Thinking Through Feeling: God, Emotion and Passibility
Ebook
Contemporary debates on God's emotionality are divided between two extremes. Impassibilists deny God's emotionality on the basis of God's omniscience, omnipotence and incorporeality. Passibilists seem to break with tradition by affirming divine emotionality, often focusing on the idea that God suffers with us.
Contemporary philosophy of emotion reflects this divide. Some philosophers argue that emotions are voluntary and intelligent mental events, making them potentially compatible with omniscience and omnipotence. Others claim that emotions are involuntary and basically physiological, rendering them inconsistent with traditional divine attributes.
Thinking Through Feeling: God, Emotion and Passibility creates a three-way conversation between the debate in theology, contemporary philosophy of emotion, and pre-modern (particularly Augustinian and Thomist) conceptions of human affective experience. It also provides an exploration of the intelligence and value of the emotions of compassion, anger and jealousy.
Examines some of the primary questions for the impassibility debate through the lens of contemporary philosophy of emotion.
Contributes to the impassibility debate in contemporary theology and philosophy of religion by providing a less simplistic account of both impassibility and emotion.
Indicates the value to philosophy of views of emotion formed within theological and religious, rather than secular and psychological, conceptual worldviews.
Demonstrates the need for theologians and philosophers of religion to engage with contemporary and historical philosophy of emotion.
Acknowledgments / Introduction / Chapter One: Historical and contemporary perspectives on emotion and impassibility / Chapter Two: Passiones and affectiones in Augustine and Aquinas / Summary of Chapters One and Two / Chapter Three: Emotion, intelligence and divine omniscience / Chapter Four: Compassion / Chapter Five: Anger / Chapter Six: Jealousy / Overview of Chapters Three to Six / Chapter Seven: Emotion, will, and divine omnipotence / Chapter Eight: Emotion, the body, and divine incorporeality / Conclusion / Bibliography
"This is a highly original contribution to the discussion of emotion and of divine passibility. Are emotions automatic reactions, which we cannot control, to external events; or can we sometimes or always control them? Is God able to suffer, to be angry, jealous, loving, compassionate? These and many other questions are discussed lucidly and with profound insight. This book will be of great interest to theologians, psychologists, and all who appreciate intellectual stimulus." -- John Hick, Emeritus H.G.Wood Professor of Theology, University of Birmingham, UK.
"Scrutton displays insight and skill in artfully weaving together several related strands of thought, and this breadth does not detract from her project's depth, by and large. Thinking Through Feeling is a timely book given the growing interest in emotions and their relationships to human rationality, morality, and flourishing. I think this has the kind of material that will spark fruitful research projects for philosophers and theologians (and perhaps even psychologists) alike." - Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
'Scrutton displays insight and skill in artfully weaving together several related strands of thought, and this breadth does not detract from her project's depth, by and large. Thinking Through Feeling is a timely book given the growing interest in emotions and their relationships to human rationality, morality, and flourishing. I think this has the kind of material that will spark fruitful research projects for philosophers and theologians (and perhaps even psychologists) alike.'-Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
- Title: Thinking Through Feeling: God, Emotion and Passibility
- Author: Anastasia Philippa Scrutton
- Publisher: Continuum
- Print Publication Date: 2011
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781441145772, 9781623560713, 1623560713, 144114577X
- Resource ID: LLS:9781441145772
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-04-12T02:38:44Z
Anastasia Philippa Scrutton is Frederick J. Crosson Research Fellow at the Center for Philosophy of Religion, University of Notre Dame, USA.