On Q&A on ABC TV, in the forum dubbed A Spiritual Special, John Lennox, Oxford Mathematician and Christian apologist, declared, in a somewhat triumphal tone, that forgiveness was the core of the Gospel. It is an oft repeated proclamation of Christians, apparently requiring little or no qualification and argument and seemingly places Christianity in an unconquerable position in relation to all moral codes. "Christians," it appears to assert, "are those that conduct themselves in the most righteous of manners - forgiveness - forgiving as they themselves have been forgiven."
I find forgiveness a useful concept. When I built a house in my younger days, I chose a material, mud brick, that was intrinsically forgiving. Its rough and irregular texture hid my lack of precision as a bricklayer. It disguised a lack of competence that I share with the majority of the human race. It was also forgiving on the budget, as any major errors could be cheaply fixed for very little - a stuff-up had little practical impact on the overall mission because it did not blow the budget.
I also use the phrase regularly to prefix comments that might cause offense. "One might be forgiven ...". This signals that I realise that making the mistake that I am about to articulate in detail is an almost inevitable consequence of being human. Thus, I say this to address the mistake and to mollify the embarrassment and sense of responsibility and culpability felt by the person in making it. In these ways, forgiveness plays its proper roles - one, to disguise the foibles of being human and the other to reduce the negative tone of discussions about those foibles.
Oh, that this were the case in Christian forgiveness. Before all the apologists run to defend their Christian forgiveness as really just what I have articulated above, let me sound a warning. Making the Gospel into whatever you want it to be is intellectually dishonest. You should and will be called on that. You can't simply take "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast the stone at her." as some kind of absolution as described above - it is an admonition not to be judgemental, but does not negate the implication of sin on the woman's part.
Let us first address the absolutism inherent in Christian forgiveness. In the first instance, God, of doubtful existence and moral integrity, extends forgiveness to all humans. As Christians often use the tactic of evasion to argue their case, let's cover all bases.
If your God is an ultimate cause, separate from the universe, then the notion of forgiveness is entirely absurd, since God is ultimately culpable for all actions universally. He/it forgives his own illogicality in allowing humans to act contrary to his universe-creating and sustaining commands.
If your God is an unknowable being, with a logic entirely of his own that needs no human explanation nor absolution, creating humans in his own image to likewise exercise their own will, then for him to forgive his 'creation' for being similarly willful is the ultimate act of hypocrisy.
If your God is the God of Abraham, a knowable entity creating a perfect world and laying down the law about how we must live in it and punishing any violation of this law, then there is a no case for granting any kind of absolution, for his wickedness is breath-taking beyond human comprehension; literally - we cannot come to grips with the massacre in Norway, which he allows to occur, and the mass slaughter of people in Aceh in a Tsunami, which he enacts.
If your God is the meek and mild Jesus, then there is precisely nothing in his teachings that can masquerade as forgiveness in the sense I have described above. Jesus was a Jew, in world dominated by Jewish law overlaid by Roman law. His antidote to legalistic thinking was to live on the basis of loving your neighbour, regardless of the their breaches of the law.
Nothing about Christ's life and teachings supported or negated the notion of "fallen" humans, a concept first articulated in the 5th century. It is the most fundamental and malicious of Christian teachings. The idea that immoral deeds are a cancer that affects everybody, is genetically programmed into us and that it has universal negative characteristics and outcomes is mischievous and malicious on all counts.
First, the 'all pervasive sin' theory sets all human behaviour as fundamentally wrong or evil - without context or consideration of motive or outcome. Just as cancer consumes its host until death, sin takes hold of humans and drives them to evil deeds to the point of moral death.
Apart from the breathtaking lack of scientific rigour, such a theory ignores most evidence. People act differently in different contexts. A 'nice bloke' and 'good mate' may turn out to be a wife-beater. It is simply impossible to say that one natural inclination drives all misdeeds.
Next, to ascribe culpability to an innocent child that has no developed will, no history of misdeeds and who will learn behaviour from its family context is gross injustice. On these grounds, I must be able to convict you of just about any crime you would like to name, since your involvement and proximity to the crime count for nil in counting you guilty - simply, you have a propensity (you have human DNA) and that is enough said.
A sinful nature logically demands a negative outcome - otherwise it is either not sinful or not nature. The outcome must be a part of determining the morality of an action - otherwise the actions of accidentally bumping you and mass murder of are morally equivalent. A balance of greed, which some count as sin, may keep competition of two vendors favourable to a consumer. We should ask, in all moral situations, what the outcome is for all concerned. This is radically different from "all have fallen short". In the Christian moral framework, bumping you and mass murder are equivalent in that both are indicators of a natural inclination that must be, at worst eternally punished (hell), and at best, whitewashed (washed in the blood of Jesus).
Our secular legal system holds that all persons are responsible for their actions. No legal mechanism is available for transferring this responsibility (it is diminished or dismissed in cases of juveniles or clinically insane - moves to transfer responsibility of crimes to parents have been unsuccessful). Most Christians I know not only live within this framework, but prefer it and actively campaign for it. The forgiveness as espoused in the Gospel - the transfer of guilt to Jesus - directly contradicts this framework, no matter what angle you put on it.
All of us sense the injustice of laying blame on an innocent party and let the guilty go free. Thus, the Christian concept of forgiveness is not only universally ignored by Christians - it is universally morally reprehensible.
More nauseating, however, and so apparent in Lennox and his ilk, is the over-bearing self-righteous mindset of Christian forgiveness. They have been the lucky ones, entrusted with the franchise on forgiveness. Atheists could not possibly have the quality of absolution necessary, since they have not embraced the franchise, but have opened up in direct competition, challenging the very premise of Christian forgiveness.
It is the smug assertion that only those who turn to God have a chance of salvation that grates - not because I would not seek salvation if I felt it necessary and would not buy at their "forgiveness shop", but because it supposedly their enlightenment and wise choice that should be a model to me.
I know by now that there will be Christians who will claim that their Jesus forgave in a perfectly human way - not in any way associated with the neagtive characterisations above. How can we make a case that Jesus was acting, as I articulated in the introduction, only in a human way to prove that acting human was natural (and, of course, forgivable) and should not really be considered anything that should attract anything but absolution? Not only is this contradicted by the notion that Jesus was apparently meant to fulfill the commandments of the Old Testament and steadfastly did so without fail, but it provides precisely nothing in terms of moral guidance on how forgiveness should be applied.
There are things I would not forgive. Rape requires unambiguous guilt, followed by extended incarceration until society is convinced the offender will not re-offend. No forgiveness entered into nor implied. Crimes that are beyond proof or evidence and therefore prosecution under law, such as the systematic killing of dissenters under apartheid, cannot be resolved by forgiveness - only Truth and Reconciliation remain as a less than optimal process.
Hence, we forgive 'human-ness', do not forgive 'inhuman-ness' and simply agree to disagree about those crimes that are beyond investigation.
Simple empathy can be applied to some circumstances of crime. A wife beaten for decades might find herself excused in the minds of most, but her crime is not forgiven - we would still hold that she is guilty but that her crime was inevitable. Perhaps we can see ourselves in her shoes. This makes empathy, not forgiveness, the real moral driver. Labelling this 'forgiveness' is simply an attempt to make it appear synonymous with God's supposed forgiveness or diminishes our ability to resolve the psychological issues involved in the behaviour (rather like saying that the mind, or worse, the soul, rather than the brain, does things).
The lasting legacy of "forgiveness" is surely that eternal burden of guilt that people feel, exacerbating their sense of worthlessness that characterises some sorts of depression. One must consider oneself to be guilty on multiple fronts, mostly determined against the most arbitrary of standards. If I feel sexual pleasure, I should feel guilty. If I speak out of turn, I should feel guilty. If I call someone a dickhead, I should feel guilty.
Finally, forgiveness gives no sense of recompense. Recompense is perhaps the most powerful of human drivers in creating social cohesion. If I call you a dickhead and you are not a dickhead, demonstrably so, then forgiveness may makes you feel holy, vindicated in your indignaion at being called a dickhead, but it does not set the world right. Only recompense - saying I'm sorry - can change the situation to allow us, once again, to work with each other on a mission. Forgiveness is utterly impotent in this regard.
Lennox can keep his forgiveness and his Gospel. Both are as useless as the other.
I find forgiveness a useful concept. When I built a house in my younger days, I chose a material, mud brick, that was intrinsically forgiving. Its rough and irregular texture hid my lack of precision as a bricklayer. It disguised a lack of competence that I share with the majority of the human race. It was also forgiving on the budget, as any major errors could be cheaply fixed for very little - a stuff-up had little practical impact on the overall mission because it did not blow the budget.
I also use the phrase regularly to prefix comments that might cause offense. "One might be forgiven ...". This signals that I realise that making the mistake that I am about to articulate in detail is an almost inevitable consequence of being human. Thus, I say this to address the mistake and to mollify the embarrassment and sense of responsibility and culpability felt by the person in making it. In these ways, forgiveness plays its proper roles - one, to disguise the foibles of being human and the other to reduce the negative tone of discussions about those foibles.
Oh, that this were the case in Christian forgiveness. Before all the apologists run to defend their Christian forgiveness as really just what I have articulated above, let me sound a warning. Making the Gospel into whatever you want it to be is intellectually dishonest. You should and will be called on that. You can't simply take "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast the stone at her." as some kind of absolution as described above - it is an admonition not to be judgemental, but does not negate the implication of sin on the woman's part.
Let us first address the absolutism inherent in Christian forgiveness. In the first instance, God, of doubtful existence and moral integrity, extends forgiveness to all humans. As Christians often use the tactic of evasion to argue their case, let's cover all bases.
If your God is an ultimate cause, separate from the universe, then the notion of forgiveness is entirely absurd, since God is ultimately culpable for all actions universally. He/it forgives his own illogicality in allowing humans to act contrary to his universe-creating and sustaining commands.
If your God is an unknowable being, with a logic entirely of his own that needs no human explanation nor absolution, creating humans in his own image to likewise exercise their own will, then for him to forgive his 'creation' for being similarly willful is the ultimate act of hypocrisy.
If your God is the God of Abraham, a knowable entity creating a perfect world and laying down the law about how we must live in it and punishing any violation of this law, then there is a no case for granting any kind of absolution, for his wickedness is breath-taking beyond human comprehension; literally - we cannot come to grips with the massacre in Norway, which he allows to occur, and the mass slaughter of people in Aceh in a Tsunami, which he enacts.
If your God is the meek and mild Jesus, then there is precisely nothing in his teachings that can masquerade as forgiveness in the sense I have described above. Jesus was a Jew, in world dominated by Jewish law overlaid by Roman law. His antidote to legalistic thinking was to live on the basis of loving your neighbour, regardless of the their breaches of the law.
Nothing about Christ's life and teachings supported or negated the notion of "fallen" humans, a concept first articulated in the 5th century. It is the most fundamental and malicious of Christian teachings. The idea that immoral deeds are a cancer that affects everybody, is genetically programmed into us and that it has universal negative characteristics and outcomes is mischievous and malicious on all counts.
First, the 'all pervasive sin' theory sets all human behaviour as fundamentally wrong or evil - without context or consideration of motive or outcome. Just as cancer consumes its host until death, sin takes hold of humans and drives them to evil deeds to the point of moral death.
Apart from the breathtaking lack of scientific rigour, such a theory ignores most evidence. People act differently in different contexts. A 'nice bloke' and 'good mate' may turn out to be a wife-beater. It is simply impossible to say that one natural inclination drives all misdeeds.
Next, to ascribe culpability to an innocent child that has no developed will, no history of misdeeds and who will learn behaviour from its family context is gross injustice. On these grounds, I must be able to convict you of just about any crime you would like to name, since your involvement and proximity to the crime count for nil in counting you guilty - simply, you have a propensity (you have human DNA) and that is enough said.
A sinful nature logically demands a negative outcome - otherwise it is either not sinful or not nature. The outcome must be a part of determining the morality of an action - otherwise the actions of accidentally bumping you and mass murder of are morally equivalent. A balance of greed, which some count as sin, may keep competition of two vendors favourable to a consumer. We should ask, in all moral situations, what the outcome is for all concerned. This is radically different from "all have fallen short". In the Christian moral framework, bumping you and mass murder are equivalent in that both are indicators of a natural inclination that must be, at worst eternally punished (hell), and at best, whitewashed (washed in the blood of Jesus).
Our secular legal system holds that all persons are responsible for their actions. No legal mechanism is available for transferring this responsibility (it is diminished or dismissed in cases of juveniles or clinically insane - moves to transfer responsibility of crimes to parents have been unsuccessful). Most Christians I know not only live within this framework, but prefer it and actively campaign for it. The forgiveness as espoused in the Gospel - the transfer of guilt to Jesus - directly contradicts this framework, no matter what angle you put on it.
All of us sense the injustice of laying blame on an innocent party and let the guilty go free. Thus, the Christian concept of forgiveness is not only universally ignored by Christians - it is universally morally reprehensible.
More nauseating, however, and so apparent in Lennox and his ilk, is the over-bearing self-righteous mindset of Christian forgiveness. They have been the lucky ones, entrusted with the franchise on forgiveness. Atheists could not possibly have the quality of absolution necessary, since they have not embraced the franchise, but have opened up in direct competition, challenging the very premise of Christian forgiveness.
It is the smug assertion that only those who turn to God have a chance of salvation that grates - not because I would not seek salvation if I felt it necessary and would not buy at their "forgiveness shop", but because it supposedly their enlightenment and wise choice that should be a model to me.
I know by now that there will be Christians who will claim that their Jesus forgave in a perfectly human way - not in any way associated with the neagtive characterisations above. How can we make a case that Jesus was acting, as I articulated in the introduction, only in a human way to prove that acting human was natural (and, of course, forgivable) and should not really be considered anything that should attract anything but absolution? Not only is this contradicted by the notion that Jesus was apparently meant to fulfill the commandments of the Old Testament and steadfastly did so without fail, but it provides precisely nothing in terms of moral guidance on how forgiveness should be applied.
There are things I would not forgive. Rape requires unambiguous guilt, followed by extended incarceration until society is convinced the offender will not re-offend. No forgiveness entered into nor implied. Crimes that are beyond proof or evidence and therefore prosecution under law, such as the systematic killing of dissenters under apartheid, cannot be resolved by forgiveness - only Truth and Reconciliation remain as a less than optimal process.
Hence, we forgive 'human-ness', do not forgive 'inhuman-ness' and simply agree to disagree about those crimes that are beyond investigation.
Simple empathy can be applied to some circumstances of crime. A wife beaten for decades might find herself excused in the minds of most, but her crime is not forgiven - we would still hold that she is guilty but that her crime was inevitable. Perhaps we can see ourselves in her shoes. This makes empathy, not forgiveness, the real moral driver. Labelling this 'forgiveness' is simply an attempt to make it appear synonymous with God's supposed forgiveness or diminishes our ability to resolve the psychological issues involved in the behaviour (rather like saying that the mind, or worse, the soul, rather than the brain, does things).
The lasting legacy of "forgiveness" is surely that eternal burden of guilt that people feel, exacerbating their sense of worthlessness that characterises some sorts of depression. One must consider oneself to be guilty on multiple fronts, mostly determined against the most arbitrary of standards. If I feel sexual pleasure, I should feel guilty. If I speak out of turn, I should feel guilty. If I call someone a dickhead, I should feel guilty.
Finally, forgiveness gives no sense of recompense. Recompense is perhaps the most powerful of human drivers in creating social cohesion. If I call you a dickhead and you are not a dickhead, demonstrably so, then forgiveness may makes you feel holy, vindicated in your indignaion at being called a dickhead, but it does not set the world right. Only recompense - saying I'm sorry - can change the situation to allow us, once again, to work with each other on a mission. Forgiveness is utterly impotent in this regard.
Lennox can keep his forgiveness and his Gospel. Both are as useless as the other.
