theopathy

English

Etymology

From theo- +‎ -pathy.

Noun

theopathy (usually uncountable, plural theopathies)

1. The capacity of a person to worship, or to experience a religious belief
   • 1902, William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature […] , New York, N.Y.; London: Longmans, Green, and Co. […], →OCLC:

     Here language itself reflects the feeling that the divine pathos, the passion of the "pathetic God" who "yearned" to be known, presupposes as its correlate a theopathy in the human being whose God He is.

   • 2004, Andrew Brown (tr.), The Ark of Speech, Routledge, translation of L'arche de la parole by Jean-Louis Chrétien:

     A new characteristic can be added to the description of prayer: the manifestation of self to other through speech, an agonistic speech struggling for its truth, is an ordeal, an undergoing of God, a suffering of God, a theopathy.

Related terms

• theopath
• theopathic