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Radical Forgiveness – What it Means
June 24th, 2010 by admin
What does radical forgiveness mean? There is a “normal” kind of forgiveness. It is as trite and meaningless as the sentiment when a child is forced to say “I’m sorry” after hurting another child. In the same way that the child pretends to be sorry, we pretend to forgive because our religions and moral ideals demand it.In fact, even when dressed up as something noble, forgiveness as practiced by most people is not a very beautiful thing. It is more commonly an arrogance. It is a subtle way of showing superiority. It is something like saying or thinking, “I am higher than you and I prove this by conferring my grace upon you.”The truth is that we must condemn in the first place if we are to forgive. What else would there be to forgive in a person if we did not assume some evil intent? We don’t think of forgiveness in the context of innocent mistakes, for example. If a man faints and falls into an expensive painting, ruining it and reducing its value by tens of thousands of dollars, the consequences are great perhaps, but we do not hold the man to be morally culpable, since he did not cause harm on purpose. So we have to assume that a person knowingly did something bad and condemn that person before there is even a reason to forgive.The interesting part of this is the fact that for all the things we have done in the past that hurt someone and that we regret, we cannot recall ever thinking to ourselves, “I know what I’m about to do is evil, but I am choosing to do it in any case.” Most often we reacted out of pain, ignorance and even a form of unconsciousness. We made a mistake, and that’s how we actually recall our “incidents” even though we assume that all others truly intended evil. What an arrogant assumption when seen in this light, and one for which we have little evidence – even from our own experience as “sinners.”Radical forgiveness, then, isn’t about condemnation followed by our “generous” blessing. It isn’t even forgiveness at all. It is the recognition that there is no reason to judge in the first place.