Our Forgiveness Blog
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.
Just Checking in Regarding Your Unfolding Love Story
In January of this year, we posted a reflection here in which we encouraged you to grow in love as your legacy of 2016.
The challenge was this: Give love away as your legacy of 2016.
One way to start is by looking backward at one incident of 2015. Please think of one incident with one person in which you were loved unconditionally, perhaps even surprised, by a partner or a parent or a caring colleague. Think of your reaction when you felt love coming from the other and you felt love in your heart and the other saw it in your eyes. What was said? How were you affirmed for whom you are, not necessarily for something you did? What was the other’s heart like, and yours?
It is now about seven months later. Can you list some specific, concrete ways in which you have chosen love over indifference? Love over annoyance? If so, what are those specifics and how are they loving? We ask because 2016 will be 75% over soon. Have you engaged in 75% of all the loving responses that you will leave in this world this year?
Tempus fugit. If you have not yet deliberately left love in the world this year, there is time…..and the clock is ticking.
Robert
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
Nihilism, I Would Like You to Meet Forgiveness
Hello, Nihilism. Today, I would like you to meet Forgiveness. I realize that your particular outlook on life is that life is…..how to put this…..meaningless.
Forgiveness disagrees with you. Forgiveness says that even when enduring the worst of suffering, we have the capacity to love and to show the world that our love is stronger than any suffering thrown our way. To love in the face of grave suffering gives profound meaning to human existence.
I know, I know. You say in response that to love is temporary and so it is an illusion. Life remains meaningless in the face of even love’s illusion.
Yet, for those who have struggled to love, they have an interior proof that this kind of love is real, not an illusion, that can stay with a person. The subjective experience is very affirming that there is meaning to life.
What was that? You are saying that there is no purpose to life? You say that even if a person finds meaning, yet there is no direction to life. You say that all we have left is this passive feeling of love inside that means nothing to anyone else. It is a drug, you say, only for the drugged one.
Forgiveness says otherwise. Forgiveness not only says, but shows that love can be in service to others who are hurting. Once a person experiences the love of forgiveness, then he or she often is highly motivated to share that love with others. This is purpose. This is getting it done. This is no illusion.
Nihilism, I would like you to meet the love that is forgiveness. Love confirms that there is meaning and purpose to life. A definition of nihilism is to negate or to destroy. Perhaps forgiveness has just destroyed nihilism.
Robert
And So He Is No Longer on This Earth
13-years old. Bullied in school. He hanged himself in the attic of his home. He left a note. Despair. Fury. The bullies tortured. The teachers did not understand.
And so we have yet another tragedy.
There is a solution to all of this, you know. I suppose I should be getting weary of saying this, but when I think of this dear boy, somehow the weariness does not materialize and so I will say it again:
When we help our children to forgive, we are providing a protection against fury, the kind of fury that attacks unrelentingly and then seeks its next victim. Forgiveness is a cure for fury. Forgiveness is a protection against a false despair that nothing can be done–an illusion that there is no way out. Forgiveness does not allow the illusion its day.
To be sure that I am not misunderstood: I am not blaming the innocent for this death. I am not blaming parents or the child himself or the teachers or even those who bullied. The intent of those who bullied (don’t you think?) was not to have a classmate no more on the earth.
We need forgiveness education as a way to help children navigate through others’ pain that gets all over the innocent. Forgiveness is an inoculation against this kind of pain that jumps from host to host seeking to create misery. We know pain exists, we know forgiveness is a protection on the innocent from the others’ pain, and we have ways of teaching forgiveness to others.
So, then, what is holding back the “yes” from educators to bring forgiveness into the classroom and into the hearts of students?
Robert
