarticles/jipackerquest.htm

Anne, I appreciate your contributions to the discussion.

You’ve brought some interesting perspective as well as the excerpts from various sources.

[Alex] But to answer your question, a good one and a revealing one, one that is an appropriate crossroads, my answer is yes, it is a cognitive phenomenon with one qualification of which I am sure we all have had in view, namely that all such processes, whether it is my position, Anne’s, yours or anyone elses’ proprietary view, are in the context of spiritual enlightenment or spiritual capacity.

So with that qualification I assumed was understood…

I’m afraid I don’t know what this means.

To clarify, is it your position that we think joy rather than feel it? Devotion is nothing more than series of thoughts which happen to be “in the context of spiritual enlightenment”? Would you say that fear is just thinking a certain way also? Anger?

I’ll leave it to readers to judge how plausible that is.

But let me try another angle: do you see any difference at all between thoughts that cross the mind vs. desires/affections?

One more question:

Matt. 10:28, Psalm 4:4, 2Cor.7:10, James 4:9, Phil 3:18

Do really believe all of these “states of mind”? Even trembling? Weeping? (FWIW, my mind does not tremble… nor does it shed tears)

[Alex] But to answer your question, a good one and a revealing one, one that is an appropriate crossroads, my answer is yes, it is a cognitive phenomenon with one qualification of which I am sure we all have had in view, namely that all such processes, whether it is my position, Anne’s, yours or anyone elses’ proprietary view, are in the context of spiritual enlightenment or spiritual capacity.

So with that qualification I assumed was understood…

[Aaron Blumer] I’m afraid I don’t know what this means.

Which words or concepts are you unfamiliar with? You will have to be more specific.

[Aaron Blumer] To clarify, is it your position that we think joy rather than feel it? Devotion is nothing more than series of thoughts which happen to be “in the context of spiritual enlightenment”? Would you say that fear is just thinking a certain way also? Anger?

I’ll leave it to readers to judge how plausible that is.

First there is no plausibility for the readers to judge since this does not represent my views so any anxiousness to score a point here has died as quickly. But clearly you have not been paying attention to the details of my posts if you have to ask this or assume I may be asserting this. Quite disappointing but not surprising noting your refusal in the past to read thoroughly, my posts (in other threads).

But being the gracious person I am I will respond sufficiently so that you may have enough information that will enable to you ask further questions. The emotions we have which are responding to our thinking are anecdotal. That is the emotions are not the source of the joy, our thinking is. As I have said repeatedly, we likely will experience emotions, this is the intended design by God but emotions themselves have an appropriate relationship and function in our being, particularly with respect to that which is spiritual and in general, our soul itself. And with respect to spirituality, emotions are never presented as a mechanism, means or gauge for anything spiritual.

So as we think divine thoughts, as we fill our minds with divine viewpoint, our emotions, acting as they are designed, will enable us to experience in many ways those thoughts which are often called feelings as well. But they are responders, not initiators nor are they competent mechanisms or intended mechanisms for spiritual determination. This is not their function.

The Bible never says, “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your emotions”. Why? Because it understands their design. As to fear, anger or any other state of mind that can elicit emotions, the response is the same, they are states of mind. The emotions simply are responses to these states of mind elicited by the thoughts.

Now there is such thing as one being controlled by emotions without thought, this is called irrationality.

[Alex] But let me try another angle: do you see any difference at all between thoughts that cross the mind vs. desires/affections?

One more question:

Matt. 10:28, Psalm 4:4, 2Cor.7:10, James 4:9, Phil 3:18

Do really believe all of these “states of mind”? Even trembling? Weeping? (FWIW, my mind does not tremble… nor does it shed tears)

Matthew 10:28, yes it is a state of mind but again, it is likely to be accompanied by certain emotions, but those emotions themselves are responding to the thinking in which the fear is generated. Psalm 4:4 rather surprising that you have missed this one seeing even elementary hermeneutics would keep you from raising it as a point. It is a poetically descriptive passage not a prescription for “trembling” itself. Trembling represents something here, the state of mind that produces it, not the by-product. 2Cor. 7:10, again yes, this is a state of mind. It indeed has a strong attachment to the emotions it generally elicits but the emotions themselves are not what is in view, it is the state of mind which in fact is what causes one to repent.

Your fundamental issue, here, is not understanding that a state of mind, while often accompanied by the emotions that may elicit, is still that, a state of mind and not an emotion. And while we can have emotions in view with language that brings with it familiar contexts of certain emotional displays or experiences, these are still anecdotal to the the words themselves such a fear, joy, anger and so on. Those are states of the mind and the emotions attach themselves to that mentality, whatever it is.

this is a very interesting read about emotions and reason. The whole page is interesting and not long. It states:

Emotions and reasons are essentially one unit; they work together. Emotions select reasons in our mind that are most important, then we use those as a filtration device to determine how we are going to behave (i.e. will we buy or won’t we all depends on how the marketer fulfills these filters). Understanding these emotionally charged reasons can be the key to success in any marketing environment.

http://emotionresearch.net/whyemotions.rightbrainleftbrain.php

This is a pretty good explanation

Is love an act of the will, or an emotion?

January 23, 2006 | by Matt Perman | topic: Christian Hedonism

We believe that love is indeed an act of the will. But we need to go one step further and affirm that love is also an emotion. Affections are part of the essence of love. These emotions might not always be intense, but they are always there to some extent.

One piece of evidence for this is found in 1 Corinthians 13:1-3, where Paul says that you can give away all your possessions to the poor and still not have love. Evidently, then, love is more than an act of the will, because you can have a sacrificial act of the will without having love. Also note that in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, love is said to involve various affections: “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

That love involves not only the will, but also the affections, is born out in everyday experience. Imagine a husband who seeks the welfare of his wife, but doesn’t enjoy doing it. Would his wife feel loved? We doubt it. Even if the husband did not dislike serving his wife, but simply was indifferent in doing it, she still would not feel loved. This is because we intuitively recognize that emotions are an essential part of love. Love includes not just willing, but also preferring and wanting and delighting. [bold mine]

http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/articles/is-love-an-act-of-…

This thread is re-opened after review and editing by the moderating team. Our goal is that discussions be focused on ideas, not personalities and character assessments, so we’ve done some trimming to redirect the thread a bit.

Please do not discuss moderator action in the thread- but if you have questions or concerns or even objections about/to moderator action, please contact someone on the Moderator Team via PM or email. Thanks.

The general topic is an assessment of John Piper’s ministry- here’s a summary of Mr. Riley’s blog post to refresh our memories:

In the main, Piper’s books spur Christians to love the Lord with all of their heart, soul, mind and strength. Piper articulates the claims of the gospel to modern believers in such a way that he challenges the far-too-comfortable lives of middle-class suburban Christianity. When read with discretion, he provides much that is beneficial to Fundamental believers and churches. However, because of Piper’s neglect of biblical separatism, Fundamentalists cannot give a blanket endorsement to his ministry.

I was looking at an entry on Emotions in a topical dictionary last night on the subject of Emotions. Among other passages, they pointed out Ezra 3:

When the seventh month came, and the children of Israel were in the towns, the people gathered as one man to Jerusalem. Then arose Jeshua the son of Jozadak, with his fellow priests, and Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel with his kinsmen, and they built the altar of the God of Israel, to offer burnt offerings on it, as it is written in the Law of Moses the man of God. They set the altar in its place, for fear was on them because of the peoples of the lands, and they offered burnt offerings on it to the Lord, burnt offerings morning and evening. And they kept the Feast of Booths, as it is written, and offered the daily burnt offerings by number according to the rule, as each day required, and after that the regular burnt offerings, the offerings at the new moon and at all the appointed feasts of the Lord, and the offerings of everyone who made a freewill offering to the Lord. From the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to the Lord. But the foundation of the temple of the Lord was not yet laid. So they gave money to the masons and the carpenters, and food, drink, and oil to the Sidonians and the Tyrians to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the sea, to Joppa, according to the grant that they had from Cyrus king of Persia.

Rebuilding the Temple

Now in the second year after their coming to the house of God at Jerusalem, in the second month, Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua the son of Jozadak made a beginning, together with the rest of their kinsmen, the priests and the Levites and all who had come to Jerusalem from the captivity. They appointed the Levites, from twenty years old and upward, to supervise the work of the house of the Lord. And Jeshua with his sons and his brothers, and Kadmiel and his sons, the sons of Judah, together supervised the workmen in the house of God, along with the sons of Henadad and the Levites, their sons and brothers.

And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests in their vestments came forward with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise the Lord, according to the directions of David king of Israel. And they sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the Lord,

“For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever toward Israel.”

And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid. But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ houses, old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house being laid, though many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping, for the people shouted with a great shout, and the sound was heard far away.

I had been looking for a passage where emotions would be the natural outflowing of something that happened, and I thought this was an excellent one. So I figured I’d share it.

It’s interesting to note also the times that God commanded “emotional” reponses.

Joel 1:13

Gird yourselves with sackcloth

And lament, O priests;

Wail, O ministers of the altar!

Come, spend the night in sackcloth

O ministers of my God,

For the grain offering and the drink offering

Are withheld from the house of your God.

James 4:9

Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.

Nehemiah 8:9 Then Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who were instructing the people said to them all, “This day is sacred to the LORD your God. Do not mourn or weep.” For all the people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the Law.

[Alex] Matthew 10:28, yes it is a state of mind but again, it is likely to be accompanied by certain emotions, but those emotions themselves are responding to the thinking in which the fear is generated. Psalm 4:4 rather surprising that you have missed this one seeing even elementary hermeneutics would keep you from raising it as a point. It is a poetically descriptive passage not a prescription for “trembling” itself. Trembling represents something here, the state of mind that produces it, not the by-product. 2Cor. 7:10, again yes, this is a state of mind. It indeed has a strong attachment to the emotions it generally elicits but the emotions themselves are not what is in view, it is the state of mind which in fact is what causes one to repent.

OK… but if all these passages are intended to mean “have state of mind X that is likely to be accompanied by emotion Y,” why do none of them say that but rather simply command the “emotion”?

But I should probably clarify again that in m own view “emotion” is probably not the best word, but it seems to be what Piper uses for anything that can be felt. Alex, if I understand him right, shares that general definition of “emotion,” but denies that it should ever be the goal or is ever commanded in Scripture. It’s always a byproduct? A follow up question I have for him is Is feeling/”emotion” ever an intended consequence of the commanded “state of mind”?

[Aaron Blumer]

OK… but if all these passages are intended to mean “have state of mind X that is likely to be accompanied by emotion Y,” why do none of them say that but rather simply command the “emotion”?

To answer your question:

1. First, it does not state with the detail you described above because each word and its use in a context requires from its reader the comprehension of both definitions and contextual grasp. That is, when we use a word or words in a phrase we do so with the understanding that they possess definitions which often are embodied by many words therefore we use singular or abbreviated terms to represent extended concepts. This is the expeditious use of vocabulary. Here, while we understand the dramatic view of emotional display is part of the dressing of some words, that display is not its substance, rather a commonly anecdotal accompaniment. Therefore both definitions and context must be properly developed for an appropriate approach.

Here is a wonderful biblical illustration. Genesis 9:6a, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed”. Here we have a prescription which refers to the consequences of murder. That is, we are to understand that if a man murders another man, by man he is to be executed.

But instead of used the words “murder” or “execute” the phrase “sheds the blood of man” is used. In your linguistic schematics one would then be forced to ask, “if this passage and others like it mean to take a life, sometimes validly and sometimes unjustly, why do none of them say that but simply talk about making someone bleed”?

The reason for this is just like the above. The shedding of human blood to cause death demonstrates a form of killing that by way of observation and imagery presents murder and the regrettable but necessary execution of that murderer, in its most violent and gory contexts (one might also contend that killing by way of cutting was most common at the time but this is a sidebar acknowledgment that has no bearing on the issue). However, if we pursue the text with the fashion of your hermeneutic we must come away with the belief that this is not talking about “murder” or” execution” but simply making someone bleed or at best taking a life, only by means of making them bleed to death and executing, only by means of causing someone to bleed to death.

Emotional imagery is appropriate because of the human mentality. We think with literal depictions in many cases. Often the literal depiction of someone sorrowing is with the image of shedding tears. So we use the icon of tears to represent a case of sorrow. Yet the tear itself is not the sorrow, it (the sorrow) is the state of mind. Regularly certain people blush when they are embarrassed. Yet one can be embarrassed without this phenomenon. Embarrassment is a state of mind. It is the result of cognitive awareness. And routinely it is accompanied by emotions that differ with each person. But neither the emotions nor the turning red in the face are the actual embarrassment, rather they are elicited from the state of mind.



2. Which brings me to the second response. I do not believe you are not distinguishing between thoughts and emotions and their relationship. This is highlighted by your claim that what is being referred to are emotions:

[Aaron Blumer] why do none of them say that but rather simply command the “emotion”?

Again to the above in its sum. The vocabulary words used in Scripture which compel a person to produce the image of someone displaying emotion does so illustratively but not definitely. Emotions themselves are not the objective. Because we cannot see thought but we can see its common anecdotes, when we come across words such as crying, joyous, or words themselves which are those common anecdotal responses are used, such as shedding tears or trembling, this imagery arises in our minds as literal representations or icons of a cognitive condition. But again, even when words that depict commonly anecdotal emotional or physical reactions are used, these references are not with the objective that you reproduce the anecdotal emotions or displays that may accompany a certain frame of mind, rather that you have that frame of mind.

_______

[Aaron Blumer] But I should probably clarify again that in m own view “emotion” is probably not the best word, but it seems to be what Piper uses for anything that can be felt. Alex, if I understand him right, shares that general definition of “emotion,” but denies that it should ever be the goal or is ever commanded in Scripture. It’s always a byproduct? A follow up question I have for him is Is feeling/”emotion” ever an intended consequence of the commanded “state of mind”?

My position, oft stated in this thread, is that the Bible does not command emotions, it commands thinking. And my location on the issue is due to what I believe is the result of understanding thought and emotion in their proper context and with their appropriate distinctions. But as well and more importantly, it is also due to the Scriptures revealing that our responses to God are not based on our emotional conditions but our cognitive processes which involves the illuminated mind hearing, believing and applying divine truth through the power of God’s Spirit and the exercise of human volition.

Emotions themselves are not spiritual means, mechanisms or gauges. They are never presented in Scripture as such. It is the human mind that is illuminated by God, not human emotions. Therefore their role within the Christian must be understood in light of this. We know emotions often accompany thought. Therefore the Christian is to consider the role they play. And that role is to respond to our thinking which is unique in formula (though generally common in certain expressions) with each believer enabling that person to experience in greater degree through their physiology, that which has been ascertained through their rational processes.

So when we have thought and emotion in view with respect to a passage of the Bible (a validity I have accepted all along) they simply must be understood in their proper context, namely emotions as responders to our thinking. It is our thinking that God commands and our emotions that are designed by divine intent to respond to thinking (for saint and sinner), and for the Christian our thinking it to be one of divine viewpoint. Therefore, I submit, that what is in view in any passage containing emotions such as Proverbs 23:15 “My son, if your heart is wise, then my heart will be glad”, when it involves a proper interpretation of the context, is thought or human rational as primary, governing and objective and human emotions concomitantly as secondary, subordinate, subjective.

I believe there is a greater debt to the topic than what currently lies within many of the treatments of thought and emotions and their substance and relationship and hermeneutic boundaries.

I have been mulling this over more, and one thing that occurred to me, about felt or emotional expression, is that, as a teen, I thought that the more mature I become, the less I will be “emotional.” But thinking about this thread, I realized that as I become more mature, I become less “emotional” about some issues and more “emotional” about others. I become less emotionally responsive to immature things, and more emotionally responsive to God’s truths.

I think Alex refers to this; about our thoughts and values reaching an emotional level. and there’s a lot I agree with in some ways. But other things, I still am not sure about. Like this:

[Alex Guggenheim] Your love for God is based on your will there is no other basis. You choose to value or not value God. But it is not true that we simply will to do so. What do I mean? God must be known to be loved. And if you know God minimally as a believer in diapers, you can only have minimal love for God. You can have maximum exercise of will, even as an infant, but you will have minimal love because you cannot love what you do not know.

As you come to know God (which comes interestingly through the exercise of the will to value God’s Word and to take the time to be taught it) you will know more of God to which you may respond with your will to either value this part of God (which is an exercise of love) or to not value it.

So neither I or the Scriptures reduce it to “willing ourselves to think ourselves into love for God” because this statement leaves out the process of knowing God. But it is right that love is an exercise of the will, not emotions.

I am not sure about this, because this article about the Elliot man specifically says that we cannot make value judgments without emotions.

[We Feel Fine] Emotions are crucial to reason, especially reasoning and social and personal issues. And while too much emotion can obstruct reason, according to Damasio, reduction in emotion can be an equally important source of irrational behavior. “The cold-bloodedness of Elliot’s reasoning,” writes Damasio, “prevented him from assigning different values to different options, and made his decision-making landscape hopelessly flat.” http://books.google.com/books?id=Lz5U6zbGX3wC&pg=PA46&lpg=PA46&dq=Gage+E…

Also, the I Cor 13 passage says you can know everything, have all faith, do acts of the will, but still not have love. I’m not saying emotion is the missing ingredient, but i”m not sure that correct values are either, if assigning value is possible without emotion.

It’s interesting to think about. Like is emotion comparable to my tone of voice? I can say somthing, and it’s meaning can hinge on my tone of voice. but God never addresses tone of voice. however, it is very real and it could even be considered sin when I am mean or sarcastic in my tone of voice. and it is always present even when i don’t think consciously about it.

So anyway, while i do think that emotions follow thoughts, i don’t think that is all they do.

it’s been such an intriguing thread! i am learning a lot and experimenting with my emotions.

Alex…looking for the essence of your argument. I may need another mug of tea and a reread or two.

I think though, that there is nothing there that adequately explains:

Why James, as one example of many, says weep and mourn if he really means “think repentant thoughts” (that weep and mourn are what we today call emotions is just not reasonably disputable)

I’m also not seeing, yet (maybe will see it more clearly later) whether, in your view, these attendant emotions are ever desirable or always merely coincidental. That is, in the case of repentance, does the weeping and morning itself (supposing for a moment that these are not “emotions” but are something else) have any value at all or is it simply a worthless byproduct that may be harmless but is never of any value?

So I’m still stuck on “if what we feel doesn’t matter at all ever, why doesn’t Scripture go to greater lengths to distinguish thoughts from feelings and why does it so often skip the thoughts entirely (in what it actually says) and say rejoice, fear, mourn, be angry, etc.?

I accept that “feelings” are frequently not directly selectable. That is, there is often (usually?) no button to press to produce genuine fear or genuine joy or genuine sorrow. Actors make big bucks because they know how to find their internal switches and enable the physical manifestations of these emotions… and when they do it well, they really feel them. But they are ultimately not genuine because the underlying affections aren’t there.

The actress is not really a coworker who is angry with her boss for firing her friend.

So my main concern with the focus on affections is that it tends trickle down in practice to the kind of emotionalism Piper says he is against. Folks invariably look for shortcuts and try to turn on the appropriate feelings.

But it’s genuineness of thought and affection that God desires. …. “in spirit and in truth.”

Emotions, thought and spirituality.

I have argued a position that I suspect has been met with struggles because of the tendency of some to simply react to anything that does not validate their current views or their lack thereof (or as Dr. Franklin Payne says in the link below at BMIE, “Few who write and speak in this area seem open to considerations other than their own”), by some because of personal reasons and by some because of theological and/or philosophical reasons. And though the initial response was with regard to what I believe is John Piper’s mishandling of the issue altogether which results in spiritual injury to others, I really do not have just his doctrinal mistake(s) in mind but the topic as a whole. So with less of Piper’s unique misunderstanding and the treatment of the topic as a whole I want to further my case with some helpful links that maintain the distinctions and relationships that I have presented with regard to emotions, thoughts and their relationship with each other and their role in spirituality.

From http://www.bmei.org/jbem/volume3/num4/payne_a_definition_of_emotions.php] BMIE (Biblical Medical Ethics, Inc.) Franklin E. Payne, Jr., M.D. (Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the Medical College of Georgia) explores the development and establishment of a right definition of emotions. In the article Dr. Payne treats the subject from both an anthropological and biblical/theological one. His examination and thorough coverage is not for the “lazy of thought”, so for those who genuinely are about discovery on the matter you will find a gold mine but for those of you who prefer easy reading which echoes only what you wish to hear, you will be disappointed. Encouragingly, from his work in defining emotions in the first part of the article, Payne draws a critical and distinct conclusion about emotions and thought:

The point is that emotions are caused by thinking.

This reflects what I have repeatedly asserted about the nature of the relationship and function of thought and emotions. Emotions stem from thought and here, Dr. Payne’s article provides a wonderful, professional, theological and rational presentation furthering this significance.

Later in his treatment, Payne comes upon the issue of Jonathan Edwards, the heart and affection. Here are some of his findings and conclusions:

Today, Christians must realize…that all the emphasis on the emotions is a modem phenomenon…Historically, philosophical and theological debates about man’s mind centered upon the contribution of rational thought vs. that of the will to decision-making…

Some Christians point to Jonathan Edwards’ focus on “affections” A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections as an example where a great theologian discussed the role of the emotions. Careful reading of his words, however, indicate that for Edwards affection was synonymous with “will”. He was not referring to emotions at all…

Are those who distinguish between the head and the heart consistent? It is apparent that they are not. Evangelists who preach to people’s hearts, use words to communicate. Words communicate between the mind of the speaker and the mind of the hearer. Although his message is erroneous, he is still trying to influence the hearers’ minds. Even a decision to follow their hearts (if that were possible) would be decision first made with their minds.

The same holds for those psychologists and psychiatrists who treat people’s emotions…That is, they communicate from their own minds to their patients’ minds with words. These “therapists” may say that they are “healing the emotions,” but what they are doing is first convincing the minds of their patients and the emotions are changed secondarily.

The examination by Dr. Payne leads him to this finality on the matter of emotions, thought and spirituality:

Emotions are an outward expression of our true beliefs…This point is the major purpose of my development of a definition of emotions. Being a Christian and living a righteous life is primarily, if not exclusively, one of learned attitude. The beautiful emotions that God offers have a cause and effect relationship to this attitude…The focus on emotions in the modern church is a serious and erroneous plague.

Adding to this are the thoughts of John MacArthur in his http://www.biblebb.com/files/MAC/50-41.HTM] “Spiritual Stability” series:

Now I want you to listen carefully to what I say. This seems obvious. You as a believer are a product of your thinking because it says in the Bible as clearly as possible, “As a man thinks in his heart, so…what?…is he.” You are the product of your thoughts…Whatever you program is exactly what you’re going to get. You are the product of your thinking.

Now what is particularly frightening about that in our culture is that it seems to me that thinking is not really that important today. We are not so concerned about thinking as we are about two other things…let’s call them emotion and pragmatism.

Don’t you see how different this is from the modern-day sort of Charismatic Movement where everyone is running around not looking for truth but looking for…what?…experience, emotion, feeling. The Bible is by its very nature calling men to think.

MacArthur clearly distinguishes the relationship of thought and emotion with thought being the source of our spiritual product. He goes on to say:

But living by emotions rather than right thinking will produce instability.

Revealing clearly that John MacArthur understands that the Christian life is not one of emotion but of thinking. He does not deny the role of emotions but in his lesson he makes clear that emotions respond to our thinking and that emotions are not spiritual means, mechanisms or gauges just as Dr. Payne presents.

In spite of what John Piper asserts or any other teacher that agrees with the tenets of Christian Hedonism where it asserts we must pursue God with our emotions, they are both anthropological and biblical in error. Emotions stem from thought and are controlled by thought. Their relationship is one of subordination. Emotions cannot initiate, they instead are elicited by thought. When emotions are not under the authority of rational thought they act irrationally. Hence they cannot in any way pursue anything. It is a grievous error to teach believers that they must “emote” a certain way…that they must have certain “emotions” because emotions are, to such teachers, the basis of spirituality either in part or in whole. They they are not.

I believe that those who hold to such views simply have failed to make the necessary anthropological and theological distinctions. The result is a doctrine based on the unnecessary obfuscation of thought and emotion and its role within the spiritual life of the believer.

Alex, that was probably the most understandable post of yours that i have ever read, and I seriously mean that as a compliment.

it still raises some questions:

are macarthur and piper talking about the proper role of emotion from different perspectives?

like M says it’s wrong that we should be looking emotion, feeling, experience and not truth. I agree with that.

P says: here’s the truth; it’s wrong to not get emotional about it—emotions show how important it is to you.

again, i’m not a big piper reader so maybe i’m wrong, but i don’t see that he is driving people into searching for emotion rather than truth or even in the same way as truth. I think he’s more emphasizing that the truth should be in us to such a depth that it produces emotional responses. (I don’t really relate to or like his quest for happiness stuff in his desing God book, but maybe that’s my mother talking—maybe i do pursue happiness in my own ways that I haven’t acknowledged yet :) )

so that’s one unanswered question—would M and P listen to each other/read each other and disagree? or just be edified by the other person’s angle on emotion?

my other unanswered question: is Dr. Payne is really correct that emotion is ALWAYS a product of thought. I think it often is. But I think emotions are also connected to hormones. like in childbirth, laughter, winter depression caused by lack of serotonin, etc. Also, why does ambience effect emotions? like if someone is talking, it’s one thing. but if someone is talking with soft, sad music playing in the background, it makes me have a sad emotion. Is that also a product of thinking?

Well, we have Dr. Payne’s opinion in the mix.

My own view—and it’s been a topic of interest for a very long time (as much as “long” means much for a 44 yr old)—is that the relationship between thought, believe and emotion is more complex. Sometimes we feel first, then think. Sometimes we begin with thinking, then emotions lead us to change our thinking.

But I guess of most interest to me is where the non-material part of man is in all this. A chimp can sort of think, then feel emotions that arise from the thinking. But a chimp doesn’t really have values and affections.

The latter have a different sort of relationship to what we feel (and what we feel may or may not really be emotion).