Tagged: “Justice”

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

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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.

How Do Forgiveness and Tolerance Differ?

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Below is a Socratic dialogue between the mental health professional, Sophia, and her client, Inez. These are fictional characters.  The conversation comes from the book, The Forgiving Life (APA Books, 2012).

Sophia: Are toleration and forgiveness the same?

Inez: They are very close to the same thing. When I forgive, I offer civility, respect, and even love toward the one who hurt me. I do not condemn, attack, or in any way harm the other. Toleration also deliberately avoids hurting the other person. So, they are synonyms.

Sophia: What do you think of this? To tolerate has two related meanings. First, it means to “put up with” another’s unpleasant behavior, as when a friend puts up with another’s unpleasant habit of always answering her mobile phone when the two of them are in deep conversation. Because the person with such a habit is not necessarily conscious of it, we can hardly say that all acts of toleration concern unjust behaviors on the part of the other person. Second, to tolerate means to recognize and respect the rights of others. Because a genuine right is never a wrong, such toleration cannot be forgiveness, which occurs in the context of others’ wrongs.

Inez: But, when I forgive, can’t we say that I am not harming the other? Because tolerance offers this as well, can’t we say that forgiveness shares something important with tolerance?

Sophia: Yes, we could say this, but what do you think? Does forgiveness share more with tolerance or more with moral love?

Inez: It shares something with each.

Sophia: But which one shares more with forgiveness?

Inez: I’d say that love has more in common with forgiveness because when we show goodness toward someone who has hurt us, this is a great good and much more than “putting up with” something or someone.

Sophia: Well said.

Inez: Thank you, Sophia. This is kind of fun. I think I am catching on to the depth of forgiveness.

Enright, Robert D.. The Forgiving Life: A Pathway to Overcoming Resentment and Creating a Legacy of Love (APA LifeTools Series) (Function). Kindle Edition.

So Then, What Is a Good Society?

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I wrote a similar essay to this one 13 years ago on this very site.  Sadly and tragically, little has changed in that lengthy time period.  Societies are not listening and we are reaping the consequences of intemperate anger, unrestrained rage, and innocent lives lost. Let us continue with the ideas expressed here in 2012.

Peter Maurin of the Catholic Worker Movement is alleged to have said that a good society is one in which it is easy to be good. I write this blog post today as I reflect on some recent news stories of school shootings resulting in the deaths of innocent students and adults. I reflect on the killing of Charlie Kirk and the widening divide between political groups in the United States. Is it not obvious that anger is growing and at times knows no bounds? Anger can sometimes be deadly for those who just happen to be in the angry person’s way or who hold different beliefs than the shooter.

I wonder what those outcomes would have been if those with the weapons were bathed in forgiveness education from age 5 though 18. I wonder what those outcomes would have been if each one of the weapon-carriers, as they grew up, deliberately practiced forgiveness in school, on the playground, and in the home, and then continued the forgiving into adulthood. I wonder.

One key issue of forgiveness, and this takes time to develop, is to begin seeing the inherent worth of all people, including those with whom we disagree or at whom we are angry. What if the school shooters saw that deep, invaluable inherent worth in those at whom the gun was pointed? Could someone immersed in the understanding of the inherent worth of all people pull the trigger? What if the one who shot Charlie Kirk, despite wide differences in beliefs, saw his inherent worth. Could he have pulled the trigger?

What about us, who are observing all of this? For those of you who were dancing at the announcement of Mr. Kirk’s passing, can you honestly say that you saw and continue to see the inherent worth of the man? If not, perhaps you need to deliberately cultivate forgiveness in your life, starting with the little things of everyday life that annoy you so that you can begin to grow in this virtue.

For those of you who now deeply mourn Mr. Kirk’s passing, can you say that you see the inherent worth of the shooter? I am not saying, “Do you now excuse the killing?” No. Instead, I am asking if, in spite of the murder, can you see the humanity in the one who pulled the trigger? Such a view takes time and this is why, if you had years of forgiveness education, then you might be brought to such an understanding of him more deeply and more quickly so that you do not now even unconsciously cultivate a rage that could harm you or even be passed unintentionally to your loved ones. Forgiveness can help prevent that. Perhaps it is time for you who read this to begin growing in the heroic moral virtue of forgiveness for the sake of your family members and friends.

The wounds in the world are deep and everlasting, it seems. What we do here at the International Forgiveness Institute, Inc. (helping people if they so choose to learn to forgive and then practice forgiveness) will never be out of date. Yet, my big worry (yes, it is a big worry) is this: Will there be sufficient laborers in the forgiveness vineyard to bring the virtue of forgiveness to children so that they can become fortified against the grave injustices that come to too many too often as adults? Can we help them sustain the practice of this moral virtue so that it becomes part of their identity, part of who they are as persons?  Can we assist them with this growing in forgiveness so that their anger does not explode out of the barrel of a gun?

I worry about those 6-year-olds, sitting now in classrooms, learning their mandated ABCs, without also learning the ABCs of how to deal with injustice. You see, society is not emphasizing forgiveness. We are not being taught forgiveness on a regular basis. We are in a society where it is not easy to be a good forgiver. And so too many who become confused, frustrated, angry, and then filled with rage do not know how to temper these emotions before they are discharged onto unsuspecting others.

I know of no society which has deliberately decided to create a norm that to forgive is good. Instead, forgiveness remains deep in the heart of some people, not most, as society moves along with its norms of justice alone. So, then, what do societies do when rage erupts, overflows, and hurts others? We send in the law enforcement officers **after the mayhem.** Do you have any idea regarding how we might **prevent** the rage by encouraging forgiveness and how forgiveness and justice can and should work hand-in-hand?   

Society, what do you think? It is more than time to bring forgiveness into societies so that it can take up residence in individual hearts for the good of the self and others as people then strive for a temperate and good justice. It is time.

Revisiting the Question: ‘Do I Really Want to Forgive When Traumatized?’

Note: When I posted the blog essay below on September 27, 2017, as an excerpt from my book, The Forgiving Life, published in 2012, I had no idea how a backlash against forgiveness would emerge in the published literature.  There appears to be an association between the increasing popularity of forgiveness and the publication of criticisms against it.  As one rebuttal here, I have reproduced the essay from 2017.  It is even more relevant today, in 2025, than it was eight years ago.

Do I Really Want to Forgive When Traumatized?

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Why would anyone want to forgive when another has traumatized you?

I would like to suggest a different perspective on trauma and forgiveness. It is not forgiveness itself that is creating the sense of fear or disgust or danger or moral evil. Instead, it is the grave emotional wounds which are leading to these thoughts and feelings about forgiveness. When people are wounded they naturally tend to duck for cover. When someone comes along with an outstretched hand and says, “Please come out, into the sunshine, and experience the warmth of healing,” it can be too much. We then blame the one with the outstretched hand or the warmth of the sun or anything else “out there” for our discomfort when all the while the discomfort is what is residing inside the person, not “out there.” And this reaction is all perfectly understandable, given the trauma.

If you experience a blown out knee while working out, and it is gravely painful, is it not difficult to go to the physician? There you face all the sharp white-lights of the examining room, and the nurses scurrying about, and the statements about surgery and recovery and rehabilitation. It all seems to be too much. Yet, it is not the physician or the nurses or the thought of the scalpel or the rehab that is the ultimate cause of all the discomfort. That ultimate cause is the blown-out knee. Isn’t it the same with forgiveness? You have within you a deep wound, caused by others’ injustice, and now the challenge is to heal.

Forgiveness is one way to heal from the trauma which you did not deserve. Like the blown-out  knee, the trauma needs healing. So, I urge you to separate in your mind the wound from forgiveness itself. My first challenge to you, then, is this: Is it forgiveness itself that is the basic problem or is it the wound and then all the thoughts of what you will have to do to participate in the healing of that wound?

Forgiveness heals. Forgiveness does not further traumatize. To forgive is to know that you have been treated unjustly and despite the injustice, you make the decision to reduce your resentment toward the offending person and eventually work toward mercy for him or her. That mercy can take the form of kindness, respect, generosity, and even love. Do you want that in you life—kindness, respect, generosity, and love? Forgiveness can help strengthen these in your heart or even begin to have them grow all over again for you.

– Excerpt from the book, The Forgiving Life, Chapter 2.                                                                                    

Is It Better to Wait for the Other Person’s Apology Before Forgiving?

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When people do not apologize, many of those hurt by others’ injustices believe that it is wrong—possibly even immoral—to forgive them. “My self-respect is demonstrated by my waiting for the other person to apologize,” I have heard people say. “I will not tolerate the cruel treatment.”

Yet, why is the way someone treats you correlated so strongly with your sense of self-respect? Rather than seeking validation from others to confirm your significance as a person, you can respect yourself for who you are, regardless of their responses to you.

Yes, sincere apologies are good.  Waiting for the genuine apology, with the other person’s sense of remorse and repentance, can be a protection for both the relationship and for you. Such a sincere apology can signify that the other person will avoid similar injustices in the future.

A vital issue to keep in mind is this: Regardless of whether or not the other apologizes, you can and should ask for fairness from the person. This can occur even before the person apologizes. In this instance, the other person’s apology is not the sole means of obtaining justice.

Suppose you insist on an apology coming first. In that case, you are essentially saying to yourself, “I will not allow myself to exercise mercy toward this person until he/she acts in a certain way (an apology in this case).” Do you see how your freedom, including your ability to move past the injustice on an emotional level, has been restricted? It has been experimentally demonstrated that forgiveness lowers anger, anxiety, and depression. Your emotional healing may be slowed down or even prevented if you insist on an apology before you start the process of forgiveness.

You, not the other person, put yourself in the prison of unforgiveness with all of its possible wrath and suffering when you demand an apology from the other before you can forgive. It does not seem morally right to do this to yourself.

The way to emotional liberation is to forgive without condition. With anger lessened and a sense of the inherent worth of the other, which can be fostered as you forgive, your path to a just solution is enhanced. After all, talking with others when you are fuming with anger may not lead to the best outcome for both of you.