Comments on: On the unforgivable

By: Boris Dieseldorff

Boris Dieseldorff — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:48:00 +0000

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.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 15:42:00 +0000

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.

By: Mel

Mel — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 18:20:00 +0000

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.”