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The Nature of God's Love and Forgiveness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Douglas Drabkin
Douglas Drabkin
Affiliation:
Corcoran Department of Philosophy, 521 Cabell Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22901, U.S.A.
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Abstract

God, a being who is good in the best possible combination of ways, loves us. But does he feel sorrow on our behalf? Thomas Aquinas argues that: every passion is specified by its object. That passion, therefore, whose subject is absolutely unbefitting to God is removed from God even according to the nature of its proper species. Such a passion, however, is sorrow or pain, for its subject is the already present evil, just as the object of joy is the good present and possessed. Sorrow and pain, therefore, of their very nature cannot be found in God.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , June 1993 , pp. 231 - 238
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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References

1 Thomas, Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, trans., Anton C. Pegis (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975), Book 1, chapter 89, pp. 272–3Google Scholar.

2 Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, Book 1, chapter 91.

3 Charles, Hartshorne, Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984), p. 29Google Scholar.

4 Creel, Richard E., Divine Impassibility (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), p. 206Google Scholar.

5 Creel, , Divine Impassibility, pp. 122–3Google Scholar.

6 Creel is citing Bernard, Brasnett, The Suffering of the Impassible God (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1928), p. 71Google Scholar.

7 Creel, , Divine Impassibility, pp. 125–6Google Scholar.

8 A position which, incidentally, Creel rejects, on the grounds that it would compromise our freedom.

9 Minas, Anne C., ‘God and Forgiveness’, Philosophical Quarterly, XXV (1975), 138CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Reprinted in Cahn, Steven M. and David, Shatz, eds., Contemporary Philosophy of Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982)Google Scholar.

10 Minas, ‘God and Forgiveness’, p. 142.

11 Minas, ‘God and Forgiveness’, p. 147.

12 Luke 15:11–24, according to the Authorized King James translation.

13 Meirlys, Lewis, ‘On Forgiveness’, Philosophical Quarterly, XXX (1980), 243Google Scholar.

14 Boethius, , The Consolation of Philosophy, trans., Watts, V. E. (Penguin, 1969), pp. 163–4Google Scholar.

15 Boethius, , Consolation of Philosophy, p. 166Google Scholar.

16 This essay grew out of many recent discussions that I have had with James Cargile of the University of Virginia.