Why would having emotions imply that an entity is composite?

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In context, the article is talking specifically about matter and form. Essentially, he is asking whether God has some material component intrinsic to His nature. You can see that in the opinion given by Aquinas in this same article, he says that God cannot be composed of matter and form:

First, because matter is in potentiality. But we have shown (I:2:3) that God is pure act, without any potentiality. Hence it is impossible that God should be composed of matter and form. (ST I Q3 A2 co.)

The understanding of the human body in Aquinas' time was that emotions, indeed all passions, were caused by a movement and a balance of different "humors," or liquids in the body (specifically, blood, phlegm, and yellow and black biles). Thus, if God has emotions, then He has a body, which is made of matter, and thus He is a matter-form composite. That is the thrust of the objection to which Aquinas will respond. In responding, Aquinas states that God has emotions only equivocally. That is, He does not experience anger like we do, but His anger is something altogether different, and not something which is caused by the movements of humors. Do not confuse the order of argumentation here. Aquinas argues that God cannot be composed of matter and form because He has no potentiality, which is intrinsic to matter. He then answers an objection to his position by explaining that the objector misunderstands the Scriptural use of words like anger when they are applied to God, since they are said of God in an equivocal, and not a univocal, sense.

Modern biological sciences also seem to suggest that emotions are caused by bodily movements, albeit more subtle and more complex than a mere balancing of humors. So, this same objection would still work as intended today, and Aquinas' response that the emotions of God are understood equivocally would still apply. If, however, emotions were not dependent on the body, then the objection to the question which is the subject of this article: whether God is composite of form and matter specifically (rather than composite in some other way) would not work. There would be no reason to suppose that God's having emotions implies that He has a material component in that case, and there would be no reason for Aquinas to offer a response to such an objection.

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