Reading: Minas, “God and Forgiveness”
Minas argues that God cannot forgive because He is divine. If she is right, this has significant consequences for any religion that emphasizes the forgiveness God grants to us. Minas’ strategy, identified on p. 138, is to “take up various kinds of actions forgiveness is, or might be, and show that not one of them is an action that could be performed by a perfect being”. To that end, she discusses the following varieties of forgiveness:
Forgiveness as reversal of moral judgment - pp. 138-140
Forgiveness in response to special considerations – p. 140
Forgiveness as condoning offenses – pp. 140-141
Forgiveness as remitting punishment without changing your initial judgment of the offense or the offender - p. 141-144
Forgiveness as giving up resentment, which she associates with ceasing to take an injury personally, pp. 144-148
Forgiveness as the “washing away of sins”, pp. 149-150
In between discussing the last two types of forgiveness, Minas gives us a perfectly general reason why God cannot forgive -- viz., that “forgiveness … is appropriately directed only towards actions which have wronged the forgiver” (149). She wonders “how it is possible to wrong, to injure, a perfect being” (149). Setting that concern aside, she finds it disturbing, perhaps even incomprehensible, that a perfect being “could construe as primarily wrongs to himself actions which seem mainly to harm someone else” (149).
As you can gather from the page numbers above, Minas gives the most attention to two types of forgiveness – forgiveness as remitting punishment and forgiveness as giving up resentment. With regard to the former, Minas argues that if God remits punishment despite retaining his original judgment of the offense and the offender, then he is either “something of a practical joker” or unjust. Regarding forgiveness as giving up resentment, Minas identifies ways in which humans come to cease to take an injury personally. First, over time, the initial feelings may erode unless one stirs them up. But God is omnipercipient; “to be omnipercipient is to have all reactions to all situations equally vivid, regardless of when they happened” (145). Thus, God’s feelings do not grow dim over time. Second, a human being might, in order to heal a breach or to protect his psychological health, consciously work to dispel his resentment. It is only here that she makes the rather obvious point that God, a perfect being, wouldn’t take an injury personally in the first place. She also claims that a perfect being wouldn’t have allowed a breach to occur. Nor would he need to protect his psychological health.
I think you’ll find Minas’ article both provocative and thought-provoking
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13 comments:
It would be interesting to know what Minas’ background is. While she addresses some assumptions of the nature of forgiveness common in society, she never addresses forgiveness in a way I was familiar with while growing up in the church. I completely agree with her arguments in section 1 and they are very well grounded, but the definitions of forgiveness in question are ones I had never ascribed to God. She gets closer with repentance in section 2 but falls short when relying heavily on the assumption God is outside time as to why repentance is insignificant. In addition, her view of the washing away of sins seems odd. I have never heard it described as making sinful actions no longer sinful (pg 149). Finally on pg 149 she takes offense at the idea that God can forgive sins if someone is, “raped, injured, killed, enslaved” and so on. She is right when she concludes that this is possible only so long as the offense against God in committing such an action is significantly greater than the offense against your fellow human. But is that so preposterous? If God created every being in the universe for a specific purpose, and a large part of that purpose requires absolute obedience and is the very reason we exist at all, then if injuring someone else is a violation against the very reason we were created, would not the being that is responsible for our creation incur much greater injury for our rejection of His purpose for His creation then the fellow human that we also injured in the process?
I buy in to Minas's argument for the human capacity for forgiveness in so much that forgiveness is simply a reversal of a moral judgment, but I feel that her definition of forgiveness is incorrect. Forgiveness does not have to be a reversal of a moral judgment. Of course, a perfect deity would not be able to change their mind in regard to the decision on a moral question, because that would imply that morality is relative and subject to change at divine decree. Forgiveness, in my mind at least, refers to an excusal for someone who has done wrong but is filed with sorrow over moral lapse(s).
The bottom of page 139 contains biblical evidence of the devine's capacity for forgiveness. If Jesus is asking his father to forgive others, then God must be capable of forgiving because Jesus would not ask something impossible of God, and Minas cannot possibly be correct.
In the middle of 142, Minas says, "For either God forgives everyone or he does not." She does not understnad why forgiveness is given. There is no requirement to forgive those who aren't sorry for their digressions. Minas assumes that everyone is worthy, but forgiveness must be earned by sorrow and repentance. Our actions garner forgiveness, not a change in God's decisions regarding punishment and morality.
Bottom half of 143 -Minas contrasts perfection with forgiveness. "He would be a God who uses threats and bribes to get people to behave themselves..." She thinks that a manipulating god is inconsistent with divine perfection, but God is manipulative. (examples: Job, Jesus, Jonah) God orders with commandments and threatens with damnation and suffering. He also offers forgiveness and salvation.
Minas's definition of forgiveness is, when God forgives, he is turning a wrong into a right. I see forgiveness as a trade. Sinners trade repentance for absolution.
Reading Minas was somewhat frustrating to me because I do not really agree with any of the definition of forgiveness that she used. Like Jarrod said she never really addresses what I was taught as a child in church. As long as you buy into her definitions then her arguments seem fine to me. But I tend to think of forgiveness in a way that means God does not punish the sinner, change his mind about the rightness of a moral action, or giving up resentment. I would rather accept the definition that forgiveness is the ability to love someone after they have done an immoral action, this does not mean they cannot be punished or that their immoral action was against God and that he would have to reconcile being hurt by this action. Also it seems that Minas assumes that after a human commits an immoral action that God must punish. Does it say anywhere that we when do sinful things that God must punish us? Why this assumption?
I am more or less on board with everything Minas covers about the reversal of moral judgments, special considerations, condoning offenses, and remitting punishment. The topic which I feel is woefully under-analyzed is the unique position God has in the realm of judgments.
She notes the case that a court judge must make a ruling on a persons actions. In that case, it could be argued that the judge suffered no personal injury from the deviance of the suspect. In this light, it would make sense to argue that god is the ultimate judge. In forgiving us for our sins then, it is irrelevant if god suffered any personal injury by our actions.
The key factor which she half addresses is the element of remorse. Hypothetically, Minas should have broken down such a situation as follows: Sinner is about to die, they go "Damn, I messed up. Well, I should go to hell, but I'll earnestly beg for forgiveness." God goes, "ya know, you should go to hell, but you're sorry, and you know what you did wrong, I'm not playing favorites here because of that, sooooooo ok dude, you're good to go."
The crux of the issue is that god has the capacity to judge the true content of the person's remorse and frankly, if he says that you have to repent and be forgiven, then dems the rules!
In the first section when she talks about jesus and how he says"father forgive them for they know not what they do." Jesus at that moment by dying was fulfilling a convanent started with abraham. Until Jesus came along, the perfect justice of God was postponed by the sacrificing of animals such as lambs and bulls. Jesus was the perfect sacrifice and thus was saying, Father, put all the blame on me and I will take their place in death. For the only way to pay for our sins under God's perfect justice was to die. Jesus, being without sin, took that spot for us. He died in our place. So taking this into account, I believe she needs to get a better understanding of scripture before she tries to pigeon-hole it.
Minas makes the claim that God has in fact from the creation of humans instilled in them a sense of right and wrong and a will to do right. Thus she asserts that all humans, regardless of who they are, were created with an inherent will to do what God what consider to be right. While man has several interpretations of what is right and wrong, we has humans were created to operate with an understanding of what is right by God's interpretation. This seems, however, to clash with Minas' assertion that certain people will repent mainly because God, as an omniscient being, sees all and knows all. Thus, it would only be God who could see and tell if a human repents or not. Considering that every human is instilled with the will to do right, according to God, every human then would repent and thus there would be no reason to consider "penalties" for not repenting. While the article is somewhat tough to understand, it has definitely led me to analyze my religious beliefs and the teachings I've grown up with.
The logical flaws and spotty lines of reasoning found throughout Minas' article are almost painful to read from a philosophical perspective. By circumventing the traditional issues that usually arise in any discussion on divine forgiveness, Minas weakens her argument through a series of awkwardly aimed objectives. Each subsequent conclusion reached in her essay only leads the audience farther away from any true revelation of truth on the issue. One striking example of her entirely misleading logic can be found in the self-contradiction on pages 142 and 143. Minas alters her definition of god from temporal (God knows a sinner's repentance beforehand) to eternal (God lies outside of time and sees all of the sinner's actions at once) in order to prove two opposing sides of an argument. At the very end of the article, Minas reveals two of the weakest points in her approach to forgiveness: (1) the assumption that God is the one personally injured by human sin and (2) the personal bias and revulsion expressed through connotative terms such as "torturing, maiming, killing, and causing suffering." Her concluding statement, "I have only tried to show that divine forgiveness does appear absurd to the human understanding, or at least to mine," further reveals a fundamental flaw in her approach to philosophy: the study of philosophy is not opinion-based, but rather understanding based on logic alone. Minas simply demonstrates a drastic deficiency in her deductive duties. Alliteration for the win!
First of all I think Minas has trouble with her definition of forgiveness. She picks the third part of the definition for her first argument, “to give up resentment or claim”. Well of course God isn’t going to have resentment if he is a perfect being. There would be too much if he took every bad action in the world personally. He might be all powerful, but I believe that holding grudges would be a flaw in his perfect being. I think her argument is obvious if she picks definitions of forgiveness like that. I think that you could wrong a perfect being. I’m sure this being has rules and confinement he/she wants you to follow and by not doing them you have wronged them. I do not believe that this perfect being will dwell on it, since he is all knowing and knew you were going to do it anyway. You have wronged the rules by which the perfect being wants you to live, but is it not true that in most religions you will be punished by your choices in the afterlife. That is not condoning your actions or forgiving them, it is just waiting a long period of time for your punishment.
I think Minas' statement at the end of page 139 and beginning of page 140 is interesting. She refers to Luke 23:34 where is states Jesus as saying "Father forgive them for they know not what they do". It is a new perspective. If we take the bible literally and every word as holy then Minas has found a problem here. Why would Jesus need to inform God that they need to be forgiven? He would in fact already know this, and Jesus being perfect would not need to tell a perfect being something either. One could argue that Minas is trying to trap a believer into this because the bible is not 100% literal or it was for the dramatic effect that this part was added into the bible. Some of her later arguments are a bit frivolous, but this one makes a solid claim against those that take the Bible literally and true in every word.
Jarrod clearly articulates a Christian response to Minas' last argument -- the claim that God cannot be injured and thus cannot be wronged. We might want to go further and try to distinguish the ways in which a divine being can and cannot be injured, but Jarrod's comment is a good start. Another point to add is that God's forgiveness of the wrong-doer doesn't mean that he no longer has an obligation to ask forgiveness of the human being he has wronged.
Edward, you're correct when you say that forgiveness does not have to be accompanied by a reversal of moral judgment, but Minas does not think that it does. If she did think this, she wouldn't go on to talk about other forms of forgiveness. Re. the passage on p. 139, Minas is asking a philosophical question (Can God forgive?), not an interpretive one (Does Scripture say that God can forgive?). Of course, scripture says that God forgives, but she's interested in whether God REALLY can forgive. Regarding p. 142, Minas recognizes that Christians will make the move you're making; she just doesn't think it WORKS because a divine being would know from the beginning who would and who would not repent. Whether manipulation is consistent with God's nature depends on what we mean by manipulation. Manipulation can be benign, but it can also be perverse or even evil. In any case, at this point, she's talking about a utilitarian God; a God who punishes purely for consequentialist reasons would have no good reason to punish offenders at death.
WHITNEY, I agree with your concern that Minas just doesn't seem to "get" how Christians think about these matters. That's unfortunate since her argument targets the Christian God. Regarding your definition of forgiveness, does love require forgiveness? To answer your question, Minas' assumption that God MUST punish immoral acts is based not on scripture, but rather on her understanding of a perfectly just being. As we noted in class, she seems to be assuming that to be merciful is to do an injustice. By contrast, I would say that extending mercy judiciously is not an injustice; yes, you are setting aside the requirements of justice (you're refusing to impose a penalty or the full penalty), but that's not the same as doing an injustice (doing something morally wrong).
DAVE, when a court judge remits punishment, is he thereby forgiving the offender? Maybe, but now that I think about it, it seems that one can remit punishment without forgiving. However, given that Minas defines forgiveness in this way, your point makes sense. I think Minas' worry about last minute conversions goes deeper than you acknowledge. She seems to think it's unjust to forgive someone who repents on his deathbed EVEN IF the repentance is genuine.
MATT RICE -- I don't remember Minas making the claims you attribute to her in your first sentence.
MATT REYNOLDS -- you were clearly attending to what you read. I'm not sure why you object to (2); it doesn't strike me as biased. I think you must be referring to her discussion of God's forgiving these kinds of acts. I don't think she ever explicitly said that these acts are UNFORGIVABLE, but perhaps she did. I'd have to look again at the article. I'm also not sure what your objection is with respect to (1): Do you disagree with her claim that a divine being cannot be injured or are you making a different point? I share your fondness for alliteration (word nerds unite!).
Laura, as we said in class, there's a reason why Minas includes multiple definitions of forgiveness. She's trying to cover her bases so that her argument will be more powerful. As Jarrod, Whitney and perhaps some others noted, some of her definitions of forgiveness aren't types of forgiveness that Christians would think to attribute to God in the first place. Given that she's trying to mount a comprehensive argument, I don't think this counts as a defect. However, if she's left out a relevant notion of forgiveness, then that is a defect.
I agree that it's not clear that a perfect being cannot be wronged. There are two ways of making a counter-argument: (1) accept that a perfect being cannot be injured, but argue that a perfect being can be wronged because wronging someone does not entail doing that person an injury (harming him or her) or (2) argue that a perfect being CAN be injured or harmed. Taking strategy (2) would require distinguishing the ways in which a perfect being could be injured from the ways in which only an IMperfect being could be injured. As a side note, it is a little frustrating that she doesn't bother to tell us what she means by injury.
JASON, are there any pure Biblical literalists? Certainly, there are people who call themselves literalists, but the ones I'm familiar with don't interpret every word literally; typically, they'll take some passages and interpret them metaphorically, usually passages that textually seem to be intended as metaphorical. I think when people call themselves literalists, at least part of what they mean is that certain key stories in the Bible (Creation, Adam and Eve being cast out of the Garden, Christ raising Lazarus from the dead, Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt, etc.) are literally true - i.e., really happened. However, some passages in scripture are not presented as if they were literally true; here, I have in mind the parables of Christ. Christ tells parables to make a point, but he doesn't claim that the events recounted in those parables actually happened. Similarly, many people who call themselves literalists wouldn't interpret the obviously metaphorical language in Revelations literally. (As a side note, Revelations is hardly revealing. It obscures more than it reveals.)
CALEB, I agree that Minas needed (in 1975) a better understanding of the passage in question and of the Christian faith in general.
EDWARD, I forgot to note that you're correct; Minas does misinterpret the passages about the washing away of sin.
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