Ernie : I had occasion to re-read the article by Soloveichik. "The Virtue of Haste," we discussed some time ago. A point to remember is that forgiveness is not intended to be promiscuous. That is, forgiveness is special, not universal. Either that or parts of the Bible itself are incomprehensible. Did Samson forgive the Philistines or, at God's direction, tear down their temple and kill hundreds of Philistines ? Or the prophetess Deborah, did she forgive Sisera , or did she kill him as the Lord wanted ? Major point from Soloveichik, maybe I can forgive someone a transgression against me, but when others have been injured, I have no right at all to extend forgiveness. Take your pick, the 9/11 hijackers, the terrorists at Mumbai, Hitler and the Nazis. Etc What would it mean for an individual to "forgive" them ? "I" forgive them for murdering "your" family and friends ? O, yeah ? If someone was to say to you, "I have forgiven the murderer of your mother" what would you say ? I know what I'd say, "who is hell do you think you are to forgive an act that took an innocent life ruined my life for all time ?" Not in the article, suppose you forgive someone for a crime like stealing from you. Then, a month later, he does it again. Forgive again ? For me, no way at all. Forgiveness is the closest thing to "grace" that a human can bestow. But where does it say that it should be productive of one's own self-destruction ? Or contribute to the destruction of others ? Probably you could criticize me for not being forgiving enough, but the counterpart criticism might be made, that you are too promiscuous in forgiving. Lastly, "forgive them for they know not what they do." But what if they know perfectly well what they do ? Forgive them anyway ? This makes sense, how ? Somewhere in all of this we need some way to judge when forgiveness is exactly what we should do and when it is not. And yes, this often is not easy to answer. Billy ------------------------------------------ In a message dated 10/1/2010 11:04:33 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected] writes:
Hi Billy, On Oct 1, 2010, at 11:00 AM, [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) wrote: from a posting at today's Jihad Watch ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Imagine how different Western society would be if Paul, in Ephesians 5:21-33, had added "but from those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them, send them to their beds apart, and scourge them"! And imagine how different Western society would be if the Gospels recorded Jesus as having made the point that he was without sin, and throwing that first stone. These things tend to let the air out of moral equivalence arguments Very true. Alas, far too much of modern Christianity acts as if that was the way the Bible was written. Everybody likes the idea of "love your neighbor", but people tend to gloss over the whole "love your enemy" bit. -- Ernie P. -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
