I thought that the following statements made by Selwyn in today’s study, were useful: “There are three main words used to describe the action of feeling for someone who has been hurt or wounded – pity, sympathy and empathy. Pity is feeling for someone; sympathy is feeling like someone; empathy is feeling withsomeone. …
There is a small degree of pity and sympathy to be found in all true empathy, but the thing that makes empathy so much more helpful is that while it feels so deeply, it is able to identify with the hurt and draw alongside without being overcome with the plight of the person. Our Father’s heart is like this; His sojourn among us enables Him to feel, not onlt for us, but with us.”
However, as in an earlier post, I have a problem when Selwyn makes statements such as: “God, (if He had not become human) would not have been able to empathise with us, for empathy flows only from involvement.”
God, as our creator- is able to fully and perfectly understand our emotions – the full range of our feelings – it is He who gave us the palette of emotional responses. To say what God can, and can’t do – always, I think, puts you on dangerous ground. Scripture only gives us a brief glimpse of the fullness of God – enough to get us safely home – we are ignorant of much of what God is about. Consequently, we don’t know enough to say what God can and can’t do – but what we do know is that God made us in His image – this spiritual aspect of our personalities – is completely known by God, we only lightly scratch the surface. We have not been told the full detail of every truth. Hard as that might be – to believe!
Any comments?
Pity, sympathy and empathy
I thought that the following statements made by Selwyn in today’s study, were useful: “There are three main words used to describe the action of feeling for someone who has been hurt or wounded – pity, sympathy and empathy. Pity is feeling for someone; sympathy is feeling like someone; empathy is feeling withsomeone. …
There is a small degree of pity and sympathy to be found in all true empathy, but the thing that makes empathy so much more helpful is that while it feels so deeply, it is able to identify with the hurt and draw alongside without being overcome with the plight of the person. Our Father’s heart is like this; His sojourn among us enables Him to feel, not onlt for us, but with us.”
However, as in an earlier post, I have a problem when Selwyn makes statements such as: “God, (if He had not become human) would not have been able to empathise with us, for empathy flows only from involvement.”
God, as our creator- is able to fully and perfectly understand our emotions – the full range of our feelings – it is He who gave us the palette of emotional responses. To say what God can, and can’t do – always, I think, puts you on dangerous ground. Scripture only gives us a brief glimpse of the fullness of God – enough to get us safely home – we are ignorant of much of what God is about. Consequently, we don’t know enough to say what God can and can’t do – but what we do know is that God made us in His image – this spiritual aspect of our personalities – is completely known by God, we only lightly scratch the surface. We have not been told the full detail of every truth. Hard as that might be – to believe!
Any comments?