Tagged: “Love”
I have a problem with this whole idea of forgiveness. Forgiveness asks me to “just move on” or to “leave it in the past.” How can I “leave it in the past” when it is constantly nipping at my heals and the memories just won’t leave me alone?
Forgiveness is not just moving on or leaving something in the past. As a moral virtue, forgiveness is focused on goodness toward particular persons, those who have been unjust to you. As you forgive, you begin changing your view of that person and so this memory of “nipping at your heals” lessens. Without this paradox of struggling to be good to those who were not good to you, it is very difficult to “leave it in the past.” Forgiving allows you to move into the future without that burden of continual unfinished business.
For additional information, see The Four Phases of Forgiveness.
I don’t feel anger. So, I don’t need to forgive my father for ignoring me while I was growing up, right?
You do not have to feel anger to forge ahead with forgiving. For example, are you feeling disappointed or sad? Do you think you can have a genuine trusting relationship with your father now? If not, then forgiving would be appropriate. In other words, it is not only feelings of anger that motivate forgiving. If you think you have been treated unfairly and this is getting in the way of your current relationship with your father, then forgiving would be appropriate if you choose to do so.
For additional information, see Forgiveness Defined.
I am not in favor of focusing only on behavior and then saying, “What the person did was bad.” No. There are bad people and we can truly say, “This is a bad person.” Do you agree?
I would agree with the following: Humans, unlike any other primates, have a free will. This unique characteristic allows us to make choices that can affect our very humanity. Given this premise that we all have free will, and given the further premise that our choices can affect our humanity, it then follows that we can grow in our humanity, growing toward the greater good. If this is the case, then, through our free will choices, we can either grow in our humanity (toward the good of justice, courage, wisdom, temperance, forgiveness, and agape love in service to others) or diminish in our humanity (toward treating others as objects, cowardice, deliberately bad choices, greatly excessive behaviors, hatred, and selfishness). I would avoid the term “bad person.” Why? It is because a diminished humanity, forged by a free will of bad choices, always can be reversed by that very same free will that diminished the person’s true humanity (the goodness mentioned above). If we say someone is a “bad person” this is too permanent a label, given the free will possibility of reversing the choices that led to the stereotype of others calling the person “bad.”
For additional information, see Why Forgive?
How can forgiving make you just turn your back on the past as if it no longer exists, yet it still constantly haunts you?
Forgiveness does not ask you to “turn your back on the past.” When we forgive, we remember, but we remember in new ways rather than re-living all of the grim details that caused us pain. For example, when you forgive, you see the one who hurt you as emotionally wounded (if this is true). You see the other’s vulnerability. This helps to reduce the pain as you recall what happened. Also, as you forgive, you likely will not be re-living that event as often as you did before forgiving.
For additional information, see Learning to Forgive Others.
Do I have to grow in character before I am able to forgive? If so, what character traits do you see as important?
This is one of those chicken-or-the-egg dilemmas. It seems to me that as we forgive, we grow in the moral virtues, particularly of courage (as we decide to move forward), humility (as we try to see the humanity in the one who acted unfairly), and then eventually in love, particularly agape love, or that which is in service to others for their sake. Agape love costs the one who loves; it can be a struggle to offer goodness to another through a broken heart. These three: courage, humility, and agape love, I think, are major fruits of forgiving.
For additional information, see What is Forgiveness?
