Must we forgive the unrepentant?

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Eric_Hyom said:
How did Jesus love all his neighbours as he loved himself? Those who condemned him to death and nailed him to the cross?
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I’m in the same position you are: I’m trying to understand this as well, but your question doesn’t address the problem. In Luke, Christ says:* "And if the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive.”

*What, exactly, does that sentence mean? If we are to forgive everyone whether or not he repents then why does Christ say we must forgive those who repent? What did he mean by including that caveat? Are we to ignore it? Yes, I understand what you’re saying, but surely we cannot simply dismiss what Christ said in Luke and behave as if that passage didn’t exist.

Ender
 
Ender said:
I’m in the same position you are: I’m trying to understand this as well, but your question doesn’t address the problem. In Luke, Christ says:* "And if the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive.”

*What, exactly, does that sentence mean? If we are to forgive everyone whether or not he repents then why does Christ say we must forgive those who repent? What did he mean by including that caveat? Are we to ignore it? Yes, I understand what you’re saying, but surely we cannot simply dismiss what Christ said in Luke and behave as if that passage didn’t exist.

Ender
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Hi Ender, I hope you don’t mind me interjecting here but I believe we should forgive in both cases. For example, if I am abused by someone and this person comes to me the next day to say he’s sorry and I forgive them but then the next day this person abuses me again. And then again the next day says he is sorry and then repeats the abuse again. I see this passage of Luke instructing me to accept his apology and forgive them every time. I am reminded of how we keep going to confession and confessing the same sins over and over again. (Seeing as he was talking to Peter? Maybe Jesus was actually giving them an understanding of how confession was supposed to work.) We are forgiven over and over again. But I also believe we are called to forgive and pray for our enemies/abusers even if they do not ever apologize or repent. Other wise I do not believe some of Jesus’ last words as he was being crucified would have been about asking the Father to forgive them for they know not what they do. It seems to me that we should be forgiving in both scenarios.
 
The source of forgiveness is God. We all need it. God is infinitely good, so he is condescension to us is, shall we say, “on a large scale”.

If we are to experience his offer we have to give it to others.
How should we give it, if we are infinitely in need of it?

This is what 10,000 talents is.
It is an amount that cannot be repaid. If you have been offered forgiveness to an infinite degree, who are you to withhold it from anyone, under any circumstances???
This is what 70x7 means. Infinity.
 
Ender said:
I was not familiar with this concept, but I accept it as logically valid. I will point out, however, that logic only guarantees that the answer is logically valid…not that it is true.
It’s taken me a while to figure out a response to this. Let’s take a different example. In “American Sniper”, Chris Kyle had overwatch responsibility for the marines he was serving with. His orders essentially were “If a person threatens the marines, then shoot him.” The contrapositive of that would be “If he is not shot then he is not a threat.” This is clearly a false answer even though it is logically valid.

…
Ender
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“If a person threatens the marines, then shoot him.” Such a conditional assumes Kyle is omniscient. Perhaps this restated conditional will help you work through the logic.

“If you see a person threaten the marines then you shoot him.”

Contrapositive:

“If you did not shoot him then you did not see him threaten the marines.”
 
simple_soul said:
Hi Ender, I hope you don’t mind me interjecting here but I believe we should forgive in both cases. For example, if I am abused by someone and this person comes to me the next day to say he’s sorry and I forgive them but then the next day this person abuses me again. And then again the next day says he is sorry and then repeats the abuse again. I see this passage of Luke instructing me to accept his apology and forgive them every time. I am reminded of how we keep going to confession and confessing the same sins over and over again. (Seeing as he was talking to Peter? Maybe Jesus was actually giving them an understanding of how confession was supposed to work.) We are forgiven over and over again. But I also believe we are called to forgive and pray for our enemies/abusers even if they do not ever apologize or repent. Other wise I do not believe some of Jesus’ last words as he was being crucified would have been about asking the Father to forgive them for they know not what they do. It seems to me that we should be forgiving in both scenarios.
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This is a very reasonable position, except that it still doesn’t address Luke’s comment. Basically it says to just ignore the “if he repents” part. I am looking for an explanation that incorporates that instruction, not one that acts as if it doesn’t exist.

Ender
 
Ender said:
This is a very reasonable position, except that it still doesn’t address Luke’s comment. Basically it says to just ignore the “if he repents” part. I am looking for an explanation that incorporates that instruction, not one that acts as if it doesn’t exist.

Ender
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Are you saying/arguing that the Church teaches us that we are not to forgive anyone unless and only if they have repentence?

You can accuse me of “acting” as if Luke’s passage doesn’t say “if he repents” I’m not. I believe the difference is that I am not taking Luke’s passage to be saying, “If and only if he repents, forgive him.”

Maybe Jesus was just stressing that if some one does ask for forgiveness it just puts more urgency on the fact that one must forgive. But we are required to forgive regardless.

Not sure though…
 
o_mlly said:
“If a person threatens the marines, then shoot him.” Such a conditional assumes Kyle is omniscient. Perhaps this restated conditional will help you work through the logic.

“If you see a person threaten the marines then you shoot him.”

Contrapositive:

“If you did not shoot him then you did not see him threaten the marines.”
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I’m not having any trouble with the logic involved here; I’m pointing out the difficulty of applying it. The problem with your response is not that the contrapositive is still wrong (he could see the threat and miss the shot), but that it doesn’t address the issue I raised. Your comment about Kyle not being omniscient exposes a similar problem where I agreed the converse of the statement on forgiveness was false (“If we have a duty to forgive then the sinner repents.”)

Here is an example from a site that explains about the converse, inverse, and contrapositive that illustrates my point. The contrapositive of “If it rains, then they cancel school” is *“If they do not cancel school, then it does not rain.”
*I would have argued in this case that while the assertion is true, the contrapositive is false because it makes the rain fall conditional on whether school is canceled. Saying “If they did not cancel school, then it did not rain” would be better, but that’s not what was claimed.

Perhaps it is just the awkward way the inverse/converse/contrapositive sentences are phrased that is the problem, but if so it is equally problematic for the converse sentence I rejected as false before as the contrapositive statement about the rain that seems false to me now. If you wrote that sentence out of the context of this discussion and asked someone to explain how he understood it, I bet that more than nine out of ten would say it means that not canceling school will prevent rain.

Ender
 
simple_soul said:
Are you saying/arguing that the Church teaches us that we are not to forgive anyone unless and only if they have repentence?

You can accuse me of “acting” as if Luke’s passage doesn’t say “if he repents” I’m not. I believe the difference is that I am not taking Luke’s passage to be saying, “If and only if he repents, forgive him.”

Maybe Jesus was just stressing that if some one does ask for forgiveness it just puts more urgency on the fact that one must forgive. But we are required to forgive regardless.

Not sure though…
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For me asking a few questions gets to the heart of things

just thinking out loud 😉


  1. *]If there is no need to repent, to be forgiven, and that’s a big if, then why are we to repent at all in order to be saved?
    *]Saved from what if we are automatically forgiven
    *]If we are automatically forgiven, no matter what we do, then why the sacrament of reconciliation.
    *]If we are automatically forgiven for what we do, why even grade sin from venial to mortal
    *]If we are automatically forgiven, why the warnings to avoid certain activities or hell is the destination
    *]If we are automatically forgiven, why is there a judgement
    *]If we are automatically forgiven, why is there even the threat of hell for ANYONE

    I’m sure others could keep this list going on and on
 
steve_b said:
For me asking a few questions gets to the heart of things


  1. *]If there is no need to repent, to be forgiven, then why are we to repent to be saved?
    *]Saved from what if we are automatically forgiven
    *]If we are automatically forgiven, no matter what we do, then why the sacrament of reconciliation.
    *]If we are automatically forgiven for what we do, why even grade sin from venial to mortal
    *]If we are automatically forgiven, why the warnings to avoid certain activities or hell is the destination
    *]If we are automatically forgiven, why is there even the threat of hell for ANYONE

    I’m sure others could keep this list going on and on
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  1. I believe it is because we need to open ourselves to God’s forgiveness, and others’. The first step in doing this one would have to acknowledge that they had done something that they need forgiveness for. I believe we call that repenting. If we don’t open ourselves to His forgiveness and others then one will receive no benefit from being forgiven.
    just because one does not want forgiveness does not mean it is not there for them.
 
simple_soul said:
I believe it is because we don’t open ourselves to God’s forgiveness,or others, unless we open ourselves up to the forgiveness. The first step in doing this one would have to acknowledge that they had done something that they need forgiveness for. I believe we call that repenting.
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I understand.

except the question of the thread is

** Must we forgive the unrepentant?

**Does God do that?
 
steve_b said:
I understand.

except the question of the thread is

** Must we forgive the unrepentant?

**Does God do that?
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I am lead to believe He does. But His forgiveness is sheer hell for those who don’t want it.
 
simple_soul said:
I am lead to believe He does. But His forgiveness is sheer hell for those who don’t want it.
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Yet If forgiveness is automatic, (no strings attached) then whether someone wants it or not, that doesn’t matter, because forgiveness is automatically given.

If that’s the case then look again at the questions being presented #175
 
steve_b said:
Yet If forgiveness is automatic, (no strings attached) then whether someone wants it or not, that doesn’t matter, because forgiveness is automatically given.

If that’s the case then look again at the questions being presented #175
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You keep putting your own spin on what is being said.
I am not sure what you are not understanding about what I am saying. Are you doing it deliberately just for the sake of argument or are you really not understanding what Inam saying?

Yes it does matter wether some one wants it or not. It seems to me that it makes all the difference in the world as to wether some one is in Heaven or Hell.
 
simple_soul said:
You keep putting your own spin on what is being said.
I am not sure what you are not understanding about what I am saying. Are you doing it deliberately just for the sake of argument or are you really not understanding what Inam saying?

Yes it does matter wether some one wants it or not. It seems to me that it makes all the difference in the world as to wether some one is in Heaven or Hell.
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It’s not my spin

are you saying the unrepentant must be forgiven?
 
Hoosier_Daddy said:
No, it has not. People have opined.
I’d like to hear an answer yes, or no…
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It has been answered.

The problem, I believe, maybe you don’t want the answer to be what it is because it does not fit into what you believe my answer should be.

That’s not my problem.
 
simple_soul said:
It has been answered.

The problem, I believe, maybe you don’t want the answer to be what it is because it does not fit into what you believe my answer should be.

That’s not my problem.
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Interesting little dance you are doing there. Ok it’s been answered. By a senior apologist. In the negative. Which is odd since no one has even defined the word we are talking about. Odd that in confession repentance is required…
Odd that God has put a retirement on the innocent…
Where has this been answered definitively? Or is it just your say so that we should base our theology on?
 
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