G4 Emotions

Human beings are unique from all other creatures in our ability to experience anxiety-depression at times that do not immediately demand the response of fear or despair. Our twin abilities to anticipate and reflect, which account for the major advancements of civilization, also give these unpleasant emotions a chronic place in our lives. Human beings can not only learn from the past, we can be shamed or traumatized by our past. We can not only plan for the future, we can project many different worst-case scenarios or unrealistic expectations for our future. The same abilities that allow for the greatest human achievements also generate some our most intense internal tortures.When Satan tempted Eve, he said eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would make them “like God” (Genesis 3:4). He was right, not because Adam and Eve become small deities, but because we gained the partial ability – at least cognitively – to simultaneously live in the past, present, and future. We began to bare the weight