Theology Thursday: Emotions Don't Last

In our study of church history, we have reached Jonathan Edwards, the great theologian and philosopher who lived in the colonial era and served for a short time as the president of Princeton. As the one of the leaders of the Great Awakening, he taught the right ordering of the intellect, affections, and emotions. He cautioned against emotionalism without sacrificing a place for appropriate feelings. He explained:

“All truth is given by revelation, either general or special, and it must be received by reason. Reason is the God-given means for discovering the truth that God discloses, whether in his world or his Word. While God wants to reach the heart with truth, he does not bypass the mind.”

Sherrard Billings, a co-founded of the Groton School in the early 20th century, came after the Second Great Awakening, and he saw religious zeal based too much on emotion alone. He said about emotional evangelists:

“Such people, of course, are never really good, for it is a poor sort of goodness that would consecrate to the service of the Lord everything but the intelligence.”

Our goal is to love God with all our hearts, soul, and mind. We want nothing to do with dry intellectualism, but the temptation of our day in religion is anti-intellectualism. If we feel God telling us to do something, then it must be true. If we feel God’s presence in a place, then that place must be right. This is an extremely dangerous place view. At BBC, we want to know what is true about God and to let our emotions flow from that knowledge.

Know God and love God with all your heart, soul, and mind. Study the word. Don’t aim for a feeling, but a knowing, and let the feelings follow.