The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life In God

by Dallas Willard

What Anger Is And when we look carefully at anger we can see why such a strong statement is justified. In its simplest form, anger is a spontaneous response that has a vital function in life. As such, it is not wrong. It is a feeling that seizes us in our body and immediately impels us toward interfering with, and possibly even harming, those who have thwarted our will and interfered with our life. Indeed, anger is in its own right—quite apart from “acting it out” and further consequences—an injury to others. When I discover your anger at me, I am already wounded. Your anger alone will very likely be enough to stop me or make me change my course, and it will also raise the stress level of everyone around us. It may also evoke my anger in return. Usually it does, precisely because your anger places a restraint on me. It crosses my will. Thus anger feeds on anger. The primary function of anger in life is to alert me to an obstruction to my will, and immediately raise alarm and resistance, before I even have time to think about it. And if that were all there was to anger, all would be well. Anger in this sense is no sin, even though it is still better avoided where possible. (Headaches are no sin, but do we really need them?) Anger would then perform its vital function, as physical pain does, and pass with the occasion. But the anger that is a reality among us is much more than this and quickly turns into something that is inherently evil. To understand why, we need to take a...