Claim. SMM teaches that God is a personal being possessing intellect, emotion, and will (지정의, ji-jeong-ui) — not an abstract force, not pure being-itself, but the kind of subject who can feel joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure, and with whom human persons can share heart.
Elaboration. “What kind of deity is God? He is a personal God, with intellect, emotion, and will. Since what this personal God wants most is love, He created human beings as His partners in love” (3.1.-a-personal-god-with-intellect-emotion-and-will, 143-149, 1986.3.17).
The argument is symmetrical: humans have intellect, emotion, and will; if God did not, there would be no possible parent-child relationship — only an abyss between a “holy” Creator and “profane” creatures (ibid, 138-245, 1986.1.24). SMM names this the move Christianity uniquely got right (“Christianity, alone among religions, revealed that kind of God”; 139-239, 1986.1.31) while still falling short of explicating its full structure.
Crucially, this is not divine pathos as metaphor — “God has to be the Subject who can feel joy, anger, sorrow and pleasure — even more than we can” (ibid, 203-288, 1990.6.27). The strong personalism grounds csg-parent-child-relation-is-center-of-universe and the chapter’s entire ethics of heart.
See also. personhood-as-absolute-value