Divine Compassion and the Meaning of Life

Abstract

When people meet each other for the first time, they often ask questions about each other's profession. In my case, it requires some courage to reply frankly to such questions. Those who are not put off by my admission that I am a philosopher of religion and ask me for my special field of interest, almost invariably betray horror at my answer that I concentrate on the suffering of God. Divine passibility may be theologically en vogue, it is simply not done to be concerned with such a topic day in, day out for several years. It is not only that for many people some kind of taboo seems to be imposed upon abstract thinking; people's aversion is too strong to be based on this alone. The heart of the matter seems to be that to many people prolonged reflection upon the suffering of God seems to be positively morbid; they would not trust their children with a man engaged in it! It is not my intention entirely to remove these misgivings here, but I do hope that my reflections at least will not reinforce them. I will focus on three issues: (1) the alleged importance of divine passibility for the project of theodicy; (2) the importance of divine passibility for our coping with suffering and (3) the relevance of the assertion of divine passibility in the light of the general sense of purposelessness that is characteristic for Western society in our time. This means that I will approach divine passibility from the backgrounds that motivate my interest in it, thus hoping to be able to convey something of the inspiration that prompted me to carry on with this seemingly morbid topic during the past few years.