Tagged: “Misconceptions”
‘The Forgiving Life’ featured on Elevate Society website
There is a website entitled Elevate Society run by Tal Gur as the Chief Editor. On July 24, 2025 they published a beautiful description of our book, The Forgiving Life. Their description of the book shows that they definitely “get it” regarding our message of forgiveness. Their review can be found here: https://elevatesociety.com/the-forgiving-life-summary-review/
Is forgiveness actually possible, in a deep sense, if the one who did wrong does not apologize?
Your questions have good timing. This month’s blog on this website addresses your question. As you will see, a person can forgive without an apology coming from the other person.
When might forgiveness become enabling? I am afraid to forgive because it may give the other person the wrong idea that I am ok with his behavior.
Forgiveness in its true sense never becomes enabling. A misunderstanding may occur if either the forgiver or the one forgiven (or both) perceives forgiveness as condoning injustice. Yet, when people forgive, they can and should bring justice into the equation. In other words, as you forgive, ask something of the other so that the unfair behavior changes.
I have forgiven my partner for constant criticisms. Yet, the criticisms continue. I now am wondering if my forgiving is giving my partner implicit permission to continue the criticisms. Do you think this might be possible?
From what I can tell, you are forgiving without asking your partner to communicate with you in a more positive way. As you forgive, try to approach your partner when your anger is lower and ask about the possibility of communicating with you in a more civil and even loving way. It is not the forgiving that is the problem. It seems to me that a missing step is asking for the justice of better communication after you have forgiven.
I have read one criticism of forgiveness that goes something like this: If people forgive, this may lower accountability. In the case of legal issues, someone who requires serious time in corrections may be let off with too light of a sentence. What do you think of this?
When you forgive, you can and should seek justice as these two moral virtues (forgiveness and justice) can occur simultaneously. Regarding the legal issue, there is an important difference between people forgiving others for offending them and legal pardon, in which the judge was not the one offended. In the event that judges are offended, they must recuse themselves from the case. In other words, forgiving for personal offenses and engaging in legal pardon toward someone who did not personally hurt the judge are quite different.
