None of the past posts really have anything to do with my life. Also, my posts are very far apart. To continue the trend, here's my pull question from Jeremiah.
Question: Can God have emotions and still be unchanging?
As Aristotle says, "Words are the signs of ideas, and ideas the likeness of things." So "words relate to the meaning of things signified through the medium of the intellectual conception." This means that we can apply names to things insofar as we know them. In the case of God, we cannot know Him in His essence; rather, we know Him through His effects. We cannot see God immediately, but we can see all of creation and learn about God in that manner. Yet creation cannot perfectly mirror God, for "every effect which is not an adequate result of the power of the efficient cause receives the likeness of the agent not in its full degree, but in a measure that falls short." God is infinite and creation is not; whatever we know of God through creation is at best a dim reflection of what He is in Himself.
Therefore, when we predicate something of God--emotions, in this case--we do so analogically. When we say that a human has emotions, we mean something which is within the person for a certain amount of time as a result of outward circumstances. If God is immutable, than it is not possible for there to be time T when He has a certain feeling, and time T + 1 when He does not. Yet emotions are only predicated of God by way of analogy, so we need not say they are precisely the same thing in Him as they are in us. We may say, for instance, that God is angry when he justly punishes the wicked. To punish evildoers is the act of the properly angry man, and so by means of analogy we may attribute the emotion of anger to God when this sort of event takes place. By saying this, however, we do not mean that God's essence is changing in any way.
Further, the crux of the problem seems to be God's changing actions towards the children of Israel. At one point He blesses them, at another He curses them. Yet quite clearly one remains unchanged if one reacts differently to different circumstances. If I become angry with a thief and feel affection towards my brother, the different emotions do not mean that my character is in flux. If on the other hand I was angry with the evil actions of the thief at time T and angry at the good actions of my brother at time T + 1, than plainly my character would have changed between T and T + 1. So when God blesses Israel for righteousness and curses it for evil, the difference is caused not by a change in the character of God, but by alterations in the temporal world.
So when we make the statement that, "God has changing emotions," we mean that God has different reactions to different circumstances. If God makes a covenant with a people and promises to bless them when they obey, than it is a sign of His constancy that He blesses them for obedience and refrains from blessing when they stray. Therefore, God has emotions yet is immutable.
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The sad thing about pull questions is that they're so short. It would be quite easy to devote a half dozen pages to each of the sentences in the first paragraph. Oh well. Hooray for the theology express lane.
The next non-update is due roughly six months from now. Wait with baited breath and anticipation. | 
