Tagged: “forgive”

Calling Artificial Intelligence…….Calling AI.  What Is Forgiveness?

November 24, 2025 No comments

Photo by Tara Winstead, Pexels.com

Yesterday, I asked AI about forgiveness and received this definition: “Forgiveness is the intentional decision to let go of resentment and anger toward someone who has harmed you, regardless of whether they deserve it.”

I then asked another form of rationality about this definition.  That other form was my own studying of forgiveness for the past 40 years.  Here is my response to the new intelligence that so many see as definitive:

1. Forgiveness is a decision. No, it is not.  A decision is only one part of forgiveness.  As an analogy, suppose you “make a decision” to work in a soup kitchen.  There, you did it.  However, suppose that you now spend most of your time on the couch as you eat corn chips and never actually go to the soup kitchen.  Does your “decision” to work in the soup kitchen actually fulfill the goal?  No, because you now have to act on this decision.  This involves: a) thinking, such as planning; b) feeling, such as having sympathy toward those who do not have homes, which serves as an internal motivator to get up off the couch and put the chips away; and c) behavior as you go to the soup kitchen, get your assignment, and fulfill it.

2. Forgiveness is letting go of resentment.  No again, it is not.  If forgiveness only consists of letting go of resentment, then one might be able to do that by, for example, having disparaging thoughts about the offending person, such as, “This person is such a low-life that he just can’t help himself.  I need to stay away from anyone like that!”

3. Forgiveness is letting go of “resentment and anger.”  No again.  Resentment encompasses anger in bigger doses over long periods of time.  If one is going to use the terms “resentment and anger,” it is necessary to distinguish them.  Short-term anger can be good as you see that no one should treat you unfairly.  Resentment, as longer term anger, can turn on the one harboring it so that fatigue and even anxiety or depression might emerge.

4. The AI sentence shows reductionism.  If AI were to expand what forgiveness is, it should include adding ideas such as “forgiveness is a moral virtue, or deliberately being good to those who are not good to you, more positive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors toward those who acted unfairly.”  This would include working against the opposite of goodness, or struggling against negative thoughts that condemn, negative feelings that could include resentment, and negative behaviors which can include revenge toward those who offended.

AI does not have all the answers. Beware the easy way out when trying to understand what forgiveness is and is not.  It is not excusing unjust behavior, automatically reconciling, or abandoning the quest for justice.

You say in the book, The Forgiving Life, that the highest form of forgiveness is to engage in agape love for the offending person.  This would mean that I have to willingly want to help this person even if it is painful for me to do so.  I am not near that place right now.  I am less angry, and I even wish her well, but I am not able to go higher than this right now.  Does this mean that I am not forgiving?

November 24, 2025 No comments

There is a difference between the essence of forgiveness and its current expression in any of us as imperfect forgivers.  So, do not be dismayed if all you can do for now is reduce anger and wish her well.  You are on the journey of forgiveness, and you should be encouraged by this.  Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher, said that we grow in the moral virtues by practicing them.  Keep up the practice of forgiveness.  You will keep advancing in this heroic moral virtue.

My son keeps rejecting my attempt to encourage him to forgive two students who have been bullying him at school.  What would you recommend as a new approach that might be effective?

November 24, 2025 No comments

When people hesitate to forgive, my experience is that they do not truly understand what forgiveness is.  So, I recommend as a new first step that you ask your son what he means by forgiveness.  Listen carefully for any of the following:

To forgive shows weakness or a giving in to the other’s nonsense.  This is not true.  Your son can forgive from his heart and ask the teachers or the principal for help in stopping the bullying behavior.

To forgive is to reconcile with those who bully, and I do not want to associate with them.  This is not true.  Forgiveness and reconciliation differ.  Forgiveness is a moral virtue that one person willingly chooses through free will.  Reconciliation involves two or more people coming together in mutual—mutual—trust.  If those who bully cannot be trusted, then reconciliation for now is not recommended.

If I forgive my husband for his continual insensitive remarks toward me, this worries me.  In other words, where then are the boundaries that need to be set?

November 24, 2025 No comments

The boundaries are in the practice of the moral virtue of justice.  Forgive and ask something of your husband.  This asking-for-something is what justice is.  I recommend starting with forgiveness to lower the temperature of your anger.  Then, when you ask for fairness, it may be communicated more gently and even more accurately, as you are not even subtly trying to seek revenge.