On feelings and behaviors
Xenogears - Bonds of Sea and Fire [full]
More post philosophy class thoughts. The subject now is faith and reason. A question was posed by the professor of the class where he asked how would you know if God loved you? Some people brought up examples that people who think God loves them believe that no matter what happens in their life. They could have a freak lightening storm start a fire that burns down their house, someone isn't paying attention while driving and hits them while they're taking a walk in the park resulting in them becoming paralyzed and losing the use of their legs, they could find out they have some rare fatal disease; and throughout it all they'll still maintain a belief that God loves them. By the given examples it might seem God doesn't love the person(s), they are truly horrible things that a loving God wouldn't let happen, right?
The professor offered how he knows his wife loves him: by her behaviors, she does certain things that seem to indicate she loves him. He used that as an example of how people could know someone else loves them, by their behaviors. The relation to knowing if God loves you seemed faulty to me though, because how do you even really know someone else loves you if you're just going on behavior? Prostitutes and gold diggers can certainly behave in ways that might indicate they love you. Perhaps you even marry one and she does all the wifely duties, but doesn't ever really love you.
The larger principle at work seemed to be that by going on behaviors to judge another's love, or in general feelings, you look for things that you would do if you were feeling the feeling. For instance, if you were in love and demonstrated that by giving flowers and chocolates, buying jewelry, gifts, etc; then if another did the same for you you might think the other person loved you based on their behavior. But this is based on your own idea of love, if the other person doesn't share the same ideas as you do then that doesn't mean they don't love you, just that they express it differently. For instance, in the aforementioned example the person receiving the gifts from the other person may not feel inclined to do those things but yet still feel love for the other person. In that case it wouldn't be accurate at all for the gift giving person to say the other person doesn't love them because they don't also give gifts.
So then, with God, how would you know if he/she/it loved you? How do you even know if any other person loves you? Feelings are things, internal things, another person can't perceive them with the classical five senses; behaviors can be seen with these senses however. But behaviors are not feelings, feelings beget behaviors but behaviors do not always indicate the underlying feeling being felt. Since feelings are internal to the person feeling them, the only way to truly know what another is feeling would be to actually feel what they're feeling. But since they're internal this would seem to be a conundrum, wouldn't it?