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The transformative power of accepting God's love

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2021

T. Ryan Byerly Open the ORCID record for T. Ryan Byerly [Opens in a new window]
T. Ryan Byerly*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Sheffield, 45 Victoria St, Sheffield, S3 7QB, UK
*
Corresponding author: T. Ryan Byerly, email: t.r.byerly@sheffield.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article develops an account of some of the central features involved on the human side in adopting a richly accepting orientation towards God's love. It then builds a conceptual and empirical argument for the conclusion that accepting God's love can enhance a person's mental health and can indirectly enable a person to cultivate or maintain moral virtues – whether or not God exists. Importantly, the article contends that these transformative benefits are available to both believers and agnostics, and an original secondary data analysis is offered to support this conclusion in the case of agnostics. The article explains how this transformative value of accepting God's love may serve as the basis for a novel pragmatic argument for theistic religious commitment.

Keywords

virtuepragmatic argumentsagnosticismmental healthGod's love
Type
Original Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 58 , Issue 4 , December 2022 , pp. 831 - 845
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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