Charles Darwin (1809–1882) argued in The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872) that human emotions and their expressions are products of natural selection, continuous with animal behaviour, shaped by utility, habit, and inherited reflexes. This view was later extended by figures such as Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) and, in modified form, by Paul Ekman (b. 1934), who emphasised biologically basic emotions with evolutionary origins. However, from a Christian theological and explicitly creationist perspective, this framework is inadequate because it reduces emotions to adaptive by-products rather than understanding them as meaningful aspects of personhood grounded in the imago Dei (Gen. 1:26–27), intentionally created by God and integrally connected to moral reasoning, relationality, and worship (e.g., Ps. 42; Prov. 4:23; Matt. 22:37). Historic Christian thinkers such as Augustine of Hippo (354–430), Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), and John Calvin (1509–1564) viewed the emotions (or affections) not as vestigial animal impulses but as purposive faculties designed to respond rightly to truth and goodness, though disordered by the Fall (Gen. 3) and capable of restoration; modern Christian scholars and creationist contributors, including C. S. Lewis (1898–1963), Francis Schaeffer (1912–1984), and Alvin Plantinga (b. 1932), have further argued that a purely evolutionary account undermines the rational and moral reliability of emotional life by severing it from divine intentionality and objective meaning. In contrast to Darwin’s continuity thesis, a creationist view affirms both embodied continuity with animals and a categorical spiritual distinction, locating emotional expression within a teleological framework oriented toward love of God and neighbour (John 13:34; Rom. 12:15). Correctly understanding this field matters because our view of emotions shapes how we treat human dignity, moral responsibility, and psychological health: seeing emotions as designed, meaningful, and redeemable supports personal wellbeing through moral integration and hope, and promotes societal health by grounding empathy, justice, and care for the vulnerable in transcendent worth rather than in fluctuating evolutionary utility.