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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Divine forgiveness consists in God rejoicing in our repen... — Carmelics
    Home/Forgiveness & Mercy
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    Divine forgiveness consists in God rejoicing in our repentance — that is, God ceases to suffer on our account when we repent.

    Forgiveness & Mercy
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.God, like any loving parent, suffers on our account when we do evil.
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    • 2.When we repent, God feels our joy and ceases to suffer.
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    • 3.This emotional change — from suffering to rejoicing — is a good candidate for divine forgiveness.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Forgiveness, as analyzed by philosophers like Charles Griswold, is a normative act directed at a wrongdoer, not merely an internal emotional state of the forgiver.
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    • 2.A purely emotional account — God rejoicing at repentance — conflates causal psychological relief with the morally significant act of forgiving, collapsing the distinction between feeling better and actually forgiving.
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    • 3.On this view, God's rejoicing would occur even if the repentant person had wronged a third party, meaning God's emotional state tracks repentance rather than the moral relationship between wrongdoer and victim.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Classical theism (Aquinas, Augustine) holds that God is impassible — incapable of suffering or emotional change — making divine suffering conceptually incoherent.
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    • 2.If God cannot suffer, then forgiveness cannot consist in the cessation of divine suffering, and a different account of divine forgiveness is required.
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    Forgiveness & Mercy

    Related

    A purely emotional account — God rejoicing at repentance — conflates causal psyc...Classical theism (Aquinas, Augustine) holds that God is impassible — incapable o...Forgiveness, as analyzed by philosophers like Charles Griswold, is a normative a...God, like any loving parent, suffers on our account when we do evil.
    +4 moreShow less
    If God cannot suffer, then forgiveness cannot consist in the cessation of divine...On this view, God's rejoicing would occur even if the repentant person had wrong...This emotional change — from suffering to rejoicing — is a good candidate for di...When we repent, God feels our joy and ceases to suffer.

    Similar

    When we repent, God feels our joy and ceases to suffer.88%If forgiveness is accepted sincerely, inwardly, contritely, with grati...83%Understanding forgiveness requires discovering what one does when one ...82%This emotional change — from suffering to rejoicing — is a good candid...82%

    Source

    AI-extracted
    SEP: forgiveness
    View source passageHide passage
    The concern expressed in this remark is that whereas God’s forgiveness is supposedly unilateral, unilateral human forgiveness may be irresponsible, as when a victim of wrongdoing forgives a wrongdoer irrespective of any signs of repentance on the part of the wrongdoer. Another writer argues that the gap between human and divine forgiveness is unbridgeable, for God’s forgiveness is grounded in “eschatological divine justice” not, as in human forgiveness, in an awareness of “sinful solidarity with humanity” (Williams 2008: 584–585).

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit