Repentance, Redemption and Forgiveness

Saint Fool said:

Public events of the past few months have set me to thinking about the process of repentance, redemption and forgiveness and how true forgiveness may be the hardest part of the process.

Not wanting to turn this into P&CE, I won't use politicians or sports figures but give a personal example instead.

Many years back, a good friend became an alcoholic. An alcoholic of the lying, cheating, stealing kind. Finally, after a betrayal of trust, I told her to get out of my life. Ten years ago, I received a letter from her apologizing for her actions. She'd gone to AA, straightened her life out and wanted to make amends. Part of me said OK, she's changed. But another part said, TOUGH! Look what she did to you!!!! I ended up giving her a sort of raggedy-ass forgiveness, which she was wise enough to see through and live with. Three years ago, I was in her neck of the woods and met up with her. Met her spouse. Her kids. Saw the change in her eyes and was finally able to let go of my resentments and feelings and feel real forgiveness. Are we good friends now? Not really. Our lives have gone in very different ways and we have little in common now. But I was able to accept that she had changed her life and regretted her action and true forgiveness got rid of the anger I felt for much too long.

I'm not particularly religious and I don't think it would have made a difference, but I'm curious.

What does your belief system say about repentance, redemption and forgiveness? How does someone repent and action? Who sets the standards for redemption? And is forgiveness the hardest part of the three or was I just being pig-headed stupid about it? Or is forgiveness the icing on the cake, something that doesn't compare to repentance and redemption?

Or do repentence, redemption and forgiveness even count in this day and age when a grudge cannot only be held but passed on to many more people through the click of a mouse, a letter to an editor, or a video on You-Tube?

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Repentance, redemption, and forgiveness are related, but not the same thing. It is important to make the distinction between them.

When your story really discusses is repentance and forgiveness. Repentance is part of a greater act that is called teshuvah in Hebrew. In English, that translates a few ways, the most common being "return." The goal of teshuvah is to return to the way we once were--following G-d's will. There is a specific way to go about doing this. First, we must take responsibility for our sin. Second, we must regret the sin, for without regret there can be no desire to change. Third, we must reject that behaviour. If we make these first three steps, G-d will allow us an opportunity to take the fourth and final step: changing our behaviour. If we truly long for a change to make right, He will provide us with a chance to be faced with the same situation and do the right thing. Through this, we are able to see that in G-d's eyes, time is circular. We can return to a previous failure and replace it with success.

Forgiveness is a related, but separate issue. There are two general types of sins: sins against G-d and sins against man. While G-d can and wants to forgive us for sins commited against Him (except for a select few), there is nothing He can do about sins committed against our fellow man. We must first seek forgiveness from the person we wronged.

Redemption is rescue. The Jews were redeemed from the bonds of slavery Egypt and became Avdei Hashem--servants of G-d. Currently, we are in exile, but we will soon be redeemed; however, this will only come about through two things: performing teshuvah and acts of kindness. The three are different but interrelated.

I'm hoping someone who's a practicing Catholic will talk about confession, contrition, and absolution as well.

I can talk about it from the perspective of a student of canon law, but for the Catholics I know it is a one of the more important aspects of their faith--that you can be contrite and indicate it and make recompense and be forgiven.

I'm interested in that too. I don't understand the concept of confessing to another human being. I'm hoping someone can shed some light on that.

Saint Fool said:

Thanks, Semi. I'm going to have to think about your definition of redemption. I'd always considered it the act of performing good works with a true purpose so that either a higher power or in the eyes of society would see you as having redeemed yourself.

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Part of warranting redemption is service of G-d; however, we cannot redeem ourselves. It is a partnership. We have to warrant it, but it can only come from Him.

I'd also like to hear someone talk about public confession of sins as practiced - at least in my experience - in independent Protestant churches primarily in the South. I've witnessed it twice. Neither time was in connection with an altar call, but just a general stand up and confess your sins if you need to moment. I grew up in the Episcopal church with its group prayer of general confession so it was quite bewildering.

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Who are they confessing to? G-d or the group?

The idea of auricular confession was rather important in terms of Anglican/Episcopalian history. Google Tractarian movement.

I'm also hoping we might get a Quaker opinion too; it's rather different.

To semilargeintestine,

In this thread you wrote:

If we make these first three steps, G-d will allow us an opportunity to take the fourth and final step: changing our behaviour. If we truly long for a change to make right, He will provide us with a chance to be faced with the same situation and do the right thing. Through this, we are able to see that in G-d's eyes, time is circular. We can return to a previous failure and replace it with success.

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In the thread on reincarnation you wrote:

If a soul goes to Gehenna and has not completed its mission and fulfilled all the commandments of the Torah, it will be sent back to this world to try again. As it says in the book of Job:

Originally Posted by Job 33:29
Behold, all these things does God do -- twice, even three times with a man -- to bring his soul back from the pit that he may be enlightened with the light of the living.

Once the mission is fulfilled, the soul can ascend to Gan Eden.

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Are the two directly related or do they each refer to separate understandings? If separate, would you please elaborate on them by means of contrast?

Gehanna

Gehanna said:

To semilargeintestine,

In this thread you wrote:


In the thread on reincarnation you wrote:


Are the two directly related or do they each refer to separate understandings? If separate, would you please elaborate on them by means of contrast?

Gehanna

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Well, on the surface, they are separate. The first refers to something that must be done in this physical world--teshuvah--while the second refers to something on a grander scale--the fulfillment of the soul's mission.

However, the two certainly are connected. It is inevitable that a person will sin. G-d knew this before He even created the universe, as the concept of repentance was one on which the universe was created. And so, a person who since and does teshuvah is doing a great thing in the eyes of G-d.

On the spiritual level, a soul who has not completed his mission to fully keep the Torah must do a grander form of teshuvah. It must return (which is what teshuvah means) to the physical world in order to try again. It will experience the same opportunities to do right, and once it does, it will be as if it never failed in the first place--just like in this life when we make amends for our sins.

semilargeintestine--What about the role of Yom Kippur?

We learn about teshuvah from Yom Kippur. A few weeks ago, we read the part of the Torah were Moses recounts the sin of the Golden Calf. He went up to the mountain for the first 40 days and 40 nights. When he did not return on the date the Jewish people* were expecting (which was the result of a very unfortunate misunderstanding), they Jewish people feared the worst. They were under the false impression that they needed an intermediary to speak to G-d for them, as every time they had appealed to G-d or heard from Him before, it was through Moses. And so, they demanded the Golden Calf be built to act as a replacement for Moses.

At the end of the 40 days and 40 nights, G-d told Moses to descend the mountain and see what the people had done. When he saw it, he smashed the two tablets in front of them (he did this because he did not want to impart the binding of the Torah upon them in the midst of sin). They people were completely distraught by what they had done, and allowed him to destroy the Golden Calf.

Moses prayed to G-d to give the people a second chance, and it was granted. He ascended the mountain for another 40 days and 40 nights to rewrite the tablets. When the 40 days and 40 nights were over, G-d told Moses to descend the mountain. He related to Moses that He had joyously reconciled with Israel because they have shown true repentance--they had made teshuvah. Moses descended the mountain to present the tablets to the people.

On that day, G-d told the people that the first 40 days were just as the last 40 days. He said this to tell the people that if you truly desire to change, He will provide you with another opportunity to make amends. Because the people had made teshuvah and succeeded in changing their ways, the second 40 days replaced the sin of the first 40 days.

That day was Yom Kippur.

And so, Yom Kippur is true to its name--Day of Atonement. It is the ultimate day of teshuvah, and the 40 days proceeding it--the month of Elul and the 10 days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur--are the time when we make teshuvah for all that we've done wrong that year, either purposely or unintentionally. If we truly make teshuvah, G-d will allow us to make good on our promise to change.


*The people actually responsible for the Golden Calf were small in number, and were a mixed myriad of people G-d didn't want to be part of the Israelites because he foresaw what would happen. It was only through Moses' pleading that He acquiesced. This is why when G-d tells Moses to go down, He says to see what "your people" have done. They were not G-d's people, but Moses' people.

Thank you for your reply semilargeintestine.

Gehanna

semilargeintestine said:

I'm interested in that too. I don't understand the concept of confessing to another human being. I'm hoping someone can shed some light on that.

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Ah but as a Catholic when I go to confession, I'm not confessing to another person - I am confessing my sins to God. The priest is there as an agent of God, so to speak, as a stand-in.

And the "technical" name is not "confession", it's Reconciliation.

Explaining Catholic sacraments to those who know little to nothing about them can be daunting at best but I'll make an attempt.

Think of God as the Father of a large family. Think of Catholics as His family. Like families, those of the Catholic faith are far from perfect. We make mistakes and we sometimes do wrong. If within a human family, someone does something that affects the other family members in a negative way, we clear the air by talking about what happened, what we did wrong, and making a vow not to do the same thing again.

When I go to confession (yes I still call it that even though it's the Sacrament of Reconciliation), it brings me closer to my faith, to God, and in essence "brings me home". If I can go and in privacy, with complete confidence that no one else will know, tell my transgressions, it is amazingly uplifting to confide things I have done wrong, things I know are wrong, and things I shouldn't do.

Prior to going, I have to take time to reflect on what I have done or not done and this time of self-reflection really can bring home areas where I need to improve in my personal life.

My sins are normally pretty mild; it's not like most Catholics go to confession to tell that they murdered their neighbor or robbed a bank. My sins tend to be ones of omission or ways I feel that I fail others, like not being patient with my elderly mother or indulging in too much vino and such.

I always feel somehow cleaner within after confession and my faith feels fresher, renewed and stronger.

Confession also always reminds me that God is a loving, merciful God who doesn't hate me because I grabbed two newspapers out of the coin box and only paid for one, or because I yelled at my kid when she brought home a misconduct slip from school or because I ate an entire Hershey bar (gluttony!) or whatever.

Confession is like a homecoming or renewing your vows. Having everything out in the open opens the process of reconciliation.

This probably all sounds weird and confusing to non-Catholics but that's the best I can explain

I don't practice much anymore, but I always thought that the essential function of Reconciliation was the need for periodic self-examination which Johnnysannie mentions. Re this sacrament, it's also important to say that while Catholic teaching holds that a priest may grant spiritual absolution for a genuine confession--"humble, sincere, and entire"--atoning for any temporal consequences is a very different matter. God forgives us, but as flawed beings we need to atone for what we have done.

Saint Fool, maybe that was your trouble here. It can be facile for someone to ask for forgiveness after significant harm or abuse--as in the 12 step model, for example-- unless they truly have changed.

Saint Fool, that's a really interesting story.

From a secular humanistic perspective, our morality follows our compassion and our conscience.

Most humanists I know seek an ethical frame in which we're accountable to one another for our impacts. The way I think of it is: you clean up your own mess if you can; if you can't then you acknowledge that the mess is yours and get help cleaning it up.

I think we're also accountable to ourselves for being consistent with our own values. I'd say that our hypocrisies hurt other people just by their existence. If we're surrounded by people of integrity, we tend to hold integrity. If we're surrounded by hypocrits our integrity diminishes. So in a sense one's personhood is on display, even if one's making decisions about just oneself.

Secular humanists have no rituals of remorse or reconciliation. We hold that the important thing is to understand our screw-ups, acknowledge them, fix them, and avoid repeating them. That said, screwing up weakens our faith in ourselves, other peoples' faith in themselves and the fabric of our relationships. I think it's important to reconcile where we can.

From a personal perspective I don't like forgiveness at all. It's built on ancient tribal codes of grudges and punishment and I feel that we should try to do better. Reconciliation -- bringing people back together -- is good. But no matter how compassionate forgiveness may appear, slate-wiping means that we all have to keep slates.

I like to fix my messes, reconcile with people and not hold grudges. I don't ask for or offer forgiveness, and I get discomfited when people ask for it. I hear it as 'please don't punish me any more'. It makes me want to say 'But I shouldn't be punishing you in the first place'.

I've never had someone come to me as you have, SF, but I applaud the integrity of the person who did. In apologising for the hurt and acknowledging fault in creating it, such a person tells us that we're not at fault for this injury. Sometimes we feel that we are.

If such a person came to me I'd tell them that I appreciated the apology. I'd also tell them what changes I saw in them -- if I saw more integrity, more confidence etc... Finally I'd tell them whether we were reconciled or not, based on whether I thought they met my standard for trust and respect or not. It would depend on what I saw in the person, and this highlights my other problem with forgiveness.

Often a statement of contrition and acknowledgement of fault is enough to effect reconciliation, but sometimes it's not. Systematic abuses or betryals require more than words or symbolic penitence. I'd need to see someone's personhood on display, much as you did. Until that point if someone said 'Are we reconciled' I'd say frankly: 'No, we're not.' Which is not the same as 'I want to punish you' or 'I wish you harm'; it's the same as 'I don't trust or respect you'. On the other hand, having told someone that I'd also make a point to tell them if that changed. Truth sometimes hurts. We should clean up our messes.

From a personal perspective I don't like forgiveness at all. It's built on ancient tribal codes of grudges and punishment and I feel that we should try to do better. Reconciliation -- bringing people back together -- is good. But no matter how compassionate forgiveness may appear, slate-wiping means that we all have to keep slates.

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Unlike Ruv I see forgiveness as both reconciliation and restoration, as opposed to mutual amnesia (why don't we both just forget this ever happened?). If it's a ritual, it's a ritual the same way any act of communication is a ritual.

Punishment needn't be the reason for or cause of forgiveness and it's best if it has nothing to do with it; compassion is indeed the basis for forgiveness -- both in asking for and receiving it. Without compassion, requests for forgiveness are empty; without compassion, giving forgiveness gives nothing.


Neither repentance nor redemption are things I'm ultimately concerned with.

At the same time, I understand repentance to mean "rethinking" -- and so to me that's a matter of the compassion which prompted the request for forgiveness blooming into something more lasting than the immediate moment of this forgiveness exchange-- and because we can't read thoughts we must see thought in action.

Redemption I think is impossible: a deliverance from sin or wrongdoing would entail a slate wiped clean, which doesn't interest me. Forgiveness is most itself (as a restorative, healing agent) when each party understands the wrongdoings in relation to the whole being, the whole person, and not as isolated events. To wipe clean wrong doings is to deliberately misunderstand the whole being and to eliminate/ignore/overlook simple facts, which helps only in the empty present, but fails to heal anyone.



AMC

Gehanna said:

Thank you for your reply semilargeintestine.

Gehanna

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No problem.

johnnysannie said:

Ah but as a Catholic when I go to confession, I'm not confessing to another person - I am confessing my sins to God. The priest is there as an agent of God, so to speak, as a stand-in.

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So...you're confessing to an idol basically?

And the "technical" name is not "confession", it's Reconciliation.

Explaining Catholic sacraments to those who know little to nothing about them can be daunting at best but I'll make an attempt.

Think of God as the Father of a large family. Think of Catholics as His family. Like families, those of the Catholic faith are far from perfect. We make mistakes and we sometimes do wrong. If within a human family, someone does something that affects the other family members in a negative way, we clear the air by talking about what happened, what we did wrong, and making a vow not to do the same thing again.

When I go to confession (yes I still call it that even though it's the Sacrament of Reconciliation), it brings me closer to my faith, to God, and in essence "brings me home". If I can go and in privacy, with complete confidence that no one else will know, tell my transgressions, it is amazingly uplifting to confide things I have done wrong, things I know are wrong, and things I shouldn't do.

Prior to going, I have to take time to reflect on what I have done or not done and this time of self-reflection really can bring home areas where I need to improve in my personal life.

My sins are normally pretty mild; it's not like most Catholics go to confession to tell that they murdered their neighbor or robbed a bank. My sins tend to be ones of omission or ways I feel that I fail others, like not being patient with my elderly mother or indulging in too much vino and such.

I always feel somehow cleaner within after confession and my faith feels fresher, renewed and stronger.

Confession also always reminds me that God is a loving, merciful God who doesn't hate me because I grabbed two newspapers out of the coin box and only paid for one, or because I yelled at my kid when she brought home a misconduct slip from school or because I ate an entire Hershey bar (gluttony!) or whatever.

Confession is like a homecoming or renewing your vows. Having everything out in the open opens the process of reconciliation.

This probably all sounds weird and confusing to non-Catholics but that's the best I can explain

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That sounds nice (no sarcasm intended). I just don't understand why you need the priest, that's all. Why can't you just talk to the Boss?

semilargeintestine said:

No problem.



So...you're confessing to an idol basically?

No, not to an idol. There is no idolatry in Catholicism. The priest is in essence the acting agent for God. If you don't get it, you don't get it but that's how it is. Another example, at the bank do you always go straight to the Bank President's office or do you deal with someone who has been authorized to act as an agent for the bank?

That sounds nice (no sarcasm intended). I just don't understand why you need the priest, that's all. Why can't you just talk to the Boss?

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I can, of course, and often do. But it's not a sacrament unless a priest is involved. To me, it's a little like the difference between living with a significant other (which I once did and it was not with the man I eventually married) and being married. No matter what, it's not the same relationship without the santicty and legality of marriage (whether it's blessed by a priest or solemnized by a judge

An idol is something worshiped. A priest, in my opinion, is more like one who would bear witness.

Gehanna

AMCrenshaw said:

Unlike Ruv I see forgiveness as both reconciliation and restoration, as opposed to mutual amnesia (why don't we both just forget this ever happened?).

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Eh? I certainly didn't advocate mutual amnesia, so do you think it's implied? Does reconciliation without forgiveness entail forgetfulness? Why should it?

Restoration -- maybe, it depends. We can't unmurder each other's loved ones, undrink each other's water, unrape each other, unburn one another's mementoes. We can't always unharm each other, and it's very hard to unhurt each other. We can only unhurt ourselves.

We can restore dignity, respect. We can restore justice inasmuch as we can restore protection and security of one another's necessities. We can display our understanding of the great harm we've done and in doing so we can show that we are no longer capable of such a blind or malignant wrong.

For some, those things are enough that they can begin to unhurt. But certainly not for all. For that reason alone, I think that asking for forgiveness is rather selfish. Giving compassion for one we've hurt is not.

Without compassion, requests for forgiveness are empty; without compassion, giving forgiveness gives nothing.

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I'm back to agreeing here. The bit I'm interested in though, is why forgiveness is necessary at all -- might it be enough to recover and exchange compassion?

Sorry, you wrote:

But no matter how compassionate forgiveness may appear, slate-wiping means that we all have to keep slates.

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so my view of forgiveness is unlike yours.

We've had this discussion before, but I'll say it here for another's benefit. Asking for forgiveness is as selfish to me as asking for compassion. But for the sake of my argument I have to mention that I keep a roughly threefold view of any action-- the intention behind it, its after-effect(s), and what (the event) actually occurs between the two. Compassion is a motivation (and between you and me a fusion of feeling and reasoning) -- but it's not an action. If the act of asking for forgiveness or compassion or for anything is rooted in the compassionate motive then they are equally good in my opinion.

I'm back to agreeing here. The bit I'm interested in though, is why forgiveness is necessary at all -- might it be enough to recover and exchange compassion?

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I think you can ask for forgiveness or compassion without any tendency toward the wellbeing of the other. But since I see forgiveness -- which must be an exchange -- as restorative I am confident in saying forgiveness occurs through mutual compassion; and if it doesn't, it's not forgiveness, but something else (namely, amnesia or apathy, a desire "to move on" without anyone actually healing the wound). And so to me forgiveness is the name for the exchange - between a wrongdoer and a victim - or the process in which healing, recovery, and learning from one's mistakes occur.



AMC

AMCrenshaw said:

Sorry, you wrote:

Ruv said:

But no matter how compassionate forgiveness may appear, slate-wiping means that we all have to keep slates.

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so my view of forgiveness is unlike yours.

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Yes, I realise that you're aiming at healing through forgiveness. I think that we should seek to heal when it's feasible; I just don't think that it always is, and I don't think that forgiveness is always necessary for it.

My concern is that by lauding forgiveness we're also inadvertantly lauding grudge-bearing. We may also be overlooking the possibility that other kinds of healing may be required, or that full recovery may not be possible but we still need to find some way to get along even so.

What other kinds of healing? I'll give you an example. Down the road from me is a therapist who uses humour for serious purposes. If you're cranky about something and it's eating at you; or if you're scared about something and it's riding you, or if you're sad about something and it's weighing you down, she tries to help you find another way to see it. I don't exactly know how she practices, but I looked into the practice elsewhere from curiosity. They get you to talk about it with marbles in your mouth, or upside-down, or in a squeaky voice. Or they'll get you to say the same hurt message over and over again, pulling faces.

I think that what's supposed to happen is that you realise that your hurt/fear/sadness is just the one bit of you, that there are other bits you're not accessing. It lets you dwindle the problem to a more managable size -- or get bored with the problem entirely -- and move on. I reckon this is especially useful on problems we've blown beyond all proportion, or problems we've outgrown but just don't know we have.

My point though, is that no forgiveness is required. We could still be hurt about something; it's just not going to eat us. We might still have a grudge; we just won't bother pandering to it. And maybe it can teach us not to hold grudges in the first place -- which is perhaps even better than forgiving them. It's not forgetting our hurts -- it's recognising that they're unimportant in the first place.