Tagged: “Love”

Can you comment on giving a gift to someone whom you choose to not have any further contact with?

There seem to be two questions here: 1) Should I consider giving a gift to someone with whom I choose not to have any further contact; and, 2) How can I give such a gift?  Here is my answer to the “should” question: Forgiveness is about giving, even to those with whom you are angry and estranged. This is part of the paradox of forgiving: As you reach out in goodness to those who were not good to you, then you experience psychological healing. Therefore, it is morally appropriate and psychologically prudent to consider giving a gift, if you choose to forgive. The second question, regarding how it is even possible to give a gift to someone whom you will not see again is this: You can contribute to a charity in the person’s name. You can pray for the person if you have a religious belief.  You even can say a kind word about the person to someone else.

How are forgiveness, mercy, and love related?

All three are moral virtues.  Agape is the over-arching virtue out of which forgiveness emerges.  Mercy does not necessarily emerge out of agape because mercy does not always require serving others through one’s own pain, as occurs in agape.  The judge who shows mercy to a defendant by reducing a deserved sentence is not necessarily suffering in love for that defendant.  Thus, not all aspects of mercy flow from agape.  Forgiveness includes a number of virtues such as patience, kindness, and having mercy on others who behave badly.  So, forgiveness is a specific part of agape.  Forgiveness includes mercy, but mercy is not an over-arching virtue out of which forgiveness emerges.  That distinction belongs to agape.

How is forgiveness related to love?

Forgiveness is being good to those who are not good to you.  Love, particularly the most difficult form of love, what the Greeks call agape, is to be good to those who are in need of your services, even when it is difficult to offer this love.  Forgiveness is one expression of agape.  Forgiveness is a specific form of agape in that forgiving takes place specifically in the context of another person being unjust, even cruel, to the forgiver.

There are other examples of agape that do not include forgiveness.  For example, a mother who is up all night with a sick child is showing agape because this is difficult and necessary and she does so out of goodness for her child.  Forgiveness can occur exclusively in the human heart as the forgiver sees the hurtful other as possessing inherent worth and commits to the betterment of the other.  In agape, there is the action within the human heart and mind, but in addition, there is the action of deliberately assisting people in need.

How is forgiveness related to mercy?

Forgiveness is being good to those who are not good to you.  Mercy is refraining from punishing a person who deserves that punishment because of unjust behavior.  Both are moral virtues and so hold that in common.  When people forgive, they exercise mercy in that as they forgive they do not give an eye-for-an-eye to the one who hurt you.  Instead, the forgiver offers a hand up to the person to come and join you as a person of worth.  Mercy as part of forgiveness is a specific expression of mercy in that this mercy is occurring in the context of being treated unjustly by another or others.

There are other examples of mercy that do not include forgiveness.  For example, legal pardon is a form of mercy in that a judge may reduce a deserved sentence within a court of law.  The judge offering legal pardon never is the one who was treated unjustly by the defendant.  Forgiveness, as a personal decision, occurs within the human heart, not in a court of law.  Thus, forgiveness includes mercy, but mercy can occur in entirely different contexts than forgiveness.  Further, forgiveness does not involve only exercising the moral virtue of mercy.  Forgiveness also is an expression of love, particularly agape or the kind of love that is challenging and even costly to the forgiver.

“Forgiveness Is the Release of Deep Anger:” Is This True?

I recently read an article in which the author started the essay by defining forgiving as the release of deep anger.

In fact, there is a consensus building that forgiveness amounts to getting rid of a negative emotion such as anger and resentment. I did a Google search using only the word “forgiveness.” On the first two pages, I found the following definitions of what the authors reported forgiveness to be:

Forgiveness (supposedly) is:

• letting go of resentment and thoughts of revenge;
• the release of resentment or anger;
• a conscious and deliberate decision to release feelings of resentment or vengeance toward a person who acted unjustly;
• letting go of anger;
• letting go of negative feelings such as vengefulness.

I think you get the idea. The consensus is that forgiveness focuses on getting rid of persistent and deep anger. Synonyms for this are resentment and vengefulness. Readers not deeply familiar with the philosophy of forgiveness may simply accept this as true. Yet, this attempted and consensual definition cannot possibly be true for the following reasons:

1.  A person can reduce resentment and still dismiss the other person as not worth one’s time;
2.  Reducing resentment itself is not a moral virtue. This might happen because the “forgiver” wants to be happy and so there is no goodness toward the other, which is part of the definition   of a moral virtue;
3.  There is no specific difference between forgiveness and tolerance. I can get rid of resentment by trying to tolerate the other. My putting up with the other as a person is not a moral virtue;
4.  Forgiveness, if we take these definitions seriously, is devoid of love. It is not that one has to resist love. Yet, one can be completely unaware of love as the essence of forgiveness while  holding to the consensual definition. 
5.  A central goal of forgiveness is lost. Off the radar by the consensual definition is the motivation to assist the other to grow as a person. After all, why even bother with the other if I can   finally rid myself of annoying resentment.  
   

The statement “forgiveness is ridding the self of resentment or vengefulness” is reductionistic and therefore potentially dangerous. It is dangerous in a philosophical and a psychological sense. The philosophical danger is in never going deeply enough to understand the beauty of forgiveness in its essence as a moral virtue of at least trying to offer love to those who did not love you. The psychological danger is that Forgiveness Therapy will be incomplete as the client keeps the focus on the self, trying to rid the self of negatives. Yet, the paradox of Forgiveness Therapy is the stepping outside of the self, to reach out to the other, and in this giving is psychological healing for the client. It is time to challenge the consensus.

Robert