I’ve been thinking a lot about forgiveness since my last article. The “fires” analogy has helped me to understand what forgiveness looks like. In thinking about this, I’ve realized that forgiveness is like charity, and even when there is nothing that merits forgiveness, charity can still mean laying down the hot iron of hostility.
It is helpful to use an example. Adam has confided a secret in Ben, and Ben has betrayed his trust and shared that secret with Charlie. Ben’s act has lit a fiery grievance for Adam. Adam can forgive Ben, and not nurse that resentment, even while deciding not to share additional secrets with him. Furthermore, When Dean asks why Adam isn’t spending as much time with Ben anymore, Adam can choose to say “I just haven’t had time” or say, “DID YOU HEAR WHAT BEN DID, that jerk!” In the former case, Adam will be denying fuel to the fire of resentment, consistent with having forgiven Ben. In the latter case, Adam will be throwing dry tinder on the fire, and stoking that resentment in his own heart.
In the latter case, there are two effects. First: In Adam’s heart, he harbors that resentment, and that fire consumes only his own energy. Second, In Adam’s mind, he leaves the doors open to future resentments.
This is all in the case of a big grievance. We have many big fires, and many Irons glowing red hot on their embers, ready for us to raise and use against people. But there are also many little grievances, which may not require forgiveness but which may require charity. If the vending machine is out of your favorite snack, you can curse the operator and fuel this little fire, or you can accept circumstances as they are and your inability to change them, and move on. That is an optional fire to take on. Traffic, work, daily life is filled with these little opportunities to practice foregoing grievance. Like the concept of Just War, we can choose which fires must be stoked and which grievances must be pushed for redress when the circumstance and justice require redress. Little grievances can be left alone easily and generally involve no one but yourself.
The premise is that we can choose the extent to which we are aggrieved by little burdens. I was struck by the frequency with which I let things irritate me, and realized how much calmer my life might be if I let the optional concerns go, and focused my attention on the bigger concerns.
The other aspect of the example I began with was the mind. By practicing forbearance on one issue, Adam strengthens his will when faced with future issues. The fortress of the mind must be carefully guarded, or as Zippy liked to say, he must “Weed his mental garden”. Virtue requires the unity of practice and belief. If Adam outwardly forgave Ben, but privately nursed this resentment, he has not really forgiven him. If Adam privately forgave Ben, but did not say so outwardly, still he has not forgiven him. Only when Adam both practices the outward acts of forgiveness, and steels his mind to abide by that forgiveness, has his forgiveness been complete.
This is true in all manner of other circumstances as well. This is approached when we say a man who faces no temptation and has never fallen is not more virtuous than the man who faces frequent temptation and has occasionally fallen. It is like muscles which must strengthen by being damaged: We only learn our weaknesses by falling, and we only strengthen ourselves by getting up again.
AMDG
Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth 
I wonder if forgiveness can be taken so far that one fails to give the people accurate moral feedback. I will never discover that I am a bore if everyone I talk to is too kind to tell me. What is to make an alcoholic man reconsider the propriety of his drinking if his drinking doesn’t rouse some unforgiving reactions from his wife? If I have bad breath, the kindest thing to do is tell me. I also think we should distinguish between the routine and petty forgiveness of the “easy going” man, and what I would call forgiveness proper. The former is not always a virtue, but when it is a virtue comes closest to what the Greeks called magnanimity. As the word suggests, it means “big” rather than “petty.” To my mind, forgiveness proper applies to grave injuries and requires repentance on the part of the offender.
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As with any virtue, there is such a thing as “too much”, so there is definitely such a thing as too much forgiveness. I think “petty” and “big” forgiveness are good distinctions. Petty forgiveness is more what I’m addressing here: When I miss the bus even though I was close by and the bus drove away from me, it would be petty forgiveness to let go of that grievance and not curse the bus driver.
Big forgiveness is like if a man robs you at gunpoint. It would be, as you say, magnanimous, to forgive that man for his crime. An easy going man might allow himself to be robbed and fail to follow up with prosecution of the crime. Forgiveness, as I am understanding it in this and the previous article, is like forbearance, it is failing to allow the robber to incite you to equally unchristian acts against him.
I don’t feel like i’m explaining the distinction very well so let me approach it this way. We call it the sacrament of reconciliation because we must go to God with a repentant heart and a contrite spirit. That allows us to reconcile to God, to be welcome back into communion with Him. Forgiveness does not, to my mind, require reconciliation (and thus repentance on the part of the offender) because forgiveness is unilateral and internal. A repentant offender makes forgiveness easy, and forgiveness makes reconciliation easy.
The spiritual works of mercy all seem to approach this concept from different perspectives. So it is good to admonish the sinner, but bad to seek revenge against he who sins against you.
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I disagree with your notion that forgiveness is unilateral and internal. My reasoning is that we are enjoined to forgive because we are forgiven, and this suggests to me that our forgiving must be analogous to God’s forgiving. God’s forgiving is not unilateral or internal. It is contingent on our confessing and repenting of our sins, and it has vast external consequences for us. Here again we are hampered by an inadequate vocabulary. We could, perhaps, follow your lead and specify the cases where “I have forgiven him, but we are not reconciled.” This will usually mean “I have forgiven him, but he denies having done anything wrong.” We may not be able to move beyond this point as a practical matter, but I’m sure you can see how unsatisfactory it is. After all, he may be right that he did do nothing wrong, in which case my forgiveness is sanctimonious hypocrisy. And if he did do something wrong, the book cannot close until he confesses it.
To my mind, the modern Christian theories of forgiveness have been corrupted by therapeutic notions of psychological serenity, and this makes them fundamentally selfish. It’s as if the whole point of forgiveness is that I sleep well and do not suffer indigestion. On a more social understanding, the negotiations leading up to reconciliation sharpen the moral sensibility of both parties. The arguments of the accused save the accuser from sanctimony, and the arguments of the accuser save the accused from sin.
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I do see your point, but perhaps see what you might describe as a flaw to be a feature. To wit:
I think the dissatisfaction of forgiving people who don’t accept the need to be forgiven is what gives forgiveness its potency. Look at God’s forgiving as an analogy: to my understanding, his forgiveness comes from his crucifixion, he voluntarily, unilaterally, and individually accepted the cross for the forgiveness of our sins. When Christ appeals to God the Father, and says, “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do,” he is not asking for his persecutors to repent, but his Father to forgive.
There’s the great paradox that comes up often: “If Christ died for our sins, how can anyone go to Hell?” I believe the answer is that he did his part in Forgiving us, and we must do our part in repenting of our sins in order to reconcile with God.
This reminds me of an article you wrote some time ago, around the phrase “Spit no fire, eat no dirt.” If you forgive someone who has done no wrong, then you presumably cease to “spit fire” about their alleged wrongdoing, and are spared from having to eat dirt later. Sanctimonious hypocrisy it may be, but if you learn it is you who have actually done the wrong, you will find your list of things for which you must repent fewer, for having withheld your fire.
On the whole, I think we agree on the necessity of repentance, on the necessity of forgiveness, and on the necessity of reconciliation. I think you are right that we are hampered by an inadequate vocabulary for the nuances of these terms. I hope my explanation of things doesn’t strike you as unreasonable! I’m not sure how else to untangle my perspective.
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It is interesting that you bring up the crucifixion. That this had to be done suggests to me that God could not simply forgive human sin. There was a price that had to be paid for atonement. I dislike the theories that that seem to reduce the act by which this price was paid to a dramatic display. Christ was crucified for our benefit, but not for our edification. People used to call the last judgment the Day of Reckoning, which suggests to me that all bills must be somehow settled in the end. This doesn’t mean we must extract the utmost farthing, but does suggest that we cannot simply write off bad debts.
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JM, as always, you have given me a lot to think about. Before I reply further I’m going to have to make sure I understand a little more about Orthodox notions of forgiveness. Expect more on this topic! Thank you for this!
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“As with any virtue, there is such a thing as “too much”, so there is definitely such a thing as too much forgiveness.”
I see what you’re saying here but perhaps it would be better simply to define virtue as neither too much nor little of a given quality. Obvious, I am not the first to think of this 😉
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I think the form of forgiveness you describe is important, but would not treat it as the paradigm of forgiveness. It is applicable only in those special cases where reconciliation is out of your power. Forgiving the dead, for instance. Many children must forgive their parents in this unilateral way, because their parents are dead, or are now too pitifully frail to confront with their misdeeds. Abandoned and divorced spouses must do this as well. It is obviously good to set this anger down with unilateral forgiveness, but wouldn’t bilateral forgiveness have been better?
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Thanks, Max, that is true. I guess it’s not so much “too much” virtue, but that the virtue is properly ordered. Properly ordered temperance isn’t abstaining from any food or drink for a week. So if we assume Temperance is properly ordered, there can’t really be such a thing as “too much” of it. It’s a good distinction though: All things must be properly ordered.
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It might be useful to break forgiveness down into types of forgiveness, since this allows us to deal with relatively easy cases as relatively easy cases. By easy cases I mean the cases I mean those petty crimes of passion to which almost all humans are prone. We lose our temper, fly off the handle, are spiteful, envious and petty. In most cases these paroxysms do no real harm, and everyone should be prepared to suffer them without developing a self-righteous sense of injury. Putting up with these things is where the phrase “you’ve got to have a sense of humor” came from. Premodern psychology taught that a man in “good temper” had his “humors” in proper balance, but that very few people were absolutely “even tempered.” Most people had an slightly imbalanced “temperament” in which one of the four humors (blood, phlegm, melancholy and color) was predominant. This made the temperament of a man either sanguine, phlegmatic, melancholy, or choleric, and forgiving a man for the foibles of his temperament was “having a sense of humor.” I suffer no real injustice naturally choleric man, who easily loses his temper and flies into a rage, snaps at me. Thus there is no injustice in my brushing it off and not holding it against him.
I think it is obvious that society works best when everyone has a sense of humor and accepts humans as temperamental creatures, but it also works best when everyone has sense of the universal will to power and accepts humans as predatory creatures. You are surrounded by people who want to use you, and who will use you, just as long as you PUT UP with being used. People stay in abusive relationships because of pathological forgiveness–because they put up with behavior that no one should put up with.
When Christians go all gooey about turning the other cheek and walking the extra mile, you should ask them how this applies to battered women. You will find them quickly reducing the number of time a cheek must be turned, and the number of extra miles that should be walked. If a brutal husband or boyfriend truly repents, and proves his repentance through a long probation, the formerly battered woman should forgive him. But not before, I say.
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In my previous article I said this:
My whole premise is predicated on the idea of forgiveness being an individual unilateral choice. I am taking forgiveness as saying “I am not going to spend any more emotional energy on this” rather than “Your balance is paid in full and we can normalize relations again”. If forgiveness is conditional, then it’s transactional. I think what you are describing is closer to justice than forgiveness, restoring balance. I think forgiveness, as a unilateral act, doesn’t say anything about the balance but does say something about you. “Whose sins you retain, are retained against you.” Forgiveness lets go of those sins, even while justice is incomplete.
I don’t know if my opinion is supported in the magisterium, I’m not even sure where it came from, but even if what I’m describing isn’t forgiveness proper, I think it is still an important element.
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Absolutely, but when one party won’t admit to a misdeed, is that not also a circumstance where reconciliation is out of our power?
Do you consider bilateral forgiveness different from reconciliation? To my mind they are the same, like the parable of the prodigal son. The father had already forgiven him (unilaterally, since he was away), and the prodigal son performed no special act of repentance when he did return other than an act of contrition. He accepted the authority of his Father and agreed to abide by it from then on.
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Yes, you can unilaterally forgive an unrepentant antagonist, but it would have been better if both you and he had undergone a change of heart. That’s what I mean by bilateral forgiveness. You forgive the injury, he repents the injury. This is the best outcome, and anything less is inferior. (If he repents the injury and you do not forgive the injury, that is also better than nothing, but it is not the best).
I do not think the father of the prodigal son forgave that son until the son returned home. He loved that son, hoped he would return, and was prepared to forgive him on the condition that he did return. But forgiveness was conditional on repentance. Otherwise he would have sent the fatted calf to his prodigal son rather than let him fight with the swine for husks.
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Ok, I see the point you are making. The repentance part is important but out of our control in terms of forgiveness. Practicing forgiveness means doing some unilateral (though inferior) forgiving so that our souls can be unburdened by bygone misdeeds. We should prefer repentance in all cases, absolutely, but cannot achieve it except in cases where we ourselves must repent.
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