New Ideas
Looking Forward Rather than Backward
When we have been treated deeply unfairly by others, there is a tendency to look backward far too often. We brood, we engage in the “what ifs” of life……we begin to live with discouragement.
Forgiveness helps us to tie up the burdens of the past so that we are not continually unwrapping the package of bad memories. Yes, we have been hurt. Yes, we might even have been hurt by our own actions. Yet, that is not the story of whom the other is or of whom we are as persons. Our past does not define us and forgiveness helps us to see that because we can overcome the past so that it is not our obsession of regrets.
Forgiveness helps us look forward……to our new-found ability to love others more deeply. Today, I will try to be of service to those I meet. Today, I will try to ease the pains inside at least one other person because I have been in pain and know what it is like.
Forgiveness points me to a future of being able to love no matter what. Pains of the past will not stop that. Other people’s harsh judgments of me will not stop that. My own past failings will not stop that. I can love…….and I choose to do so……now……and in the future.
I will be defined now by what I can do in love rather than by what has happened to me in the past.
Robert
Genocide and the Human Heart
I wonder. Today I visited the Wikipedia entry on Genocide and found 558 scholarly notes there. This impressively detailed article generated a thought that I would like to share with you. Suppose that a person’s ancestors experienced genocide 500 years ago. Is it possible that people today are still experiencing the effects of such horror? It is easier to see the passing on of anger and stress when we can concretely see, for example, an angry father who has raised up an angry son. Yet, what of the passing on of the anger and stress that might reach back half a millennium?
I think it is possible that the deeply felt anguish of a genocide can be passed to the next generation…..and then to the next….and the next…..until it is our turn. Maybe the felt emotions are not the exact same as happened under genocide, but they may be painful nonetheless.
If this idea has merit, then how do we forgive that which we are not even aware because it has been blotted out of history? Perhaps it is not necessary to have to reach back and forgive all who have passed on the pain. Perhaps it is sufficient to forgive a parent who has caused you pain and this suffices to quiet the emotions. Someone has to stop the intergenerational transfer of pain if a subsequent generation is to be set free from a pattern that might have lasted for centuries. If so, then forgiveness is even more important than I had thought.
Robert
Criticisms of Forgiveness: The Forgiven as Inferior
Even if a forgiver does not try to dominate the offender, the latter may nonetheless feel very badly about having to be forgiven (see Droll, 1985; O’Shaughnessy, 1967). Derek may feel that Alice, by her forgiving, is morally superior to him. Yet, Alice need not tell Derek of her gift. Even if he should suspect forgiveness on her part and then pine over this, Alice has done nothing wrong. Her gift remains a gift regardless of Derek’s response. If a child wails in protest over the gift of socks on Christmas morning, does this present then not count as a gift just because the child wanted a popular computer game and did not receive it?
Robert
Enright, Robert D.; Fitzgibbons, Richard P. (2014-11-17). Forgiveness Therapy (Kindle Locations 5080-5085). American Psychological Association (APA). Kindle Edition.
On Forgiveness and Free Will
If it is assumed that all behavior can be explained only by material causes such as brain neurotransmitters, then we must realize the consequences of this assumption. The central consequence would be the invalidation of any moral concepts such as “right and wrong,” “justice,” and “forgiveness” because these concepts suggest that there is a person making his or her own decisions on matters involving other people.
How can one even consider forgiving someone “who just could not help it” because of a particular brain function? The short answer is that we cannot even consider forgiving in such a scenario because to forgive is to say to oneself, in one form or another: “He did wrong, and in that wrong he hurt me. I will now try to show love for this person who acted badly.”
Robert
Enright, Robert (2015-09-28). 8 Keys to Forgiveness (8 Keys to Mental Health) (pp. 98-99). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.
Hello, Again, Nihilism: Do Right and Wrong Inherently Exist?
According to Wikipedia, “Moral nihilists assert that morality does not inherently exist, and that any established moral values are abstractly contrived. . .”
If you do not mind, Nihilism, forgiveness has a challenge for you. It is this:
Forgiveness is quite interested in whether or not you still hold to your view under the following circumstance [Warning! Graphic content…to make an important point]:
An 8-year-old girl was brutally kidnapped and repeatedly raped by 5 men who kept her hostage for one year. When she finally escaped, her right arm was so damaged from physical abuse that the arm had to be amputated at the elbow. She now is blind in her left eye and she is afraid to go out of her home.
Is there any person in the world who looks at this truthfully who would say, “She deserved this”? Or, would say, “There is nothing wrong in these men’s actions”? Or, “These actions are wrong only for certain cultures and historical epochs, but not for others”?
I know, I know. Your rebuttal is this: You can show us at least one ideology in the world that would tell you that the men had a right to this.
I am not talking about ideologies, if you do not mind.
I am talking about looking this situation straight in its face and then looking within to one’s own conscience and then asking, “It this wrong? Is this wrong today and yesterday and 1,000 years ago and 1,000 years in the future…..across all cultures everywhere?”
Does the morality of this scenario “inherently exist” in you and in all people of conscience? If you say no, then are you willing to keep the above image in your mind…..for the rest of your life? Can you do it and survive? If not, then are you willing to reconsider your nihilistic view?
Forgiveness, by confronting horrendous actions of others and doing so day after day across so many cultures, sees that some things indeed are inherently wrong, even if some people continue to deny as wrong what happened to that dear girl above. If you cannot answer—truly answer—forgiveness’ challenge in this example, then your philosophy needs to push the restart button.
Robert
