This is a tangent that rockets off toward an entirely different reflection, but I've often been struck by the idea (which can be phrased in many ways) that goes something like "you can't forgive someone who isn't sorry", and how that idea overlaps with the notion of a God who certainly *offers* forgiveness to all, but may never "force" that forgiveness upon those who adamantly (pridefully) refuse to ask for it. And that seems to suggest a distinction: between forgiveness that is merely available (potential), vs. forgiveness that is actually given-and-received, when it is sought.
So maybe there can be a legitimate sense in which we *don't* actually forgive those who are unrepentant for the harms they have caused us, yet we remain called to always make that potential forgiveness *available* to them, if ever they sincerely seek it. I'm not sure yet how to unpack that further, but it seems like an important thing to reflect upon... validating *something* about the deeper sense of "well they aren't sorry, so I can't forgive them" (indeed on a deep level it may even feel wrong and unjust to forgive them, if they aren't sorry), but softening it with the obligation to always be *prepared* to forgive them at the drop of a hat, if they repent.
I wonder if confusing these two senses of forgiveness – (A) your internal preparation and willingness to forgive, vs. (B) the actual completion of giving the thing to another – might lie at the root of how "the duty to forgive can be weaponized by people who think forgiveness and reconciliation are owed to them", because they're failing to appreciate that type-B "completed" forgiveness is only actually owed under a certain condition, even though the obligation to extend type-A "available" forgiveness is unconditional.
Thanks for your thoughts, Daniel! I think there’s a lot of truth in your “sense A / sense B” distinction of two kinds of forgiveness. It seems clear to me that the word “forgiveness” in the Bible is not simply univocal; it means different things in different places. In Luke, where Jesus says “if your brother repents, forgive him,” he seems to be referring to the forgiveness of reconciliation. This would be what you call “type B” forgiveness.
On the other hand, in many other places the command to forgive is unconditional and unequivocal, a corollary of loving our enemies. Jesus links the two very clearly in Luke 6, the “Sermon on the Plain”:
“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.… Love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven.” (Luke 6:37)
The clear implication is that just as we are to return good for evil, blessings for curses, and prayer for abuse, and to lend expecting nothing in return, so we are to forgive without demanding repentance or apologies. Forgiveness is *part of* the good that we are to offer even to unrepentant enemies.
Other passages also place no conditions on the obligation to forgive:
“And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against any one; so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.” (Mark 11:25)
“For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matt 6:14–15 & parallels)
I believe that in these passages Jesus calls us to forgive unconditionally, in the sense of choosing to seek to love even our enemies who continue to wrong us. What he does *not* call for is unconditional reconciliation, tolerance for abuse, or absolution from consequences or accountability. As Pope Francis writes in the passage of Fratelli Tutti quoted in this piece:
“Forgiveness does not entail allowing oppressors to keep trampling on their own dignity and that of others, or letting criminals continue their wrongdoing. Those who suffer injustice have to defend strenuously their own rights and those of their family, precisely because they must preserve the dignity they have received as a loving gift from God. If a criminal has harmed me or a loved one, no one can forbid me from demanding justice and ensuring that this person – or anyone else – will not harm me, or others, again. This is entirely just; forgiveness does not forbid it but actually demands it.”
So really it’s not as simple as A and B! One can distinguish at the very least the forgiveness we offer to
A. unrepentant offenders who continue to oppress us, i.e., the forgiveness of willing their good, but without reconciliation or absolution of consequences
B. offenders who present themselves as repentant, but whom we cannot trust not to repeat their offenses, i.e., of accepting their apology, giving them the benefit of the doubt, but withholding our full trust and intimacy, and possibly denying regular contact of any kind.
C. offenders who may be genuinely repentant, but whose offenses are such that restitution must be made, e.g., in the form of criminal penalties or direct repayment of wrongs (e.g., restitution of money stolen)
D. those whose repentance we accept as genuine, where no restitution is necessitated and where trust and intimacy can be extended.
There are in the grey areas between these any number of intermediate cases.
Truly excellent. In fact, it's so good that I will be sharing this with a few friends who have trouble with forgiveness. I find it interesting how you connect the subject of fathers with forgiveness. Growing up, I had positive experiences with my dad, but mostly it was negative. When I decided to be truly devout in my mid-twenties, I told my father that, despite everything, I loved him and forgave him. It was the hardest phone call I have ever made and I know it genuinely affected him. I only did it through the grace of God. I have not forgiven him 100%, but it was definitely a spiritual milestone in my life.
Thanks so much for sharing your experiences, Christopher. An adult relationship with a father who has left significant negativity in our lives is complicated, and forgiving him can be hard. Forgiveness does not have to be 100 percent to be real and important. Like I said in my homily, forgiveness is a process, a journey. Perhaps the journey is not complete until we reach eternal life.
Beautiful, and challenging! I find it helpful to think of forgiveness as what AA folks call 'letting go of resentments.' It doesn't require me to pretend someone never harmed me: just to stop harboring ill-will towards that person and "re-feeling" [the etymological root of "resent"] the harm, and ideally wishing for that person's *good* -- which ultimately, of course, is also better for *me* than holding the resentment!
Thanks so much, Michaelangelo! Your take means a lot to me.
I think a careful examination of the New Testament suggests that forgiveness is not one thing, but different things in different contexts. That said, I think “letting go” is a running theme in all of them. “Letting go of resentment” is certainly part of it; certainly if you are clinging to resentment, you haven’t forgiven! On the other hand, I think it’s possible can “let go of resentment” without necessarily forgiving”!
There is a lot of truth in the insight that holding onto resentment is harmful to me. But I am wary of attempts to make forgiveness primarily about *my* good, as if forgiveness were a therapeutic move in a program of self-care. Fortunately, I think you have the heart of the matter when you talk about “wishing for the other person’s good”—i.e., love. Love for all, even for those who wish one harm, is essence of the Christian ethic, and the root of the comandment to forgive all offenses.
You are right to be wary! I agree wholly that in a spiritual, Christian context, I try to remember that I need to forgive *because it is right*, and because Jesus commanded it, and because it allows me to return to *loving* the person who hurt me -- which is also right, and commanded by Jesus. That it has *always* benefited me is incidental, and not the reason for forgiving.
On the other hand, one of the genius strategies of the 12-step program -- and I believe there is at least a spark of divine inspiration here [see Dawn Eden Goldstein's book about Fr. Ed Dowling, which attests to the enormous overlap between the steps and the Spiritual Exercises, and to the explicitly Ignatian guidance Fr. Ed gave Bill W. while he was helping AA formalize its principles and practices] -- is how often it turns our selfish instincts into positive incentives for recovery and spiritual growth. As example, I offer the whole moral inventory process (steps 4-8) which leads to making amends and taking responsibility for harms done and trying to right these wrongs. Brilliantly, instead of asking us to list our sins, or crimes, or harms done, it starts by asking us to list our *resentments* -- any newly sober person who's still probably swimming in self-pity finds it *much* easier to list all the people that have pissed them off, and how. And of course, in the process of working through these resentments, in spite of ourselves, we discover all the harms *we* have done to others.
In a similar way, recovering folks tend to remind themselves/each other/newcomers of the "what's in it for me?" incentive to abandon resentments, and ideally to forgive (because you're absolutely right, it IS perfectly possible to let go of a resentment *without* forgiving the resented person) the resented person, purely for practical reasons.
I will end my little TED talk by quoting one of the funniest and truest remarks I ever heard in a meeting: "Holding onto a resentment is like pissing in your pants --only you can feel it, but pretty soon nobody wants to be around you."
This is a tangent that rockets off toward an entirely different reflection, but I've often been struck by the idea (which can be phrased in many ways) that goes something like "you can't forgive someone who isn't sorry", and how that idea overlaps with the notion of a God who certainly *offers* forgiveness to all, but may never "force" that forgiveness upon those who adamantly (pridefully) refuse to ask for it. And that seems to suggest a distinction: between forgiveness that is merely available (potential), vs. forgiveness that is actually given-and-received, when it is sought.
So maybe there can be a legitimate sense in which we *don't* actually forgive those who are unrepentant for the harms they have caused us, yet we remain called to always make that potential forgiveness *available* to them, if ever they sincerely seek it. I'm not sure yet how to unpack that further, but it seems like an important thing to reflect upon... validating *something* about the deeper sense of "well they aren't sorry, so I can't forgive them" (indeed on a deep level it may even feel wrong and unjust to forgive them, if they aren't sorry), but softening it with the obligation to always be *prepared* to forgive them at the drop of a hat, if they repent.
I wonder if confusing these two senses of forgiveness – (A) your internal preparation and willingness to forgive, vs. (B) the actual completion of giving the thing to another – might lie at the root of how "the duty to forgive can be weaponized by people who think forgiveness and reconciliation are owed to them", because they're failing to appreciate that type-B "completed" forgiveness is only actually owed under a certain condition, even though the obligation to extend type-A "available" forgiveness is unconditional.
Thanks for your thoughts, Daniel! I think there’s a lot of truth in your “sense A / sense B” distinction of two kinds of forgiveness. It seems clear to me that the word “forgiveness” in the Bible is not simply univocal; it means different things in different places. In Luke, where Jesus says “if your brother repents, forgive him,” he seems to be referring to the forgiveness of reconciliation. This would be what you call “type B” forgiveness.
On the other hand, in many other places the command to forgive is unconditional and unequivocal, a corollary of loving our enemies. Jesus links the two very clearly in Luke 6, the “Sermon on the Plain”:
“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.… Love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven.” (Luke 6:37)
The clear implication is that just as we are to return good for evil, blessings for curses, and prayer for abuse, and to lend expecting nothing in return, so we are to forgive without demanding repentance or apologies. Forgiveness is *part of* the good that we are to offer even to unrepentant enemies.
Other passages also place no conditions on the obligation to forgive:
“And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against any one; so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.” (Mark 11:25)
“For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matt 6:14–15 & parallels)
I believe that in these passages Jesus calls us to forgive unconditionally, in the sense of choosing to seek to love even our enemies who continue to wrong us. What he does *not* call for is unconditional reconciliation, tolerance for abuse, or absolution from consequences or accountability. As Pope Francis writes in the passage of Fratelli Tutti quoted in this piece:
“Forgiveness does not entail allowing oppressors to keep trampling on their own dignity and that of others, or letting criminals continue their wrongdoing. Those who suffer injustice have to defend strenuously their own rights and those of their family, precisely because they must preserve the dignity they have received as a loving gift from God. If a criminal has harmed me or a loved one, no one can forbid me from demanding justice and ensuring that this person – or anyone else – will not harm me, or others, again. This is entirely just; forgiveness does not forbid it but actually demands it.”
So really it’s not as simple as A and B! One can distinguish at the very least the forgiveness we offer to
A. unrepentant offenders who continue to oppress us, i.e., the forgiveness of willing their good, but without reconciliation or absolution of consequences
B. offenders who present themselves as repentant, but whom we cannot trust not to repeat their offenses, i.e., of accepting their apology, giving them the benefit of the doubt, but withholding our full trust and intimacy, and possibly denying regular contact of any kind.
C. offenders who may be genuinely repentant, but whose offenses are such that restitution must be made, e.g., in the form of criminal penalties or direct repayment of wrongs (e.g., restitution of money stolen)
D. those whose repentance we accept as genuine, where no restitution is necessitated and where trust and intimacy can be extended.
There are in the grey areas between these any number of intermediate cases.
Truly excellent. In fact, it's so good that I will be sharing this with a few friends who have trouble with forgiveness. I find it interesting how you connect the subject of fathers with forgiveness. Growing up, I had positive experiences with my dad, but mostly it was negative. When I decided to be truly devout in my mid-twenties, I told my father that, despite everything, I loved him and forgave him. It was the hardest phone call I have ever made and I know it genuinely affected him. I only did it through the grace of God. I have not forgiven him 100%, but it was definitely a spiritual milestone in my life.
Thanks so much for sharing your experiences, Christopher. An adult relationship with a father who has left significant negativity in our lives is complicated, and forgiving him can be hard. Forgiveness does not have to be 100 percent to be real and important. Like I said in my homily, forgiveness is a process, a journey. Perhaps the journey is not complete until we reach eternal life.
Beautiful, and challenging! I find it helpful to think of forgiveness as what AA folks call 'letting go of resentments.' It doesn't require me to pretend someone never harmed me: just to stop harboring ill-will towards that person and "re-feeling" [the etymological root of "resent"] the harm, and ideally wishing for that person's *good* -- which ultimately, of course, is also better for *me* than holding the resentment!
Thanks so much, Michaelangelo! Your take means a lot to me.
I think a careful examination of the New Testament suggests that forgiveness is not one thing, but different things in different contexts. That said, I think “letting go” is a running theme in all of them. “Letting go of resentment” is certainly part of it; certainly if you are clinging to resentment, you haven’t forgiven! On the other hand, I think it’s possible can “let go of resentment” without necessarily forgiving”!
There is a lot of truth in the insight that holding onto resentment is harmful to me. But I am wary of attempts to make forgiveness primarily about *my* good, as if forgiveness were a therapeutic move in a program of self-care. Fortunately, I think you have the heart of the matter when you talk about “wishing for the other person’s good”—i.e., love. Love for all, even for those who wish one harm, is essence of the Christian ethic, and the root of the comandment to forgive all offenses.
You are right to be wary! I agree wholly that in a spiritual, Christian context, I try to remember that I need to forgive *because it is right*, and because Jesus commanded it, and because it allows me to return to *loving* the person who hurt me -- which is also right, and commanded by Jesus. That it has *always* benefited me is incidental, and not the reason for forgiving.
On the other hand, one of the genius strategies of the 12-step program -- and I believe there is at least a spark of divine inspiration here [see Dawn Eden Goldstein's book about Fr. Ed Dowling, which attests to the enormous overlap between the steps and the Spiritual Exercises, and to the explicitly Ignatian guidance Fr. Ed gave Bill W. while he was helping AA formalize its principles and practices] -- is how often it turns our selfish instincts into positive incentives for recovery and spiritual growth. As example, I offer the whole moral inventory process (steps 4-8) which leads to making amends and taking responsibility for harms done and trying to right these wrongs. Brilliantly, instead of asking us to list our sins, or crimes, or harms done, it starts by asking us to list our *resentments* -- any newly sober person who's still probably swimming in self-pity finds it *much* easier to list all the people that have pissed them off, and how. And of course, in the process of working through these resentments, in spite of ourselves, we discover all the harms *we* have done to others.
In a similar way, recovering folks tend to remind themselves/each other/newcomers of the "what's in it for me?" incentive to abandon resentments, and ideally to forgive (because you're absolutely right, it IS perfectly possible to let go of a resentment *without* forgiving the resented person) the resented person, purely for practical reasons.
I will end my little TED talk by quoting one of the funniest and truest remarks I ever heard in a meeting: "Holding onto a resentment is like pissing in your pants --only you can feel it, but pretty soon nobody wants to be around you."