simply exempt the inner world? That would be a truly enormous change.
It is of the essence of the tradition to scrutinize and control the wayward
self, prominently including the inner world. Would we instead retain
some scrutiny of inner acts, but exempt seemingly harmless fantasies,
such as teenage sexual fantasies? Well, again: the tradition would have
to be hugely changed to forgo all scrutiny of the sexual realm, and at
least some scrutiny of wishes and fantasies is a pretty important part
of the scrutiny of that realm that the organized church has traditionally
endorsed.
Nietzsche saw the following link between the punitive and the
kindly aspects of the Christian tradition: to the extent that Christians felt themselves incapable of worldly success on the terms set by competitive
pagan cultures, they invented a new form of success, namely being mild
and humble. Then, in a reversal of values and expectations, they envis-
age the triumph of these meek values over pagan values, in a very literal
sense: the humble are exalted in the afterworld, the formerly proud are
damned and tortured. They thus satisfied their original impulse for com-
petitive triumph, albeit only in the realm after death.47
There is some truth in this picture, but I would like to suggest a differ-
ent connection between Christian transactional forgiveness and Christian
harshness, which fits better with Christianity’s Judaic roots. The forgive-
ness process is itself a harsh inquisitorial process. It demands confession,
weeping and wailing, and a sense of one’s lowness and essential worth-
lessness. The penitent is tormented simply by penitence. The person who
administers the process is controlling and relentless toward the penitent,
an inquisitor of acts and desires— even if in the end forgiveness is given.
If we now imagine the process transferred from the priest- penitent rela-
tion to the person- person relation, so that the role of the priest is played by the human victim of transgression, the process asks us to sit in judgment on one another, confessing and being confessed to— even when in
the end the wronged party will forgo anger. The teshuvah process accords a certain dignity and self- respect to both parties, who can preserve their
privacy of thought and desire. The two parties meet expecting something
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good of one another. In Christian forgiveness, by contrast, the drama of
lowness and fear has been amped up so high that there seems to be no
room for personal dignity or self- respect. Lowness seems just right, and
the victim is encouraged to enjoy the spectacle of this groveling as an
intrinsically valuable part of the forgiveness process, as it doubtless is in its priest- penitent form. We see this drama played out daily when marriages dissolve, to cite just one example.
This type of connection between forgiveness and harshness is not
repudiated, but strongly endorsed, in the tradition itself. The Catholic
Encyclopedia confronts the charge that the penance/ confession process is too harsh. This view is called “strange,” and the following rebuttal
is given: “[T] his view, in the first place, overlooks the fact that Christ, though merciful, is also just and exacting. Furthermore, however painful
or humiliating confession may be, it is but a light penalty for the violation of God’s law.”
We might summarize this part of our inquiry by saying that trans-
actional forgiveness, far from providing an alternative to the two errors
in anger that chapter 2 diagnosed, actually involves both. The payback
error turns up in ideas of cosmic balance or fittingness that frequently
inhabit the process: the victim’s pain somehow atones for pain inflicted.
Equally ubiquitous is the error of narrow status- focus. Because the whole
process is modeled on God’s relationship to erring mortals, and God is
not vulnerable to any injury but a status- injury, the forgiveness process
between humans also focuses unduly on status, suggesting that low-
ness and abasement compensate for a lowering or status- offense that the
offender has inflicted.
One might now try to argue that the intense pain and humiliation
characteristic of the forgiveness transaction was necessary, at a time
in human history, to burn into the consciousness a sense of the impor-
tance of morality. At a time when people lived lives of casual hedo-
nism, as parodied in the tale of the Golden Calf, the painful discipline of
teshuvah created a people distinctly moral and worthy of morality— and the Christian internalization of the process deepened the moral personality yet further. Such is in essence Nietzsche’s diagnosis: for, far from holding that moral heedlessness is good and Christian ethics inferior, he holds
that Christianity was necessary in order “to breed an animal with a right
to make promises,” and thus an important ingredient of the good person,
even if inadequate on its own. But we should also ask whether the right
way to educate a heedless being is to inflict humiliating and painful dis-
cipline. Such has been the common idea of child- rearing in many places
and times. But it is quite possible that moral sadism breeds more sadism
rather than generosity and virtue. At any rate even that Nietzschean
story does not justify continued reliance on the transactional forgiveness
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process. It gives us no reason not to seek attitudes that move to the
Transition and pave the way for a constructive future. Far more promis-
ing in this regard are the alternative traditions now to be investigated.
IV. Unconditional Forgiveness
Transactional forgiveness, present in some biblical texts, has become
deeply embedded in church practices and, thence, in many aspects of
personal and political relations. It is thus no surprise to find both histo-
rians of thought (e.g., David Konstan) and philosophers (e.g., Charles
Griswold) asserting that this is the full or complete account of what for-
giveness is. Nonetheless, the Gospels clearly offer a different model as
well. So far as the words and example of Jesus are concerned, this model
is more prominent than the transactional model.
The Hebrew Bible already contains some instances of unconditional
forgiveness, forgiveness that rains down freely on the penitent, with-
out requiring an antecedent confession and act of contrition. Numbers
14:18– 20 does refer to God’s great capacity for retribution, but it also
credits God with what appears to be spontaneous mercy and forgive-
ness: “Pardon, I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people according unto
the greatness of thy mercy, and as thou hast forgiven this people, from
Egypt even until now. And the Lord said, I have pardoned according to
thy word.” A clear and extended case is Psalm 103, in which God is mer-
ciful, gracious, and forgiving, apparently without being supplicated. God
still gets angry, but he “does not keep his anger for ever.”48
This strand is significantly developed in the Gospels. In Luke 5, Jesus
pronounces to a man with palsy, “Your sins are forgiven”— much to the
consternation of the Pharisees, who object that only God has the power
to forgive sins. Bu
t the key example is Jesus himself: for he gives his life
in order to remit the sins of human beings. At the Last Supper, Jesus says
that the wine is his blood, “which is shed for many, toward the forgive-
ness of sins” (26:28). On the cross, similarly, Jesus asks unconditional for-
giveness for those who have put him to death: “Father, forgive them, for
they know not what they do” (Luke 23:33– 34).49 Apparently following
Christ’s example, Stephen, in Acts, says as he dies, “Lord, lay not this sin
to their charge” (7:60). So there is a powerful tradition of unconditional
forgiveness that Christians are asked to follow (although, since it is not
clear that Jesus is ever angry, this unconditional forgiveness lies further
from transactional forgiveness than do the Jewish models, where God is
angry but gives up anger).
It should come as no surprise that the organized church has tended
to appropriate and alter this emphasis, making the forgiveness of Jesus
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look far more transactional and less unconditional than the text by itself
suggests. For once the body and blood become a sacrament with human
officiants, they can be and often are refused to sinners of various sorts—
typically one must perform a confession and receive absolution before
being admitted to the sacrament. And of course, once Jesus is no longer
in the world, unconditional forgiveness cannot be offered directly by the
words of Jesus to the sinner, so the organized church becomes Christ’s
intermediary, speaking on Christ’s behalf; and the organized church
rarely forgives without a transaction.
We must also mention the role of baptism: Bash, a contemporary
Anglican theologian and prelate, finds the entirety of Jesus’s procedure
in the Gospels implicitly transactional, because he emphasizes John (the
Baptist)’s apparent insistence that repentance must precede baptism.
Although Jesus, at least in these passages, simply offered forgiveness
without insisting that the person be baptized or even become one of
his followers, the organized church cultivates the belief that “uncondi-
tional” forgiveness has at least one huge condition: that one accept Jesus
as one’s savior and undergo the (transactional) ritual of baptism, a ritual
that requires explicit renunciation of sin and wickedness, typically by the
godparents of the child.50
It is no surprise that a human institution seeking authority over
human beings should prefer to attach conditions to the powerful offer
of remission. Still, it is important to state that Jesus, at least in some passages, does not do so.
According to the unconditional- forgiveness model, then, we should,
like St. Stephen, forgive those who wrong us even when they do not
make any gesture of contrition. Doesn’t this model solve all the problems
associated with transactional forgiveness? Well, insofar as unconditional
forgiveness is still understood as a waiving of angry emotion (as it is in
the Jewish texts and in most human instances, though perhaps not in the
case of Jesus), there is still the question whether anger was an appropri-
ate response in the first place. Perhaps it would have been better still not
to have been dominated by resentment even temporarily. Unconditional
forgiveness in human relations is rarely free from some type of payback
wish, at least at first.
Another issue is the direction of attention: unconditional forgiveness
remains backward- looking and not Transitional. It says nothing about
constructing a productive future. It may remove an impediment to the
future, but it does not point there in and of itself.
And this leads us to a further problem: sometimes the forgiveness
process itself channels the wish for payback. The person who purports
to forgive unconditionally may assume the moral high ground in a
superior and condescending way— secretly thinking, “You ought to be
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groveling, whether you are or not.” Or, a slight variant, he or she may
want through the forgiveness process itself to get a moral advantage and
inflict a humiliation on the offender. This attitude itself has biblical precedent. In Romans 12, after insisting that his addressees should live in
peace with one another, and should not go about avenging one another’s
wrongs (but should remember that God said, “Vengeance is mine, I shall
repay”). Paul then concludes, “Therefore, if your enemy is hungry, feed
him; if he is thirsty, give him drink: for in so doing you will heap coals
of fire on his head” (12:20). Paul first makes clear that the recommended
forgiving treatment of enemies does not abandon the project of payback,
since the believer is asked to clear the field for God to do the avenging.51
And then, second, Paul also suggests that the good behavior and forgiv-
ing demeanor of the believer is itself a punishment of the offender, establishing the believer’s superiority and dishing out some sort of pain or
humiliation. That’s an all- too- easy thought to have, even without Paul’s
encouragement.
In short, unconditional forgiveness has some advantages over trans-
actional forgiveness, but it is not free of moral danger. The minute one sets oneself up as morally superior to another, the minute one in effect asserts
that payback was a legitimate aim— but one that I graciously waive— one
courts the dangers of both the road of status (inflicting a status- lowering
on the offender) and the road of payback (“coals of fire”). One also runs
the risk of assuming a moral prerogative that is originally that of God,
and that seems a problematic role for a human being in this religious
tradition to assume. Those Pharisees who criticized Jesus had an impor-
tant point, which we miss only because we are focused on their failure to
acknowledge that Jesus is God. And Paul knows that his addressees need to be warned against taking up God’s role.
Does unconditional forgiveness point to the Transition? Not stably.
Unconditional forgiveness is still about the past, and it gives us noth-
ing concrete with which to go forward. It just wipes out something, but
entails no constructive future- directed attitude. It might be accompanied
by love and good projects— or it might not.
There is, however, a version of unconditional forgiveness that lies
very close to unconditional love and generosity, lacking any nuance of
superiority or vindictiveness. This sort of unconditional forgiveness was
remarkably displayed by the survivors of the racially motivated shooting
in a Charleston, South Carolina, church on June 17, 2015. Invited by the
judge in charge of the bond hearing to make statements on behalf of each
victim, family members addressed the defendant, Dylann Roof (who has
confessed). Most uncommonly in so- called “victim impact statements,”
they did not express any vindictiveness or payback wish. Nor did they
express anger— except, in one case, to admit it as a defect: “I’m a work
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in progress, and I acknowledge that I am very angry.” But universally,
; while expressing profound grief, they offered Roof forgiveness, wished
for God’s mercy, and insisted that love is stronger than hate. “She taught
me that we are the family that love built.”52 No concrete Transition is
envisaged, and the only future mentioned is one of God’s mercy at the
final judgment. Perhaps the situation offers little room for the Transition.
And yet there is something Transitional in its spirit, in the idea that love
will prevail over hate and that a world can be reconstructed by love.53
This brings us to our third possibility: unconditional love.
V. A Counter- Strand: The Prodigal Son, Mahler’s Religion of Love
Christianity has many strands. The transactional strand has been enor-
mously influential, particularly in and through the organized church. The
alternative idea of unconditional forgiveness is not without its own moral
risks and shortcomings. There is, however, a further counter- strand in at
least some parts of the Gospels, and in some later Judeo- Christian think-
ers. Often this counter- strand is called an ethic of “unconditional forgive-
ness.” But the strand that interests me is best called not forgiveness at all, but an ethic of unconditional love. As we shall see, it departs altogether
from judgment, confession, contrition, and consequent waiving of anger.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “Love your enemies, and
pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44– 45). Luke reports him
as saying, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you” (Luke
6:27). The Gospels make numerous other references to the central impor-
tance of freely given love.54 No conditions are mentioned. In these pas-
sages Jesus definitely does not say, “Love your enemies if they apologize”
(although he does often elsewhere speak of conditional forgiveness, as
we’ve seen). And he also does not seem to speak even of unconditional
forgiveness, since there is no mention of waiving a prior anger. Love is
a first response, not a substitute for a prior payback wish. In still other
cases where translations of the Bible refer to forgiveness, the Greek seems
to speak of love instead.55
Paul is, if anything, even clearer. Ephesians 4:31– 32 insists: “Let all
bitterness ( pikria) and ill temper ( thumos) and anger ( orgē) and shouting and blasphemous speech be put away from you, along with every vice.”56
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