Our Forgiveness Blog

Are Tolerance and Forgiveness the Same?

It seems that tolerance is gaining ascendancy as a new, primary virtue. For Plato in The Republic, justice is the epitome of the virtues. Yet, in our society in which we do not wish to hurt the feelings of others, I wonder if tolerance trumps many of the virtues. If tolerance is gaining in popularity, perhaps it is time to ask the question: Are tolerance and forgiveness the same and if not how do they differ?

First let us examine the similarities between these two moral qualities. Both include patience as the person restrains from harshness toward someone who is annoying or unjust. Both include mercy at least in the sense of restraining oneself in the face of one’s own anger. Both respect the other as a person and so one’s own thoughts, beliefs, or actions are not imposed on the other or others.

Now to the differences between these two seemingly-similar terms.

First, when one tolerates another’s actions, he or she can do so at a distance. To tolerate is to “put up with” another’s behavior. I can tolerate a screaming child and not attend to him or her and not enter into that child’s life. To forgive is to make oneself available to the other, to try to enter into the other’s world through loving that person. Of course, this will not always happen if the other does not wish to reconcile, but I want you to see that forgiveness is far more than “putting up with” a person’s actions or the person him- or herself.

Second, to tolerate means to recognize and respect the rights of others. Because a right in this sense is never a wrong, tolerance cannot be forgiveness, which takes place in the face of another’s wrong.

Third, “to put up with” certain actions is not always moral. If you put up with a person’s compulsive gambling habit or drug addiction, you are hardly helping this person in a moral sense. So, there are aspects of tolerance that degenerate into immorality—an offense of omission or a failure to act when it is appropriate to do so. Forgiveness in its true sense is never immoral. Please see our post in Ask Dr. Forgiveness (March 28, 2012) on the issue of “false forgiveness” for more information on this.

Are tolerance and forgiveness the same? Although they share certain moral characteristics, there is a substantial difference between them.

Helpful Forgiveness Hint

Helpful Forgiveness Hint: Many people say that one of the most difficult aspects of the process of forgiveness is simply making the decision to go ahead and try it. Deciding to walk through the forgiveness door is hard because it deals with change, with commitment and both of these can be unsettling. We are starting a new path, a new way of approaching the world. Starting a new job or a new exercise program, or deciding to move to a new city can all be disruptive, but can lead to growth as a person. So, if you are feeling a little trepidation about your decision to forgive, know that you are not alone. And knowing that, I urge you to go ahead anyway, despite the initial discomfort.

Joy in the Journey

Forgiveness is hard work. I sometimes refer to it as “surgery of the heart.” No one looks forward to the process of surgery, but when people look beyond the procedure to what lies ahead once healing occurs, it is easier to bear.

The process of forgiveness includes bearing pain and finding meaning in suffering. It requires pain, emotional pain, as we look directly at another’s injustice and struggle to see him or her as a person, just as I-the-forgiver am a person.

The joy comes, I think, in triumphing through a challenging process and becoming stronger once the process is complete. You stand stronger because you have not let injustice defeat you.

You stand stronger because you are now more capable of receiving the other back into your life, if he or she can be trusted. You may play a part in this person’s positively changed ways as you stand strong.

You stand stronger because you know you have a way of meeting the next injustice, and the next, and the next after that.

Having a new heart as a result of forgiving and becoming stronger and helping others get stronger is a cause for joy.

Is Forgiveness Against Our Nature?

I read a newspaper article recently in which the writer stated that forgiveness is against our nature. It was a small sentence with a profound implication. Is this true, that forgiveness, or at least the capacity to forgive, is not something that is part of us (built-in) as persons?

I read a different newspaper article recently in which the writer was taking a book author to task for suggesting that children forgive more easily than adults. The criticism was coming from one particular conservative Protestant Christian perspective, with the point that we are not born “good” and have to grow into goodness.

Two newspaper articles, at least two views of forgiveness: one that we are born with a tendency not to forgive and the other that we are born with such a tendency.

Of course, as will all large questions like the “nature of man,” which this question addresses, we will find differences of opinion based in part on one’s existing world view. Here are four world views that address this issue of forgiveness and our nature.

First, from the viewpoint of evolutionary biology, we can see where one person would make the claim that forgiveness is not in our best interest because it can make us vulnerable to another’s attack, his or her injustice perpetrated on us for the purpose of dominance. We are then less likely to pass our genes to the next generation as we make ourselves vulnerable to offending others through forgiveness.

Sociobiology, on the other hand, might make the claim that we need to be in community to survive (for the purpose of passing on our genes to the next generation) and so forgiveness aids in the recovery of social harmony following a rift.

From the viewpoint, not of biology, but of theology, as discussed in the above-mentioned newspaper article, there is a third perspective, that of original sin. We are born with a tendency for injustice, not justice and so forgiveness would be foreign to our basic nature as the adults in the community socialize the child for goodness.

A fourth perspective, also from theology, states that we are all made in the image and likeness of God and therefore, despite a tendency to offend (the original sin issue), we nonetheless have a certain divine spark that helps us, innately, to be good at least to a point. The combination of the tendency to offend and to be good exists in this viewpoint.

When we put the four perspectives side-by-side the most subtle conclusion is that we have within our very nature the capacity for perpetrating injustice and the capacity for good. The ultimate burden then, if this is the case, is on the adults in any community. It is so because the adults, in the family, in schools, in places of worship, and other venues where children are present, have the opportunity to bring forth the good every time they interact with a child. This is a strong rationale for forgiveness education, and that rationale is sound regardless of which of the four world views above someone holds.

“My Ex- Cheated; I Will Never Forgive; I Now Trust No Woman.” What Price Unforgiveness?

I was browsing the Net today and ran across a quotation similar to the one above. It seemed so tidy and so succinct and……..so utterly incorrect. Look at that final statement closely, “I now trust no woman.” That can be one of the fall-outs of unforgiveness—a view of the world that is pessimistic. If you think about it, if he enters into another relationship, the woman may be entirely trustworthy, but he very well may not see it. In such a case, both lose. It is not her fault that he is bringing mistrust into the relationship. She will be hurt directly by his unforgiveness of someone else in the past. The irony of it all is that this new woman in his life could be a source of love and joy for him (and he for her), which are both unlikely to happen if he keeps an emotional arms-length distance to protect his wounded heart.

“I will never forgive” has its consequences both for the one who says and lives it and for those directly affected by the refusal and resulting pessimism. Is it worth it to proclaim and then to live out, “I will never forgive”? Perhaps he is not ready today, but he should consider keeping the door open in the future so that the initial emotional wound of the break up does not lead to more wounds for himself and others.