[Editor's note: this is the 3rd blog post by Dr. Ed Welch. In this post he muses about a practical theology of emotion.]

In the last blog I suggested that a Christian counselor’s identity is that of practical theologian. We want to think both biblically and theologically about all the issues of life. One way to do that is to examine the standard theological texts of our denominational traditions and ask, so what? What difference does that make for life? What difference does that make when my neighbor just lost his job? These questions are actually biblical themselves. They are not simply those of pragmatic practitioners. In Scripture, you will never find a dangling theological proposition. Every theological statement is expected to lead to action. It always has a “So what?”

One thing you won’t find in a theological text is a chapter on the emotions. Granted, emotions are embedded in the theological discussion about the heart or soul, and emotions are not things in themselves but they are signposts that reflect interpretations of life, so we can understand why they don’t receive separate chapters. But if you spend any time with people, you need a theology of emotions.

The Society for Christian psychology has already had presentations on this topic, but there is always room for more. Here are a few thoughts. They assume that we are ontological dualities, but most Christians who hold to theological monism would probably agree with most of them.

Emotions are bodily experiences. No debate there. You can feel them. Scripture even uses names for bodily organs as a way to identify emotions. A messed up body (or brain) will lead to messed up emotions.

As embodied souls, our emotions are also expressions of our souls, hearts, or spirits. This is not always true, because sometimes emotions are exclusively bodily experiences caused by bodily weakness. Also, emotions can be a hybrid, caused by both physical and spiritual issues. But Scripture as well as our own experience suggest that it is true more often than not. Emotions are a language of the soul. They have a cover story: “I am alone,” “I am a failure.” They also have a deeper meaning: “God has abandoned me,” “I want to trust in at least something I can do well rather than trust in God who strength is apparent in my weakness.”

In these two propositions, we have a fairly sophisticated and robust theology. Notice, for example, their application to depression. Depression is a bodily experience that may well be an expression of the human heart. One of the beauties of Scripture is that you don’t have to know the actual cause before you can help. There is nothing that keeps you from trying to assuage the emotional storm with physical treatments while you simultaneously ask, “what else is depression saying?”

When you walk with someone who is depressed you usually find that it is saying a lot. Listen and you might hear anger, fear, guilt, hopelessness, and shame. All these have spiritual roots and are addressed through spiritual means.

Did anger cause depression or was it simply revealed by it? It might be an interesting question, but, for ministry purposes, the answer is irrelevant.

How often can we expect to hear spiritual matters in depression? (“Spiritual” meaning that it points to our relationship with God). We rely on our own experience for that. Scripture doesn’t give the statistics. In my own experience I find that there are critical spiritual matters in the majority of depression, and as these spiritual matters are resolved in the gospel they seem to make a significant difference in the depressed person’s experience.

These propositions can form the foundation for a theology of emotions, but there is much more than can be said. One worthwhile area to consider is the connection between emotions and wisdom. My thesis is this: intact emotional responses are huge assets for growing in wisdom; without them, we can easily repeat foolish mistakes.

A 16-year-old male goes to a friend’s house with his buddies. He didn’t know that the friend’s parents were away. Soon after arriving, the alcohol and drugs come out. The young man refuses. Why? Because he was caught drinking a few weeks before. Apparently his parents have a keen nose for drugs and alcohol. As a result of getting caught, he parents took away all car privileges for a month.

The reason he refuses drugs and alcohol is that he can emotionally imagine the consequences of getting caught again. One month could turn into one year, and the thought of that is horribly depressing. So he refuses, not because he has anything against drugs and alcohol. He refuses because he can viscerally imagine the consequences of getting caught.

Take the same situation, same internal moral compass, but a different facility with emotions. Take a young man who is unable to feel very much. He will indulge because his emotions supply no warning signals.

This, in part, is what happens during mania. The artificial high leaves the person unable to feel anything miserable. As such he or she is prone to make decisions that have deleterious consequences.

These are a few thoughts on emotions. Certainly there is more to say. One final meta-comment. If you read my first blog you know that I call myself a biblical counselor. The reputation of biblical counselors is that they are obscurantists. But this last point on emotions showed my affinity with integrationists in that I was suggesting something that was not explicitly biblical. I am not so sure that our stance toward extra-biblical data is what distinguishes us along the Christian counseling spectrum.