“Human life is fundamentally a life of the mind. The posture of the mind determines so much about the character of an individual’s life.” (Robert C. Roberts, Spirituality and Human Emotion, p. 26).
How do the mind and emotions relate:
Emotions are based on concerns. They arise because one cares about something that gives occasion to certain feelings.
Emotions are deeply connected to a construal of one’s circumstances in a matter relevant to a concern. A construal – is an interpretation of the meaning of something; a way of viewing or a perspective on a situation, experience, or person.
Examples:
To feel indignant is to see myself or someone close to me as intentionally injured by someone in a matter of some concern to myself.
Becoming angry with someone necessarily involves construing him as obnoxious, offensive, or some such thing.
To feel despair is to see my life, which I deeply desire to be meaningful, as holding nothing, or nothing of importance to me.
To feel envious is to see myself as losing against some competitor in a competition on which I am basing my self-esteem.
To feel guilty is to see myself as having offended against a moral or quasi-moral standard to which I subscribe.
How to dispel an emotion:
“Because emotions are construals, and construals always require some ‘terms,’ to succeed in dispelling an emotion, I must somehow get myself to cease to see the situation in one set of terms, and probably must get myself to see it in different terms.”
Control over emotions:
“It is important to Christians that emotions are partially within people’s control, that they can be commanded.” Scripture commands us to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. When it reminds us that love is not jealous, or irritable, or resentful he seems to assume that these feelings are broadly within the control of the reader. “Being resentful is not like being five foot six or having congenitally bad teeth.” (Roberts, p. 21).
Emotions and the Gospel:
The ‘terms’ of the Christian emotions are provided by the Christian story. There is a necessary connection between the Christian emotions and the Christian story” (Ibid. p. 21)
“The gospel message provides people with a distinctive way of construing the world: the maker of the universe is your personal loving Father and has redeemed you from sin and death in the life and death and resurrection of His son Jesus. You are a child of God, destined along with many brothers and sisters to remain under his protection forever and to be transformed into something unspeakably lovely” (Ibid., p. 16).
To experience peace with God is to see God as a reconciled enemy.
To experience hope is to see one’s own future in the eternity of God’s kingdom,
To be Christianly grateful is to see various precious gifts, such as existence, sustenance, and redemption, as bestowed by God.
Steve Cornell
Read more insightful articles by Pastor Steve Cornell at songtime.com or on his blog, thinkpoint.wordpress.com