Pain, Addiction, and Suffering Persons

1 credits · Divinity School

How are we to understand and attend to persons suffering pain/and or addiction? From ancient Stoic ethics to the psalms of lament to the contemporary opioid crisis, pain and addiction are occasions for fundamental questions about the purpose of our lives, the structures of our relationships and societies, and the goodness of God. This course explores scriptural, theological, philosophical, political, scientific, and medical resources that inform how we encounter persons suffering pain and/or addiction, along with questions about the meaning and purpose of suffering generated by such encounters. In doing so, it considers questions in Christian ethics and political theology raised in the effor