Tagged: “benevolence”

You emphasize love, compassion, and benevolence as part of forgiveness, but not part of the decision to forgive.  Why do you not see these as part of the decision phase of forgiving?

The decision to forgive usually is a cognitive act rather than an expression of the heart, of one’s emotions.  One usually makes a decision to forgive without necessarily feeling love and compassion because we are not yet ready to offer these when we make the cognitive decision to forgive.