FORGIVENESS AND RELIGIOUS PEOPLE

Until recently, forgiveness has principally been the concern of people of religious faith, and of Christian faith in particular. In the past, politicians, philosophers, lawyers, scientists, psychologists and others have treated forgiveness as inconsequential for their work. They regarded forgiveness as a private matter, the concern of interpersonal relations and of those with religious faith, and irrelevant – perhaps even dangerous – for academic discourse and public policy.

Others have treated forgiveness not only as irrelevant but also as an unworthy moral ideal. They have regarded forgiveness as the antonym of justice, because forgiveness appears to free the guilty from blame and moral responsibility. They think that forgiven wrongdoers evade accountability – they go, as it were, in one leap from being offenders to being forgiven, without acknowledging or coming to terms with what they have done, without engaging with how their actions violated their victims and without enduring a measure of retribution or punishment for the wrongs they committed.

Nietzsche (1844–1900) attacked the idea of forgiveness on different grounds. His view was that to forgive someone for wrongdoing fails to acknowledge the desire for revenge and the will to power that all people have, including victims. He regarded forgiveness as a sign of impotence practised only because victims were unable or unwilling successfully to seek revenge. Forgiveness is immoral, he argued: it exalts weakness, and renounces the violence that sustains power.