A Thought About Forgiveness

[Boojatta]

Suppose you have done something and there is no debate about what you have done, but there is a debate about whether or not what you did was wrong.

Suppose a person has a genuinely negative emotional response to what you did. Suppose the person says that you did something wrong, but suppose that the person also secretly believes that you did not actually violate any moral principles.

Then no matter what you believe, what you say, or what you do, that person is unlikely to forgive you.

[spooky3]

1. Did you mean, in your second paragraph,

suppose that YOU believe you didn't violate moral principles?

Otherwise, i don't quite follow you. If the other person feels I haven't violated moral principles, why would the person have anything for which to forgive me?

[Boojatta]

5. "If the other person feels I haven't violated moral principles..."

I tried to make it clear that the person has an injured feeling. The person's belief that you didn't violate any moral principles is associated with the conscious mind.

For example, a woman feeds cookies to a bear. When the bag of cookies is empty, the bear attacks and seriously injures the woman because the woman is responsible for cutting off the supply of cookies. Yet, the woman deserved credit for providing the cookies in the first place. Of course, in this example the woman ought to have been more careful because she was dealing with a bear, not a human being.

[LearnedHand]

2. Not sure of your question here ...

... but "forgiveness" and "wrong" or violation of "moral principles" are not dependent conditions. In other words, one can need to be forgiven without having done anything wrong or having violated any moral principles. Or, one can need to do the forgiving without someone else having done wrong.

For example, I sometimes am overly annoyed by drivers whom I judge to be "idiots" just because they did something I considered to be stupid or aggressive. They most often have done nothing wrong or illegal, but simply have offended me. My offense, then, is strictly generated from inside myself, and I am the one who needs to offer forgiveness -- even though the other person has done nothing. Kind of a stupid example, but does that make sense?

[Boojatta]

6. There was no question.

Although a question mark is a prominent part of my avatar image, I do sometimes post without asking any question.

For example, I sometimes am overly annoyed by drivers whom I judge to be "idiots" just because they did something I considered to be stupid or aggressive. They most often have done nothing wrong or illegal, but simply have offended me. My offense, then, is strictly generated from inside myself, and I am the one who needs to offer forgiveness (...)

In your example, it sounds as though you do believe that the other party was guilty of some kind of violation, such as a violation of etiquette or a violation of the practice of maintaining good safety margins. In the OP, I am thinking of situations where you believe that there wasn't any kind of violation.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. I was taught you can't be forgiven until you understand the pain and injury

you have inflicted upon another person. Until then, it's academic and etiquette to apologize.

[MH1]

4. I think it's also Christian to forgive

and I don't remember anywhere in the passage about "70 times 7" that it first requires the offender to understand anything.

But, it's not like people try to pretend this is a Christian nation or anything. Or that anyone pretending to be Christian is even remotely involved in the situation we aren't really discussing.