According to the official facts laid out by the Pope and his Magesterium, as God is unending love and joy, does that mean that these emotions can always 'rise' in their intensity? For instance, we know the beatific vision is joyous beyond anything to be had or imagined here but in experiencing God would we be loving and happy to this degree because He is many, many, many good things or because our actual ability to enjoy is able to be increased? Can emotions increase beyond their greatest scale on Earth? Water cannot get wetter than water...are emotions the same? Can love be more loving than the best kind of love?
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2My wife's uncle is a vegetable farmer for a Farmers Market so he goes out in the field every Friday rain or shine to pick beans and stuff and is dirty up to his eyeballs. He always says, you can only get so wet, but you can always get more muddy!– Peter Turner ♦Jan 22, 2014 at 18:22
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In mathematics, nothing is greater than infinity. Thus, when you take the integral of, for example, 2x, to approach infinity from zero, it is the same as infinity itself. You can't double infinity; it's just a very big number.– Double UFeb 2, 2014 at 13:28
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2 Answers
In Catholicism if God is infinite love, can love always increase in intensity or does that mean quantity? We define this by how close we are to God, the closer that we are the more intensity there will be to his presence. Our humility however will decide if the quantity will be one of rejoicing or one of outrage. (Romans 9:33)
According to the official facts laid out by the Pope and his Magesterium, as God is unending love and joy, does that mean that these emotions can always 'rise' in their intensity? They can rise until we are with him (Matthew 10:24).
For instance, we know the beatific vision is joyous beyond anything to be had or imagined here but in experiencing God would we be loving and happy to this degree because He is many, many, many good things or because our actual ability to enjoy is able to be increased? It shall be beyond what is imaginable (1 Corinthians 2:9).
Now this is conjecture, I do not think our ability to enjoy will be increased. For at what moment in your life can you say that you have felt the fullness of your ability to enjoy? And so if you have then I would say that you have already received your reward (Matthew 6:1-21, 2 John 1:8).
Can emotions increase beyond their greatest scale on Earth? No, the scale itself was determined by God, if he chooses to lift the scale to reward his son then that will be the new greatest.
Water cannot get wetter than water...are emotions the same? Yes.
Can love be more loving than the best kind of love? No, for the best kind of Love is God.
Your confusion begins with wrong understanding the biblical meaning of love.
God's Love is not an emotion. Love, is not an emotion.
Love is a self-giving of one to another for the service of the other.
In this way, God is unending love - the ultimate sacrifice being the cross; sort of like a parent giving their life for a child, no matter what the child did.
This "world", has mixed infatuation, sexual attraction and alike with "love" in a biblical sense. Love is a conscious decision to sacrifice, to give your self fully to another, motivated by many things, like God given sexual attraction and infatuation.
This is also why it is possible to love everyone; not that we have an loving emotions towards our enemies.
Joy comes out of knowing that you are loved.
So joy can increase, as you experience God's love more and more. Like a parent who experiences joy when kids return love, or indeed, when you realize it is more fulfilling or rewarding to love the be loved.
This world, redefined love to be an emotion, and out of this simple "mistake", a lot of confusion follows.
PS, personally, I do not think it was a mistake but a conscious decision but we'll keep spiritual conspiracy theories out of this :)
