I’ve been rather busy the last week or so, so I’ve gotten rather behind in my posting. But over at my blog I was commenting on a couple of discussions regarding forgiveness. They were a bit technical, but there were a few interesting more practical issues that came up in the discussion. So allow me to muse a bit about forgiveness.
First off, is it really forgiveness if I don’t care that much? For instance if someone cuts me off in traffic, I may momentarily be upset, but I quickly forget it. Yet, if I truly forgive someone, I can’t simply neglect my actions nor the actions of those I forgive. I have to pay them mind. They must be meaningful to me. If I simply don’t pay them attention, I wonder if we can truly say I’ve forgiven them.
I say that because not only is forgetting important, but so to is caring. Put an other way, can I forgive if I simultaneously don’t care and love the person I’m forgiving? I don’t think so.
The other issue that popped up is communication. Can I really forgive someone I don’t understand? That may seem more controversial, but consider if someone wasn’t really doing wrong, how can I forgive them? That implies that to forgive I have to understand both the person and the sin. Now some might object and say I might still need to not hold a grudge, forget and all that. I’d agree. My point is simply that this isn’t forgiveness.
If, however, communication and understanding is necessary to forgiveness, do we do it?
Recall that the aim of forgiveness is reconciliation. To once again appeal to that way too frequently quoted Anglo-Saxon etymology, atonement is literally to make at-one. Can we be one unless we communicate? Unless we come to understand one an other?
That’s a big issue, and something I think we all too often neglect. We’re willing to treat forgiveness as simply not being angry or spiteful. That is, we remove all the negative aspects of our relationship to the one who wronged us. But do we add the corresponding positive aspects? I suspect we rarely do. Yet, consider the common LDS notion of Christ’s atonement. Why do we emphasize the garden? Because many think that it was there that Christ culminated his understanding of us. Why was it important for God to become mortal like us? In LDS thought, so that he can understand us. Ought that not be the model for us as well?
I think this understanding comes through Charity. I have found that through seeking charity I come to not only love others, but empathize with them as well; when I can empathize, I can truly love and forgive. It is so easy to brush things aside and let it bottle up, but when we developer charity we want, not only to forgive, but to help.
I fully agree. I think we err when we don’t see forgiveness and charity as intertwined.
I’m not convinced that reconciliation is either the goal or the motive of forgiveness. Contrary to Derrida, I think the reason for forgiveness is that it’s a normative moral obligation. Not obligation in the traditional sense, of course, but in the sense that forgiveness is an inherent aspect of loving the neighbor as the self. As such, I don’t believe there is a goal of forgiveness per se.
Forgiveness also does not require communication, because we can forgive without the person being forgiven knowing it. A dead person, for example, or someone who never knew that a grudge was held against them in the first place.
I think what I’m trying to say here is that real forgiveness is a result of a way of being. I will go further than Clark and Aaron in that I believe that forgiveness and charity are not only intertwined, but essentially the same thing – more accurately, forgiveness is simply one manifestation of charity.
The case of someone not being wrong in the first place is an interesting one. It emphasizes the point that forgiveness, it seems, is often a form of blame. True forgiveness, however, is a form of not casting blame in the first place. We have forgiven when we cease placing blame on others for our emotional disruption. It really doesn’t matter then, whether the person was as fault in the first place. Forgiveness relieves the blame of all.
I think it all depends on the situation. Forgiveness can require communication at some times, and may not at other times. Sometimes the communication may be for the benefit of the person who is being forgiven. Sometimes it is for our own benefit.
I had a very touching experience a few weeks ago. I was dropping my son off at school and carelessly drove right in front of a woman and her small daughter. The woman became angry and flipped me the bird. I was a little annoyed at first that she did that, after all, thought I- I wasn’t really THAT close to hitting her or her daughter. But as I parked the car and walked my son up to school, I could see why she might be upset. So I approached her, apologized for not driving more carefully, and asked her forgiveness. She quickly forgave me, and apologized herself for acting so rashly, which I told her was OK and that I understood why she would. Both of us left that encounter as better people. Both of us could have been angry and let it affect our morning, but a communication of forgiveness healed the anger in both of our hearts and made our day. (She told me that I had “made her day”, which made me feel really good. She made mine too, because I no longer felt stupid like I usually do when people flip me the bird.)
I felt a true feeling of forgiveness. My “forgiving” of her flipping me the bird was not even really forgiveness in the traditional sense, perhaps, but a realization that I had acted offensively too and an attempt to mitigate the effects of my carelessness on her. And in the process, it helped me too.
I used to carry a grudge forever, but the last few years I’ve just become more forgiving. This might sound bad, I don’t know how to put it, but as I’ve aged, and seen that God is passing those opportunities to grow through trials around, I’ve lost some of my bitterness and “poor me” and just forgiven others their human-ness more readily.
My neighbor has been a pain since she moved in, she is young and she knows everything and fights with all of us. I have been able to see her soft inner core, that tender spot that Stephen Covey writes about and be nice to her anyway.
But this is about aging, growing up, per se, for me. Some people do it more readily than others. Yeah, it’s charity. Which can be a gift, or the grace of God, rather than anything I’ve done to earn it.
Recall that the aim of forgiveness is reconciliation
I disagree. My friend has made tremendous efforts with much success at forgiving her father for his wrongs. However, her forgiveness does not mean he has repented. Her forgiveness does not mean that he does not continue to do the same things. Her forgiveness does not mean that she has to keep letting him do wrong and hurt her or her children.
Forgiveness towards each other is a different thing than forgiveness from God. We are required to forgive all. And it does not matter if the person has repented. God will forgive as he chooses, and repentence is required.
I’m quite willing to equate charity and forgiveness. However I think the point about communication is that to provide effective charity, one must know the needs and situation of the one one servers. Otherwise we do what we think they need, which may be completely different than they actually do.
The old joke about this is the boy scout grabbing the arm of the old lady and dragging her across the street. As they reach the other side the old woman starts hitting the boy scout with her umbrella yelling, “I just got to that corner! What are you doing?”
Put simply forgiveness that is purely on our terms is not pure forgiveness. It ends up being a kind of selfishness.
Interesting post. I’ve been pondering what forgiveness means. I keep wondering if I forgive someone if that also means I have to like them as well. Not that I have many people in my life that I’m angry at.
I had the strangest thing happen to me recently, that kind of taught me something about forgiveness — even if it was a sort of forgiveness by accident. It also was an experience that I now refer to as my “Seinfeld moment.” I swear this experience is the potential seed of a hilarious Seinfeld episode.
In my entire life there is only one person I came to dislike so intensely that I would refuse to say hello. I felt this person had gone to some unusual trouble to try and hurt me personally with an emmployer. Ironically I was eventually placed into a position where I was in this person’s vicinity from time to time … so I would occasionally have to pass her in a hallway. I was so angry at my negative experiences with her that I’d just walk right past her, pretending she wasn’t even there. I later got feedback that she said whenever she passed me by, she felt like a black hole had opened up and eaten her up. I didn’t mind that she felt that way … not one bit.
Anyway … under those personal circumstances I went to a wedding of a co-worker … and as things work out, she was there. I was trying for awhile to avoid eye-contact or any verbal encounter with her. At one point I saw someone else that I knew, said hello, and somehow (this is the “Seinfeld moment” part of the story) she intercepted the hello. She’s a fairly short person and somehow she had gotten between myself and this other person. She genuinely thought I was greeting her and I was completely caught by surprise at this little social accident. After the briefest hesitation, I felt compelled to say hello back in response. We had some small talk and I actually felt my heart softening towards her.
I was actually relieved a little bit by this. It helped to take away that little bit of tension that I had been carrying around with me. I’m still not overly fond of this person but I think I could be a little less hardhearted towards her, as I was in the past.
I disagree. My friend has made tremendous efforts with much success at forgiving her father for his wrongs. However, her forgiveness does not mean he has repented. Her forgiveness does not mean that he does not continue to do the same things. Her forgiveness does not mean that she has to keep letting him do wrong and hurt her or her children.
Reconciliation to be reconciliation has to be two way. Forgiveness means preparing to meet the other and greet them. But, as with God and his grace he prepares for us, the sinner must take hold of it, also truly and with real intent.
Forgiveness does not mean abrogating our responsibilities and duties. Far from it.
I do think forgiveness can be one-way; certainly, it makes sense, for if that wasn’t the case it wouldn’t be a fair principle for us to be accountable by. Unless we have the spirit however, we won’t be able to know when to let the person go, or to continue trying to help them.
I think you misunderstand. Forgiveness is the opening for reconciliation. To speak of God (who is the only truly pure forgiver) it is him fully opening his arms to embrace us. He patiently awaits for us to turn (repent) and come to him. But his arms are forever stretched out. That is what we have to do. That is what our act of reconciliation is to be.
The problem is, and this is where knowledge comes in, and thus the importance of Christ being in and through all things, we must know how to be able to reach out to them. Often what we call reaching out is merely keeping people in their sins. It isn’t forgiving at all. We offer not what is righteous but what we determine. Thus communication (in the broad sense of the term).
Consider abuse. Would it be appropriate to embrace the person and go back to the status quo? Not if the person is likely to become abusive again. How on earth would that be serving them? To put them in a situation where they do more grievous sins? That is far from forgiving.
I think the ideal for forgiveness is always God. And, looking to God, we must remember that God saves us from our sins and not in our sins. If, as several have suggested, forgiveness and charity are closely tied together or even the same thing, then we must be lifting people out of their state. That is what charity does – it improves people. It helps them. A forgiveness that merely allows people the confidence to continue sinning is not forgiveness. It is a kind of imposition of slavery.
Clark,
“That is what charity does – it improves people. It helps them. A forgiveness that merely allows people the confidence to continue sinning is not forgiveness. It is a kind of imposition of slavery.”
Is this not defining a behaviour on our part that tends to make us feel superior rather than Christlike. The act of charity on our part is an extension of our relationship with the Saviour.
Forgiveness by us, as compared to that of the Saviour’s, has less to do with changing other people’s behaviour and more to do with how we ought to behave. We can no more force people to change than fly to the moon on wings if they don’t want to, or don’t see, or feel, the need to change. Hence, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do”. The commandment given us is to forgive all men.
Nephi rebuked himself because of the feelings he had when his brothers persecuted him. He had to forgive them. He didn’t have to stay with them. They didn’t change. He did.
It may well be an act of selfishness to forgive because we are the one benefiting from the act initially, but this might well be an argument for the virtue of selfishness when the end product makes us better, and therefore able to offer more.
However, as in Jordan’s example, sometimes our repentance can inspire them to change and we all feel enriched and want to improve.
The fact that we do not understand the other person fully nor do we often know their level of accountability does remove from us the requirement for forgiveness. My understanding is that forgiving the other person is for our own progression and is necessary for us to be forgiven by God. Whether we forgive a person or not will not effect whether our Father in Heaven forgives them. Even if someone is innocent in the eyes of God in the offense because of circumstances unknown to us, we need to free ourselves from harboring any ill feelings.
As far as needing to forgive the minor annoyances in a day, I had not really forgot about that one. We often are upset by letting things and just forget them before really having any feelings of forgiveness. However, an awareness of the need for forgiveness may make one conscious of it during the act and make one slower to anger or at least quicker to come back to more harmonious feelings.
Blissful. I fully and 100% agree that not understanding the other or knowing their accountability does not abrogate our duty to forgive. But it is that paradox which is so interesting about forgiveness. We are commanded to do something which is largely impossible. That was the point that I think Derrida was getting at, although I disagree with many points that he appears to have made. (I say appears, since I’ve not read the original text in question)
I think God asks us to do many impossible things, when we stop and think about it. That is, where faith and the atonement come in. The atonement is what enables us with Christ to do or complete these impossible things.