Emotions and Propositional Correspondence

A few posts ago, in the course of rejecting any sort of metaphysical monism, whether mental or propositional (idealism) or corporeal or physical (physicalism), I mentioned that things-in-themselves can correspond to propositions:

I think a better definition would be that a person is an ego, the possessor of a mind or minds capable of reflexive indexation. These words could each be defined and each definition could be true without its being the case that some “real” Ding-an-sich can’t correspond to them. I think the so-called empirical representational theory of truth in which truth images the physical reality to which it merely corresponds scared Clark away from any type of correspondence – hence the seeming propositional monism.

See here as well:

Metaphysically, Scripturalism does not necessarily promote a purely mental realm. Propositional truth, however, maintains a logical primacy over a “physical” realm insofar as the latter is a creation patterned after the former. The physical qua physical cannot be “known” by definition; knowledge is propositional belief in which the possibility of error is precluded. In other words, this is a sort of opposite to the correspondence theory of truth; it is a correspondence theory of corporeality in which the physical provides a sensible representation of eternal truth. 

While the priority of the correspondence is a question worth exploring - are [some] propositions true because they correspond to some metaphysical thing-in-itself, or are some [and especially physical] things-in-themselves “real” because they correspond to some truth? - these questions about theories of truth and the relationship between epistemology and metaphysics are obviously quite intricate. A little too intricate for this post. I’ve stated some thoughts on the former elsewhere (here and here, for example). For now, I’ll content myself with yet another shot at the idea Christianity is compatible with propositional monism. Given the necessity of knowledge (see here and here), it seems clear that it would be the only type of monism which would’t prima facie be necessarily self-defeating. 

But take emotions. What are they? Gordon Clark defined an emotion as “something unusual, sudden, exceptional...some kind of upheaval...involuntary...has no intellectual content...not volition” (cf. Today’s Evangelism: Counterfeit or Genuine, pgs. 18-19). Obviously, in the course of defining an emotion, Clark uses propositions. But equally apparent is his belief that emotions are not propositional. He says “knowledge and the emotion are different.” 

Now, how compatible this is with his statement on pg. 15 that these non-intellectual, non-voluntary “are not always good. Sometimes they are sinful” is a matter of debate. If the command to emote would indeed be irrational as Clark says on pg. 21, then it would seem emotions themselves cannot be sinful. But if Clark’s definition is acceptable, then I see plenty of room for discussion about correspondence between propositions and things-in-themselves. Metaphysics wouldn’t collapse into epistemology, at least not in toto. On the other hand, if emotions are taken to be propositional, I think that in addition to the question of whether emotions could be commanded and obeyed, such would make it much harder to defend anthropopathic language in Scripture and, by extension, divine impassibility.