Does God have emotions?

God & the TrinityIn theological review

The short answer

Yes, Scripture truly speaks of God grieving over evil, relenting in response to intercession, rejoicing over his people, and, in Jesus, weeping at a friend's tomb. Teachers such as Augustine added that God's affections are not unstable disturbances like ours, but steady expressions of his unchanging character, a point called impassibility.

The fuller answer

Yes, Scripture speaks of God grieving, rejoicing, loving, and being moved to compassion, and Christians have always taken that language seriously rather than explaining it away. At the same time the church's teachers noticed a problem to avoid: human emotions often involve being overwhelmed, surprised, or changed against our will. Whatever God's feelings are, they cannot mean that creatures can destabilise him, catch him off guard, or make him other than he eternally is. The stakes are pastoral as well as doctrinal, because a God incapable of feeling could be admired at a distance but could hardly be loved, trusted, or grieved with.

And the LORD regretted that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.

Genesis 6:6 (BSB)

Genesis says the LORD regretted making mankind and was grieved in his heart at human wickedness before the flood. Exodus 32 shows the same responsiveness from the other side: Moses intercedes for Israel after the golden calf, and the LORD relented from the disaster he had threatened (Exodus 32:14). Read plainly, these texts describe a God who genuinely engages with his creatures, whose dealings with them are real exchanges, not a script performed by actors whose lines cannot affect him.

So the LORD relented from the calamity He had threatened to bring on His people.

Exodus 32:14 (BSB)

The joy side is just as explicit. Zephaniah pictures God in the midst of his restored people, rejoicing over them with gladness, quieting them by his love, and exulting over them with loud singing (Zephaniah 3:17). And in Jesus, the question becomes flesh: standing at his friend Lazarus's tomb, knowing he is about to raise him, Jesus wept (John 11:35). The shortest verse in the Bible may be the clearest proof that grief in the presence of death is not unbelief or weakness.

Jesus wept.

John 11:35 (BSB)

The early and medieval teachers gave the protective side a name: impassibility. Augustine of Hippo, in The City of God, argued that God's affections are not disturbances of a mind that can be thrown off balance, as ours are. The doctrine never meant God is cold or inert. It meant his love, grief at evil, and joy over his people are steady, chosen, and perfectly his own, expressions of an unchanging character rather than weather passing over it. Scripture's emotional language is true, and so is his constancy. For the sufferer, the settled conclusion is good news: God's sympathy is not a passing mood that might expire before the trouble does, but an expression of who he always is.

Sources

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)
Augustine, The City of God

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Dig deeper

No answer here is a dead end. Follow the question on, test it in practice, or work the method yourself on the Dig deeper page.

Does God change his mind?God does not change his mind in the human sense of learning, erring, or reversing his promises. Scripture says he does not lie or change his mind and that he does not change at all, while also showing his unchanging character responding with mercy when people repent and judgement when they harden, exactly as he always said he would.What is God like?God is spirit, eternal, unchanging, all powerful, holy, just, good, and true. And he is love. Scripture gives his character in his own words and deeds rather than in our guesses: he is the I AM who always is, the Maker who never tires, and the Father who so loved the world that he gave his Son.Where is God when it hurts?With you, is the Bible's answer, though rarely in the way we would have scripted. God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble, says the psalm, written out of trouble, not about it. And in Christ he has not watched suffering from outside it. The God of the cross knows the inside of pain, and his invitation to the weary is rest, not explanations.What does 'God is love' actually mean?God is love means love is God's very nature, not just one of his moods or actions. Scripture defines that love by the cross: God sent his Son as the sacrifice for our sins and Christ died for us while we were still sinners.Bible Character: MosesThe prophet who led Israel out of slavery in Egypt, received the Law on Mount Sinai, and brought the people to the edge of Canaan.Bible Character: JesusThe Son of God, born of Mary in Bethlehem, who preached the kingdom of God, was crucified for our sins according to the Scriptures, and was raised on the third day.Bible Character: LazarusThe friend of Jesus at Bethany, brother of Martha and Mary, who died and lay four days in the tomb, and came out alive at Jesus' call.On the map: BethanyFind it in the Lands of the Bible, with the verses that place it there.On the map: JudahJudah is the southern hill country, with Jerusalem and Hebron as its main centres and Bethlehem as the town of David. It is the setting for Ruth, for much of the kings and prophets, and for the birth of Jesus.