Trust in God, Forgiveness by God, and Death Anxiety

Abstract

Research on religion and death anxiety has produced many contradictory findings. These conflicting findings arise, in part, from inadequacies in the measurement of religion as well as problems with the way the data have been analyzed. The purpose of the current study is to develop and empirically evaluate a conceptual model that contains the following core hypotheses: (a) People who go to church more often will receive more spiritual support from fellow church members (spiritual support is assistance provided by coreligionists for the explicit purpose of increasing the religious beliefs and practices of the recipient). (b) Individuals who receive more spiritual support will be more likely to trust God. (c) Those who trust God more deeply will be more likely to feel forgiven by Him. (d) People who feel forgiven by God will experience less death anxiety. Findings from a recent nationwide survey provide support for each hypothesis.

Comfort with discussions about death, religiosity, and attitudes about end‐of‐life care

“…However, evidence exploring this link has been inconclusive. Findings from previous empirical studies examining relationships between religiosity and fear of death have not been consistent with reports of negative, positive, curvilinear, or even no relationships due to the myriad of religious facets and experiences; however, there is some evidence suggesting that certain intrinsic religiousness can reduce fear of death (Jonas & Fischer, ; Krause, ).…”

“…Recently, researchers have begun to hypothesize about the potential benefits of contemplating one's own death, rather than concentrating solely on efforts to minimize death anxiety or terror (Bevan, Maxfield, & Bultmann, 2014;Cooper, Goldenberg, & Arndt, 2014;Vail et al, 2012). Moreover, TMT postulates that religious beliefs can reduce the terror surrounding the prospect of one's own death because the idea of spiritual immortality promotes continuity of self beyond death via religious worldview (Ellis & Wahab, 2013;Krause, 2015). However, evidence exploring this link has been inconclusive.…”

Spiritually Motivated Self-Forgiveness and Divine Forgiveness, and Subsequent Health and Well-Being Among Middle-Aged Female Nurses: An Outcome-Wide Longitudinal Approach

“…In our study, those who reported the highest levels of divine forgiveness had better psychosocial well-being than those who reported the lowest levels of divine forgiveness, broadly aligning with the small amount of existing evidence on divine forgiveness. For example, a number of cross-sectional studies examining divine forgiveness have found generally positive relationships with well-being and psychological adjustment ( Exline, 2020 ) such as successful aging among older adults ( Lawler-Row, 2010 ), stronger sense of purpose ( Lyons et al, 2011 ), and lower end-of-life anxiety ( Krause, 2015 ). Others note that while divine forgiveness is not as strongly predictive of better mental health as much as the forgiveness of others ( Toussaint et al, 2001 ; Krause and Ellison, 2003 ), belief in God’s forgiveness is a strong predictor of unconditional forgiveness of others, which is associated with better mental health outcomes ( Krause and Ellison, 2003 ; Uecker et al, 2016 ).…”

Forgiveness by God, religious commitment, and waist/hip ratios

“…The third way we aim to contribute to the literature is more methodological in nature. So far, many of the studies on forgiveness by God have been conducted with special populations, such as college students (Bassett et al., ), older Mexican Americans (Krause, ), and individuals who are HIV positive (Ironson et al., ). Consequently, it is difficult to know if the findings from these samples can be generalized to the general population.…”

“…So far, most researchers have focused on forgiveness of others while fewer studies have been concerned with forgiveness by God. Even so, research on feeling forgiven by God reveals that it is associated with enhanced feelings of psychological well-being (Krause & Ellison, 2003), decreased odds of being depressed (Toussaint, Williams, Musick, & Everson-Rose, 2008), and lower levels of death anxiety (Krause, 2015). However, fewer studies have examined the relationship between forgiveness by God and physical health (for a notable exception see Bassett et al, 2016).…”