by cyranorox » July 14th, 2010, 6:46 pm
@AK- i think the language about passions is somewhat obscure to you. We can perceive a wrong, and intend to act upon it, with or without anger. But 'do something' is often a mistake. If the action needed is merciful, the proper motive is pity. If justice is to be attempted, the proper motive is love of justice. Even that is not necessarily connected to anger. You don't need anger to right wrongs; you don't need to be motivated by it, but to decide. That is from a different aspect of the mind. Any such motivation is a work-around or crutch - of course many of us need it - but that's consistent with my premise that anger is ignoble. Part of the distinction is that anger is a passion, ie, something suffered, something of which we are passive recipients, but pity or love are something we do, active virtues.
Your psychologist is downstream of the conversation; he has accepted as literal the idea of God's anger, but the conversation, or at least my part of it, was involved in questioning that position.
The quote from Euripides is a famous climax, demanding nobility and disinterest from the god who has acted in a way beneath the justice of man
Apocatastasis Now!