Would one of my astute readers please tell Adrian why Blink is wrong?
[ireneQ:] 'How can God not be angry when we sin? He hates sin!'
[Blink:] 'When Jesus died on the cross, He took upon Him the consequences of sin. One of those consequences is God's anger. Therefore God cannot be angry with us any more.'
I like this Blink guy……
Here's some starter material from the Catechism.
"1849 Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. It has been defined as 'an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law.'"
"1850 Sin is an offense against God: 'Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in your sight.' Sin sets itself against God's love for us and turns our hearts away from it. Like the first sin, it is disobedience, a revolt against God through the will to become 'like gods,' knowing and determining good and evil. Sin is thus 'love of oneself even to contempt of God.' In this proud self- exaltation, sin is diametrically opposed to the obedience of Jesus, which achieves our salvation.125 "
Funky Dung
Comments 9
Well, Funky, it seems you could've at least given a trackback to ol' Adrian. I was going to go over there and tell him that Funky said to go over and tell him he is wrong… and he no doubt is… but it doesn't seem fair to have no "official" reference point.
So I'll say it here: It is surprising what kind of crap you end up believing when you make of fetish out of (in this case: Reformed) theology, viz., that anger and love are mutually exclusive impulses. And that therefore God cannot possibly be angry with us when we sin, because, oh yeah, Jesus died for us and we're forgiven… unconditionally. No parent could possibly believe claptrap like this… Ay, ay, ay…
I, myself, have to doubt whether true anger or true love could exist without each other.
My $0.02
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Posted 03 Oct 2005 at 10:20 pm ¶There's a link to the post in the words "tell Adrian". I didn't want to trackback until there were comments.
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Posted 04 Oct 2005 at 3:15 am ¶I'm not sure I want to defend Blink's reasoning as quoted above, but as regards what came after… That quote from the Catechism, while pointing out what a bad thing sin is and the effect it has on our relationship with God, doesn't explicitly mention God's emotional state toward the sinner. The question seems not one of anger (which is a pretty subjective emotional state), but one of punishment — does an angry God punish or does sin punish? Here's another bit from the Catechism: In section 1472 on "The Punishments of Sin," the text first lists the two kinds of punishments for sin, eternal and temporal, and then goes on to say, "These two punishments must not be conceived as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without, but as following from the very nature of sin."
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Posted 05 Oct 2005 at 2:43 am ¶Sorry to not be thinking clearly enough to get this all into one post, but another thing that occurs to me regarding all this is that anger is an emotional state, a subjective feeling, while love, as a divine virtue, is an act of will. Not mutually exclusive in humans certainly, but not at all in the same realm…
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Posted 05 Oct 2005 at 2:51 am ¶I guess the point I was hinting at was that just because Christ's redemptive death reconciled us with God, doesn't mean God isn't angry with us when we sin. Like I said in the title, forgiveness and anger aren't mutually exclusive. God forgives us our sins, but He is also saddened and angered by them.
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Posted 05 Oct 2005 at 3:41 am ¶I take your point. I guess where I'm still feeling contrary is that sadness and anger are subjective emotional states, whereas love and forgiveness are objective acts of will. I hesitate to say what God is "feeling" but think it might be possible to discern by use of reason and revelation, what God "does."
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Posted 05 Oct 2005 at 3:53 am ¶I think there are enough verses of Scripture that describe God's emotions that one can deduce how He reacts to sin.
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Posted 05 Oct 2005 at 12:42 pm ¶Posted a comment for Adrian.
Pax vobis!
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Posted 10 Oct 2005 at 3:43 am ¶I definitely believe that God gets angry with us. I see it as a bit of the old parent/child relationship. God the father sees his children wandering off the path he's set for them so he has to smack 'em around a little bit to get them to fall back into line. But the beauty part is that once they come back to him and say they're sorry he gives them a big hug, tells them he loves them and all is forgiven and forgotten.
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Posted 23 Oct 2005 at 3:54 pm ¶Post a Comment