Tagged: “Enright Forgiveness Process Model”

Is it possible that certain injustices are so serious that the hurts never really heal in those who forgive?

It is possible that some residual anger or disappointment or sadness may remain in the forgiver, but if this person has taken the time and patience to truly forgive, then that anger, disappointment, or sadness will not dominate the person.  As one forgiver once said to me, “I was very angry with the one who hurt me, but now I am in control of the anger rather than the anger controlling me.”

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I think that to forgive is dangerous because you are sweeping wrongdoing under the rug.  It is a synonym for excusing bad behavior.  How would you respond to this?

When we forgive, we try to see the other person as a person of worth, not because of the wrongdoing, but in spite of this.  When we forgive, we separate the person and the action.  We accept the other as a worthy person, but we do not accept the unjust action.  That action was wrong, is wrong, and always will be wrong.  So, we do not excuse the behavior, but instead have a change of heart toward the person.

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Regarding my earlier question about people just doing the best that they can, might the environment play a big part in a person’s bad behavior?  For example, let us suppose a person who grows up in poverty, oppressed, and hated by others.  This fills him with dread and hatred.  When he then acts badly (let us say he murders an innocent person), is he truly responsible for this misbehavior, given how the environment has beaten him down?

Your thinking is too narrow, what philosophers call reductionistic, by looking exclusively at the environment.  I do not disagree that the environment played a part, even a large part, in this person’s rage.  Yet, is there now one and only one response that can be made: murder?  No.  This person has many options including seeking therapy, talking with family members, approaching the person at whom he may be furious, and if a person of faith, he could pray for temperance and restraint.  The environment does not automatically pull a string requiring hurtful behavior.  He still has his free will to choose his responses to the environmental repression.

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Some philosophers say that everyone is always doing the best that he or she can when acting badly.  Do you agree or disagree and why?

I disagree because some people do say that they know what they are doing is wrong and they go ahead anyway.  Consider a person who murders another.  Often, when being sentenced in a court of law, convicted people admit severe wrongdoing that was willed.  The person currently is sorry, but at the time, now self-admittedly, he admits to perpetrating a wrong that he knew was wrong.  He was not doing “the best that he can when acting badly.”

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