Which ... apologies for the double-post ... leads me to wonder:
. . . .
2) How those Churches/denominations which have a range of views on the issue, such as the Anglicans and, it seems, the Lutherans, hold these apparently opposing views together?
Every Christian tradition, so far as I know, tolerates a variety of views on various matters, as long as those views don’t contradict what is considered dogma (like the Creed). You yourself have noted various matters in which this is true of Orthodoxy.
My gut tells me that a divergence of views on this issue in one church body is primarily an intellectual disagreement with little practical import. I doubt much difference in behavior could be detected between someone who takes a monergistic view and someone who takes a synergistic view.
Not necessarily. You can have permanent emotions, ones that are directed at certain objects or classes of objects. Though the objects may change--may move in and out of a class, for example, by repenting--your (God's) emotion toward the two classes of people involved remains the same. (Though actually I'd expect it to be a lot more complicated than that, as individuals differ from other individuals, and each gets a fully personal response from our personal (or more than personal) God. But the change is in the individual who is the subject of God's emotion, not in God.)
God has emotions?
That implies change, and perfection cannot be altered.
Change =/= alteration. Jesus weeping doesn't change anything about Jesus. Jesus clearly displays emotions in the Gospels so I'm not sure how it could be said that God doesn't experience emotions.
The old view of passions was that they were reactions imposed on one from outside. Hence, passion from the same root as passive. The word emotion comes in when emotions are seen as states that move people. These days passionate implies someone active rather than someone who is passively at the mercy of external stimuli.
The sense in God not feeling emotions depends on how one conceptualises emotion. Earlier conceptions wouldn't have included agape under the definition of emotion, but we probably would.
(Jesus is both human and God; and feels emotions as a human regardless of whether he does as God.)
We don't see it in 'vengeful' terms. It's not 'emotional revenge' in human terms but rather divine love experienced by a sin-hardened soul. Such a soul is not going to experience the light of God's presence in a warm and conforting way but 'as a consuming fire.'
That’s the only previous mention in the thread of anything related to emotion that I could find.
In which case I'm on the same page as @Alan29 in that I don't believe that God has 'mood swings' in a human way.
God is love and that love is constant and unchanging.
Which is what I understand @Lamb Chopped to be saying. @Dafyd raises an interesting point about how emotions were viewed in the past, as external 'forces' or stimuli - whether positive or negative.
I'm going to go away and think about that and how it relates to Patristic understandings of these things. 'Mirror, signal, manoeuvre.'
We Orthodox start with scripture then the Fathers (Mothers too, I hope) then 'manouevre'.
It can take us a while to move through the gears. We ate on manual not automatic.
As our deacon's wife said during a discussion group for catechumens and recent converts last night, 'We are Ents not Hobbits ...'
Anyhow - coming back to a point @Nick Tamen raised about whether a monergist or synergist position affects how we behave.
To all intents and purposes I'm notvsure it dies, unless we veer off to extremes in either direction.
Monergists love God and love their neighbour as themselves.
Synergists love God and love their neighbour as themselves.
Both grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us.
I can envisage an extreme monergism that topples over into Anti-nominianism and a reaction against 'works' of any kind such that it neglects acts of charity and mercy.
Equally, I can envisage a kind of cheese-paring synergism that 'sweats the small stuff' and obsesses about the observance of particular rubrics or the details of rituals or doctrinal niceties to the extent that we fret that we have to dot every'i' and cross every 't' if we are to be saved.
Comments
My gut tells me that a divergence of views on this issue in one church body is primarily an intellectual disagreement with little practical import. I doubt much difference in behavior could be detected between someone who takes a monergistic view and someone who takes a synergistic view.
That implies change, and perfection cannot be altered.
Change =/= alteration. Jesus weeping doesn't change anything about Jesus. Jesus clearly displays emotions in the Gospels so I'm not sure how it could be said that God doesn't experience emotions.
The sense in God not feeling emotions depends on how one conceptualises emotion. Earlier conceptions wouldn't have included agape under the definition of emotion, but we probably would.
(Jesus is both human and God; and feels emotions as a human regardless of whether he does as God.)
I'm not sure how or why the issue of God having emotions or not has cropped up here.
I don't think I mentioned it. Who introduced it?
That’s the only previous mention in the thread of anything related to emotion that I could find.
In which case I'm on the same page as @Alan29 in that I don't believe that God has 'mood swings' in a human way.
God is love and that love is constant and unchanging.
Which is what I understand @Lamb Chopped to be saying. @Dafyd raises an interesting point about how emotions were viewed in the past, as external 'forces' or stimuli - whether positive or negative.
I'm going to go away and think about that and how it relates to Patristic understandings of these things. 'Mirror, signal, manoeuvre.'
We Orthodox start with scripture then the Fathers (Mothers too, I hope) then 'manouevre'.
It can take us a while to move through the gears. We ate on manual not automatic.
As our deacon's wife said during a discussion group for catechumens and recent converts last night, 'We are Ents not Hobbits ...'
Anyhow - coming back to a point @Nick Tamen raised about whether a monergist or synergist position affects how we behave.
To all intents and purposes I'm notvsure it dies, unless we veer off to extremes in either direction.
Monergists love God and love their neighbour as themselves.
Synergists love God and love their neighbour as themselves.
Both grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us.
I can envisage an extreme monergism that topples over into Anti-nominianism and a reaction against 'works' of any kind such that it neglects acts of charity and mercy.
Equally, I can envisage a kind of cheese-paring synergism that 'sweats the small stuff' and obsesses about the observance of particular rubrics or the details of rituals or doctrinal niceties to the extent that we fret that we have to dot every'i' and cross every 't' if we are to be saved.
Both extremes are to be avoided.