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Introduction: The Struggle Toward Forgiveness
Jean1 appeared at my office door on a Monday morning. “I’m not sure you want
me teaching Sunday School after yesterday’s lesson,” she volunteered. I asked why she
felt that way, and she continued, “Yesterday’s lesson was on forgiveness, and I haven’t
forgiven my ex-husband.”
Jean recalled the years of her ex-husband’s drug addiction, and the abuse she and
her children endured. After years of conflict and unsuccessful attempts at intervention,
Jean left her husband. Eventually a divorce was granted, but Jean is troubled by her
inability to forgive. “I know the Bible says I should,” she offered, “but I’m not sure I can
forgive him for what he did to the children and me.”
While I assured her that her feelings were understandable, Jean seemed to take
little comfort from our conversation. I was troubled with my inability to help her
discover a pathway to peace in the area of forgiveness. Her inability to do what she
thought “good Christians” should do was causing her significant spiritual pain. Jean,
however, is not the only person to struggle with the conflict between the apparent
demands of Scripture and the current realities of life.
In reflecting later on my conversation with Jean, I discovered I needed to deepen
my understanding of forgiveness, and broaden my resources so I would be able to be
more helpful in the future. In light of that, the thesis of this paper is two-fold:
1
1 Name and details altered to protect confidentiality.
(1) Pastors can help others discover forgiving is not a singular act, but a process
with similarities to the grieving process; and,
(2) forgiveness can be more fully understood and forgiving practices learned by
integrating insights from theology, philosophy, psychology, and pastoral
care.
With those goals in mind, I have organized this paper into four main sections.
Section One looks at the New Testament references to interpersonal forgiveness. Section
Two surveys the disciplines of theology, psychology, philosophy, and pastoral counseling
for descriptions of forgiveness. In Section Three, the process of forgiveness is discussed
and several process options are presented. In Section Four, a new imagination of the
virtue of forgiving is suggested based on Trinitarian insights.
Section One: New Testament Passages on Forgiveness
The Bible has much to say about God’s forgiveness of sins as a central theme in
Scripture. However, the Bible also speaks to the issue of forgiveness between human
beings. This paper focuses on forgiveness between persons, as presented in the New
Testament; and, is based on the understanding that interpersonal forgiveness has its
genesis in the forgiving acts of God. 2
The Gospel of Matthew contains two important passages on forgiveness. The first
recounts Jesus’ instructions on how his followers should pray:
2
2 George Arthur Buttrick, ed., The Interpreterʼs Dictionary of the Bible: An Illustrated " Encyclopedia (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1962), 314-319.
9 “This, then, is how you should pray: 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, 10 your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread. 12 Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.' 14For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (Matt. 6:9-15 NIV).
The prayer to God to “forgive us our debts” is accompanied by the corresponding
action already taken by those praying for God’s forgiveness -- “as we also have forgiven
our debtors.” If this model prayer is not sufficient to drive home Jesus’ point that God’s
forgiveness is somehow connected to our forgiveness of others, then Jesus reiterates
plainly: “But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your
sins” (Matt. 6:15 NIV).
Some believe the link between human and divine forgiveness is original to Jesus.
Among those, Donald Shriver comments that this prayer “has no parallel in classic
Jewish prayer.”3 Solomon Schimmel disagrees, saying:
“Jesus’ preaching of forgiveness is not a sudden and radical break from postbiblical Jewish views. It can be found in some books of the Apocrypha and other intertestimental Jewish works. For example, we read in the Wisdom of Ben Sira (second century B. C. E.), ‘Forgive your neighbor the wrong he has done, and then your sins will be pardoned when you pray.’ (Sir. 28:1).”4
3
3 Donald W. Shriver, Jr., An Ethic For Enemies: Forgiveness in Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 39.
4 Solomon Schimmel, Wounds Not Healed By Time: The Power of Repentance and Forgiveness (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 83.
While the origin of this type of prayer may not be unique to Jesus, the point of
Jesus’ prayer is that forgiveness comes, not just from God, but from humans also. “God is
no longer the sole source of forgiveness, but humans who pray are forbidden to petition
for divine forgiveness without their own forgiveness in hand.”5
John Howard Yoder believes Jesus is using the language of jubilee in his model
prayer, and that the explanation added in verse 15 is a gloss by Matthew, or Jesus himself,
to “explain that the words concerning debts applied to offenses in general...” In other
words, Jesus was “establishing a strict equation between the practice of jubilee and the
grace of God.” Interestingly, the Greek word used by Matthew, which is translated
“forgive,” is the word aphiemi which is used “regularly in connection with jubilee.”6
Yoder also emphasizes the consequences of refusing to forgive others in his commentary
on the parable of the unforgiving servant found in Matthew 18:23-35. Yoder says
succinctly, “There is no divine jubilee for those who refuse to apply it on earth.”7
The Gospel of Mark has a more concise expression of the same teaching. Mark
quotes Jesus: “Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against
anyone; so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses” (Mk. 11:25
NRSV). Glen Stassen and David Gushee contend in Kingdom Ethics that these passages
4
5 Shriver, An Ethic For Enemies, 39.
6 John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus: Vicit Agnus Noster, 2d ed. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1994), 62.
7 Ibid., 64.
“all suggest, in the original source, that the power of our prayer depends upon the
practice of our forgiveness.”8
Luke’s gospel records four primary passages related to interpersonal forgiveness.
Luke 11:4 is found within Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer, which was discussed
previously. Luke 6:37 contains three short aphorisms -- “Do not judge and you will not
be judged; do not condemn and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be
forgiven...” (Luke 6:37 NRSV). Perhaps these aphorisms are “bits of practical Jewish
wisdom,”9 but whatever their origin Jesus again connects forgiveness of others with
God’s forgiveness.
In Luke 17:3-4 Jesus gives instruction on two aspects of interpersonal
forgiveness:
“Be on your guard! If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender, and if there is repentance, you must forgive. And if the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive.”
This passage is similar, although not as emphatic as the Matthew 18:21-22 passage where
Jesus says to forgive “seventy times seven” or an unlimited amount of times. In both of
these instances, there is clear instruction that if someone offends you and repents, then
you are to forgive them with unlimited forgiveness.10 Perhaps Jesus offered this
instruction as a counterpoint to the Hebrew story of Lamekh who bragged to his wives
5
8 Glen H. Stassen and David P. Gushee, Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 462.
9 S. McLean Gilmore, Walter Russell Bowie, John Knox, Arthur Buttrick, and Paul Scherer, eds., The Gospel According To St. Luke of The Interpreterʼs Bible, George Arthur Buttrick, ed., (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1952), 122.
10 Leon Morris, The Gospel According To Matthew (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1992), 473.
that he would avenge an offense seventy-seven fold.11 Regardless, these two New
Testament passages are the primary sayings of Jesus that reveal a pattern of life among
disciples. Jesus allowed for the possibility of offense, made provision for repentance of
the offender, and then called for the offended to forgive.12
Finally Luke 23:34 records the words of Jesus on the cross. Miroslav Volf says,
“Though Jesus may not have uttered the prayer, “Father, forgive them for they do not
know what they are doing,” these words are indelibly inscribed in the story of his
passion, indeed in his whole life that leads to the cross.”13 Christ’s passion includes not
only suffering, but also forgiveness which “itself is a form of suffering.”14 Volf
continues, “Forgiveness is the boundary between exclusion and embrace. It heals the
wounds that the power-acts of exclusion have inflicted and breaks down the dividing wall
of hostility.”15
Jesus not only taught forgiveness as a concept, but practiced it in his ministry.
The miracles he performed sometimes connected forgiveness of sin and physical healing.
These miracles spanned a theological gap, demonstrating that God’s forgiveness is
extended in mercy, and that the forgiveness of sins may result in health and wholeness.16
For example, the synoptic Gospels contain almost identical accounts of the same healing
6
11 Schimmel, Wounds Not Healed By Time, 12.
12 Morris, The Gospel According to Matthew, 473.
13 Miroslav Volf, Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), 125.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid.
16 Shriver, An Ethic For Enemies, 38.
story. In Matthew 9:2-8, Mark 2:1-12, and Luke 5:17-26, Jesus heals a paralytic man
who is being carried by his friends. When Jesus sees “their faith,” he says to the paralytic
man, “Son, your sins are forgiven” (Mk. 2:5 NIV). Jesus obviously is addressing the
man’s spiritual health, which was connected with his physical recovery. According to
William Barclay, there was an ancient rabbinic saying that first century hearers would
know: “There is no sick man healed of his sickness until all his sins have been forgiven
him.”17
When the religious leaders present accused Jesus of blasphemy, he responded by
saying,
“Why are you thinking these things? Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk?’ But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins... He said to the paralytic, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home” (Mk. 2:8b-11 NIV).
In the process of demonstrating the authority given to him, Jesus both forgives and heals,
restoring the man to health spiritually and physically in an act of compassion. Shriver
suggests that Jesus actually used five activities that related to forgiveness -- “(1) healings,
(2) prayer, (3) eating, (4) public enemies, and (5) discipline inside the new community.”18
Following the example of the teaching and forgiving acts of Jesus, Paul counts
forgiving among the virtues of those in Christian community. In Colossians 3:13, Paul
writes, “Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive
each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” In Ephesians
4:31-32, the apostle Paul exhorts, “Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger
7
17 William Barclay, The Gospel of Mark, rev. ed., in The Daily Study Bible Series (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1975), 47.
18 Shriver, An Ethic For Enemies, 38.
and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another,
tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.” Both passages
in Ephesians and Colossians are included in lists of virtues which are related to the
virtues Jesus teaches in the Beatitudes. “They are not merely an arbitrary selection; they
are the heart of biblical virtues. They picture what it means to be a follower of Jesus,”19
according to Stassen and Gushee.
In summary, the New Testament material dealing explicitly with forgiveness
highlights several aspects of it. First, expressions of forgiveness are expected of Jesus’
followers because God in Christ has forgiven them. Using the language of jubilee, and
demonstrating that he had the power both to forgive sin and heal diseases, Jesus
demonstrated the role of forgiveness in the kingdom of God. Secondly, Jesus recognized
that among his followers there might be incidents of offense. He indicated that when
those occurred a process of engagement and forgiveness should follow. Finally, the
practice of forgiveness is important to Christ’s followers to maintain both the ethical and
mercy aspects of community.20 Although limited in number, these passages reveal the
importance of forgiveness among God’s people.
8
19 Stassen and Gushee, Kingdom Ethics, 51.
20 Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1996), 103.
Section Two: Descriptions of Forgiveness Across Disciplines
But it is not enough to look just at the biblical material if one is looking for a
definition of forgiveness. While the Bible offers examples of forgiving acts, and instructs
Christians to forgive, forgiveness itself is not fully defined. David Augsburger offers a
helpful insight into the task of defining the term “forgiveness.” He quotes Kenneth
Cragg, who argues:
“Forgiveness is not a proper English word, so do not use it...“You don’t add ness to a verb to make it a noun. Instead, you add it to an adjective to turn it into a noun -- like goodness, badness, niceness, rudeness. But you cannot create a word like forgiveness. So whenever you use it you must remember that it must have an apostrophe. The true word is either forgivenness or forgivingness but definitely not forgiveness.”21
Although he uses it in a different context, Robert C. Roberts affirms this linguistic
distinction by titling an article on forgiveness, “Forgivingness.”22 This semantic insight is
helpful in defining forgiveness because it separates its two aspects of either being
forgiven (“forgivenness”), or offering forgiveness (“forgivingness”) to another. This
paper will focus primarily on the idea of “forgivingness” but will use the familiar term,
forgiveness.
To add to the confusion of defining forgiveness, even professionals seem to have
difficulty agreeing on one definition. At the 1997 Hope College conference on
forgiveness participants expressed a desire for a consensus definition, but one has not
9
21 David Augsburger, The New Freedom of Forgiveness (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2000), 26.
22 Robert C. Roberts, “Forgivingness,” American Philosophical Quarterly 32, no. 4 (1995): 289.
been forthcoming.23 However, several descriptions of forgiveness have emerged from
the disciplines of philosophy, psychology, and theology.
Descriptions of Forgiveness From Theology
Martin E. Marty sums up the place forgiveness occupies in theology, saying,
“”Forgiveness” is one of those words -- like “vocation,” “covenant,” and “stewardship” --
that belongs to the culture of life in the sanctuary or is from a source in the sacred
Scripture.”24 He continues, “Say what one will, forgiveness survives as a guiding
principle in our lives.”25
Miroslav Volf suggests there are two dimensions to forgiveness. “First, to forgive
is to name the wrongdoing and condemn it.” Volf calls this the “indispensable negative
presupposition.” However, Volf says there is a positive element to forgiveness. “To
forgive is to give wrongdoers the gift of not counting the wrongdoing against them.”26
Gregory Jones offers his concept of forgiveness as a craft “that Christians are
called to learn from one another.” Forgiveness is expressed “through specific habits and
practices that seek to remember the past truthfully, to repair the brokenness, to heal
10
23 Everett L. Worthington, Jr., Dimensions of Forgiveness: Psychological Research & Theological Perspectives (New York: Routledge, 2006), 322.
24 Ibid., 9-10.
25 Ibid., 13.
26 Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving In A Culture Stripped of Grace (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005) 129-130.
divisions, and to reconcile new relationships.”27 Jones presses further to reclaim from
psychology the language and practice of forgiveness for the Christian Church.28
Richard B. Hays in The Moral Vision of the New Testament contends that
Matthew’s Gospel characterizes the followers of Jesus as belonging to a community that
Jesus trained to “carry out his mission in the world.”29 Two factors guided that
community. First was a communal ethic of perfection described in the Sermon on the
Mount; and, secondly, a “hermeneutic of mercy” based on words ascribed to God: “I
desire mercy and not sacrifice” (Hosea 6:6 NRSV). Interchangeable with the terms
“discipline and forgiveness,”30 perfection and mercy stand in tension,31 but “mercy
precedes everything.”32
N. T. Wright situates forgiveness within the context of I Corinthians 13 love.
“Love is not our duty; it is our destiny,” Wright argues. It is that love which “underlies
the gospel command to forgive.” But Wright resists the notion that commands to forgive
are “abstract codes and rules.” Rather, Wright contends “Forgiveness is a way of life,
God’s way of life, God’s way to life; and if you close your heart to forgiveness, why, then
you close your heart to forgiveness.” That, he says, is the point of the Matthew 18
parable about the unforgiving servant, and the point of praying “Forgive us our
11
27 Gregory L. Jones, Embodying Forgiveness: A Theological Analysis (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995), xii.
28 Ibid., 36.
29 Hayes, The Moral Vision of the New Testament, 97.
30 Ibid., 103.
31 Ibid., 101.
32 Ibid., 103.
trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” The critical aspect of the future
of God and his people, according to Wright, “is the truth of the resurrection, turned into
prayer, turned into forgiveness and remission of debts, turned into love.”33
Another aspect of forgiveness comes from conflict resolution studies. John Paul
Lederach explored Psalm 85:10 with local Nicaraguan conciliators. Translated from
Spanish the psalm reads, “Truth and mercy have met together; peace and justice have
kissed.” When Lederach asked what they might call the space where truth and mercy,
justice and peace meet, one of them immediately replied, “That place is reconciliation.”
Lederach situates forgiveness under the concept of mercy.34 He sees reconciliation as the
umbrella which creates “the social space where both truth and forgiveness are validated
and joined together.”35
Ray Anderson argues that before forgiveness can take place, moral judgment must
be rendered and supported by moral community. When a deep moral offense has been
committed the moral judgment of the community must be directed at the offender so that
the offender can move toward “recovery through the building of positive self-esteem.”36
Moral judgment is separate from punishment. The offender may escape punishment
through forgiveness, but he cannot avoid judgment. Anderson describes forgiving as “the
costly grace of releasing one who is truly guilty from the consequences of the offense, all
12
33 N. T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, The Resurrection, and The Mission of The Church (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2008), 288-289.
34 John Paul Lederach, Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation In Divided Societies (Washington: United States Institute for Peace Press, 1997), 28-29.
35 Ibid.
36 Ray S. Anderson, The Shape of Practical Theology: Empowering MInistry with Theological Praxis (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2001), 298.
for the sake of and with the hope of reconciliation.”37 But rather than a psychological
process, Anderson sees forgiveness as a “spiritual dynamic” because it involves grace.”38
Some theologians situate forgiveness within other biblical concepts such as mercy
as Lederach and Hays do; or with love as Wright does; or, with grace as Anderson does.
This forms a framework for the concept of forgiveness, and differentiates it from its goal,
or “possibility,” which is reconciliation.39 However, other theological descriptions of
forgiveness include reconciliation within forgiveness. David Augsburger describes
forgiveness as “the mutual recognition that repentance is genuine and right relationships
have been restored or achieved.”40 Augsburger’s attention to both repentance and
reconciliation as part of forgiveness focuses on the offended, the offender, and
encompasses the “forgiving community.”41 Augsburger explains how “forgiving
community” enables love of God and neighbor:
“...the radical understanding of the forgiving community and the necessity for prayer (the love of God) to be indivisibly united with moral integrity (the love of neighbor) continue to disturb the consciences and the practice of all who follow him [Jesus].”42
However, psychologists have a different view of forgiveness than theologians, as is
evident in the next section.
13
37 Ibid.
38 Ibid.
39 Ibid., 299.
40 Augsburger, The New Freedom of Forgiveness, 32.
41 David W. Augsburger, Helping People Forgive (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996), 11.
42 ibid.
Descriptions of Forgiveness From Psychology
Despite the difficulty of defining forgiveness, some in the discipline of
psychology have given it specificity in order to conduct quantifiable research projects.
Robert Enright, professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin, borrows
philosopher Joanna North’s definition, phrasing it in his own words, as follows:
“When unjustly hurt by another, we forgive when we overcome the resentment toward the offender, not by denying our right to the resentment, but instead by trying to offer the wrongdoer compassion, benevolence, and love; as we give these, we as forgivers realize that the offender does not necessarily have a right to such gifts.”43
In their book, To Forgive Is Human, psychologists Michael McCullough, Steven
Sandage, and Everett Worthington, offer their definition. “Forgiveness is an increase in
our internal motivation to repair and maintain a relationship after the relationship has
been damaged by the hurtful actions of the other person.”44
But despite these and other attempts to define forgiveness, the concept of
forgiveness covers a diverse spectrum in psychology research.45 However, the authors of
Forgiveness: Theory, Research, and Practice contend that “most theorists and researchers
now agree with Enright and Coyle that forgiveness should be differentiated” from
pardoning, condoning, excusing, forgetting, and denying. But even if most psychologists
researching forgiveness agree on what it is not, this does not mean they agree on what
14
43 Robert D. Enright, Forgiveness Is A Choice: A Step-by-Step Process for Resolving Anger and Restoring Hope (Washington: American Psychological Association, 2001), 25.
44 Michael E. McCullough, Steven J. Sandage, and Everett L. Worthingon, Jr., To Forgive Is Human: How To Put Your Past In The Past (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1997), 22.
45 Michael E. McCullough, Kenneth I. Pagament, and Carl E. Thoresen, eds., Forgiveness: Theory, Research, and Practice, Paperback ed. (New York: The Guilford Press, 2001), 7.
forgiveness is.46 These three definitions of forgiveness, among others, are presented by
the authors of Forgiveness:
Enright and Coyle: “...a willingness to abandon one’s right to resentment, negative judgment, and indifferent behavior toward one who unjustly hurt us, while fostering the undeserved qualities of compassion, generosity, and even love toward him or her...”47
McCullough, et al: “prosocial changes in one’s motivations toward an offending relationship partner...”
Hargrave and Sells: “(1) allowing one’s victimizer to rebuild trust in the relationship through acting in a trustworthy fashion, and (2) promoting an open discussion of the relational violation, so that the offended partner and the offender can agree to work toward an improved relationship.”48
In the continuing work on the concept of forgiveness, three questions about
forgiveness remain in dispute in the discipline of psychology. First, is forgiveness more
intrapersonal or interpersonal? Intrapersonal advocates focus on the internal changes by
the parties involved, while those preferring an interpersonal emphasis focus on changes
in the relationship between the parties.49 The second area of contention involves the
distinction between negative versus positive affect. Does the forgiver in the process of
forgiving let go of negative emotions and feelings toward the offender; or, does the
forgiver view the offender in a more positive light with compassion and love? Finally, is
forgiveness an extraordinary event or is it a more commonplace experience that occurs
15
46 Ibid., 8.
47 Ibid.
48 Ibid.
49 Ibid., 302.
frequently in everyday life? These distinctions, however, are a matter of emphasis, not
exclusivity.50
To add further to the diversity of opinion on the definition of forgiveness,
Solomon Schimmel offers a Jewish perspective in his book, Wounds Not Healed By
Time.51 As a professor of psychology, Schimmel critiques both of the approaches of
Enright and Worthington “as derived from a distinctly Christian view” in Enright’s
case;52 and, as encompassing a “latent Christian value system” in Worthington’s.53
Schimmel also questions a Christian bias in forgiveness studies by asking:
“....why should I love people who unjustly harm me or those close to me, or who harm innocent people for that matter? The Christian response is that God has commanded us to do so. Many non-Christians who don’t accept the authority of the New Testament feel otherwise.”54
Schimmel labels the type of Christian forgiveness that is “an act of grace, given
even to the underserving and not-yet-repentant” as “radical forgiveness”55 to distinguish
it from the approaches to forgiveness expressed in Catholic moral theology, Judaism, or
secular moral philosophy.56 Judaism, he avers, only requires forgiveness as an
“obligation to a repentant offender,”57 and is more concerned with “guaranteeing justice
16
50 Ibid., 303-304
51 Schimmel, Wounds Not Healed By Time, 40-60.
52 Ibid., 45
53 Ibid., 46.
54 Ibid., 55.
55 Ibid., 64-65.
56 Ibid., 57.
57 Ibid.
than with forgiving incorrigible sinners.”58 However, Schimmel acknowledges the
difficulty of defining forgiveness by religious category, and concedes that “not all
Christian spiritual mentors teach that forgiveness should be granted in the absence of
repentance, and not all Jewish ones teach that repentance must always be a prerequisite to
forgiveness.”59
Schimmel also acknowledges the role of empathy in forgiveness, citing a study
showing a “positive relationship between the propensity to forgive and to be empathic.”60
In summary, Schimmel says that forgiveness is a “process and also a constellation of
feelings, thoughts, and behaviors in response to injury,” while others, he says, label
forgiveness as a personality trait, “a disposition of character, or virtue.”61
Descriptions of Forgiveness From Philosophy
Turning to philosophy, Hannah Arendt states, “The discoverer of the role of
forgiveness in the realm of human affairs was Jesus of Nazareth.” But she quickly adds
that just because Jesus “articulated it in religious language is no reason to take it any less
seriously in a strictly secular sense.”62 Arendt contends that Jesus teaches that the power
to forgive “must be mobilized by men toward each other before they can hope to be
17
58 Ibid., 64.
59 Ibid., 83.
60 Ibid., 59
61 Ibid., 53.
62 Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 2d ed (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 238.
forgiven by God.”63 Forgiveness is the “opposite of vengeance”64and frees humankind
from the “relentless automatism” of vengeance. Forgiveness can spring from love, but it
can also spring from respect.65
“Not surprisingly, the discussions of forgiveness, apology, and reconciliation in
theology, literature, political science, sociology, and psychology are innumerable,” writes
Charles Griswold.66 However Griswold observes that philosophy has not kept pace on
this subject. Griswold attributes philosophy’s neglect of forgiveness to “its religious
overtones.”67 Acknowledging that “forgiveness came to prominence in Judaic and
Christian thought,” Griswold, like Arendt, steers clear of the religious aspects, calling
forgiveness a secular virtue.68
Griswold describes forgiveness as “a certain kind of ethical response to injury and
the injurer.”69 Rather than offering a precise definition, Griswold establishes “base line
conditions” for forgiveness to be “ideal.” The three base line conditions are: (1) the
willingness of the offender to take “minimal steps to qualify for forgiveness;” (2) the
willingness of the “victim” to lower resentment and “forswear revenge;” and, (3) that the
18
63 Ibid., 239.
64 Ibid., 230.
65 Ibid., 242-243.
66 Charles L. Griswold, Forgiveness: A Philosophical Exploration (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), xiii.
67 Ibid., xv.
68 Ibid.
69 Ibid., 39.
“injury be humanly forgivable.”70 Griswold also allows that “non-ideal senses of
forgiveness can count as (imperfect instances of) forgiveness.”71
Jacques Derrida takes a more extreme philosophical position on forgiveness. He
posits, “In principle, there is no limit to forgiveness, no measure, no moderation, no ‘to
what point?’72 Derrida also acknowledges the religious grounding of forgiveness in that
“the scene, the figure, the language which one tries to adapt to it belong to a religious
heritage...”73 Derrida distinguishes forgiveness from action involving a third party, such
as “amnesty, reconciliation, reparation, etc...”, confining forgiveness to two parties. 74
But Derrida is at his most unique when he contends that forgiveness must “forgive
the unforgivable, and without condition”75 even when an event like the Holocaust
occurs.76 Derrida sees forgiveness as a “madness of the impossible”77 which springs from
the “right of grace,” elevating forgiveness as a “power above the laws.”78 Derrida is
arguing, in other words, for forgiveness as “exceptional and extraordinary,” not “normal,
normative, [or] normalising.”79
19
70 Ibid., 115.
71 Ibid., 114.
72 Jacques Derridda, On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness, trans by Mark Dooley and Michael Hughes, Thinking In Action Series (New York: Routledge, 2001), 27.
73 Ibid., 28.
74 Ibid., 42.
75 Ibid., 39
76 Ibid., 37.
77 Ibid., 39.
78 Ibid., 45.
79 Ibid., 32.
Summary of Descriptions of Forgiveness Across Multiple Disciplines
Each of the disciplines reviewed provides its own approach to, and descriptions of
the concept of forgiveness. The theological material attends to God, and to humankind’s
relationship to God, particularly in forgiveness of sin. Theology sees human forgiveness
as an expression of the mercy and grace of God lived out in human lives. The incarnation
of Christ connects the realm of the divine and human, demonstrating the forgiveness of
God toward God’s creation, and encouraging that same character quality in humankind.80
Forgiveness is also a key component in God’s redemptive action, and in the earthly
ministry of Jesus. Jesus connects forgiveness to health and wholeness in more than one
instance. Forgiveness lies at the heart of the salvific plan of God,81 and can be situated in
overarching theological concepts such as love, mercy, and grace.82
Psychology views forgiveness through the perspectives of both the intrapersonal
and the interpersonal. A primary focus of psychology is on the emotions and relationship
of the offended and the offender. While acknowledging that the offended must recognize
the wrong done and identify it as such, a cognitive change of attitude toward the offender
by the offended is of great importance in the psychological perspective. Attention is paid
to the displacement of negative feelings such as anger, with positive ones such as
compassion.
20
80 Willard M. Swartley, Covenant of Peace: The Missing Peace in New Testament Theology and Ethics (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2006), 371.
81 Ibid., 436.
82 Ibid., 411.
Moral philosophy’s perspective on forgiveness sees it as a “moral reparative
decision to release himself or herself [the wronged] from the position of grievance and
reproach, and to release the wrongdoer from an open-ended (but not necessarily all other)
demands for satisfaction.”83 Moral philosophy focuses on three main aspects of
forgiveness: 1) settling a wrong in the past while “releasing the future from its impact;”
2) overcoming resentment, or other negative feelings against the offender; and, 3)
restoring damaged relationships between the offended and the offender.84
A Pastoral Counseling Perspective On Forgiveness
While these disciplines provide unique perspectives on forgiveness, the local
church pastor might benefit most from an approach that synthesizes the insights of
theology, psychology, and moral philosophy into a coherent approach that incorporates
each, but crafts its own unique perspective toward forgiveness. Pastoral care and
counseling does that, 85 and pastors will benefit from the insights of pastoral counselors
on the subject of forgiveness.
Newton Maloney and David Augsburger remind Christians who counsel,
including pastors, that “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so” is the “basic
21
83 Margaret Urban Walker, Moral Repair: Restructuring Moral Relations after Wrongdoing (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 153.
84 Ibid., 154.
85 David Augsburger, “What is Pastoral Counseling?” Supplementary article for seminar notebook (Pasadena: Fuller Theological Seminary, 2010), 1.
conviction underlying the personal faith of all Christian counselors.”86 But they also
remind us that “Jesus loves you, this I know” is the “foundational, the essential, the
initial, and the pervasive assumption underlying all Christian counseling wherever it may
be found.”87 Christian counseling “parallels to some degree, nonreligious counseling
theories” but retains its uniquely Christian foundation.88 Pastoral counseling resources
enable pastors to access both faith-based and nonreligious sources where they are helpful
in clarifying and applying the concept of forgiveness.
Pastoral counseling deals with forgiveness in ways that incorporate the biblical,
theological, and psychological. “Since each of us needs forgiveness, we who wish to be
forgiven must learn the art and grace of forgiving,” according to Maloney and
Augsburger.89 In describing forgiveness, the authors write, “We speak of forgiving when
people turn again toward one another, when the struggle with the injury, alienation, or
evil done swings from defending to reducing the distance, from increasing to decreasing
the estrangement.”90
Writing from a pastoral counseling perspective, John Patton suggests that
forgiveness is not so much a technique to be learned or even a virtue to be practiced as it
is an awareness to be discovered in co-humanity and humility:
22
86 H. Newton Malony and David W. Augsburger, Christian Counseling: An Introduction (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2007), 4.
87 Ibid.
88 Ibid.
89 Ibid., 52.
90 Ibid.
“...human forgiveness is not doing something but discovering something -- that I am more like those who have hurt me than different from them. I am able to forgive when I discover that I am in no position to forgive.”91
In summary, a pastoral care and counseling approach incorporates many of the
descriptions of forgiveness across academic disciplines; employs credible methodology;
attends to forgiveness as a journey of self-discovery; but, does all of this from the
grounding of faith. Pastoral counseling also incorporates Scripture as an important
spiritual resource, but not as “nouthetic counseling, in which biblical texts are literally
interpreted and used in directive ways.”92 The cohering principle of pastoral care is a
commitment to the Christian faith as the foundational underpinning of psychological and
social considerations.
Section Three: The Practice of Forgiveness
Biblical references put the virtue of forgiving in the same category as love,
patience, goodness, self-control, and other Christian characteristics that both Paul and
Jesus teach.93 But the Bible gives little in the way of instruction on how one is to go
about forgiving another, according to Solomon Schimmel.94 The apostle Paul does
provide a model in Ephesians 4:32, by saying that Christians are to forgive “as in Christ
God forgave” them. In using this comparison, Paul connects the act of forgiving one
23
91 John Patton, Is Human Forgiveness Possible? A Pastoral Care Perspective (St. Paul: Paragon House, 2008), 16.
92 Carrie Doehring, The Practice of Pastoral Care: A Postmodern Approach (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006), 4.
93 Stassen and Gushee, Kingdom Ethics, 50.
94 Schimmel, Wounds Not Healed By Time, 20.
another to Christ’s life and ministry. The best examples of instruction on forgiving in the
New Testament come from two passages, Matthew 5:23-24, and Matthew 18:15-17. In
Matthew 5, Jesus instructs potential worshippers:
“So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift” (Matt. 5:23-24 NRSV).
Jesus’ point is that worship is not a bipolar spiritual experience involving only
God and the worshipper.95 Rather, worship is a tripolar spiritual experience in which
God, the worshipper, and the worshipper’s “brother or sister” are all present.96 If a
worshipper remembers that a member of his or her community has something against
them, they are to take action to right the wrong. The instruction to “go; first be
reconciled to your brother or sister” also implies that the offender should take the
initiative toward reconciliation.
In the second passage, Matthew 18:15-17, the situation is reversed. The offended
person is instructed to go to the offender to seek reconciliation.
“If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or tax collector.”
24
95 David Augsburger, Dissident Discipleship: A Spirituality of Self-Surrender, Love of God, and Love of Neighbor (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2006), 12.
96 Ibid., 13.
In this passage, Jesus prescribes a three-step process for dealing with offense by
one member of the faith community against another.97 The first step instructs the
offended to go alone to the offender and “show him his fault.” If the offender responds
positively -- if he “listens to you” -- then also implied is that the offender will “receive
the word of admonition and repent without public scandal.”98 However, if in step one the
offender does not respond positively, step two involves the offended taking “one or two
others” with him to engage the offender again. Jesus validates this practice by appealing
to the instruction found in Deuteronomy 19:15: “One witness is not enough to convict a
man accused of any crime or offense he may have committed. A matter must be
established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.”
Jesus indicates this is an increasingly serious situation if step one has not worked.
In step two, witnesses are brought along as the offended confronts the offender again.
The witnesses are to report back to the church after step two is carried out if the offender
does not respond positively. It is assumed that the church will confront the offender as
well. No detailed instruction is given for how the church confronts the offender, but the
idea of the weight and influence of the entire assembly is clearly present.99
Finally in step three, if the offender does not listen to the assembly’s voice, then
he is to be treated as “a pagan or a tax collector.” At first reading, this appears to mean
that the offender is a “pariah to be shunned.”100 However, Hays recalls that Jesus treated
25
97 Shriver, An Ethic For Enemies, 42.
98 Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament, 102.
99 Ibid.
100 Ibid.
pagans and tax collectors as persons to be ministered to and redeemed. In the end, the
reconciliation of the offender is still sought by the offended101 because God’s “mercy
precedes everything.”102
These two passages show that reconciliation is the goal, and that forgiveness and
reconciliation within the faith community involve some type of process. However, the
process in these passages is presented in broad brush strokes, not in fine detail.
Noticeably missing, for example, is any reference to how the emotional state of the
offended is understood or attended to.
Psychological Models of Forgiveness
Turning to the literature on forgiveness from psychologists and pastoral counselors,
several process models of forgiveness are available. Everett Worthington, Jr.
distinguishes between intrapersonal and interpersonal aspects of forgiveness.
Worthington contends that the intrapersonal aspect “can reflect either an internal
forgiveness or lack of it. The interpersonal component involves the expression of
forgiveness to the person toward whom one is unforgiving.”103
Worthington also reviews several forgiveness models, which include hints at
process through “rituals...stations...acts...responses...decisions...[and] reframing.”104 All
26
101 Ibid.
102 Ibid., 103.
103 Everett L. Worthington, Jr., Forgiveness and Reconciliation: Theory and Application (New York: Springer Publishing Company, 2009), 18.
104 Ibid., 21.
of these indicate some type of process of awareness and action. Worthington seems most
taken with the category he calls “process models,” and has developed his own. In his
model Worthington incorporates a series of steps that move progressively forward in the
forgiving process. Each step is represented by a letter in the acronym REACH.
Worthington suggests that the offended person “Recall the hurt; Empathize with the
person who hurt you; give an Altruistic gift of forgiveness; Commit to the emotional
forgiveness that was experienced, and Hold on to forgiveness when doubts arise.”105
In the book’s preface, Worthington tells the story of the brutal murder of his
mother. By using his method, Worthington says, “Within 30 hours, I was able to forgive
the youths who had committed this horrible crime.”106 While Worthington’s account of
his mother’s murder, and the use of his methodology to forgive her killers is
commendable, some may find such an quick path to forgiveness unrealistic. In addition,
some might question Worthington’s progressive “steps”107 because forgiveness, like grief,
may not always move sequentially from one step to the next.108
Even though Worthington’s book primarily is devoted to his process model, he
also acknowledges other process models. Most notable of these is Robert Enright’s
model based on “Kohlberg’s stages of development of reasoning about justice.”109
Worthington critiques weaknesses in Enright’s model, but calls it “the current gold
27
105 Ibid., 170-171.
106 Ibid., xi
107 Ibid., 170-171.
108 Howard Clinebell, Basic Types of Pastoral Care & Counseling: Resources For The Ministry of Healing and Growth (Revised and Enlarged) (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1984), 221.
109 Worthington, Forgiveness and Reconciliation, 22.
standard against which other research models and clinical models must be measured.”110
Enright and co-author, Richard Fitzgibbons, wrote Helping Clients Forgive, as the result
of a year-long discussion of the question, “How do people forgive?”111 The goal of those
discussions “was to be as accurate as possible in formulating how people go about
forgiving.”112
Noting that it is impossible to predict how long it will take a client to forgive their
offender,113 the authors offer what they call a “phase model” to describe the process they
have developed for helping clients forgive. Their four phases are, first, “uncovering” as a
person intuits whether and how much an injury or offense has “compromised his or her
life.” Next, the “decision” phase includes an understanding of what forgiveness involves
and the informed decision to move toward forgiving. In the “work” phase, the offended
cognitively reframes their appraisal of the offender, resulting in a “positive change”
concerning the offender, the offended self and their relationship. Finally, in the
“deepening” phase the offended attaches meaning to their suffering, increases
connectivity with others, decreases negativity, and begins to find a new focus in life.114
Enright and Fitzgibbons present a more flexible, less linear approach in their
phase model than Worthington does in his REACH model. Although Enright and
Fitzgibbons believe that “the Uncovering Phase, precedes the emergence of the
28
110 Ibid.
111 Robert D. Enright and Richard P. Fitzgibbons, Helping Clients Forgive: An Empirical Guide for Resolving Anger and Restoring Hope (Washington: American Psychological Association, 2000), 65.
112 Ibid., 66.
113 Ibid., 67.
114 Ibid.
others,”115 they caution that their phase model is “not a rigid, stepwise model in that
people must start with Uncovering and proceed in order to the end.”116 This seems to be
an improvement over Worthington’s “steps” and allows for the spiraling of emotions
during the course of the forgiveness process.
However, even with the more flexible approach of Enright and Fitzgibbons, their
model is designed for professional counselors. Their forgiveness therapy is intended as
an addition to a counselor’s primary therapeutic philosophy. The authors admit that even
“clinicians will be challenged,” but not puzzled, by an interdisciplinary approach to
forgiveness.117 Pastors, on the other hand, might be both challenged and puzzled.
A more helpful forgiveness model for pastors might be the grief process model.
There are several reasons pastors might find a grief model helpful. First, pastors are
trained and experienced in dealing with death, loss, and grief.118 Second, pastors
recognize the emotions associated with the grieving process, such as sadness, weeping,
sorrow, regret, anger, and depression.119 Third, loss is common to both death and injury
experiences.120 Because grief work and forgiveness work share similarities, the pastor
trained in grief ministry can translate grief training with some adaptation to forgiveness
counseling.
29
115 Ibid., 19.
116 Ibid., 20.
117 Ibid., 5.
118 Clinebell, Basic Types of Pastoral Care & Counseling, 218.
119 Ibid., 223.
120 Ibid., 219.
Similarities of the Grief Process To The Forgiveness Process
To understand how the grieving model can be helpful in dealing with persons who
have been wronged, one must recognize that “all losses, even ‘minor’ ones, give rise to
grief.”121 Death of a loved one is not the only event that creates space for grieving to be
done. In other words, grief is the normal response to “significant loss.”122
“Grief,” Joan Didion writes, “turns out to be a place none of us know until we
reach it.”123 But as strange as grief may feel to the person who has entered that
experience, there are characteristics that are common to both the grief process and the
forgiving process. David Augsburger recognizes the correspondence between grieving
and forgiving, and has created a new term to reflect their similarities. “We might well
speak of forgiving as forgrieving,” Augsburger comments.124
“Normal grief,” according to J. William Worden, “encompasses a broad range of
feelings and behaviors that are common after a loss.”125 Feelings of sadness, anger, guilt,
anxiety, loneliness, helplessness, and other similar emotions have all been described.
Second, somatic sensations have been reported including hollowness in the stomach;
throat and chest tightness; hypersensitivity to hearing noise; shortness of breath; muscle
weakness; listlessness; and dry mouth. Third, different thought patterns such as disbelief;
30
121 Kenneth R. Mitchell and Herbert Anderson, All Our Losses, All Our Griefs: Resources For Pastoral Care (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1983), 18.
122 Ibid.
123 Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking, First Vintage International Edition (New York: Vintage Books, 2007), 188.
124 Augsburger, Helping People Forgive, 68.
125 J. William Worden, Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy: A Handbook for the Mental Health Practitioner, 4th ed. (New York: Springer Publishing Company, 2009), 17.
confusion; preoccupation; sensing the dead person’s presence and, hallucinations
routinely appear. Finally, behaviors reported after a loss include disturbed sleep; appetite
changes; absentmindedness; withdrawal; dreaming of the deceased; avoiding places and
things connected to the dead person; searching and calling out; sighing; restlessness;
crying; visiting places that hold memories of the deceased; and treasuring possessions of
the deceased.126
Joan Didion writes about her experience after her husband’s funeral. “That I was
only now beginning the process of mourning did not occur to me. Until now I had been
able only to grieve, not mourn. Grief was passive. Grief happened. Mourning, the act of
dealing with grief, required attention.”127 Whether the process is referred to as mourning
or grieving, there are three popular approaches to it -- “stages, phases, and tasks.”128
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross popularized the concept of the “stages of dying” in her book, On
Death and Dying. But her book created two false expectations: first, that every patient
would go through all of the same stages; and, secondly, that the patient would go through
the stages in order.129 The same mistake can be made with stages of grief. “Phases” is an
alternative approach to stages. Worden describes Phase I as a “period of numbness
which helps the grieving person avoid the fact of the loss for a short time.” Phase II finds
a person longing for the return of the deceased, but also angry. In Phase III the grieving
31
126 Ibid., 18-31.
127 Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking, 143.
128 Worden, Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy, 37.
129 Ibid.
person exhibits signs of “disorganization and despair.” Finally, in Phase IV the individual
moves from disorganization to “reorganized behavior.”130
While Worden notes that several psychologists have favored and refined the idea
of phases, he takes a different approach. Worden prefers “tasks of mourning” to phases
of grief because phases can imply that the grieving person moves through them passively.
Tasks, on the other hand, imply that the mourner can “take action and can do
something.”131 Worden identifies the tasks of mourning as first, to accept the reality of
the loss; second, to process the pain of grief; third, to adjust to a world without the
deceased; and, finally, to find an enduring connection with the deceased in the midst of
embarking on a new life.”132
These mourning tasks would also apply to the forgiveness process, but with some
adaptation. First, the loss is not death, but the loss of a valued relationship plus the trust,
companionship, friendship, and so on that is attached to that relationship. Also, task four
may need more adjustment than others. The fourth task might be more useful in the
forgiving process if the words of Freud, which Worden had revised, are reintroduced to
it: “Mourning has quite a precise psychical task to perform: its function is to detach the
survivor’s hopes and memories from the dead.”133 In an offense that requires forgiving,
32
130 Ibid., 37-38.
131 Ibid.
132 Ibid., 39-52.
133 Ibid., 50.
the offended person re-orients their life and detaches to some degree from the person who
offended them. If reconciliation happens, the relationship begins anew.134
Turning again to pastoral counseling, David Augsburger connects the forgiving
process with the grieving process, “Forgiving follows a cycle similar to that of grief,”
Augsburger states.135 While Augsburger speaks of “stages” in the “forgrieving” process,
he clearly allows for these to be “cyclical,” not linear, and states:
“This movement is no unimpeded somersault through immersion in suffering; rather, it is a slow spiral of movement that doubles back on itself, returning to earlier emotional confusion until, in Gethsamene, the ambivalences of the soul at last join hands.”136
Augsburger speaks of this “Gethsamene” experience as the point in which, like
Christ, the “forgrieving” person says, “O my God, if it be possible, let this pass from me.
Nevertheless, not as I will but as you will.” It is then, when the offended grieves the loss
to the point of surrender that “the irreconcilable reconciles, the unacceptable nears
acceptance, the unbearable is at last borne.”137
Augsburger allows for forgiveness on a continuum from unilateral, where the
offended party takes the freeing step; to mutual forgiveness, where both parties move
toward each other.138 His continuum involves eight possibilities of forgiveness from
33
134 Walker, Moral Repair, 160.
135 Augsburger, Helping People Forgive, 70.
136 Ibid.
137 Ibid.
138 Ibid., 15.
“nonresponsible” to the possibility to “recreate/renegotiate the relationship.”139 But he
cautions,
“These examples from the Gospels illustrate not only the many forms of forgiveness reported there but the impossibility of a single definition, the necessity of flexibility in dealing with the breakdown of human relationships, and the recognition of the many directions our own attempts at healing may take.”140
For pastors who seek to help others on their journey of forgiving, this seems to be
excellent observation.
Pastoral counseling is a useful model because it inquires into four aspects of an
individual’s life: their story, their relationships, their understanding of God, and how they
live.141 These categories are basic components of life and relationships, and also are
identified as human nature, community, faith, and ethics.142 In addition to those four
areas of inquiry, the person being helped may embark on any of six pastoral counseling
“journeys” in taking stock of their life, losses, relationships, and faith. These journeys
include: backward into family connections; downward assessing developmental growth;
outward in relationship and community life; inward to the soul story; forward re-
envisioning life and its possibilities; and, upward in spiritual development.143 In facing
forgiving, some or all of these journeys may be necessary.
34
139 Ibid., 17-22.
140 Ibid., 23.
141 Augsburger, “What is Pastoral Counseling?” 1.
142 Ibid.
143 Ibid., 4.
The role of the community in the forgiving process should not be overlooked
either. Ray Anderson writes, “The context of forgiveness is thus not a courtroom but a
social structure of human relations, such as friendship, marriage, and being neighbors.”144
Margaret Urban Walker, in Moral Repair, says communities of support play an important
role in the lives of victims especially. “Victims can be driven further into the position of
self-defense, grievance, reproach, and demand when they sense there is no community of
moral support where they expect it to be.”145 David Augsburger also notes the
importance of community in the process of forgiveness:
“When the community is gracious in its response to frailty, clear in its confrontation of evil, and effective in maintaining its boundaries, it invites and supports internalization of good objects and invites its members to experience and incorporate its reconciling processes within persons and to practice them between persons.”146
Community matters in establishing moral standards, in recognizing when those standards
are violated, in supporting the victims of the breach of standards,147 and in pronouncing
moral judgments upon violations.148 The community may also have additional work to
do involving the offender.
35
144 Anderson, The Shape of Practical Theology, 296.
145 Walker, Moral Repair, 166.
146 Augsburger, Helping People Forgive, p. 68.
147 Walker, Moral Repair, 33.
148 Anderson, The Shape of Practical Theology, 298.
Section Four: A Trinitarian Imagination of Forgiveness
The material surveyed has provided a variety of approaches and processes for
helping others forgive. However, pastors are not clinicians, but rather priests seeking to
bring God’s presence to broken relationships. In addition to the insights of theology,
psychology, and philosophy which engage the mind, pastors and their people need an
image of forgiveness that speaks to their hearts. Ray Anderson suggests forgiveness
should be approached by the poet in our souls, not the historian in our heads, as we begin
the journey.149
The journey toward forgiveness involves others. We have seen how Jesus moved
toward the paralytic man to forgive his sins and heal his body. We read Jesus’
instructions to his followers to take the initiative and move toward those they had
offended to seek reconciliation. Conversely, Jesus also taught his disciples to initiate
moving toward those who had offended them offering the opportunity for repentance.
However, pastoral caregivers should be interested, not just in helping people
forgive, but in helping them become forgiving people. Robert C. Roberts distinguishes
“forgivingness” from “forgiveness.” “Forgivingness” is the virtue of practicing acts of
“forgiveness.”150 The “forgiving person,” Roberts notes, “refers to the person with the
virtue of forgivingness.” Virtues are attributes that “fit us to live our life well in its
distinctively human dimensions, and especially in social ones,” Roberts explains. The
forgiving person is uncomfortable with “alienation from others.” A forgiving person
36
149 Ibid., 308-310.
150 Roberts, “Forgivingness,” 289.
gives up anger without giving up correct judgment about the offense; reframes the
offender in benevolent terms; welcomes the offender’s repentance, if it comes; acts with
compassion in forgiveness; and, feels empathy for the offender because he or she, too,
has been forgiven. 151
But Roberts also believes that those with the virtue of forgivingness have a
different vision of others in community:
“I speak of ‘vision’ of the other as in this community with oneself, or the ‘sense’ that these offenders ought not to be one’s enemies, because this is not just a belief of the forgiving person, but a basic form of his vision of himself and other human beings. As an emotionally integrated belief, it is the stuff of which virtues are made.”152
In summary, forgiving persons practice the virtue of forgivingness by moving toward
others in a variety of ways because they are committed to shared life in community.
To complete the tripolar153 nature of forgiveness, Jurgen Moltmann offers help in
locating God in the virtue and practices of forgiving. Moltmann proposes a “social
doctrine of the Trinity that focuses on “relationships and communities.”154 He infuses the
ancient Orthodox idea of perichoresis with new meaning and expanse. Perichoresis
means “literally, ‘dancing around’” and was Athanasius’ way of explaining the
“mutuality” of God as triune being.155 Without delving fully into his extended argument,
Moltmann argues the perichoretic “relationships of love present in the Holy Trinity are
37
151 Ibid., 290-299.
152 Ibid., 294.
153 Augsburger, Dissident Discipleship, 13.
154 Veli-Matti Karkkainen, The Trinity: Global Perspectives (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007), 101.
155 Ibid., 35.
the archetype for all relationships between different parts of the created reality including
between human beings themselves.”156 Moltmann asserts: “The unity of the triune God is
the goal of the uniting of man and creation with the Father and the Son in the Spirit.”157
Geiko Muller-Fahrenholz sums up Moltmann’s view this way: “If Trinity is a code word
for the history of God’s love with his world, then its historical character becomes
understandable, for as long as love is alive, in it there is wooing and longing, losing and
suffering, seeking and finding.”158
Leonardo Boff concurs with Moltmann regarding the social Trinity as humanity’s
pursuer. “The first missionary and evangelizer is the divine Trinity itself,” Boff contends.
This perichoretic communion of the Trinity “overflows the inner life of God and bestows
itself on the human persons in history, impelling them to live in communion among
themselves, in family and society.” While Boff recognizes that “divisions, class struggle,
and sin” exist, these do not overwhelm the “dynamism that thrusts in the direction of
sociability and a community of brothers and sisters.”159
Colin Gunton further explores the idea of social Trinity and perichoresis. Gunton
recognizes that the Persons of the Trinity “dynamically constitute one another’s being”
and that “going in and about is a way of speaking of the being of God by means of an
38
156 Ibid., 115.
157 Geiko Muller-Fahrenholz, The Kingdom and The Power: The Theology of Jurgen Moltmann (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 139.
158 Ibid., 145.
159 Leonardo Boff, New Evangelization: Good News To The Poor, translated by Robert R. Barr (Eugene: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 1991), 69.
analogy of movement in space and time.”160 Gunton posits that the perichoresis of the
Trinity leads us to explore “whether reality is on all its levels ‘perichoretic,’ a dynamism
of relatedness.”161 Humans are “perichoretic beings” because we have been created in
the image of God.162
This concept of Trinity concerns forgiveness in this way: If the Trinity is moving
in a perichoretic dance, and that dance involves humankind, as Moltmann, Gunton, and
Boff believe; then, God’s forgiveness is not just a model for our imitation, but the reality
in which we live. Imagine a world in which God engages in a dance of the divine. God
moves lovingly toward us, in swirling acts of compassion, grace, and mercy. As God
moves toward us, God gathers us up in a great rhythmic motion in which we are
continually pursued, wooed, sought, and found.
We in turn are also moving toward others in forgiveness by showing compassion,
mercy, and empathy because we have been shown compassion, mercy, and empathy by
God and others. Our dance is limited by our own humanity; God’s is not. Even so, we
are able to dance the dance of the divine, moving toward others in forgiving grace.
Sometimes that movement will be a limited emotional movement, rather than a physical
one for our own safety. Sometimes movement toward our offenders will be intrapersonal,
known only to us and God. However, sometimes our forgiving movement toward others
will result in reconciliation. In those times, the prodigal will return, the lost sheep will be
39
160 Colin E. Gunton, The One, The Three And The Many: God, Creation and The Culture of Modernity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 164.
161 Ibid.,165.
162 Ibid.,168.
found, and all of heaven will rejoice. If we can see the vision of the great cosmic dance
in which the Triune God has involved us, then we can help others join the intermingling
of the Trinity’s essence with our humanity which is God shaping us even as we shape and
are shaped by one another. Anne Tyler presents this vision in Saint Maybe. “People
changed other people’s lives every day of the year,” she says offhandedly.163
In conclusion, many people like Jean, whom we met in the introduction, are
conflicted about the meaning and practice of forgiveness. Those who seek answers to
questions about forgiveness can benefit from knowing that forgiveness is a process, not a
singular act. Using the grief process as a model, pastors can help their members discover
the many facets to grief, loss, reorientation and reconciliation in the forgiving process.
Those concerned with obedience to presumed biblical demands for forgiveness, can
reframe those passages as calls to incorporate the virtue of forgiving, while recognizing
that even forgiving persons may struggle with forgiveness in specific instances.
Finally, a multiple disciplinary approach to forgiveness can equip pastors with
practical tools to assist others in the forgiveness process, while also providing a firm
theological foundation for practicing the virtue of forgiveness. Forgiving begins with
movement toward others, as Christ moved toward those who needed healing and hope,
and as the Trinity moves toward us in a life-transforming perichoretic dance. Human
movement toward others may be slow, halting, tentative or unilateral; but, however
imperfect it is, movement toward others is a step toward forgiving in a lifelong journey of
receiving and giving forgiveness.
40
163 Anne Tyler, Saint Maybe (New York: The Random House Publishing Group, 1991), 337.
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