Tagged: “Enright Forgiveness Process Model”
Does someone have to make reparations before he can forgive? I’ve noticed a recurring theme in some social media about forgiveness: Forgiving someone doesn’t happen unless the offender makes amends. I believe that the offender’s requirement is inappropriate. What do you think?
I agree with you for three reasons. First, the injured party is stuck in unforgiveness until the other thinks it’s time to make amends. This is unfair to the victim of the offense. In other words, the victim may have no way of reducing or eliminating the resentment without forgiving, which now is denied to this person.
Second, why is it impossible to be both forgiving and just, to support the other person in making changes, at the same time?
Third, no other moral virtue—such as kindness, patience, or justice—needs a particular reaction from another person before it can be exercised. Why should the one exceptional example of all the moral virtues be forgiveness?
Before someone may forgive, does the perpetrator need to offer apologies or reparations of some kind? That seems not to be the case.
It seems to me that to forgive is to substitute a depressed and angry mood with a joyful one. You will have forgiven the person if you are able to accomplish this. How do you feel about what I just wrote?
Although you appear to have captured some of the fundamentals of forgiveness, there is more to it than that. Anger, discouragement, and resentment are among the negative feelings that change (typically slowly) into happier, joyous, and loving ones when a person goes through the process of forgiveness. We probably shouldn’t use the word “substitute” to describe the emotional transition because it implies that we just rapidly swap out one set of feelings for another, which is counterproductive given that this is a process that can take time.
In addition to changing feelings, the forgiver also changes behaviors and thoughts from negative to more positive. In addition to all of this, when people forgive, they get more accomplished and reliable at the practice of forgiveness; in certain cases, this results in a faster time to forgiveness after 100 attempts as opposed to the first. I highlight each of these aspects so that you do not come away with the impression that forgiving is essentially an emotional process and that things usually go better quickly, which is not the case for the majority of individuals who have been severely harmed by the cruel acts of others.
Last week, there was a damaging hurricane in my region of the world. Is it ethical to urge kids to forgive such weather calamities when they get scared of such severe natural disasters? Forgiveness, in my opinion, could soothe the kids and lessen their rage when they consider these hazardous weather circumstances.
I can tell that you have good intentions when you ask this question about children. You’re looking for a method to lessen their nervousness. However, we don’t want to misinterpret forgiveness to make people feel more at ease. When someone has experienced unfair treatment from others, forgiveness takes place. Events that are weather-related cannot act unfairly for obvious reasons; they lack free will and morally good or immoral motivations. As a result, no meteorological condition or inanimate thing is capable of moral transgression and cannot be forgiven. In situations like this, I suggest working with children to accept what happened rather than asking them to forgive. Acceptance could additionally soothe their anxieties. By not introducing forgiveness to them in this situation, you are protecting forgiveness’s actual meaning for the times when a child really needs to forgive a person for unfair treatment.
Regarding the issue of being pressured into forgiving by norms that can be rather insistent, you said that it is best if people are “drawn to the beauty of forgiveness.” What are some tips for doing this?
You can gently let people know that to forgive on its highest level is to love others, including those who behave badly. By “love” I mean agape or the kind of love that is in service to others, even when it is painful to do so. Forgiving can open people’s minds and hearts to this kind of love. Forgiving can open people’s minds and hearts to others’ suffering in this world so that forgivers now have the opportunity to reach out a helping hand as an important part of their lives.
Might the popularity of forgiveness now be negative for some people? In other words, maybe there are expectations now that people must forgive, which can put pressure on people and be a real turn-off to offering forgiveness to others.
We have to continue to realize that forgiveness is each person’s choice, through free will, to forgive or to wait for a while or to not forgive. We need to respect people regarding where they are on the forgiveness journey. We need to let each person be drawn to the beauty of forgiveness rather than dragged into it.
