By Jesse Couenhoven, Science of Virtues scholar
My response to the
problem just mentioned—that there are many, sometimes fragmentary, conceptions
of forgiveness now competing for prominence—is to steal a page from Alasdair
MacIntyre’s After Virtue. My goal is
to develop a rich conception of forgiveness that is based on and offers
insights about central Christian beliefs, especially those that can be
described as being within the Augustinian tradition. One of the benefits of
this project, I contend, is that it can assist modern Westerners (among others)
in making sense of the otherwise seemingly helter skelter current meanings of
the term—and the fact that even though forgiving has been trivialized in
important ways, it continues to have deep moral and spiritual resonances.
That the present
popularity of the term in political science and psychology owes a great deal to
religious invocation of the idea of forgiveness is not hard to show—the
influence of Bishop Tutu’s pleas for forgiveness in the context of apartheid in
South Africa is undeniable, and prominent researchers in psychology (such as
Robert Enright) have pointed out the influence of popular Christian self-help
books such as Louis Smedes’ Forgive and
Forget. To claim more than that, however, would require an exploration of
recent intellectual history that would distract from the conceptual aims of my
discussion.
Rather than tell a story
about how a religious conception of forgiveness has been appropriated by a
secular society in ways that have changed the meaning of the term without
entirely severing its spiritual connotations, I seek to offer a plausible reconstruction
of the traditional Christian meaning of “forgiveness”. I then hope to show that
when forgiveness is understood in the manner I explore—as, primarily, a divine
action, aimed at separating sinners from their sins via the loving gift of a
new identity—it is easier to appreciate and account for the varied ways the
term is used today, which make more sense as fragmentary appropriations of a
complex theological concept than they do in their current form. The question of
popular, non-religious uses of the idea of forgiveness, then, is one to which
we can most fruitfully return once we have a better grasp on the traditional
notion of forgiveness of which we have been losing sight.
To be sure, there are
other ways of thinking about forgiveness (some more sensible and attractive
than others). Nevertheless, I claim that that a traditional, Augustinian,
conception of forgiveness is entirely defensible. The merits I claim for it are
twofold. First, I think it makes sense of Christian stories and practices of forgiveness.
Let me quickly expand on this claim, and why it matters. Most people around the
world adhere to a religious faith; Christianity, of course, is the largest and
in many ways (though not, to be sure, in every way) the most influential.
Developing an Augustinian conception of forgiveness is an exercise in
conceptual retrieval, a constructive attempt to mine the history of Christian
(and not only Christian) thought for insights concerning the nature and power
of forgiveness. If doing so can help enrich the lives of the billions who
affirm the forgiveness of sins, that is no small thing.
One of the main ways that
approaching forgiveness this way influences my task is the fact that the
Christian tradition has often made central a question about forgiveness that
differs from the one most often asked in the current literature on forgiveness.
Instead of asking, “How can I forgive?”, the creedal affirmation of the
forgiveness of sins suggests another question: “How can I be forgiven?” (this
is a feature of Jewish traditions as well). In saying that we believe in the
forgiveness of sin we certainly confess what we want to do and who we want to
be, but primarily we confess how we have been blessed. Thus, rather than taking
the perspective of a victim—one who has been wronged—I take the perspective of
a perpetrator—one who has wronged; and who wrongs. We are, of course, often
both victim and perpetrator, and often both at once. Nevertheless, though my
discussion does not ignore the perspective of the victim, it does not
prioritize it.
Second, an Augustinian
account of forgiveness can be of use to more than my fellow believers. Though
in some respects a traditional theory of forgiveness can strike some as
counter-intuitive, I find that it also makes sense of a number moral
commitments and aspirations many of us hold dear, whether we are religious or
not. Central aspects of an Augustinian view can be appropriated by
non-Christians (especially, but not exclusively, the vast numbers who are
religious believers of another sort). The idea of forgiveness as metaphysical,
for instance—the idea that forgiveness seeks a change in the moral character of
perpetrators, rather than mainly therapeutic or political change for victims—can
be appropriated by non-Christians.
In part, this is simply a
straightforward conceptual point: even one who does not admire the theological sources
of a traditional conception of forgiveness might agree with some of its normative
claims. In addition, as I have mentioned, talk about forgiveness is in a
special conceptual position. Many of the things non-Christians want to say
about forgiveness turn out to have been influenced by Christian talk about
forgiveness down the centuries. Thus, it would not be surprising if an
articulate Christian account of forgiveness turned out to make sense of, or to
offer conceptual resources to deepen, many of the things non-Christians have
recently been saying about forgiveness.
In summary, then, my
suggestion is that all of our paradigms of forgiveness can be enriched by learning
about and wrestling with nuanced developments of competing traditions of
forgiveness, including Augustinian traditions. Searching for “something we can
all agree on”, academic students of religion have often watered down the
particularity of the traditions they engage. But leaving our intuitions
unchallenged in such a manner is no service to anyone. It leaves us ignorant of
the riches that might be mined from the views that billions of people around
the world have held and do hold. It often serves as a defensive front, as well,
that disengages faith perspectives from real encounters with social sciences,
philosophy, and other disciplines. Discussion of forgiveness presents an
appropriate opportunity for overcoming such ills, in the expectation that
seriously wrestling with each other’s hopes for overcoming evil will enliven our
understanding of virtue and deepen our relationships, as well.
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