 Both Schleiermacher and Otto hold that the most basic religious emotions are unsusceptible of propositional definition. Yet both theologians specify, in propositions, the object of the religious emotion in question. Our accounts of gratitude, contrition, and compassion have likewise treated the emotions as having a propositional structure, one deriving from the teachings of the Christian tradition. Let us think for a moment about the sense in which these emotions are and are not propositional. The Christian emotions are given their distinctive character by their doctrinal content: The three cited prayers expressive of the distinctively Christian emotions all trade on propositional beliefs of the kind that the Christian community routinely teaches its members in catechesis. The situation of the emotional subject is then seen (felt) in terms of the teaching; for example, the sufferer on whom the subject has compassion is seen as one for whom Christ died; the object of gratitude is seen as a gift from the hand of God; and so forth. The particular character of each religious emotion-type would be impossible apart from this doctrinal content. This is the sense in which the Christian emotions are propositional. But still, the emotions themselves escape reduction to their propositional content because emotions are a sort of concern-based impression or perception or construal of the situation in these terms. Emotions transcend propositionality in the same way that any actual perception (e.g. visual perception) does. A Rembrandt painting can be truly characterized in many propositions, and in individual cases some of the propositions may need to be made explicit as a condition for seeing some things that are in the painting. But no amount of discourse or discursive thought about the content of the painting is a substitute for seeing the painting. This immediate acquaintance with the canvas is analogous to the actual having of the emotion (religious or otherwise). (For more on the view of emotions taken here, see Roberts 2013, chapters 3–5; for an excellent discussion of the relationship between religious feelings and religious doctrines, see Wynn, 2004, especially chapter 5. For more, and more extended, accounts of particular religious emotions, see Roberts 2007.) So religious emotions are no less propositional than other standard adult human emotions; and like the other emotions, they cannot be reduced to their propositional content.