Emotions and the Image of God: Steadiness or Stoicism?

Last updated on: July 19, 2021 at 8:00 am by Kathleen Mulhern

Emotions and the Image of God: Steadiness or Stoicism? 2021-07-18T16:07:20-06:00 Kathleen Mulhern

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Steadiness is not stoicism. I addressed the lack of attention to the emotional facet of our spiritual lives—a critical component to a “steady heart,”—but it might be wise if we considered what indeed a “steady heart” means. My reflections about the neglect of the heart generated a couple of long conversations about feelings. Readers wondered what to do with the wild emotions of real human life. Most of us can’t pull off the ice queen persona.

Life—three-dimensional, non-cinematic, relational life—is, let’s admit, full of chaos. Not all the time, not in every aspect, but in different ways and at different levels for all of us. We feel. Delight, anger, frustration (so, so much), impatience, hatred, amusement, grief, grief, grief, horror, fear, and anxiety. And most of that is by Monday morning.

Some have the mistaken notion that since we are in Christ, we should see everything from the point of view of the risen Lord. God has won the victory! So what business do I have feeling blue, seething with rage, or losing my marbles at the newspaper headlines?? The idea that the peace of Christ—a fruit of the Spirit and thus something we should all expect to find in increasing measures in a healthy spiritual life—precludes the roiling emotions of human life is a lie, a lie that seems to be immortalized in many Christian circles. Good theology does not make everything hunky-dory.

We lie to one another (and to ourselves) when we put on the Sunday morning happy face though our hearts are breaking. We lie to one another (and to ourselves) when we fail to confess the ways our anger has led us into violent words or attitudes or even actions. We lie to one another (and to ourselves) when we pretend that the biopsy with all its possibilities is no big deal. Such lies lead to complete disconnects between our souls and our religious sensibilities, to real depression about our apparent spiritual “failure to thrive,” to rampant hypocrisy, to shame, and, often, to anger with God who seems to expect us to turn into sterile parodies of human life. Is God a stoic replicating stoics?

I Google “stoicism” and I get this:

Meaning #1: “the endurance of pain or hardship without the display of feelings and without complaint.” Similar terms include: fatalism, impassivity, dispassion, imperturbability, unflappability.

Meaning #2: “an ancient Greek school of philosophy founded at Athens by Zeno of Citium. The school taught that virtue, the highest good, is based on knowledge; the wise live in harmony with the divine Reason (also identified with Fate and Providence) that governs nature, and are indifferent to the vicissitudes of fortune and to pleasure and pain.”

Steadiness is not stoicism. It may be good manners not to let our emotions gush out everywhere all the time; it may be a virtue indeed to choose not to complain. All fine and good. But the idea that our knowledge of God and his goodness makes us indifferent to “the vicissitudes of fortune and to pleasure and pain” is simply untrue. God himself is full of passion. God is passionately devoted to the salvation of his people; God is passionately devoted to goodness and hates evil with a pure hatred; God is delighted by his beloveds; God is grieved and joyous and loving. We live not in harmony with “divine Reason,” but in harmony with a personal God who, in making us in his image, endowed us with emotions. And those emotions must be in some way a distant echo of the reality of God’s throbbing heart.

Having a steady heart, or experiencing the peace of Christ, does not mean that emotions are always out of bounds, even very strong ones. It does not mean there are bad emotions and good ones. It does not mean that we ignore or override our emotions. It does not mean that if our emotions wildly fluctuate, and involve every hue of feelings, that we’re doomed.

Bernard of Clairvaux taught that there are four primary “feelings”: love, joy, sadness, and fear. Everything else falls somewhere within these primary passions. None of these is out of bounds. We need only read the gospels to see Jesus experience the full range of these feelings. They are all well within the reality of a steady heart.

The question for the spiritual fathers and mothers has always been what to do with our emotions. If we don’t suppress them, vilify them, ignore them, or otherwise dispute the reality of our human nature, what then?

Previous Post

July 12, 2021

Who Cares About Jesus?

Next Post

July 27, 2021 Book Review | Take a Larger Way: Reflections of a Dementia Caregiver

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Advent Ascetical Theology Book Reviews Children and Parenting Easter Epiphany Friends of God Lent Life in the Spirit Ludolph Pascalian Spirituality: a series Politics Prayers Six Neo-Christian Myths Spiritual Formation Tales from My Father Trinitarian Spirituality: a series Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 July 2024 June 2024 December 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 January 2023 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 April 2022 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 October 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 November 2016 June 2016 April 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 March 2015 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 October 2011 August 2011 July 2011 February 2011 October 2010 September 2010 July 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 November 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

True or False: All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.

Select your answer to see how you score.

FALSE TRUE