Does God Have Emotions?

When we talk about Jesus as God and as the Suffering Servant the question of, “Does God have emotions?” is to be asked. Is God able to have emotions like us humans? Is He surprised at the evil He sees in the world? Is prophecy, then, just a lucky guess by God?

While some of those answers seem obvious, we should make sure we are communicating them thoroughly enough to present the orthodox response that is accurate to the revealed Scriptures and that covers the questions we should expect as a follow-up.

In the Incarnation we see Jesus suffer. It’s a main part of the story. Can God suffer? How about this question – can God die? The knee-jerk responses are there but are they good enough to stand up to a Muslim apologist or an open theist? Do we know the God we claim to know well enough to understand this very important part and how important it is in our theodicy?

We cover this shorter chapter in two parts to make sure we (mostly Patrick) get a better grasp on it.