On Forgiveness

The heated debate sparked by Rob Bell's latest book is beginning to simmer down and it's allowing many of us to take pause over the controversy the last several weeks. There were a few general themes that flowed from the debates, and most of them surrounded the concept of Hell itself, and whether a loving God could possibly send anyone to a place of such torment. Not surprisingly accusations shot back and forth about who is and who isn't a heretic, about how one's views are ancient, primitive, and completely out-of touch with reality, and so on and so forth. It occurred to me that there wasn't a very thorough explanation of God's forgiveness in just about any of my recent readings. To be fair, it was mentioned now and then, but it's something so central to the resolution of the whole Hell debate.

The concept of God's forgiveness is, lets be serious, pretty easy to swallow. It feels like it fits perfectly well in our supposedly enlightened and progressive western society. Forgiveness is good. There's just very little argument to be had. Yet, ironically, it's far more radical than Hell. So why is it that we have such a hard time with Hell, and so little debate about forgiveness? Even though we intrinsically know that forgiveness is all of grace, it's not hard to imagine that we may have become used to the idea to the point where we not only expect it, we feel we deserve it. (Romans 6:1). If Rob Bell's book is an example of making a difficult doctrine more palatable to our itchy ears, could it be that we do the same thing with forgiveness without realizing it? And if so, how has that happened? May I offer just a handful of reasons...

A high sense of self
A few posts ago I briefly alluded to how pop-psychology changes our ideas about guilt. Self-esteem has become highly popularized in the last 50 years and psychologists are only now beginning to realize some of the disastrous consequences it's yielded. Respected psychologists Roy Baumeister and Albert Ellis have written extensively on how self-esteem theories are not only illogical (being based on arbitrary premises) but have become self-defeating, and ultimately destructive. A high view of the self, according to proponents, will make you more successful and less likely to engage in harmful behaviour. Therefore, anything that hinders this high view of self (such as guilt) leads to poor performance, bad relationships, and so on.

The problem, of course, is that it promotes an unrealistic view of the self. To put it in psychological terms, it means you're delusional. It's a bit ironic, then, that what psychology once so fervently recommended was, in fact, a recipe for psychological disaster. But even if self-esteem is now becoming relegated to the fringes, the wake of its influence is still seen all over society. School teachers have been discouraged from disciplining their students for wrongdoing for fear of lowering anyone's self-esteem. Tragically, even youth pastors are often pressured into helping kids feel better about themselves irrespective of anything to do with a Christian sense of identity.

I'm not suggesting for a moment that the proper alternative is its polar opposite, or that any form of psychology is bad. What I am suggesting is more realistic examination of one's self, and self-esteem doctrine simply cannot deliver this. Our dignity and worth is found via a loving Creator God, and this in turn provides the basis for ethics and value. At the same time, having been called as stewards we also have a responsibility. When we are in error, we should not only be aware of it, but sanity dictates that we should have at least a sense of guilt.


Displacing Blame
For better or for worse, the penal system in western society has become increasingly therapeutic rather than atoning. Traditionally, a prison sentence was meant as a way for a person to pay his debt to society. But it's no secret that those who've spent time in prison are often the most likely to wind up right back in again. This has led many to change their mind about what a prison sentence should be. There's a new focus on rehabilitation for prisoners to help them work and live stable lives. This is not only a benefit to themselves but to society at large.

There's no reason to not welcome this, but at the same time it has also led to something interesting about the way we treat people's wrongdoings. In the traditional prison sentence, all blame rested on the criminal, and the punishment was considered appropriate to the crime. Now the blame is often shifted to somewhere else. A lack of education, poor family life, socio-economic status, etc. Studies show correlations between these situations and bad behaviour, so it's not entirely unreasonable to say they have a lot to do with it, but at the end of the day, only one person did the crime.

We've heard this excuse before. "It's not my fault, the devil made me do it." Yet it's just far too easy for us to pass the buck. Instead, Scripture demands that we own up to our misdeeds. And really, why should it not? In both an communal and individual sense, we've reaped what we've sown.

Tolerance, and the cost of our error
Even if we've come to accept a more realistic view of ourselves, and have learned to be honest about our own actions and responsibilities, it doesn't matter unless we begin to understand the magnitude of our sin. The heart of the hell debate centres not around God's love, but his justice. Again, intrinsically, we should already know this.

As a brief personal example, part of my job involves setting up quotes to do service and repair work in the fire protection recently. There's a lot riding on a quote because you need to ensure that it accurately reflects both the time and the material required to do the job properly. If the details aren't carefully thought out, you could set yourself up for a loss. That's exactly what I did recently, with the price I set being far too low.

Being that it's my first time, I was forgiven for making such a mistake. But even in forgiveness, the cost of my error still had to be eaten up. Forgiveness isn't just saying you ignore something, or try to forget it. That's unrealistic. In this simple but concrete example, whatever the difference is between the actual cost of the job and my poorly done estimate is counted as a loss against the company. Forgiveness costs something. It may be freely given, but it's not free.

The problem with my example, however, is that you can easily put a number to it. In the face of an infinitely Holy God, it's far too unfathomable. That's the whole point. People don't like hell because it's so unfathomably horrible, but it's no different than the cost of our sin. That's what makes hell a perfectly justifiable and appropriate punishment. And who are we to argue?

We don't understand the cost. In an age where the great modern dogma is tolerance, forgiveness and love  have fallen under its umbrella. But the Biblical concepts of forgiveness and love are far different than the superficial idea of tolerance preached today. Today, being tolerant simply means have a much greater threshold for allowing bad behaviour, and not letting differences of opinions be a concern. To be fair, tolerance used to be something different. It used to mean allowing people freedom of expression while disagreeing wholeheartedly. These days it means ignoring the differences, and not even being allowed to criticize. (It's an entirely incoherent concept of intolerance). But you have to be intolerant, because some things are just plain stupid. Where tolerance brushes things under the rug, forgiveness and love demand our utmost.

Forgiveness
I'm not trying to make the world an enemy. Society has many great things to offer, and many things we can be thankful for. But, as with the conventional wisdom of any age, it often flies in the face of Biblical wisdom. But forgiveness? Forgiveness on a cosmic level? That is radical. I don't believe we will ever fully understand forgiveness in this age. While society influences us, the bottom line still ends up with us giving ourselves far too much credit, excusing ourselves for our own faults, and never understanding the extent of the damage we cause.

Hell? That's easy. Grace? That's far too great. It involves a God who suffers on our behalf. We owed Him nothing, but cost Him dearly. His happiness did not depend on our existence, but he revealed his Love for us anyway, through the death of his own Son. It's unfathomable, but it's the Truth.