Anger arises from offences against oneself, enmity may arise even without that; we may hate people merely because of what we take to be their character. Anger is always concerned with individuals… whereas hatred is directed also against classes…Anger can be cured by time, but hatred cannot…the angry man wants his victims to feel; the hater does not mind whether they feel or not. ..[for] the greatest evils, injustice and folly, are the least felt… Anger is accompanied by pain, hatred is not…Much may happen to make the angry man pity those who offend him, but the hater under no circumstances wishes to pity a man whom he has once hated, for the one would have the offenders suffer for what they have done; the other would have them cease to exist.
— Aristotle. Rhetoric II.4
The Church Father Lactantius’ treatise On the Anger of God leads me to ponder the question: Does God feel anger? Aristotle would answer in the negative: Anger is accompanied by pain, but an immutable being does not suffer pain, therefore, such a being is never angry. Stoics would also argue that emotions such as fear, anger and pity are not fitting for a wise man. But one only needs to read the first two books of the Bible to know that the wrath of the God of Israel is a fearful thing.
In the Old Testament, the anger of God is often manifested through His works, i.e. nature, but people in modern times tend to think of nature as “emotionless”. The Parting of the Red Sea could have been just another tsunami, nothing personal, if it hadn’t destroyed the Egyptians and spared the Israelites at the same time.
In some aspect, the wrath of God may be more like enmity as defined by Aristotle: it is not accompanied by pain, but accompanied by hatred, that is, hatred of sin not of the individual, and therefore, such hatred cannot be cured by time, nor softened by any entreaties, not moved by pity, nor affected by any circumstances. It is from such enmity of God that Christ has come to save the world – by taking away the sin of the world. Enmity may not cause its object pain, but it is more terrible than anger, for its object may be completely unaware that he is hated, until it is too late. The Egyptians may have been excited at the sight of the Red Sea parting, until it drowned them. In this sense, just as nature is not affected by emotions, although it may destroy lives in an instant, so God is not affected by emotions, when executing His Judgement.
On the other hand, the anger of God may arise from offence against His people. Such anger is accompanied by pain, felt by His people and by the Person of Christ, who has taken upon Himself the burden of humanity, with all its pain and suffering. To “have the offenders suffer for what they have done” is the principle of retributive justice, “life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth”. Anger may be appeased by compensation, and softened by entreaties, and the angry one may pity and forgive the offender. The difference between divine and human anger is that God not only forgives the offender, but also repays the victim on his behalf, for the offender is unable to repay in full. Christ, as God-man, is able to lay down His life and take it up again, and He is able to endure pain and suffering for His people’s sake, but also heal their pain and suffering. In this sense, the anger of God is necessary to His perfect justice, for only if He experiences and knows the full extent of suffering, can he fully repay it, so that there is no loss to His people, and no loss to God.
Finally, if I may say so, divine emotions, so far as humans are concerned, are like the colours of a rainbow, they appear vastly different, but when joined together, they become one colour, perfectly white in simplicity and unity; they are also like notes in a great piece of music, some notes are explosive, others mellow, some agonizing, others ecstatic, but they are all necessary for the composition, and not one note should be missing.
References:
- Lactantius. Treatise on the Anger of God Addressed to Donatus. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Accessed January 16, 2022. https://ccel.org/ccel/lactantius/anger_of_god/anf07.