Must we forgive the unrepentant?

[DaveBj]

Umm no you are evading. The other questions that you are using as diversions have been addresed ad nauseum in this thread. You are using those for a crutch.

What do you think about the examples of forgiveness we have in St Maria Goretti and St Maximilian Kolbe?

I’ll put my oar in.

I think that the examples of forgiveness that we have in St. Maria Goretti and St. Maximilian Kolbe are heroic, but not required, either by Church teaching or by Sacred Scripture.

 

[clem456]

I’ll put my oar in.

I think that the examples of forgiveness that we have in St. Maria Goretti and St. Maximilian Kolbe are heroic, but not required, either by Church teaching or by Sacred Scripture.

What do you mean by “heroic but not required”? I’ve never heard that in Catholic theology. Why do you think the Church canonizes heroic virtue? I thought we were to emulate the saints.
What else is optional in the life of virtue?

 

[Eric_Hyom]

We know, however, that the church does not forgive the unrepentant,

If we can’t forgive our enemy, how can we continue to love them as we love ourselves?

 

[simple_soul]

I’m not sure who Pastor Tim is but I do believe his words are good food for thought on this subject;

dotheword.org/2013/08/14/forgiveness-may-be-free-but-its-not-cheap/

dotheword.org/2013/08/21/should-we-forgive-the-unrepentant/

This is from the second link;

One of those complicated and recurring “forgiveness topics” that divides Christians today is the question, Which comes first: forgiveness or repentance? (Just do a Google search and you’ll find a wide variety of opinions among notable Christian ministries.) But I think that Pastor Foley hit the nail on the head when he said that God’s forgiveness was actually offered before repentance. In other words, we were offered forgiveness by Jesus giving his own life, while we were still sinners, while we were still his enemies. Christ’s forgiveness paved the way for our repentance, not the other way around.

Jesus offered us forgiveness by dying for our sins on the cross before we repented. Is this against Church teaching?

He goes on to say

But how should this scriptural truth influence our day-to-day interpersonal forgiveness? I love how the late Michael Spencer, aka Internet Monk, captured the practical, simple nature of our forgiveness when said,

If we are following Jesus through this world, every situation we meet is one where forgiveness is normal. There’s no need to get very technical about it. If you were hanging out with Jesus, you’d hear forgiveness announced all the time. While I am not Jesus, I relate to every person through him, his cross and through his forgiveness.

We can make a career of looking for the forgiveness loopholes, but our reliance on technicalities which exempt our own particular unforgivenesses from further scrutiny and resolution often takes us away the fostering of a personality of and predisposition toward forgiveness that we should have, independent of circumstance.

But what about those complicated situations where repentance is needed and hasn’t yet happened? The Internet Monk continued by saying,

What about the person who won’t repent? I can still forgive them as Christ would. I can offer forgiveness and embody it. But without specific repentance, that forgiveness will be unilateral. Remember Paul’s words?

What were Paul’s words? Paul said,

All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God (2 Corinthians 5:18-20)

Repentance is important to forgiveness . . . extremely important. But that doesn’t permit us to live our lives demanding repentance from others in exchange for our forgiveness. Practically speaking, this means we should live our lives offering forgiveness to others in light of how God forgave us. Getting someone to repent is not our job. We can’t force anyone to acknowledge their own wrongdoing and repent from it. What we can do is to be predisposed to offer forgiveness to others, as an ambassador for Christ, imploring others to be reconciled to God.

 

[Eric_Hyom]

Jesus offered us forgiveness by dying for our sins on the cross before we repented. Is this against Church teaching?

Thanks for the links, very thoughtful. It almost sounds like Jesus forgave us before we even sinned, beyond my understanding.

Somehow, Jesus died for everyone who lived before him, from the time of Adam and Eve

 

[DaveBj]

What do you mean by “heroic but not required”? I’ve never heard that in Catholic theology. Why do you think the Church canonizes heroic virtue? I thought we were to emulate the saints.
What else is optional in the life of virtue?

The heroism in resisting sin to the point of death (St. Maria Goretti) or in giving oneself to death in the place of another (St. Maximilian Kolbe) is self-evident. The “not required” comes from the absence of a requirement, either in Sacred Scripture or in Catholic teaching (the Catechism).

 

[Ender]

If we can’t forgive our enemy, how can we continue to love them as we love ourselves?

It would be better to address what I did say rather than something I haven’t said. I never suggested we should not forgive our enemy. What I said, and what no one appears willing to address directly is this: since the church does not forgive the unrepentant why do we have the obligation to do so? And where in church teaching are we told this is an obligation?

Ender

 

[Ender]

I’m not sure who Pastor Tim is but I do believe his words are good food for thought on this subject.
“What about the person who won’t repent? I can still forgive them as Christ would.”

While I can agree with much of what he said, I cannot agree with this. It is in fact untrue. Christ absolutely does not forgive the unrepentant, nor does the church.*Now this power to “forgive sins” Jesus confers through the Holy Spirit upon ordinary men, themselves subject to the snare of sin, namely his apostles: “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven; whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.”(162)

(162) Blessed Isaac of Stella in one of his talks emphasizes the full communion of Christ with the church in the forgiveness of sins: “The church can forgive nothing without Christ and Christ does not wish to forgive anything without the church. The church can forgive nothing except to a penitent, that is to say, to a person whom Christ has touched with his grace: Christ does not wish to consider anything forgiven in a person who despises the church” *(JPII, Reconciliation and Penance)
Make whatever argument you like except this one: the unrepentant are not forgiven, not by Christ and not by the church.

Ender

 

[Eric_Hyom]

It would be better to address what I did say rather than something I haven’t said. I never suggested we should not forgive our enemy. What I said, and what no one appears willing to address directly is this: since the church does not forgive the unrepentant why do we have the obligation to do so? And where in church teaching are we told this is an obligation?

Ender

I still feel the greatest commandments need to be addressed, all the law and the prophets of God hang and depend on these commandments.

So if our enemy is and atheist or non- Catholic, we are still commanded to love them as we love ourselves, we can do nothing greater. So if an atheist harms you and is non - repentant, how do you continue to love them as you love yourself?

 

[simple_soul]

While I can agree with much of what he said, I cannot agree with this. It is in fact untrue. Christ absolutely does not forgive the unrepentant, nor does the church.Now this power to “forgive sins” Jesus confers through the Holy Spirit upon ordinary men, themselves subject to the snare of sin, namely his apostles: "Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven; whose sins you shall retain, they are retained."(162)

(162) Blessed Isaac of Stella in one of his talks emphasizes the full communion of Christ with the church in the forgiveness of sins: “The church can forgive nothing without Christ and Christ does not wish to forgive anything without the church. The church can forgive nothing except to a penitent, that is to say, to a person whom Christ has touched with his grace: Christ does not wish to consider anything forgiven in a person who despises the church” (JPII, Reconciliation and Penance)
Make whatever argument you like except this one: the unrepentant are not forgiven, not by Christ and not by the church.

Ender

I’m not trying to make any kind of an aurgument.
I am just trying to understand something that seems to be a paradox for some people.

 

[Eric_Hyom]

The church can forgive nothing except to a penitent,

Ender

You seem to be saying we should only forgive Catholics who repent, because they are the only ones who will go to confession. If a Muslim or atheist harms us, they are not going to ask the church for forgiveness.

I still feel it is far better to forgive others, even if they do not repent, otherwise we hold anger in our hearts against them.

 

[clem456]

The heroism in resisting sin to the point of death (St. Maria Goretti) or in giving oneself to death in the place of another (St. Maximilian Kolbe) is self-evident. The “not required” comes from the absence of a requirement, either in Sacred Scripture or in Catholic teaching (the Catechism).

I’ve never heard of evangelizing with the hope of attaining the “not required”. That seems completely foreign to Christianity, and is an invitation to mediocrity, lukewarmness, and presumption. The imperatives of the Christian life take their power from love, not from minimalist legal standards like “not required”.

Consider:
God was not required to create us, it is a gratuitous act of love.
God was not required to die for us while we were still sinners, his death is a gratuitous act of love.
God is not required to keep us in existence, it is his gratuitous love that keeps us from being less than nothing.

Using your standard of Christian fulfillment, none of us would even exist, because are none of us are required for God to be God.
Only God is sufficient unto himself with no requirements.

God needs nothing, including you. Given that God has no requirements, does he do only what is required of him? hardly…

There is an infinite gap God and his creatures that we cannot bridge. If you do not build that bridge to others because it is “not required” of us, you will burn your own bridge. Your own standard is the one God will use for you. That is not a pretty thought.

So let’s ask the thread question again,
“Must we forgive the unrepentant?”

cont’d

 

[clem456]

The “not required” comes from the absence of a requirement, either in Sacred Scripture or in Catholic teaching (the Catechism).

Well, if your going to play a Bill Clinton-esque semantics games with the word “required”, you might have a discussion.
But if we are going to be honest about what the CCC says…
(let’s just quote the CCC):

V. “AND FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES, AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO TRESPASS AGAINST US”

2838 This petition is astonishing. If it consisted only of the first phrase, “And forgive us our trespasses,” it might have been included, implicitly, in the first three petitions of the Lord’s Prayer, since Christ’s sacrifice is “that sins may be forgiven.” But, according to the second phrase, our petition will not be heard unless we have first met a strict requirement. Our petition looks to the future, but our response must come first, for the two parts are joined by the single word “as.”

And forgive us our trespasses . . .

2839 With bold confidence, we began praying to our Father. In begging him that his name be hallowed, we were in fact asking him that we ourselves might be always made more holy. But though we are clothed with the baptismal garment, we do not cease to sin, to turn away from God. Now, in this new petition, we return to him like the prodigal son and, like the tax collector, recognize that we are sinners before him.133 Our petition begins with a “confession” of our wretchedness and his mercy. Our hope is firm because, in his Son, "we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."134 We find the efficacious and undoubted sign of his forgiveness in the sacraments of his Church.135

2840 Now - and this is daunting - this outpouring of mercy cannot penetrate our hearts as long as we have not forgiven those who have trespassed against us. Love, like the Body of Christ, is indivisible; we cannot love the God we cannot see if we do not love the brother or sister we do see.136 In refusing to forgive our brothers and sisters, our hearts are closed and their hardness makes them impervious to the Father’s merciful love; but in confessing our sins, our hearts are opened to his grace.

2841 This petition is so important that it is the only one to which the Lord returns and which he develops explicitly in the Sermon on the Mount.137 This crucial requirement of the covenant mystery is impossible for man. But "with God all things are possible."138

. . . as we forgive those who trespass against us

2842 This “as” is not unique in Jesus’ teaching: “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”; “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful”; "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another."139 It is impossible to keep the Lord’s commandment by imitating the divine model from outside; there has to be a vital participation, coming from the depths of the heart, in the holiness and the mercy and the love of our God. Only the Spirit by whom we live can make “ours” the same mind that was in Christ Jesus.140 Then the unity of forgiveness becomes possible and we find ourselves “forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave” us.141

2843 Thus the Lord’s words on forgiveness, the love that loves to the end,142 become a living reality. **The parable of the merciless servant, which crowns the Lord’s teaching on ecclesial communion, ends with these words: “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”**143 It is there, in fact, “in the depths of the heart,” that everything is bound and loosed. It is not in our power not to feel or to forget an offense; but the heart that offers itself to the Holy Spirit turns injury into compassion and purifies the memory in transforming the hurt into intercession.

2844 Christian prayer extends to the forgiveness of enemies,144 transfiguring the disciple by configuring him to his Master. Forgiveness is a high-point of Christian prayer; only hearts attuned to God’s compassion can receive the gift of prayer. Forgiveness also bears witness that, in our world, love is stronger than sin. The martyrs of yesterday and today bear this witness to Jesus. Forgiveness is the fundamental condition of the reconciliation of the children of God with their Father and of men with one another.145

2845 There is no limit or measure to this essentially divine forgiveness,146 whether one speaks of “sins” as in Luke (11:4), “debts” as in Matthew (6:12). We are always debtors: "Owe no one anything, except to love one another."147 The communion of the Holy Trinity is the source and criterion of truth in every relation ship. It is lived out in prayer, above all in the Eucharist.148

God does not accept the sacrifice of a sower of disunion, but commands that he depart from the altar so that he may first be reconciled with his brother. For God can be appeased only by prayers that make peace. To God, the better offering is peace, brotherly concord, and a people made one in the unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.149

The imperatives in scripture are well footnoted in the CCC chapter, so it should not be necessary to dig those out.

 

[DaveBj]

snip

So let’s ask the thread question again,
“Must we forgive the unrepentant?”

Look, I am a simple man. All I want to know is this: if God requires us to forgive those who sin against us, but do not repent of those offenses and to not ask for our forgiveness, then how is it that He requires us to do something for others that he refuses to do for us (forgive unrepented sin)?

NB: I am dealing with the perceived requirement to forgive unrepented sin, not the separate issue of whether it is a good idea to at least put other people’s offenses behind us.

 

[clem456]

Look, I am a simple man. All I want to know is this: if God requires us to forgive those who sin against us, but do not repent of those offenses and to not ask for our forgiveness, then how is it that He requires us to do something for others that he refuses to do for us (forgive unrepented sin)?

NB: I am dealing with the perceived requirement to forgive unrepented sin, not the separate issue of whether it is a good idea to at least put other people’s offenses behind us.

What do you think of the Church’s teaching on forgiveness?
I am a simple person also, which is why I referenced a large piece of the CCC.
That way we do not talk past one another, we can simply look at what the Church teaches us.

 

[DaveBj]

What do you think of the Church’s teaching on forgiveness?
I am a simple person also, which is why I referenced a large piece of the CCC.
That way we do not talk past one another, we can simply look at what the Church teaches us.

Let the record show that the respondent avoided the question.

 

[clem456]

Let the record show that the respondent avoided the question.

Dave.
Nonsense.

Originally Posted by DaveBj View Post
The “not required” comes from the absence of a requirement, either in Sacred Scripture or in Catholic teaching (the Catechism).

You are claiming something that is at the very least on the edge of Christian theology if not antithetical to it. I am pointing you to the CCC on the subject.
The CCC gives a very clear response. It’s not my response.
It’s very simple.
Do you want to comment on what the CCC says in relation to your ideas or not?
If you don’t simply say so.

 

[Ender]

You seem to be saying we should only forgive Catholics who repent, because they are the only ones who will go to confession. If a Muslim or atheist harms us, they are not going to ask the church for forgiveness.

One doesn’t need to go to confession to say “I’m sorry”, or even to exhibit remorse. John the Baptist called people to repent, not go to confession.

I still feel it is far better to forgive others, even if they do not repent, otherwise we hold anger in our hearts against them.

It may well be, that has never been my point. I am simply rejecting the common assertion that the unrepentant are forgiven. I have also asked for the citation of some teaching that asserts we are to forgive the unrepentant.

Ender

 

[Ender]

Do you want to comment on what the CCC says in relation to your ideas or not?

I’ll be your huckleberry.* 2842 This “as” is not unique in Jesus’ teaching: “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”; “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful”; "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another."139 It is impossible to keep the Lord’s commandment by imitating the divine model from outside; there has to be a vital participation, coming from the depths of the heart, in the holiness and the mercy and the love of our God. Only the Spirit by whom we live can make “ours” the same mind that was in Christ Jesus.140 Then the unity of forgiveness becomes possible and we find ourselves “forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave” us.
*If we are to forgive as Christ forgives, and this is the way to perfection, then if Christ does not forgive the unrepentant how can we? How can being different than Christ be better than being like Christ? If we are to forgive as Christ forgives that would mean not forgiving the unrepentant, just as Christ does not forgive them.

The problem with all of your citations is that not one of them mentions the question of repentance. We all acknowledge the obligation to forgive.

Ender

 

[DaveBj]

Dave.
Nonsense.

You are claiming something that is at the very least on the edge of Christian theology if not antithetical to it. I am pointing you to the CCC on the subject.
The CCC gives a very clear response. It’s not my response.
It’s very simple.
Do you want to comment on what the CCC says in relation to your ideas or not?
If you don’t simply say so.

Does God require us to do something for others (forgive the unrepentant) that He does not do? Yes or no?