The ethics of forgiveness

Regular visitors will no doubt have already recognise my fascination with the issues of forgiveness. So in that vein, let me recommend this article which explores the real amibiguities and why it is that forgiveness is not necessarily seen a a virtue.

Consider, for example, two particular inflections of the question: Who needs
forgiveness? and Who needs forgiveness? Those versions of the question contain suspicion. The first implies suspicion about the universalizing view that all of us need forgiveness. True though that claim may be, the fact of human history is that some people inflict much more harm than others and it is important to measure responsibility accurately and to place accountability where it belongs. The second inflection questions the virtue of forgiveness. It suspects that forgiveness can become the partner of forgetting, condoning, relativizing and trivializing, all of which sacrifice justice for indifference, what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace” or self-serving rationalization.

It's that thing about sacrificing justice that lies at the heart of the matter, I think. It also surfaces in questions about the atonement. I don't think that we can talk about atonement in Christ without doing some important thinking about forgiveness and what it involves.
Science & Theology News - The ethics of forgiveness: Filed in: forgiveness, ethics, grace, condoning