PROVO, Utah — How is it possible for God to weep?

Enoch asks this very question in the Book of Moses, while philosophers and theologians have long rejected the notion of a supreme being that feels anything, according to Daniel C. Peterson, a professor of Islamic studies and Arabic at BYU.

God's emotions are well-established in the Bible, Peterson argued during a recent Campus Education Week session. And while theologians have now "belatedly recognized" the agonizing God as "genuinely biblical," acknowledging emotions in deity is problematic for anyone who doesn't accept what Mormons believe — that God has a body.

"Just like Enoch, modern commentators have been virtually unanimous in being astonished at the sheer notion that God might weep," Peterson said. "So they simply reject it."

Mainstream theology depicts God as "absolutely simple" — a distant, dispassionate and apathetic being unmoved by emotion, Peterson said.

Read the full story on MormonTimes.com.