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Pain and the divine
DOI link for Pain and the divine
Pain and the divine book
Pain and the divine
DOI link for Pain and the divine
Pain and the divine book
ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the following question: Can divine reality feel pain? In Hinduism, one of the world’s oldest religions, ultimate reality is inherently transcendent, despite immanent manifestation–in the form of polytheism–to common people. The chapter considers a bold new view that is an apparent departure from strong traditional view that God does not experience pain, at least prima facie. Others have argued against the doctrine of divine impassibility, but only Linda Zagzebski’s work on omniscience both clearly entails that God feels pain, not just that God has negative emotions, and is grounded squarely in the theology of God’s attributes. The chapter discusses a more specific argument more directly anchored in Zagzebski’s text. It aims to evaluate Zagzebski’s arguments that God has the property of omnisubjectivity–arguments from omniscience and perfect empathy. Few of the arguments against divine impassibility have any direct bearing on the thesis because they largely concern God having non-physical emotional responses to His creatures.