God and emotions: Experience of emotive analysis

Abstract

The present paper accentuates the importance of holistic views of the world that is relevant for text studies. The purpose of the study is to establish what language means representing emotions which are attributed to God by biblical characters are utilized, and, subsequently provide their classification. Based on the study of the theological interpretation of the antinomy ‘“the immutability of God” - the emotions of God”, the paper 1) introduces the concept of ‘attribution of emotions’ into the conceptual and terminological apparatus of emotiology thus explicating the specificity of biblical emotive meanings; 2) provides the analysis of the depicted biblical space in the emotive aspect; 3) gives the interpretation of biblical characters’ activity as a cause of emotions attributed to God. Central to the text analysis is the notion of the emotional script. This notion is instrumental in presenting the systemic description of emotion development, i.e. the cause of its origin and the corresponding reaction. The language material of the present study is taken from King James Bible. The methods employed in the study include the definitional, contextual, emotive, and lingua-stylistic analyses with references to the historical and cultural context. The outcomes of the present study include the identification of the lexical means of emotions and the following typology of such lexical units: 1) lexemes denoting the cause of emotions attributed to God; 2) lexemes denoting the emotions attributed to God; and 3) lexemes denoting the biblical space perceived by characters as a ‘reaction’ to emotions attributed to God. Given the theandric nature of Jesus Christ, the depicted emotions of His are treated as manifestations of His human nature. The results obtained have made it possible to fill in linguistic content into one of the antinomies of Christian understanding of God and to outline the prospect of further linguistic research on Christian dogmata from the perspective of emotivity.

Keywords

• the bible
• attribution of emotions
• emotivity
• evaluation
• emotional script
• context
• biblical space