Does Forgiveness Exist?

Does forgiveness exist? These are my thoughts, very briefly.

As I understand it, to be forgiven by a God means that your sin has been removed, restoration has taken place and any wrong you have done is not held against you. Does this mean God maintains a scorecard? And erases the sin from your record? This would imply that the God is not omniscient. For if the God does know everything, then when you pass away, God would know all of your transgressions as well as your redeeming measures and qualities. This seems to negate the point of religious forgiveness.

In the psychological sense, forgiveness is the intentional and voluntary process by which one claims to alter their negative feelings toward a perceived offense or offender. Note that the negative feelings are not erased, they’re still there in the brain. The concept of forgiveness relies on a process of having, or adding, enough positive feelings regarding the perceived offender to balance out the negative feelings.

So what is the supposed purpose of forgiveness?

I believe that the psychological goal of forgiveness is to allow you to stop focusing on the offense or offender so you can move forward with your life without the extra burden of unproductive anger. It doesn’t mean you excuse or forget the offense, nor does it mean you necessarily befriend the offender. The goal is simply to bring you a degree of peace.

In my personal experience, when I’ve said or done something that I believe has offended someone, I may, or may not, apologize. But when doing so, I neither need nor expect their ‘forgiveness’. When I accept that I’ve wrongfully offended and follow through with an apology, that’s where I find balance, because I truly know how I feel. If I didn’t believe I wrongfully offended, I wouldn’t apologize.

On the other hand, when someone tells me they forgive me, I can’t know what’s really going on in their mind. To me it’s akin to someone punching you, then saying, “Sorry.” Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t. There’s no way to be sure. Consider a school principal telling two adversaries to, “shake hands and make up.” I can’t believe that act changes the way other one feels.

So my bottom line is that forgiveness just means: I need to let go of my anger and get on with my life. If you have negative feelings, you need to deal with them on your own.