Can't pick up knife

[Mooglemuffins]

I've tried putting the hands both in the 'correct' position (pleases doomlord) and 'blasphemy' position (angers doomlord) and in both instances the hand holding the knife IS open but trying to pick up the knife still says there is no way to retrieve it 'with the fingers closed' despite that not being the case. Closing and reloading or leaving the area and returning and retrying changes nothing. Just totally softlocked.

Unfortunate to run into another save breaking bug in my second playthrough attempt when my first one also got stymied by a different bug. This is a neat game, love everything else about it, but these game breaking bugs especially over a year after release are a bummer.