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Forgiveness
The Question of Forgiveness—and It Is a Question
Few people question the belief "To err is human, to forgive divine."
Posted October 12, 2014
English poet Alexander Pope said "To err is human, to forgive divine," . Few people question this belief. The word divine means pertaining to a god. Jesus, believed by many to be the son of God, is believed to be divine. "And Jesus said, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.'" Luke 23: 34. In the New Testament, Jesus speaks of the importance of Christians forgiving or showing mercy towards others. To forgive the way that Jesus did, unconditionally, may not be possible for mortal human beings. Should we also expect ourselves to walk on water, like Jesus? Should we expect to feed a crowd of five thousand with five loaves of bread and two fish? We are human beings, not deities.
Behind the teaching that we should forgive the way Jesus did is an assumption that he who readily forgives is a better person than one who does not forgive, morally and spiritually superior. Consider an alternative view, that forgiveness should be earned by the offender rather than granted to him as a gift.
Along with the Christian value on forgiveness and the Positive Psychology movement, aka the “Science of Happiness’, many have adopted the concept of forgiveness without thinking about it critically. Emerging from Positive Psychology is the notion that granting forgiveness is good for one's health. They point to studies showing that people who forgive are happier and healthier than those who hang onto anger.
While it has been found that harboring angry feelings can affect our health, and there certainly is link between positive emotions and the health of the immune system, this knowledge has been distorted by the Positive Psychology movement founded by Martin Seligman and popularized with the help of Oprah Winfry, Larry King, Ellen de Generis, and other celebrities. When Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, was diagnosed with breast cancer and expressed her very human fear and anger, she was met with physicians and fellow cancer patients telling her that cancer is a gift, urging her to look at the bright side. In response, she wrote Bright-Sided . Although many patients going through cancer treatment find themselves reassessing their values and discovering what is truly important in life, that usually comes after they allow themselves to feel their fear and anger.
Although in the popular literature, forgiveness is often regarded as a decision to be made, a cognitive process, in the psychology and health research literature, the general agreement is that when forgiveness occurs, it is the end result of an interpersonal process one struggles with. I suggest that there are times when something other than forgiveness may be the right thing, that there are some things we cannot forgive. This seems to be the issue that Simon Wiesenthal struggled with.
Wiesenthal was a Holocaust survivor who became known as a Nazi hunter instrumental in identifying over 1,100 Nazi war criminals. He wrote Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness. While in a concentration camp, he was taken one day from his work detail to the bedside of a dying member of the SS. Haunted by the crimes in which he had participated and probably fearful of what awaited him after his death, he wanted to confess to and obtain absolution from a Jew, any Jew. Faced with the choice between compassion and justice, silence and truth, Wiesenthal listened to him, then reached out and touched his shoulder. He said nothing. And this haunted him even years after the war ended. He wondered if he had he done the right thing What would you have done in his place?
Fifty-three distinguished men and women responded to Wiesenthal's questions with very thought-provoking statements. They include Robert Coles, Harvard professor of social ethics and author; Primo Levi, Italian Holocaust survivor and author; the Dalai Lama; Matthew Fox, leading Episcopalian theologian; Harold Kushner, rabbi and author; Eugene Fisher of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops; and Albert Speer, German Nazi war criminal and author.
We are urged to forgive but how does one do this? In Judaism, just prior to Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, which occurs on the day before God makes decisions regarding what will happen during the coming year, Jews are supposed to ask forgiveness of those they have wronged during the year if they have not already done so. During Yom Kippur itself, Jews fast and pray for God's forgiveness for the transgressions they have made against God in the prior year. Sincere repentance is required. Only God can forgive one for the sins one has committed against him and only the person you have hurt can grant forgiveness to you.
In the Twelve Step literature , there is 12 Hidden Rewards of Making Amends: Finding Forgiveness and Self-Respect by Working Steps 8-10 (Berger 2013). Although the Twelve Steps were founded by Christian men, it can be used in a way that reflects the Jewish concept of forgiveness as an interpersonal process. In the eighth and ninth steps, it is suggested that one make a list of people one has harmed and plan to do whatever you reasonably can to make amends. If you owe money, work out a plan to repay as much of it as possible. If you have treated someone badly, apologize in a genuine and remorseful way. Changing how we treat others will help tremendously in our mental and emotional healing. It improves our self-esteem and helps us to feel better about ourselves. You need to forgive yourself for all the mean and foolish things that you have done in the past.
We can achieve closure and healing and maintain good health without granting forgiveness. In her book How Can I Forgive You?: The Courage to Forgive, the Freedom Not To, Janis Abrahms Spring wrote about four ways we tend to deal with the question of forgiveness.
The first is cheap forgiveness, a fast and easy pardon, with no processing of emotion and no coming to terms with the injury. That is what making a decision to forgive is. It is an unemotional, intellectual decision to forgive. The forgiveness is premature, superficial, and undeserved. It is a unilateral attempt at peace-making and reconciliation, for which you ask nothing in return. It is dysfunctional because creates an illusion of closeness when nothing has been faced or resolved, and the offender has done nothing to earn it. By silencing your anger and indignation, you fail to acknowledge the harm that was done to you. This kind of forgiveness is not at all good for your health. It may preserve your relationship but does not provide any opportunity to develop a more intimate relationship. It also blocks personal growth, denying you insights into yourself that can help you develop more satisfying relationships. It can send the person who has hurt you a signal that he can continue to mistreat you. Cheap forgiveness may make you sick, physically and emotionally because you bury or deny your festering anger, which continues to fester. What can help you feel better is a less anger, which does not necessarily have to come from forgiveness but can come from acceptance of the person as he really is.
The second is a self-righteous angry refusal to forgive in order to punish the offender. It cuts you off from any further dialogue with the offender and the possibility of any more positive resolution. It can poison you physically and emotionally.
The third is acceptance, a gutsy, life-affirming response to injury when the person who has hurt you is unavailable or unrepentant. It is a way of letting go of festering anger without necessarily forgiving the offender, a satisfying alternative to forgiveness when the offender cannot or will not engage in the healing process, or is unwilling to take responsibility for his offense. It is based on a decision to take control of your pain, make sense of your injury, and carve out a relationship with the offender that works for you. It is a way of gaining further understanding and empathy for the offender’s own personal struggles. When you accept someone as he is, you remind yourself that although this person did something very hurtful to you, it was not necessarily about you. It helps you to see how he may have subjected you to the same mistreatment he experienced himself. Acceptance helps you be true to yourself, rid yourself of the anger that poisons your soul and can harm to our immune system. It is a way of freeing yourself of the burden of anger and rage by attempting to understand and even empathize with the person who has hurt you, without necessarily forgiving that person.
The fourth is genuine forgiveness, the end result of an interpersonal process in which both the offender and the hurt party do the work of repentance and forgiveness. In The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini uses the metaphor of falling snow to represent the ineffable quality of release that comes with forgiveness.
"I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night . . . The park shimmered with snow so fresh, so dazzling white, it burned my eyes. It sprinkled soundlessly from the branches of white-clad trees. . . . The muffled quiet, snow-quiet, was deafening. I looked down at Sohrab. One corner of his mouth had curles up just so. A smile. Lopsided. Hardly there. But there. It was only a smile, nothing more. It didn't make everything alright. It didn't make anything alright.Only a smile. A tiny thing. A leaf in the woods, shaking in the wake of a startled bird's flight. But I'll take it. With open arms. Because when spring comes, it melts the snow one flake at a time, and maybe I just witnessed the first flake melting (pp. 357--371).."
The melting of hatred one small flake at a time is a wonderful way to start. This can occur either through forgiveness or acceptance.
Many of my patients struggle with the question of forgiving those in their life who hurt them, feeling that they are supposed to take the high road by forgiving. I let them know that this is something about which they have a choice, and work with them to arrive at the choice they can comfortably live with.
