Forgiveness and God

The topic of God's relation to human wrongdoing is an important one in mainstream Western theological and philosophical discussions of forgiveness, but it is by no means clear what the relationship is supposed to be between God and forgiveness, and the connection between that and the possibility of forgiveness between persons. The Christian theme that forgiveness originates with God and human beings are supposed to forgive wrongdoers because God forgives us our sins, remains mysterious. In part, this is because there is some question whether the differences between divine and human forgiveness are so significant that any comparison between them is inapt. As one author puts the point, “The difference between the human and the divine should not be underestimated, and it is possible that it would not just be over optimistic but actually dangerous to expect people to model their behavior on God” (Tombs, 2008, p.592). The concern expressed in this remark is that whereas God's forgiveness is supposedly unilateral, unilateral human forgiveness may be irresponsible, as when a victim of wrong forgives a wrongdoer irrespective of any signs of repentance on the part of the wrongdoer. Another writer argues that the gap between human and divine forgiveness is unbridgeable, for God's forgiveness is grounded in “eschatological divine justice” not, as in human forgiveness, in an awareness of “sinful solidarity with humanity” (Williams, 2008, pps.584–585).
Moreover, it is not clear how sins in the form of violations of God's commands, for example, not to lie, or to refrain from taking the name of the lord in vain, could be forgiven, since an omnipotent, perfectly good, being cannot, it seems, be wronged, either vicariously or directly. It seems the idea noted above that we may wrong God via wronging others cannot be literally true of an all perfect being. And the idea that we can wrong or injure God directly, for example, via blasphemy, seems absurd for the same reason. Rather, God's perfections render Him beyond forgiveness in the sense that it is logically impossible for Him to forgive or, for that matter, to be forgiven. Thus, the claim “To err is human; to forgive divine,” is false. Instead, to err and to forgive are human, since it is human fallibility that makes wrongdoing and forgiveness possible in the first place (Minas, 1975).
These skeptical observations suggest that the fact that many Christian texts portray human beings petitioning God for forgiveness need not imply either that God has been wronged by human beings, that divine forgiveness is in any way like the human variety, or even that God logically can forgive human beings their transgressions.
It might be argued, however, that these claims assume that all wrongdoing injures or harms the victim. But this assumption may be false, since some wrongs may cause no harm or injury at all. Arthur Ripstein (2006) gives as an example of harmless wrongdoing the unauthorized use of another's home that causes no damage to it or to anything inside. Although no harm is caused, trespassing against the home is wrong. Perhaps, then, God can be wronged harmlessly, for example by being disrespected, and may forgive wrongdoers such wrongs.
Still, the standard sense of having been wronged clearly means having been victimized in some way by an injustice, an evil, or, on a broader conception of harm such as that of Feinberg, a setback to one's interests. And it strains credulity to think that an omnipotent, all knowing, and perfectly good being may be victimized in any way or suffer a setback to its interests. Only beings that are vulnerable to such consequences of human behaviors and attitudes can be wronged or harmed. Hence, God cannot be disrespected, insulted, or ridiculed any more than He can be assaulted, black-mailed, or murdered. Of course, people may say or believe disrespectful things about God, in their own minds ridiculing or otherwise insulting Him. But if it is logically impossible for God to be a victim of any sort, then he cannot be the victim of any kind of wrongdoing, harmful or not.
The relation between God and forgiveness arises as well in philosophical discussions of the problem of evil. For example, it is sometimes argued that the existence of such morally good things as benevolence and charity depend, logically, on the reality of specific evils such as pain and suffering. As applied to forgiveness, this suggests that human wrongdoing is a logically necessary condition for the moral good of forgiveness. This line of thinking belongs to those theodicies that propose a necessary connection between good and evil, such as that human free will, itself a good thing, requires the ability to do wrong, which is the presupposition of forgiveness, another good thing (Mackie, 1995). But other philosophical considerations track in a different direction, as for example when God's relation to time is considered. If God is outside time as we know it, then it seems He cannot forgive human beings since forgiveness, a temporal term, logically presupposes temporally prior sins. And even if there is some sense in which a temporally eternal God forgives human wrongs, it seems that cannot be a true description of human forgiveness since we are temporally finite beings whose wrongdoings and forgiveness occur at specific moments within time. These considerations also cast doubt on the intelligibility of the idea that humans must forgive one another their trespasses in order to become more like Jesus' human incarnation of God and warrant divine forgiveness.

Forgiveness and God

Forgiveness and God :: تعاليق

Forgiveness and God