A reader writes:
Perhaps Mark Vernon is correct that true forgiveness isn't possible. What is more realistic is acceptance and understanding of past transgressions. I'm an ex-Catholic turned agnostic, but to me THE most important parable in the New Testament is the Prodigal Son. That story is the best example of what humanity's relationship with God can and should be. There is no need for salvation, saviors, the crucifixion, blood atonement, etc. If God exists, we are his children, and parents accept their children at all times because that is the inherent love in a parent/child relationship. Children don't ask to be born and we often screw up. It's the parent's responsibility to accept them back even when they disappoint us.
When the story is read in its historical context, there is only one way to see it – as a radical view of God, which in today's Christianist world would never be accepted.
That is where I shake out on this thread as well. The atonement in the Crucifixion is not as central to me as the embrace of suffering as the only real – and paradoxical – triumph over evil and injustice. And God's love is radically unconditional – simply because God is God and God is Love. Another concurs:
The expectation of satisfaction, of the give-and-take of apology and statement of absolution, or the quid pro quo of penance, is exactly the opposite of true forgiveness! Grace, in its most Godly sense, exists prior to apology and far after the polite “I forgive you” that we assume is the necessary transactional basis of love. The key moment in the parable is that the Father ran toward the Son “while he was still far off.” Such Grace is the ONLY thing which makes forgiveness possible.
Another:
You've been contemplating a curious question: Is pure forgiveness possible? (By "pure" forgiveness I mean a forgiveness bereft by self-interest.) Can there be a love of another entirely alienated from love of self?
My own view is that "purity" of intent is neither possible nor desirable. Most altruism, upon closer examination, reveals that it is at least in part motivated by self-interest. It can be enlightened self-interest, aware of long-term and/or spiritual consequences; yet somehow this vital grounding for virtue is thought to lessen virtue.
With equal logic one can denounce a rose for having roots in the filthy dirt. But I, for one, forgive the rose for its dirty roots. In fact I admire the rose's ability to turn filth into fragrance. My forgiveness of the rose is not entirely un-self-interested, for as a human being, I too have dirty roots.
The Dish 