On the unforgivable
There are some mistakes that are easy to get past, but what happens when one makes a mistake that violates a principle that they consider important?
Sometimes, an action is unforgivable. If the another person makes this kind of mistake, it is possible to either let it sit or to be merciful and forgive the person. But this can’t be easily done for oneself. If you forgive the unforgivable in yourself, it feels like you are changing your principles. It doesn’t feel like mercy, it feels like failure. So how do you get past a mistake that matters?
The only answer I’ve been able to come up with is time. Just let it sit. It fades in memory. It becomes less important.
Maybe there’s some rational way to say something like “I’ve acted 10 billion times and only 6 of these times were unforgivable mistakes, so this is a reasonable proportion.” But my mind cannot work that way. For me, unforgivable is not forgivable. The interesting thing, from reading what I wrote above, is that I seem to think that the person who did something unforgivable can be forgiven, but the action itself cannot. That makes sense.
Any thoughts?
Boris, ever heard the phrase “love the sinner, hate the sin?” Seems like that’s where your last paragraph ended up.
Some actions are never forgivable. But people can be. People change; the past (and the fact that something happened) can’t. Leastaways that’s the way I think about it.
So to rephrase Gui’s #1, I’d say “There are a class of actions which can not be forgiven. However, the people who commit those actions can, with great difficulty and much time, sometimes be forgiven.”
Comment by Mel — March 25, 2008 @ 11:20 am
Do you ever really forget the things you’ve forgiven yourself for? It seems like all of your actions contribute to your mental landscape, and ‘unforgivableness’ is just a measure of how cataclysmic and permanent the changes are.
Or you could define forgiveness as accepting the consequences of the past while being open to new circumstances, in which case being unforgiving in the long term is irresponsible and possibly self destructive.
Comment by Anonymous — March 26, 2008 @ 8:42 am
That’s not really right. I mean, yes, all of my actions become a part of my mental landscape. But the unforgivable status isn’t given by what occurs as a result of my actions - things are forgivable or not based on principle. For example, one of the things I consider unforgivable was just an unfair comment to a teacher in 7th grade. I’m sure he forgot about it within a week. It didn’t change anything. But it was not an acceptable thing to say and I don’t believe that action can be forgiven.
My version of forgiveness isn’t about accepting the past and being open to the future. I’m fine with those. I think Mel was closest with her distinction between forgiving a person who did something unforgivable and forgiving the unforgivable action itself.
Comment by Boris Dieseldorff — March 26, 2008 @ 9:48 am