Can Only a Suffering God Help?

Abstract

Passibilism – understood here as the idea that God suffers in Godself – is sometimes motivated by the idea that a fellow-sufferer provides consolation and so is religiously helpful. Yet intuitions about whether a divine fellow-sufferer is religiously helpful are radically different: for some, ‘only a suffering God can help’, while for others it is precisely by not suffering that God offers consolation. Here, Scrutton explores these diverse intuitions and argues that consolation is not a good argument for passibilism. She contends, rather, that consolation may contribute to the rationality of belief in a passible God, if it is indeed religiously helpful. And whether it is religiously helpful depends on factors, including whether other figures within the religious tradition are able to provide consolation through fellow-suffering. As examples of non-divine fellow-sufferer consolers, Scrutton explores saints in late medieval Western Europe, and bodhisattvas in Japanese Buddhism today. In so doing, Scrutton suggests an account of why passibilism arose out of Protestant Christianity and attempts to do philosophy of religion in a way that takes into account people's practical and psychological motivations for their beliefs. Finally, Scrutton considers some of the implications of her argument for other aspects of debates about divine passibility.