Overview
Divine forgiveness or forgiveness from a Supreme Being/Higher Power (e.g., God, Creator, Allah, Deity, Dream Maker) is a foundational concept in many religions and is a source of great comfort for people of faith in everyday life. For many people such religious beliefs are a core-motivating feature of their lives. Consequently, the emphasis on divine forgiveness in the world’s longstanding religions (Lundberg, 2010) cannot be ignored if we are to attain a more complete understanding of human behavior. Yet, “modern discussions of forgiveness have given little attention to divine forgiveness” (Couenhoven, 2010, p. 166). The current project is designed to change this circumstance and help to establish a conceptually sound body of research on divine forgiveness.
Rationale
Very little research has been reported on the psychological perspectives of divine forgiveness. In contrast to over 2,500 empirical studies on interpersonal forgiveness (Worthington & Wade, 2020), an analysis of research on divine forgiveness identified only 60 relevant empirical studies (Fincham, 2020). The analysis also showed that divine forgiveness was seldom the central focus of studies that reported relevant data. Rather it tends to be a variable that is included along with numerous other variables that are the focus of study. The result is “a scattered body of work that lacks coherence” (Fincham, 2020, p. 10).
A second reason for attention to divine forgiveness arises from recalling that the world’s longstanding religions emphasize divine forgiveness and promote interpersonal forgiveness as a goal (Lundberg, 2010). This raises obvious questions at the intersection of divine forgiveness and interpersonal forgiveness. For example, what happens when the receipt of divine forgiveness is viewed as dependent on one’s interpersonal forgiveness?
Third, a research literature has emerged on self-forgiveness. As with interpersonal forgiveness, self-forgiveness requires consideration of divine forgiveness if it is to be fully understood. For example, what is the temporal relation between the perception of being forgiven by God and self-forgiveness? Under what conditions might the perception of divine forgiveness facilitate self-forgiveness?
Fourth, research on divine forgiveness has the potential to provide a much-needed integration of work on interpersonal and self-forgiveness. It is unfortunately the case that “different types of forgiveness have largely been examined in isolation from each other” (Krause, 2017, p. 129) and as a result the literatures on interpersonal and self-forgiveness remain relatively isolated from each other.
Finally, scientific research on divine forgiveness is important in its own right. Understanding how the perception and experience of divine forgiveness operates in different religious traditions has the potential not only to advance knowledge of human behavior but also to increase understanding among people of different faith traditions.
Main Components of the Project
A Request for Proposals (RFP) for both empirical and nonempirical researchers. This is the central component of the overall project. The project will include a multidisciplinary advisory board whose tasks will include judging proposals.
A launch conference for project participants in the first year of the project period to familiarize PIs with each other’s projects thereby setting the stage for potential cross fertilization and collaboration.
A capstone conference near the conclusion of the project for all project participants.
An empirical research project on the perceived conditional versus unconditional nature of divine forgiveness, and antecedents of seeking divine forgiveness, conducted at Florida State University.
Request for Proposals
The centerpiece of this project is a competitive Request for Proposals (RFP) that will fund empirical and non-empirical projects on the psychology of divine forgiveness. The goal is to employ conceptual and empirical methods to support research on the role of divine forgiveness in human behavior.
In this project divine forgiveness is conceptualized broadly as a set of related constructs, such as (a) belief that God is forgiving (in a general sense or in some particular sense), (b) expectations concerning what one needs to do, if anything, to gain such forgiveness (c) experience of having been forgiven by God (in a general sense or in some particular instance), (d) beliefs about what kinds of things God does or doesn’t forgive, (e) assumptions about God’s criteria (if any) for granting forgiveness, (f) beliefs about one’s own agency in obtaining God’s forgiveness, (g) beliefs about one’s own “forgivability” by God, (h) expectancies about and actual immediate, near term and longer term consequences or outcomes of experiencing God’s forgiveness. This list is necessarily incomplete as investigation of each item is likely to reveal further dimensions of divine forgiveness.