Forgiving The Unforgivable

Forgiving The Unforgivable

Introduction

One day a classmate of yours was talking to you. He told you that there’s going to be a holiday this week. You weren’t the brightest of people, so you fell for the lie. But eventually you got suspicious and asked a teacher, of course they clarified that there is no holiday in that week, but there is next week. You shrugged your friend off as a simple prank, and let him be. Another day, a guy mugged you while you were walking to school. You catched up with him and asked him why he did it. He revealed that he is very poor and desperately needs money, so you forgave him and helped him out while retrieving your stolen stuff.

On the next month, a guy you trust very much betrayed you, creating a deep mental wound. At first, you were mad at him, but then with reluctance, you forgave them as well. And one day, years later, your country went into war, and was invaded. Your family, friends, and everything you had known and loved was destroyed by the invaders, all of that commanded by a single dictator. At this point, forgiveness seems to be impossible, and it practically is. And thus you had a grudge on that dictator, and eventually went on to commit revenge towards that warmonger. Your country won the defensive war, and the dictator was captured and tortured beyond imagination. His entire family and any associates were executed. Has it went too far? Or is it fair and just?

Forgiveness and mercy has always been seen as a very good virtue. In fact, many religions have this virtue as one if not their main virtue. But it seems that many have been confused on what forgiveness actually means. Forgiveness is when we absolve someone from their faults and wrongs. More importantly, we eliminate any grudges, hatred, and anger we have for the person we are forgiving. However, simply not having negative feelings towards the person is not enough, we have to repair our relations to the status quo ante, the situation before the mistake, fault, wrong was made. In short, to forgive someone is to absolve them of their faults, absolve ourselves of any grudge, hatred, and anger, and finally return the relationship back to the status quo ante, before the conflict. Thus, if one claims to have forgive someone, even when they still have negative feelings towards them, or they have not returned the relationship into the status quo ante, they are lying, and they have not forgiven them.

Unfortunately, many seem to either forget this virtue, or misunderstand it completely. And they’re not completely to blame, no one was there to make them understand it. The proof is very clear in history. Until now, is there any genocidal dictator that has been forgiven by the common masses? Or perhaps a mass murderer not being hated upon anymore? No, of course not, instead hatred and anger upon these evil people still thrives. Because everyone has a similar view, that anyone who has created  so much pain, loss, death, destruction, suffering, does not deserve mercy. They had their chance, but they misuse it and thus they deserve no mercy. Or in other words, since they had the power to choose, but they misused it horribly for their own advantages with no regard to other human life or anything else, they deserve to not be forgiven, in fact they deserve to suffer worse or at least equal to what they have caused. An eye for an eye, but has this sounded familiar? It should.

Arguments

One of the core messages of Christianity is to forgive others as much as seventy seven times seven times, or as much as how much you want God to forgive others. But you don’t need God to deduce that you must always forgive because it is the right thing to do. You only need to realize one thing, that Free Will is false. The primary reason people are reluctant to forgive others is because they felt, that the people who commited wrong are misusing their power of choice. Added with the concept of moral responsibility, which has been proved an invalid system of moral justice, then the recipe for a continued so called “righteous anger” and “righteous hatred” is complete. There is one problem though, as no one has an actual power of choice, no one has real genuine control over their actions. It’s just an illusion, as the science is against the very idea.

A short recap of why Free Will is false, is because we humans are a remix of past external information and also our brain, in a progressive manner. As a result, whatever we do is certainly because of our past. If a child is educated and treated in such a way to make him a diligent and successful person, then he will be a diligent and successful person. But if the environment is already making them a lazy person since youth, and none of that environment changes, that is it continues to form the person into a lazy person, then the child will grow up to be a lazy person, and most likely not succeed financially at least. How does this correlate with forgiving others then?

Let’s say there is a dictator that is absolutely anti religion, and genocided the theistic, or even worse, anyone who believes in the supernatural in their nation. Or perhaps a guy that raped over 50 young girls. Or a guy that is so racist that he killed off millions of people of an ethnicity. Essentially anyone evil enough to warrant a “no mercy” treatment. Now, if they had a perfectly good past, that constantly supports them to be a good and caring person, and his environment didn’t change drastically that may lead them to evil, would there be any chance that they would turn into an evil person? Absolutely not, assuming the environment is constantly supportive and shaping them into a good human being. Why is that? Because there would be nothing that can cause them to be an evil person. And we can only deduce one thing, something must be wrong.

While there has been statistical evidence, that will be unnecessary for this essay. As by pure reason alone, it can be deduced that if someone became evil, likewise there must be something in their past that made them evil. Either improper education, a tragedy, or abuse, and so on, and whatever it is, it must be bad. Not only that, evil is not something that would happen in an ideal environment. It is an abnormality, an odd thing that is what happens when the environment becomes unsupportive and destructive. As a result, an evil human would not develop in an ideal environment, but because there were flaws in the environment outside of their control, they become evil. And technically, evil people are flawed people, their brains are flawed, they are mentally unhealthy. They are mentally sick people, or more accurately, mentally wounded. And now, this begs the question, is it remotely undamaging to hurt a wounded, sick man even more than they already are? Because that’s what we are doing when we hate, mock, or plan vengeance against an evil man.

Then what is the correct thing to do then? Isn’t it obvious? Forgiveness, mercy, and reacceptance. When we forgive these evil people, we acknowledge that they are no less broken and wounded than those they have wounded and broken. And to actually forgive them, we must try in all of our efforts to help these evil people, and fix their mentality, make them a better person, not just get mad and hate on them. Not only that, this is the only thing that’s actually going to make a difference after the conflict. Yes you can ask the evil guy to take responsibility and take care of their mistakes, but if we don’t fix their mentality as well, then we have committed a moral crime, because then we are giving them another chance to repeat the same mistake, causing even more damage. And what happens if we hurt them even more? Then they would be more evil and cruel than before. Which means they can do worse things. And yes it is very true that forgiving them won’t completely reverse the damages, but neither will doing the opposite. But with mercy, we are giving them another chance to start anew, and actually be able to be a good person and redeem all of their mistakes.

Some people are also confused about this, and they misunderstood, that if we forgive someone, then we are saying that what they are doing is okay. Say if someone committed murder, and then forgive them, we are saying that murder is okay. That is completely wrong, the logic behind reasoning is that if a person does something, then they are a manifestation of that action. And what they did became an intrinsic identity of themselves. If a guy robbed a bank, then robbery will be an intrinsic part of that person, but that is simply wrong, as nothing is an intrinsic part of anyone, that is intrinsic as in purely connected with that person, rather everything that we are is made out of everything that we are not. As a result, we can forgive a murderer without saying that murder is okay, we still completely oppose murder. In short, when we forgive someone, while we reaccept them as human beings, we still do not tolerate what they have done. We can tolerate them as a person, but not what they have done, and thus we must do everything in our power to prevent the same thing from being done.

Conclusion

Evil and hatred are diseases of the world. But it is a sad thing that when one falls into it, many do not try to cure their fallen friend with mercy and love, but instead fight it with the disease, which of course, only worsen the condition. To forgive everyone without discriminating is an important thing to do, and is the best thing to do after a conflict, even if that someone committed an evil that may be so dastardly that it seems unforgivable. It may not reverse the wounds completely, but it certainly does more good than simply turning a blind eye and breaking the fallen person even more. And certainly forgiving someone is not equal to tolerating what they did, because while you can forgive people, you can not forgive actions. But even if the person seems unforgivable, we still need to forgive them, for it is our duty to forgive the unforgivable.