While the discussion of what fealty a Christian must prove by forgiving and loving his enemies is interesting, I don't have a god in this fight.

So from the godless contingent, I think the most excellent of schadenfreude is appropriate. Not just enjoying the suffering of others, but purposefully shuffling deserving souls off this mortal coil. Sweet!

Cordially,

Uncle J

Well, "Yes". It's an overly simple responce, but at its heart I think it is true. Where I think it gets tough is over what behavior we think flows from that forgiveness.

I think Christians, even Christian soldiers, are required to not hate thier enemy. I say this as one that has never experienced mortal combat and nothing more serious than a number of teenage brawls, and I do recognize (as much as I can as a civvie) that to a certain extent this is impossible. Yet, it is the ideal that we not succomb to our rage blindly and forget why we fight. A Christian soldier is required to note hate thier enemy, and, when that enemy comes into thier power to be as merciful as justice allows.

Under the 'render unto Ceasar' teaching, as elaborated on in Romans 13, every Christian has a duty to the 'Kingdoms' of this world to be a good and honest citizen. For a soldier, this duty is particularly sharp and for a Christian troublesome. For so long as you are only a civilian, you are little troubled by the tension between loving your enemy and bearing the sword to be a terror to evil doers. It is easy for the civvie to talk about mercy as if such a thing could be institutionalized and as if justice had no weight on the scale. But as a Christian soldier, you have to weigh both of these duties, the duty to country to bear the sword and protect the innocent so they can sleep in thier beds, and the duty to bear the cross and witness to even your enemy even unto death. Obviously, you can't do both. You can't accept both the peaceful martyrs death, and also resist and fight with the tools of this world.

There are some religions that say you can be a martyr and kill your enemy at the same time. I think it is clear, Christianity is not among them.

I don't claim that I see the way through this. Yet, I think we ought to think God that are soldiery does as good a job with these issues as it does. Is there any other culture in the world that so agonizes over killing its enemies? I listen to mil-bloggers and see soldiers interviewed about the stress of combat, and so often when our soldiers talk about the stress of combat the first thing that the mention is not that someone tried to kill them or even that they saw a buddy die, but that they had to kill someone. Can you imagine our enemies agonizing over the fact that they had to kill us?

I hope our soldiers pray for our enemies. It sounds strange, but I hope that they do. I hope that they pray that God be merciful to thier enemies, and that thier enemies would be unmanned and run away, or that they would be shamed and put down arms, or that they grow weary, or that they find wisdom and fight no more. I hope that they pray that they be not required to kill any more than they must. I hope that they pray for peace, and I hope that they look forward to the day when they can embrace former combatants and call them brother - as this country has formerly done when brother fought against brother on this shore and foreign ones.

But if God delivers the enemy into thier hands, then I think they must kill quickly and without hatred in the belief, so often hoped for by our soldiery in story and report, that in doing so they hasten the day when there will be peace.

So I guess God doesn't deserve forgiveness since he keeps a place called hell for those he has not forgiven.

I think this is yet another area where Christian tenets are too simplistic, and perhaps the english language as well. It's easy to imagine two levels of forgiveness if not more. One level is where you forgive someone enough to stop seeking revenge, another where you stop hating them, and another where you treat them as trustworthy again. It's really too bad we do not have several words for this.

I think that one should forgive people in the first two senses if only for your own good. I don't think the third sense of treating them as trustworthy is something that is always a moral good. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't depending on the circumstances.

I'm an atheistic ethicist of sorts so if you have any questions about how one can be a moral atheist and I have time I'll be glad to answer them.

I covered a similar topic in this post about the errors of Amish forgiveness.

Forgive'em and pass the ammunition.

Is a Christian soldier required by the commandments of Christ to forgive those who have sought to kill him, or who have killed or wounded his comrades?

Of course, if two soldiers (who are obeying the lawful authority of their respective countries) meet on the battlefield where one kills the other, there is nothing to be forgiven. If it is not sin to kill for Caesar, then to be killed by the other Caesar is no sin, either.

Such mutual sanction, though, would not exist between a lawful combatant and an unlawful one (i.e., a violent criminal).

I covered a similar topic in this post about the errors of Amish forgiveness.

I've written a great deal about killing the enemy in the past, here and elsewhere. I don't regard killing a man as a particular wrong; all men were born to die, and may die now as well as later. The sin lies elsewhere than in the fact of having killed, which is easy enough to prove: both in the law, and in Christianity, killing a man can either be fully justified, and incur no punishment, or it can be an act of the worst kind possible, in which case it can incur the heaviest sentence either system has to offer.

The sin or the crime, then, is not in the killing. Killing itself is morally neutral.

What matters is whether the killing was done for just or unjust reasons. In other words, it is like any other action: speech that is made for just reasons is praiseworthy; speech that is made to defraud or incite may run afoul of either the law or the church. Eating is a good and necessary action if it is done to preserve the body and enjoy the goods of the world; if it is done unjustly, it is gluttony or drunkeness and may be illegal or immoral.

I repeat all of that here so that everyone will clearly understand the reply I am about to make to the question at hand. I would not want it to be misunderstood as an advocation of nonviolence, as I believe nonviolence as a principle is ultimately immoral. I believe in justice, which must be fought for.

Now:

"Are soldiers, the ones who profess loyalty to Christ, required to forgive those who try to kill them, or who succeed in killing or harming close friends?"

G. K. Chesterton rightly wrote that:

"Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. 'He that will lose his life, the same shall save it," is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaineers.'"

What he was pointing to there was that Christian principles, if they are true, will also prove to be practical. If Christianity is (as he thought) the correct understanding of mankind's true nature, then its advice will be practical as well as moral. What seems like mysticism will prove to be the best practical advice.

As a practical matter, COIN -- a type of warfare that we are waging today, and that follows almost any other sort of warfare and is therefore necessary to the successful conclusion of any war -- is far easier if you can obey this principle. In al Anbar province now, we have an increasing number of people who were enemies yesterday, and are now signing on as allies today. Tribal leaders, whole tribes, even insurgent fighters who were a year or two ago fighting on one side, now fight on the other. If you can 'love your enemy,' and see him as a man like you in most respects, it's easier to make the adjustments you need to make to turn him to your side.

In addition, it avoids the chiefest danger to one's soul that occurs in the kind of war our enemies have chosen. That is, that in learning to hate the enemy, you will come to hate that which produces and sustains him, i.e., the enemy society and noncombatants. Those are the very things one must not strike out against in order to succeed at COIN; they are also the things that our military laws, arising as they do from the Christian tenets behing Just War theory, forbid you to attack; and they prevent you from willfully killing women and children, which surely is a sin if anything is.

This principle -- "Love thy enemy, forgive him for his trespasses, leave judgment of his sins to God" -- is exactly such a principle. That is not to say that it is easy. It is to say, though, that if you can do it, you are doing the thing that is most likely to lead you to a successful conclusion. You will thereby minimize the stain of sin in your own soul, and be more likely to come out of the war as a whole man; and you will increase the likelihood that you will attain the victory you seek.

That's not 'a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes,' but practical advice for soldiers and Marines. It is therefore an honest claimant to being a true principle of ethics according to the test Chesterton erected. It points to a truth about human nature. An army that can do this will survive the war with both the greatest chance of victory, and the least degree of harm.

Brian, "the gates of Hell are locked only on ths inside." Hell is not a place where God sends sinners (it's not a place at all), but a condition that sinners choose to remain.

I would think it would be much easier to forgive an enemy soldier for doing his duty to his country than to forgive a criminal who kills and maims for his own personal advantage.

I've never been a soldier but I have met grey-haired members of the Wehrmacht, and I can't see holding a grudge against them for what they did when they were 17.

I tried to make this comment on Mr. Sensing's site but was blocked by his (overly aggressive) spam-filter.

If we did not believe in forgiveness would we imprison enemy soldiers or would we summarily execute them? We prefer to imprison enemy soldiers even when it is very difficult and endangers the mission. I'd say that is sufficient proof that American soldiers forgive their enemy.

Contrast this to the way that our enemies in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan treat our soldiers. Were they imprisoned in humane conditions, or were they tortured and starved and filmed for propaganda when they were not cruelly murdered out of hand?

Ask Pvt. Kristian Menchaca and Pvt. Thomas Tucker what they think. Or rather, ask their mutilated, decapitated, booby-trapped corpses.

I am much in agreement with Glen (#5). I believe the duty to forgive is a very specific ethic that is premised on a wrong.

I've read some of the post-Civil War literature on the reconciliation of soldiers at Blue-Grey reunions or decoration day ceremonies. I don't believe any of it was premised on the notion of forgiveness. Oliver Wendell Holmes captures the flavor of the oratory:

We believed that it was most desirable that the North should win . . . But we equally believed that those who stood against us held just as sacred conviction that were the opposite of ours, and we respected them as every men with a heart must respect those who give all for their belief. The experience of battle soon taught its lesson even to those who came into the field more bitterly disposed. You could not stand up day after day in those indecisive contests where overwhelming victory was impossible because neither side would run as they ought when beaten, without getting at least something of the same brotherhood for the enemy that the north pole of a magnet has for the south--each working in an opposite sense to the other, but each unable to get along without the other. As it was then , it is now. The soldiers of the war need no explanations; they can join in commemorating a soldier's death with feelings not different in kind, whether he fell toward them or by their side.

While I don't believe Holmes makes a good candidate for Christian ethicist, he was a good speaker and this was AFAIK emblematic of the speeches given at memorial ceremonies from 1875 to the end of the century. There are Christian values here: Respect, if not love, for thine enemy, treating them as you might like to be treated, and though it all, a desire for peace.

But forgiveness presupposes the commission of a wrong, the public airing of which would have been the enemy of reconciliation.

The greek of Matt doesn't mention enemies, it really just says you shouldn't hold people to account who have wronged you...don't hold grudges, don't pursue legal actions...the word "afiemi" being translated as forgive, comes from homer to throw a missle, meaning to let go of something, it subsequently came to mean setting something free and then to dismiss the charges. Since greek doesn't really have the concept of sin, the idea of forgiveness that is being discussed here is something that has been added on in later centuries by theologians...but as far as I can see what Matt was claiming Jesus said is that God's not going to hold you to account for your imperfections so you shouldn't hold others to account for theirs.

I think you can argue that soldiers on opposite sides of war are not committing transgressions against one another, if you assume both soldiers more or less agree on the general rules of warfar and on the general right to go to war.

Of course, whether or not going to war in the first place is a particularly Christian thing to do, is a whole different matter.

I think Christians, even Christian soldiers, are required to not hate thier enemy. I say this as one that has never experienced mortal combat and nothing more serious than a number of teenage brawls, and I do recognize (as much as I can as a civvie) that to a certain extent this is impossible. Yet, it is the ideal that we not succomb to our rage blindly and forget why we fight. A Christian soldier is required to note hate thier enemy, and, when that enemy comes into thier power to be as merciful as justice allows.

What Celebrim said. I agree entirely.

What he was pointing to there was that Christian principles, if they are true, will also prove to be practical. If Christianity is (as he thought) the correct understanding of mankind's true nature, then its advice will be practical as well as moral. What seems like mysticism will prove to be the best practical advice.

Yes. Pay attention, everyone -- this is the real deal.

Full understanding of these two comments is a prerequisite for real victory.

Now get to work.

The Christian concept of forgiveness is very different form the Jewish one. I find the Jewish one more just and also more practical, YMMV.

in any case, here's a comparison.

Yehudit -

Actually, both concepts of forgiveness are equally practical in the example you cited.

Christ's idea of forgiveness - "seven times seven", or infinite forgiveness - is personal forgiveness. It is not a blanket amnesty for evil. Neither Christians nor Simon Wiesenthal have the right to absolve the crimes of Nazism, and Christians do not have the right to demand that society abrogate its laws in the name of forgiveness.

(Not to say that some don't. There are religious people who embrace criminals, identify with them completely, and attack the legal system that justly deals with them - ignoring the grief of the victims. That is a warped parody of Christian forgiveness.)

Wiesenthal, incidentally, did the right thing. The dying Nazi asked him to "forgive" him for the torture and murder of hundreds of Jews, something which Wiesenthal had no right to absolve him for, even if Wiesenthal were a Christian. It might even be impious for a Christian to console someone who ought to be imploring God for forgiveness.

But suppose the Nazi were not dying, and had escaped all justice, and Wiesenthal met him face to face. The Nazi is no longer in a position to do any further harm, and is at Wiesenthal's mercy. Should Wiesenthal kill him - keeping in mind that killing him would serve no purpose but vengeance?

It would be hard to blame him if he did. Even a good Christian might do it, though he would know it to be unchristian. But both Christian and Jew, I think, would recognize that such an act could not claim purity of motive. An understandably human act, but not a divine one.

Thanks, Mark (#12), what I was getting at is what you addressed (not to dismiss other comments, which are also excellent).
bq. I think you can argue that soldiers on opposite sides of war are not committing transgressions against one another, if you assume both soldiers more or less agree on the general rules of warfar and on the general right to go to war.

Once we understand that, like divorce, warfare was not intended by God from the beginning (which is what Jesus said about divorce), then we can see that both the just and the unjust warrior transgress against God, but, absent atrocities, do not offend against each other in a way that requires either to forgive the other.

I spoke about this topic at some length with a Marine officer, combat veteran, who basically said that both the giving and receiving of lethal effects in battle wasn't personal, it was just business (yeah, I know - the Godfather). He said he never felt an enduring ill will toward the enemy. And likewise, he did not harbor enduring resentment against the enemy.

At the same time, he expressed a desire to be reconciled with the enemy at a future time.

This is not an academic matter for me, which is why I am not addressing whether Christians should be soldiers in the first place or whether Just War is a meaningful concept.

Donald, I realize now that I was repeating what you said on your site, which I didn't read until after I posted my comment. My comment was based on the little snippet posted here on WoC and the subsequent comments of others.

mark, that's an interesting observation (#12). Perhaps we need a working definition of forgiveness. If forgiveness simply means letting go of the anger, not being consumed by negative emotion, then I do believe soldiers should forgive their enemies for their own physical and spiritual well-being.

But the language of obligation in the blog post suggested to me a different meaning. Frankly, I was thinking about the NAZI war criminal seeking forgiveness from a Jew in Simon Wiesenthal's The Sunflower. (discussed at length in Yehudit's link) In that case, the enemy is affirmatively seeking forgiveness.

There is possibly a third meaning suggested by Grim's comment, which is pardon. I believe it is a state's prerogative to pardon transgressions against the state, just as it is the individual's prerogative to forgive personal transgressions. These might be analogous, but I don't think they necessarily require the same outcome. I think Grim is right that it is conceivably in the state's interest to pardon enemy combatants in order to achieve a just peace, but I don't think that tells us whether individual soldiers need forgive the enemy.

PD,
I'm trying to seperate out personal opinion from reasoned interpretation here, but my reading of the quote in Matt is that No, according to Christian doctrine as expressed explicitly in this passage, a soldier is not compelled to forgive--release from obligation--an opposing soldier. As Donald said, it's not a personal matter. There's no transgression.

As to whether I or anyone else think a soldier can or ought to forgive a soldier on the other side, that's a separate issue. Personally, I would say it entirely depends upon the circumstances and that there is no blanket approach than can be spread out. But the for the most part, if you willing enlist in the military you are making an implicit bargain with your own conscience and with others. Forgiveness is a 2-way street here. A soldier both seeks it from his opponents and can grant it to his opponent. I would say that it is a given, 9 time out of 10, in the very idea of soldering.

One of the points of friction between U.S. soldiers and leaders and their Iraqi counterparts is a seeming lazy approach to confronting evil in their midst -- the peace overtures to the occupiers of Fallujah, the toleration of the antics of Al Sadr, Maliki "calling off" some U.S. military actions and so on. It comes across the the Iraqi's are "soft" or maybe even "infiltrated" by the bad elements.

Two things to keep in mind. One is the the "bad guys" in Iraq may be "bad guys" to "our guys" in Iraq, but they remain a foreign other to us but brother Iraqi's to other Iraqi's. The second thing is that there are a lot of things in the Gospels, especially, that are very Middle Eastern for 2000 years ago and also for today.

Remember when (was it Peter?) asked Jesus if he should "forgive my brother seven times" and Jesus layed into him with "seventy-times seven times"? Jesus of course was using hyperbole to impress upon Peter a new standard of forgiveness that went well beyond cultural norms. Peter, on the other hand, was going by the legalistic formula. In our culture, we have a kind of "three strikes" principle on how many chances you give someone to get straight. It would not surprise me if there was some different number in Middle Eastern Culture -- would it be seven chances -- that you get before they lay into you.

I think what you are seeing in Iraq is that they are observing the forms of however many chances at reform you get according to their system, and it looks to us like the Iraqi's are coddling their insurgent enemy. But once those seven strikes or whatever number they follow over there get used up, you better believe it, those bad guys are toast.

PD,
one last pedantic point. I can't see a difference between forgive and pardon, the former is simply an anglicized version of the latter latinate word. for = par, give = don. as far as I can see the meaning is identical...a release from punishment. I would distinguish this from absolution, where one's supposed sins are supposedly washed away.

From Yehudit's link:

Some would seek to minimize this difference between our faiths. Eva Fleischner, a Catholic interfaith specialist and another Sunflower symposiast, argues that “Christians-and non-Christians in their wake-have misread, and continue to misread, [Christian texts] interpreting Jesus’ teaching to mean that we are to forgive anyone and everyone. . . . The element that is lost sight of is that Jesus challenges me to forgive evil done to me. . . . Nowhere does he tell us to forgive the wrong done to another.” Perhaps.

It is my recollection that Fleischner's argument was personally one of the more persuasive ones, so I'm not too happy for it be dismissed as a compromise position. The notion that a wrong against my kin is a wrong against me is a personalization of external suffering that I see as inconsistent with certain anti-tribal views inherent in the Christian teachings. Whether or not it was the best answer is, of course, for everyone to decide for themselves, but it shouldn't be dismissed as a tactical answer.

Yehudit: As I read the article, I started out with great sympathy for the writer's position. He seemed to be confused about what Christianity teaches about forgiveness, and understandably so, because he was drawing on the writings of some Christians who also seemed confused about forgiveness.

I can only forgive the wrongs made against me. I have the assurance that God will pardon wrongs made against Him provided I am truly penitant and trust in His salvation. I can convey this assurance to others, and guide them to seeking God's pardon so that they may obtain thier enternal. But I cannot forgive any wrongs made against someone else, and it would be an act of hubris for me to do so. Nor can I absolve anyone of the consequences of thier wrong doing on this earth. This may seem to put to fine a point on it, but thier sins against Heaven may be pardoned, but thier crimes on Earth are another matter.

So, initially I'm quite sympathetic, but then in about the middle of the essay it seems to run right off a cliff.

"Is an utterly evil man-Hitler, Stalin, Osama bin Laden-deserving of a theist’s love? I could never stomach such a notion..."

From there it goes on to argue passionately for finding virtue in hatefulness??? I cannot fathom desiring such. How does my hate harm anyone but myself? If I bring the wicked to Justice, does my hate harm them at all? If I do not bring the wicked to Justice, does my hate harm them at all? Of what use is hate to me? How does it profit me? Is it impossible to separate the hatred of the crime from the hatred of the person committing the crime?

Finally, the essay briefly rescues itself (at least from my perspective) by citing a different and contridictory passage from the Talmud, suggesting that we should only reserve our hatred for those that truly deserve it (as if we were as righteous as God and could know these things?). I'm glad to hear that I'm not worthy of hatred in the author's eyes. I was beginning to wonder. It seemed a bit of a contridiction to me to hate the wickedness of the Christians for not extolling the virtue of hatred, and then go on to praise them for having come to the conclusion that, because of those same teachings, they should not in fact be hateful. God save us from the judgements of those that believe they know who is hateful in God's eyes.

Citations of the Talmud, especially since even within the essay itself they contridict each other, do me very little good. I don't read the Talmud, nor I confess, if you would pardon me, would I hold it to be of great trustworthiness if I did. But what I read of the Torah does not seem to state what the writer says it states, and I wonder whether the writer speaks for all of Judism or just part of it. Fore example, where I read the Torah, I'm continually struck by how God calls David 'a man after his own heart', and how when God is merciful to the Israelites it is 'for David's sake'. David always struck me as the sort that forgave seven times seventy, long after we could say that his enemies seemed to deserve his forgiveness. David, for all his flaws, might be a worthy study in a thread such as this, for in him we find in the same soldier both the capacity for great violence and brutality and seemingly inhuman acts of forgiveness and mercy.

I disagree completely with Glen. It may have not been within Wiesanthal's capacity to forgive the man, but it was conceivably within his capacity not to hate him. One has to wonder who was hurt the most by Weisanthal leaving the room. I doubt it was the miserable man (man, not creature!) dying on the bed.

I can't see a difference between forgive and pardon, the former is simply an anglicized version of the latter latinate word. for = par, give = don. as far as I can see the meaning is identical

I'm using the terms in a criminal context. If the governor pardons a criminal, we don't say the criminal has been forgiven. I think this is because crime has two aspects: one it is a transgression against the individual victim(s) and two it is a transgression against the state. (And if it is a sin, it is a transgression against G*d)

Similarly, if I forgive a criminal for perpetrating a crime against me, that doesn't mean the state should drop the charges. I was once the victim of a violent crime and after I had healed and had time to absorb what had happend, I asked myself whether I had forgiven the perps and in my head I said "yes." I let it go. I didn't ask the D.A. to drop the charges. I didn't ask the University to stop expulsion procedures. What was moral for me, was not what was just for the government.

PD, I'm not sure about this. I follow what you are saying, but what does forgiveness amount to then, in either instance? Doesn't that make the act of forgiveness an empty, meaningless act as far as the one forgiven is concerned. It seems to me that what you are saying is that forgiveness is a strictly internal act that occurs only within the consciousness of the one forgiving but with no consequences for the one forgiven. Indeed, the one forgiven need not even be aware of the act, if what you say is true. To me, that renders the act moot or meaningless to a very large extent. I feel that if it is to have meaning, the act of forgiveness must mean the release from punishment (even if that punishment is simply my wife's anger at my conduct.).

mark, that's kind of what I was wondering in #18, what is forgiveness? Your comment (#12) seems to suggest its about letting go of something, such as grudges. I accept that as a legitimate and largely internal version of forgiveness. I also recognize an external form of forgiveness which is communicated. Is there an absolute obligation to communicate forgiveness? Or is the obligation to forgive only triggered when asked?

I guess I would disagree with any notion that forgiveness might entail release from the state's punishment. In my view the state has a duty to its citizens to prosecute crimes, regardless of the will of the victim. OTOH, the state may also choose not to prosecute a crime or grant pardon if it determines that leniency is warranted, regardless of the desires of the victims. The state is not the instrument of personal vengeance.

So what are we talking about here? A soldier's duty to G*d to obtain some form of inner peace without continual anger and hate? Or we talking about a soldier's duty to communicate forgiveness to the enemy when asked or given a chance? The second scenario seems to require more (active communication), but might actually be rarer to experience.

mark: That gets right down to the nuts and bolts of the problem of forgiveness. It's what I meant when I said, "Where I think it gets tough is over what behavior we think flows from that forgiveness." and I think its what Brian was getting at in #3 when he said that the English language wasn't specific enough.

Forgiveness can work on several levels.

I can legitimately say I forgive someone if I mean by that that I know longer desire bad things to happen to that person. In other words, I can claim to have forgiven someone if I relinquish my feelings of hatred for them. But, is this the limit of the sort of forgiveness Christians are commanded? It's a good first step, but I think not. As you point out, its too passive, and Christianity does not teach passivity.

I can legitimately say I forgive someone if I forgive thier debts to me. This is I think the sort of forgiveness that Christ is speaking of, since it is the sort of forgiveness that Christ spends the most time talking about in his parables and sermons. In other words, I can drop the demand that the person make restitution to me. I can forgive the debt, as in the words of our Lord's prayer, "forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those that trespass against us" This is a harder sort of forgiveness to grant than the first kind since it requires us giving up something that is of benefit to us. As I said before, I don't think hatred is of any benefit to us. If forgiveness is merely giving up our own hatred, then we would be forgiving others for purely selfish reasons - so that we ourselves would no longer be eaten up with and driven by hatred.

But then there is a further sort of forgiveness which I think it is best to refer to as pardon. Imagine that I have forgiven the debt incurred to me by a mugger. I forgive him of his debt. I won't hold his debt against him. I forgive him of the harm that he has done to me. I will not hold the pain or the injury against him. I do not hope that he is robbed, impoverished, injured, or hurt. In fact, I actively desire that he enjoy a good life. Now, this is all good, but should the judge always care? Perhaps in the case of a mere mugging, the wishes of the injured party not to press charges should garauntee the pardon, but for how long? And for that matter, if I'm the third or fourth or four-hundred and ninetyeth injured party standing in front of the judge asking for mercy, I think I have to ask myself whether freeing this guy from all debts is really the loving thing to do for him since its clearly not helping him (to say nothing of endangering my fellow citizens). So, I think if I were the judge in such an ideal world, I might say to the injured party, "It's all well and good that you forgive this man the debts he's incurred to you, but what I'm really interested in is whether he's going to do it again." A crime not only consists of a crime against an individual, but also has the component of a crime against the larger society. The criminal has broken societies laws and by his continued presence in the society endangers its citizens. Regardless of whether an individual in the society forgives the criminals debts, there are still the debts to society and the magistrate must consider his appointed role (and the Bible says that this is a divinely appointed role) as protector of the society.

I think we all would agree that when Justice becomes the institution of the individual, bad things happen. This is because the primary purpose of Justice is the protection of society as a whole and the punishment of the guilty, and this is too great of a burden for the individual, especially when Justice gets confused by all the emotions that the injured party feels. But I think it is equally bad when Mercy becomes institutionalized by the state and magistrates forgo there role as dispensers of Justice as if they could forgive all the debts made against the individuals or as if it was thier role to do so.

This is why things are so complex for the soldier, who is in some sense a magistrate, and not only a magistrate, but one which is dispensing societies most lethal form of justice (assuming the war is Just to begin with).

I don't know if any of that is clear. This is a hard topic, and I've never settled it completely even for myself. In fact, I don't think Christianity as a whole has ever settled its position completely. Back when the USA was culturally a Christian nation, this tension between the different factions of Christianity was strongly felt, but the respect for the different resolutions to these difficulties tended to be stronger. Now that we are a post-Christian culture, you still see different groups holding slices as it were of Christian philosophical positions (such as pacifism) but IMO without nearly the complexity of understanding or charity I associate with the Christian versions of that thought, nor with the mutual respect you see between Christian pacifists and Christian soldiers. Two of my favorite movies are 'Sgt. York' and 'Friendly Persuasion', and they are the sort of movies that I don't think could be made today, but if you haven't seen these movies I strongly encourage you to do so.

PD,

In #12 I was trying to say that what Matthew wrote in Greek suggests the idea of letting someone off the hook, a dismissal of charges, a not holding to account for a transgression of some sort. Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned grudges. What I was thinking of was the effects of grudges, such as "I won't play with you anymore," being suspended upon forgiveness.

I agree that the state can often have a duty to inflict punishment for the overall good, regardless of the victim's desire. I would say that in those cases the state refuses forgiveness. It may simply be that the individual's desire to forgive is weaker than the state's refusal to forgive and, in such an instance, I wouldn't maintain that the forgiveness on the victim's part is not absolute or genuine...just ineffective.

But most of the time forgiveness is invoked, the transgression is not a crime, and the punishment is not incarcertion. It's a personal matter.

My point about soliders--I think--- was that forgiveness is not a relevant issue because there is no transgression involved. Soldiers on either side are doing their duty as both understand it. When you enlist as a solidier it is understood that you may be sent off to be an enemy and to confront an enemy..this is an expectation and therefore not a transgression.

Now, in a situation like Iraq, I can see where an American solider is viewed by an Iraqi as an enemy as a foriegn invader and therefore in need of and eligible for forgiveness. It would appear to him or her that the solidiers compact does not apply and that there is a transgression. But I would argue that he or she is wrong. The soldier is being sent by others and doing what it is universally accepted that soldiers do: follow orders.

celebrim,

our posts crossed in the mail. I think we are in accord. i think the connection to debts that you point out is crucial to the notion of forgiveness.

I may forgive your debt to me, but you may still have a debt to pay to others...to society, as the saying goes.

Glen,

"In theory, they are prepared to die if faced by an exterminating power, along with their children."

Which is a moral error because it equates value of the lives of innocent children with the kind of person who would be an "exterminating power".

Celebrim: Forgiveness can work on several levels.

Yes, and I suspect that I agree with everyone in this thread depending on what they mean by forgiveness.

Browsing through the Sunflower book, I see that John T. Pawlikowski, a catholic priest, offered this view: "we can begin to get some hold on [the questions raised] if we come to understand the significant difference between forgiveness and reconciliation." "The public form of forgiveness is reconciliation. And this is of necessity a much longer, more complex process . . .. Reconciliation entails several stages: repentance, contrition, acceptance of responsibility, healing, and finally reunion."

I'm not sure I have any opinion on the formulaic description on reconciliation, but the distinction seems apt. I'd rather prefer the terms "private forgiveness" and "public forgiveness." I rather think public forgiveness is a form of peacemaking, not an obligation, but a blessed occurrence.

Donald,

'"the gates of Hell are locked only on the inside." Hell is not a place where God sends sinners (it's not a place at all), but a condition that sinners choose to remain.'</>

I looked up your quote and the author is you and your reinterpretation of God's hell.

Let me quote the same authority.

"I think this solution is severely inadequate. Jesus' ministered to the worst sinners of his day, proving that divine goodness does quite well in their presence, and Jesus teachings reflect that God's justice is not the tit-for-tat human kind, but a supremely forgiving justice in which we actually do not get what we deserve. Furthermore, an eternal sentence of punishment for a mere seventy years or so of sin is not justice. It is mindless torture and in my view would disqualify God as worthy of worship"

So you recognized the problem. As most Christians imagine their hell it is not about forgiveness. Your solution is to blame this on the nonbeliever, the victim of Gods hell. How convenient. Frankly I find it amusing that according to you I am essentially living in your conception of hell. After all I don't believe in your conception of God at this very moment. I am, so to speak, separated from God. Let me assure you that there is no torment involved.

So your reinterpretation of Christian doctrine does indeed absolve God of having an unforgiving nature. Perhaps not for the reason you thought.

No, Brian, the author of the quote is C.S. Lewis. If I was the original author, why would I have put it in quotes?

Have I pissed you off somehow?

It is obvious that you really didn't read my essay on hell very carefully. You also say I have reinterpreted "God's hell" and "Christian doctrine." I have explained one strong thread of historic Christian theology of hell and even quoted the Pope to buttress my case. I guess the Pope was "reinterpreting Christian doctrine," too.

If you are angry at me for being (well, trying to be) a devout Christian, that's your problem. But it's clear that you are angry. Are you generally angry, day to day? If so, then you are indeed living in torment.

But only you can answer that question. And you need not post it here, I'm really not interested in debating you on hell here or anywhere else. Or whether you are in torment or not.

We've each had two comments on this, and I suggest that since it's not relevant to the post, we discontinue. Well, I am, anyway.

Peace to you.

It may have not been within Wiesanthal's capacity to forgive the man, but it was conceivably within his capacity not to hate him. One has to wonder who was hurt the most by Weisanthal leaving the room. I doubt it was the miserable man (man, not creature!) dying on the bed.

What should he have done? Should he have said something like "I, as a Jew, forgive you for the Jews you've murdered?" What would give him or any human being the right to say that? What would it mean if he did say it?

Wiesenthal could forgive all the wrongs done to Wiesenthal, and he could refuse to hate those who wronged him. He could have told the man that. A Christian in his place might be expected to do so. But pretend to intercede between a dying man and a richly deserved bad conscience, to tell him his crimes are forgiven? Never.

I'm sorry - my last comment should have been addressed to celebrim, not PD Shaw. I expect everybody to forgive me, too - if you've read this far into a forgiveness thread, you must have it in you.

Glen, did you mean to address me, or did you mean to address PD Shaw and were just quoting me to give context to your statement?

In any event, when I disagreed with you saying that Weisenthal "did the right thing", this was exactly what I was thinking of:

"Wiesenthal could forgive all the wrongs done to Wiesenthal, and he could refuse to hate those who wronged him. He could have told the man that. A Christian in his place might be expected to do so."

Yes, a Christian would have been expected to do so. He would also have been expected to explain the spiritual position that the dying Nazi faced - the need for reconciliation and restitution - especially because the Nazi, by realizing he required forgiveness, surely in part recognized it. I would have thought a Jew would have been required to do so as well.

Let me again turn to the Torah, since it is a reference that most of us can agree. In the book Jonah, God asks of the phrophet Jonah that he preach God's truth to the Assyrians. Jonah flees from God's command. When he's forced to realize that he cannot flee from God even in death, he confronts God and says that he did not wish to go to Nineveh because he knows that God is a merciful God and will relent and not destroy the city, and this would be in Jonah's eyes a great disaster because the Assyrians are hateful to him. And, probably not without good reason. We know from other books that God was wrathful with the Assyrians and we know from history that the place was eventually made utterly desolate.

Did God send Jonah to Assyria with the charge to preach repentence to only the innocent of Assyria? Did God say, "Don't go to the leaders of Assyria, for they are too wicked and undeserving of my love?"

I do not believe that this may be the correct question. What is the Christian Soldier to forgive? That the enemy is fighting for what they deem correct?

The issue is can the Christian Soldier Love their enemy while trying to kill them? This seems to be a bit of a paradox but if you look at the rules of war what are they about? Treating the enemy (and enemy non-combatants) with respect and limiting the application of force. What is the root of this if it is not the Love in the Christian context. The alternative is the Muslim enemy that kills without remorse and can send childern into battle with suicide vests and call it winning

Donald,

You've made that gates of hell statement before without attribution and without quotes. Apparently it's not an exact quote or not used much by people on the internet because the only person who makes it is you.

Do you always assume people are angry when they disagree with you or is it because I'm an atheist? Are you feeling guilty about something? Perhaps you have some other reason for assuming I'm angry with you personally? I reread my comments to scan for any angry passages but I couldn't find any. In fact I state my emotional condition explicitly as "amused".

I think it's funny that you ignore the explicit claim of how I feel and substitute an assumption about my emotional state (and perhaps psyche)that fits what is apparently your already biased view on nonbelievers. I must be angry because I reject god right?

Don't worry I'm not angry with you. I really don't have the time to be angry with every person that disagrees with me. Otherwise I'd be fuming all the time. You know there's the faith based anti-evolutionists, the faith based socialists and communists, the faith based religionists, the anti-science types, the hyper-ecologists, hyper-feminists, etc.

In fact I'm pretty even tempered in these internet discussions. That's not to say I don't get angry sometimes in my life, but I certainly don't live anger as you seem to think. I'm more like "The Friendly Atheist" than Dean Esmay.

I do take ethics seriously as a topic so don't expect my text to be sprinkled with smiley faces. If I write anything that sounds mocking it's because I find traditional religion intellectually and emotionally absurd.

"It is obvious that you really didn't read my essay on hell very carefully."
You'll have to forgive me I really does get rather boring reading over and over about the unsubstantiated imaginings of certain people about how other people are going to be punished by god.

What I got out of your text was that long ago there were Universalists but that the church rejected them. Also that some recent Pope and Lewis agree with your reinterpretation of the main strain of Christian doctrine. I'll ask some Catholic friends, yet again, if I'm going to burn in hell but last time I checked that was the case. So even if the Pope is the authority on such matters for this one particular sect he hasn't been getting the message out to the masses.

In fact that's a question I often ask. Do you believe that I'm going to burn in hell. I very often get the "Yes" answer, or the "Well according to the doctrine of my Church, yes."

I think it's funny and I laugh at their notions.

"If you are angry at me for being (well, trying to be) a devout Christian, that's your problem. But it's clear that you are angry. Are you generally angry, day to day? If so, then you are indeed living in torment."

What exactly lead you to that conclusion? I said absolutely nothing that was "angry" or could lead you to believe I was angry at you in particular for being a Christian. If I meant that then I would say that.

But only you can answer that question. And you need not post it here, I'm really not interested in debating you on hell here or anywhere else. Or whether you are in torment or not.
Did you read the comment? I specifically said I wasn't in torment. It wasn't a particularly long comment either. I think you are operating off your imaginings instead of the feedback you are getting from the real world here.

BM,
Here's a Google search for you.

It is generally recognised that soldiers of opposing sides are brothers, having in common the fact that they are all following orders; "it's just business" or "they aren't monsters, just the enemy".

This does not apply to the current main enemy. It's not for nothing that Dante placed Mohammed the paedophile, rapist and murderer (hellfire and eternal damnation be upon him) in the Ninth Bolgia of the Eighth Circle.

"Suppose the Nazi were not dying, and had escaped all justice, and Wiesenthal met him face to face. The Nazi is no longer in a position to do any further harm, and is at Wiesenthal's mercy. Should Wiesenthal kill him - keeping in mind that killing him would serve no purpose but vengeance?"

"Killing him" is a non-sequitor. We're talking about whether or not to forgive. One can decide not to forgive and turn away. Or many other responses besides killing. Not sure how you ended up with "killing."

The crux of the matter is that in Judaism it is only required to forgive those who sincerely repent and seek forgiveness and promise not to do it anymore. Even then your forgiveness is optional, but their repentance is the minimal standard. If they sincerely ask 3 times and you don't forgive them you might be considered to be committing a sin yourself, depending on their crime.

I don't think anyone would say you have to forgive a death camp commandant if he sincerely requests forgiveness 3x - that rule is for people in your community yuou have to live with. You can't have a healthy community with people holding grudges forever.

But an enemy which never repents or repairs its ways isn't due anything from its victims, until it does.

I agree with Donald that the actual business of war is impersonal, kind of like, well, business. And sports. You compete and try to win, and sometimes your need to win has a moral or survival component, but you don't take each action personally, because those feelings impede your effectiveness. Also if war is your profession, you have to act professional.

These attitudes are called "cold-blooded," but being cold-blooded might be appropriate for the situation.

Also, I think the Jewish view addresses the distinctions people are making between personal forgiveness and public or societal requirements. It is a precept based on keeping a community or society functioning well. it doesn't try to do anything else. This is in contrast to the requirement for one's own repentance for one's own deeds, on which we place much more emphasis, that being the topic (as Solveitchik pointed out) of the holiest day of the year.

"Christ's idea of forgiveness - "seven times seven", or infinite forgiveness - is personal forgiveness. It is not a blanket amnesty for evil. Neither Christians nor Simon Wiesenthal have the right to absolve the crimes of Nazism, and Christians do not have the right to demand that society abrogate its laws in the name of forgiveness."

God is all-compassionate, and we are supposed to iimitate God. OTOH there are things that are God's perogative that we should not try to do. I don't know where "infinite" forgiveness falls here.

There is the phrase "let go and let God." This usually means "let go of needing to focus on the wrong longer than x amount of time, God will make sure justice is done." But it could also mean "let go of feeling obligated to forgive, because that's God's job, not yours."

I like citing the Solveitchik article because it throws the issue into sharp relief, but it has been controversial because others have said as you do, that his characterization of Christian forgiveness is not accurate. Also Jews have criticized it as presenting Judaism as more harsh than it is, although I think that comes from liberal Jews uncomfortable with some of the less "nice" aspects of our religion.

Was Old Testament God a Neocon?

celebrim, you make a very good point that the Jonah story does contradict Solveitchik to some extent. Jonah is about accepting forgiveness, which is why it is read on Yom Kippur. Very relevant to the Weisenthal story.

Jonah likes feeling superior to the Ninevites. If they repent, then his attitude toward them has to change. Jonah succeeds in changing the Ninevites, but he avoids a new relationship by refusing to accept that they have changed. He would rather hold a grudge, even if it means that innocent people (and animals) die. God upbraids him for this, and the story ends with Jonah sitting there under his wilted gourd tree.

The Jonah story critiques the idea of holding onto your hate to the extent that repentance is unappreciated and relationships can't change. Very apropos for a time of examining one's sins and turning away from them.

Jonah suggests a stronger insistance on accepting your enemy's forgiveness than I described in a previous post. I think Solveitchik is at one end of the scale and does relish the option of hate a bit too much, although that is certainly in our texts. And Jonah is at the other end.

However, the Ninevites not only repented but changed their ways. A parallel here would be Germany after WWII. Germans sincerely and thoroughly took responsibility and changed their ways, and Jews should not hold grudges against Germans anymore. Many still do, 2 generations later, but they're wrong. And now our enemy is someone different and many of us can't see that, because we don't want to let go of the hate that we are comfortable with.

But I think the point of the article is that there is appropriate hate, and there is inappropriate forgiveness, and he saw Christianity as doing not enough of one and too much of the other. As some have pointed out that may be a very select group of Christians, but it is the stereotype of what Christianity believes.

You could say Christianity is too yin and Judaism is too yang (to appropriate concepts form yet another religion!), but both also have the dot in the middle of the other side. Solveitchik was presenting both side by side without the dots.

Lurker,

Thanks, I did a search on his quote with a spelling correction, and found only his own post which has no quotes. So technically for that exact quote he was quoting himself. That's why I thought it was his quote. Your's is worded a little different and apparently correctly. My bad.

I do not contest that Donald has a conception of God that does not fail a test of forgiveness. I do however object to the idea that his conception is somehow main stream. Even though he quotes the Pope it's not the full doctrine of the Catholic Church.

The Vatican Catechism states:

1035 The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, "eternal fire." The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.

So it is clear that the official position is that hell is about eternal torture of the worst kind. I find it kind of funny that they think the chief punishment is separation from God. Frankly if I had a choice I'd always choose the former. I've been burnt and I also suffer from "separation from god". Believe me the former is much worse and in fact the latter is quite liberating.

That section of the catechism has a link on the left to this clarification:

393 It is the irrevocable character of their choice, and not a defect in the infinite divine mercy, that makes the angels' sin unforgivable. "There is no repentance for the angels after their fall, just as there is no repentance for men after death."

This indicates that once you get into hell there is no way out. If hell is locked from the inside well then the devil has swallowed the key.

As you can see the church dogma is not in line with Lewis, nor Sensing.

Let me expand on why this official version of hell shows a lack of forgiveness.

Under my own personal understanding of ethics punishment can serve several many purposes.

Offender Deterrence: It can serve the purpose of deterring future acts by the punished. Memory of the experience would serve to cause reflection in a way that mere knowledge of a penalty cannot. Realizing this one wouldn't punish the insane because it wouldn't serve this purpose. Likewise I see no purpose in punishing the dead since they are no longer actors in any sense of the word. Thus hell can't serve this purpose.

General Deterrence: Punishment can also serve the purpose of deterring acts by other than the punished. The punished acts as an example. Problem is deterrence only works if it advertized and it's clear that the person commiting the act will get caught. In this case neither is clear. We cannot see hell and its not even clear that it even exists. If and who is going there is also unclear. So even if eternal damnation exists it cannot serve this purpose.

Rehabilitation - The punishment can make the offender a better person afterwards. In the case of eternal damnation there is no afterwards. Thus hell can't serve this purpose.

Incapacitation - Placing someone in prison or executing them prevents further crimes. In the case of damnation the offender is already incapacitated. Thus hell can't serve this purpose.

Restitution - Forced repayment to the victim can be seen as a kind of punishment. Torture is not a form of repayment so hell can't serve this purpose.

Retribution - A possible fourth purpose is to retaliate in the sense of returning evil for evil. To be just this must be balanced. However it is hard to see how eternal damnation could be a balance for any finite offense. Thus it cannot justly serve this purpose.

Face Saving - Affirmation of the standing of the victim, his family, his group, in the community. Many crimes are intended to lower the standing of the victim or associates of the victim. Hell cannot serve this purpose.

Psychological Relief - The victim and his sympathizers will feel psychological relief at seeing the offender punished. Again since punishment is hell is not well advertised it cannot serve this purpose.

All other purposes for punishment are invalid and unjust. So, all in all hell serves no valid purpose regardless of the offense. It's possible it serves an invalid purpose such as vicarious pleasure for the torturer.

So given an eternal fire and brimstone conception of hell, God is putting people in there without the intention of forgiveness. Anyone who believes in this kind of hell and finds relief or meaning from it is not the kind of person who forgives either. That is someone who believes precisely what the Catholic dogma states is not working from a good set of moral principles.

I know this contradicts other Catholic teachings, but I never thought religion was rational. I also know that not all Catholics think alike, and that different factions in the church come to power and change these dogmas. So I'm not making any blanket statements about what I think any particular individual Catholic believes.

Now I'm done talking on this subject.

This was the proper 1035 link.

In case you didn't figure it out BM and me are one in the same.

I don't think someone can forgive a person for something they did to somebody else. You cannot forgive on behalf of someone else. I guess the principle applies to soldiers. I don't know how you gain the forgiveness of someone you have killed.

BM: You are mostly demonstrating your own ignorance of theology.

The passages you quoted are perfectly in line with Lewis and Sensing, but you just didn't understand them.

You belittle the conception that separation from God is the worst torment of hell, yet fail to notice the irony in doing so. Nothing in the passage quoted contridicts either Lewis or Sensing.

The second passage you quote is even more to the point and more greatly undermines your argument.

"It is the irrevocable character of their choice, and not a defect in the infinite divine mercy, that makes the angels' sin unforgivable. There is no repentance for the angels after their fall, just as there is no repentance for men after death."

You totally misunderstand this passage. First, the entry into hell is a choice. The choice is irrevocable because a fallen spirit is according to orthodox doctrine, unteachable, having recieved all the insight it is possible for it to percieve. Whether God is willing to pardon those in hell is not considered in the passage - although it is stated in second Peter chapter 3 that God desires that no one should be lost to hell. What is pointed out in that passage is that there is no repentence in hell. There is no forgiveness not because God is unmerciful, but because his mercy is not asked for and presumably would be refused.

Now, I'm not entirely sure of whether I agree with that, but it is certainly orthodox.

Addendum: As someone who professes libertarian beliefs, your claim that you do not understand God's position with regards to hell nor the purpose it serves in the universe is somewhat baffling.

The crux of the matter is that in Judaism it is only required to forgive those who sincerely repent and seek forgiveness and promise not to do it anymore.

Obviously Christ required more of his disciples; when he was asked if someone should be forgiven seven times ("seven" being an expression of exaggeration, i.e., "millions of times" - it was a sarcastic question, really) he replied "seven times seven".

I disagree that someone attempting to follow this advice is assuming God's authority. However, forgiving sins done to other people is assuming God's authority - the "absolvo te" of the Catholic priest has meaning only insofar as the forgiveness is properly understood as coming from God, not from the priest. This is where I differ with celebrim, I think.

Which is why it would have been wrong for Wiesenthal to reassure the dying Nazi, in any way, that by asking for "forgiveness" of some sort from a Jew he could lessen his guilt. I think that is exactly what the dying Nazi was asking for. He could have apologized to Wiesenthal, as a symbolic gesture, but it was wrong for him to ask for forgiveness and it would have been wrong to give it to him. It would certainly be wrong for a Christian to do so - a Christian should have advised him to implore God for forgiveness.

To give the dying Nazi any reassurance that his earthly crimes could be settled on earth would be to contribute to his damnation - and without getting into the whole Hell debate, I believe in damnation as surely as I believe in evil. In fact, I suspect most people believe in damnation. They just can't stomach the whole apparatus of damnation.

Finally, my example about Wiesenthal killing the Nazi was only intended to make a point about what it means to forgive or not forgive. Forgiveness conveys nothing to the forgiven - it only shows the forgiver's reverence to a merciful God.

It is amazing how you Americans dance all over the place looking for a ground that is not here-and-now for consideration of some moral point, after, of course, setting it up in a sufficiently abstract way. All this forgiveness stuff can more readily be examined just a little closer to real life. Take the mother sitting in the court room watching the trial of someone accused of killing her child. Whose forgiveness of whom is allowed and whose is not? Who asked? Is anyone going to say no to the woman whatever she decides? What if she is a Moslem in Iraq and there is an American soldier "on trial". What if the "trial" is a mere show by the miitary occupation army.

Or take a look at a case that is very close to what you lot have been up to in recent years: torture. Lets say we have Dershowitz protesting that he should be forgiven from facilitating torture because he proposed to use sanitized needles to shove under the fingernails, or because he doesn't really approve of torture but thought it should be "thoroughly debated", or because it could be that a prisoner had , or was believed to have, of possibly could have had some vital information that could (maybe,possibly, etc.) save lives. So, again, who gets to forgive who for what and when?

Of course it is unlikely that Dershowitz would ask since Israeli supporters, as said by Dov Lior, the prominent Rabbi, hold to the Jewish Fingernail philosophy whereby 10,000 Mosem lives (or any number at all) are not worth one Jewish Fingernail). And there is this guy Sensing who states he is a Christian! Has he looked closely at his ally?

All of these variations do not matter a bit if no one can answer the question: who decides.

And how come this guy Sensing gets to ask questions and parry comments like a psychologist on the getting-paid side of the desk, when he never states a position of his own? You know, when they say "I am sensing some hostility here..."

Donald Sensing, come on down! Will you torture with the rest of us red blooded American hero soldiers, or will you wimp out? Are you man enough!

In Ireland we just say, Justice now, forgiveness later. That is OK but even by that open measure I do not know if a hidey guy like this Sensing could make it. Not with sanitized needles, for sure.

garhane writes: "Of course it is unlikely that Dershowitz would ask since Israeli supporters, as said by Dov Lior, the prominent Rabbi, hold to the Jewish Fingernail philosophy whereby 10,000 Mosem lives (or any number at all) are not worth one Jewish Fingernail)."

Which is a clumsy way to try to attack through Dershowitz on the basis of something that Dershowitz never said ... who exactly? I confess I got lost trying to figure out who exactly was being attacked through two levels of unrelated quotation.

Given that garhane seems to imply that he/she is Irish, how many third hand quotes do you think I could find from Irish to try to glue onto garhane?

Once again, it all come back to the Jeeeeeeews. I suppose garhane is operating on the widely held principal that howsoever many Arabs are murdered by their own governments, it must pale in comparison to a single Palestinian having to pass through a checkpoint on the way to their Israeli job in an Israeli factory to prevent some lunatic from bombing a bunch of civilians in a cafe for no discernable achievement.

The interesting thing about being an American is that you must seek the worlds forgiveness if your try to help (Iraq) or if you refuse to get involved (Rwanda). And sometimes when you keep the local thugs from wiping out the local muslims (Kosovo) the muslims follow you back to America and plot (badly) to shoot up a military base.

I think you badly underestimate how close many Americans are to telling the world to go stuff it, pulling up the drawbridge, and letting you holythanthou knowitalls deal with it. After posts like that i feel it pretty strongly myself- and im an unapologetic interventionist. Maybe from now on we just let our smart bombs do the talking.

garhane: Was there a question in there somewhere? Was there a point in there somewhere? I don't know what they teach in Ireland, but in America we are expected to write clearly and coherently, and if we can't we then it is assumed that we are either uneducated, stupid, or in need of medication. I could Fisk that blundering rant, starting with the fact that Sensing was a serving soldier with a son who is a serving soldier, and it doesn't hardly get less abstract than that; however, in its current state its just not worth my time.

Mark:

I think you underestimate how close the rest of the world is to telling you to take your junk food, junk entertainment, junk politics, junk diplomacy and half-trained, gung-ho military and shove them - and to calling in America's trillion-dollar-per-year debts, caused entirely by America's culture of conspicuous waste.

To take just one example, if it wasn't for America's ridiculous gluttony for oil the entire Middle East/Islamic terrorism situation would never have happened.

As for smart bombs - well, most other militaries use smart pilots instead.

Wow! Could this actually be a European blaming America for the mess in the Middle East? Irony abounds!

"I think you underestimate how close the rest of the world is to telling you to take your junk food, junk entertainment,"

Yes, so sad you pathetic little people cant prevent yourselves from partaking in it. Its certainly America's fault French and Germans are falling over themselves to scarf down McDonalds and Brittney. I forgot- its America's job to save Europe from itself. Or at least has been for the last hundred years. Pathetic.

"junk politics, junk diplomacy and half-trained, gung-ho military and shove them - and to calling in America's trillion-dollar-per-year debts, caused entirely by America's culture of conspicuous waste."

Like I said fine. Just the next time Europe cant raise the resources to project force 500 miles into the Balkans, dont come whining to us. Just send the Belgians to help the Serbs finish the job as they seem happy to do without us looking over their shoulders.

"To take just one example, if it wasn't for America's ridiculous gluttony for oil the entire Middle East/Islamic terrorism situation would never have happened."

Well thats just rich. So happens the majority of Middle Eastern oil goes to Europe. But never let the facts get in the way of a good rant. And i rather think the British and French at the very least might have a little something to do with the current political climate, considering they drew the damn maps in the first place.

"As for smart bombs - well, most other militaries use smart pilots instead."

But sadly the Germans had to rent transports to get their 250 troop token force to Afghanistan and the French just recently managed to tow their only carrier out of port. Aside from Britain, all the European military might combined would be hard pressed to staunch a hard thrust from Estonia. So smart pilots or not, its a moot point.

As far as we go, why risk our pilots much less our troops for the ungratitude of the world? Deal with it yourselves. Who patrols the worlds sea lanes btw? The next time a German oil tanker gets shot up by pirates dont come crying to us. Otoh if it happens to an American ship we'll just drop a dozen thousand pounders on their village and call it a day. You Euros should understand that game- you perfected it.

Mark B.,

That was all very well put and entertaining and I agree 100 per cent. However, I would like to make one observation concerning where to apportion blame for the world-wide consumption of American culture. We humans have an irritating tendency to jump back and forth between two sides of the blame fence depending on the subject at hand.

As I have said many times here in the past, I beleive that a large part of what drives Islamic Jihad in its current form is resentment and fear of the spread of US/Western culture. You and I would argue that this spread is nothing more than the result of people around the world chosing on their own to wear miniskirts, eat Macdonalds, listen to rap, be entreprenurial, be tolerent of other beliefs, whatever--or however you wish to define western culture as opposed to traditional, tribal or Islamic belief systems. Those who oppose it see it as a temptation and evil, something Satanic, and hold the provider responsible. This seems an obviously backward way of approaching the subject.

AND YET, isn't that exactly how we approach the issue of, say, the scourge of drugs in this country? We emphasize the evil providers, sellers, dealers, growers, etc. and not the consumers. We blame THEM not US.

Here I am making the minor point that it is sometimes helpful to look at how the other side sees things (often quite similarly to us in other instances) in order to make judgements about the most effective way of combating what clearly needs to be combated.

Mark I agree with everything in your post. The drug war is an illogical scourge on our nation, good example.

I think the reason the West has been generally successful in minimizing these types of mthings (or at least countering them) is exactly because almost every contentious issue has two sides in some sort of equilibrium. Pro Life v Pro Choice, Left vs Right, Puritans vs cosmopolitans, etc.

If you look, its only the areas where its really been made politically impossible to have an honorable opposition that we see trouble. The drug war is a prime example.

The Muslim world is, I think, in serious trouble because there really isnt a lot of vocal opposition to some incredibly outrageous ideas. The oppression of women, using terrorism to achieve political goals, the forced spread of Islam in general. I believe that since these ideas were allowed by moderates to flourish, they have become so powerful that opposition in those communities is becoming as unacceptable as something like advocating polygomy would be here. Debate has shut down completely in many places, and that attitude is spreading farther and farther, even into the West.

We forget this all the time, but ideas are what runs humanity, war and peace especially. Perhaps my biggest problem with the Left in the West is that they have decided to use this dangerous weapon almost exclusively. Political correctness may start out as a trivial annoyance on campus, but if allowed to it can grow into all the horrors we can think of. Its goal is to end debate and sideline the opposition, not address their points. The Right does this too, of course, but i think not as successfully nor certainly as often.

Thats why Europe has become a very scary place. There simply isnt a debate anymore on a lot of these things, and that warped sense of multiculturalism has brewed a perfect storm with Islamofascism. In many places there is no politically palatable option to address it. I think Europeans are lashing out at America in frustration over this fact (their own doing) and perhaps fear because deep down they know their course is untenable, and that is a scary thing. Something HAS to give.

Mark B.,

Since differences are more interesting that agreement, let me chat about the one area of your comment where I disagree. I don't think political correctness (hereinafter PC) is at all meant to end debate. I think it is meant to begin debate. I think almost every PC idea is meant as a challenge to the status quo, orthodoxy or conventional thinking. I believe it is meant to get people to start thinking in new ways and to question received norms.

I think that the reason if FEELs as if PC is debate-stiffling is that it uses moral censure as a weapon. It does not treat all points of view as morally equivalent. It condemns some points of view, usually traditional, well-established points of view. But lacking the effective enforcement tools of the establishment, it can only use moral suasion. PC generally champions those segments of society that have traditionally and historically been left out of the decision making process. It challenges the linguistic reinforcements that for so long have been both a byproduct of a closed system and a means by which the underlying assumptions of that system gets perpetuated.

I think that is a highly idealized view of PC that is rarely if ever realized. Campuses being the battleground and bellweather- lets consider those. Conservative ideas are often considered de facto offensive and are shunted off or stopped via the coersive power of the university. Afirmative Action bake sales are a prime example. 'Free Speech Zones' are another. The number of conservative speakers who are shouted down with no discipline to the perpetrators. Now if, say Kathy Ireland or Gore Vidal was shouted down, I think an end would be put to it quite severely. Look at the way the Duke (non)Rape case was handled on campus, the idea clearing being to force the presumption of guilt so quickly that defending those guys would be seen as tantamount to endorsing rape. ROTC ejection from campus? There are reems of cases where conservative ideas and their purveyors on campuses are treated as by their nature offensive and even threatening.

I think there is simply a flaw in the entire idea. Trying to enhance the voice of one side that has historically not been heard is grand in theory but difficult in practice- without muffling the other side anyway. It must and does involve coersion via authority, which is akin to indoctrination.

What about the market place of ideas? We dont need speech codes or free speech zones to see that Nazi sympathizers or anti-intergrationists are shunned by society. Society takes care of that on its own.

Mark B., I agree that we don't need speech codes but, as you say, this is all a two-way street. If someone wants to make a speech or a statement denying the holocaust I would say that is their right. I'd also say it is the right of someone who wants to protest or shoutdown that speech or statement. I don't support either action. But you can't allow one without the other. Both are forms of free speech.

People have a right to protest. People also have a right to be wrong. People have a right to protest against the wrong things.

I think you need to make a distinction between the ideas of people with whom you disagree and your disapproval of some of the methods people use to advance their ideas. To me there's nothing particularly PC about shouting down a speaker that you disagree with; there's nothtng particularly conservative or liberal about it. It's just juvenile. It is PC to avoid telling jokes based on race, or call a woman a woman and not a girl. PC as I understand it is recognizing the importance of not offending other people who have a different sensibility than you do, generally speaking, based upon race, religion, sex & sexual orientation.

That is absolutely true- but as with much in politics it comes back to the levers of power. Ideally- you are absolutely right. But realistically thats just not how things are. I think it is important for all sides to resist the temptation to use force (via the government, university, whathaveyou) to silence or subdue the opposition.

One of the problems with extremism of any ilk is that when you start claiming that the opposition is evil and out to get you, basically anything you do to get them first can be justified as self defense. If conservatives have a secret agenda to put women back in the kitchen and minorities back in the slave house, it is admirable to use the powers that be to shut them out of the discussion.

Mark B.,

To get back to Islamic jihadism. I see it as fundamentally--so to speak--an IDEA or a movement, like anarchism, or Christianity and that it needs to be fought as such. The methods that some jihadists use, because they are so deadly, also need to be fought against. But we in the West need to be more careful and make sure that our fight against methods does not help to spread the idea.

The idea of Islamic Jihad is much more terrifying to me than actual terrorism. Terrorism has long been used in the cause of the idea of nationalism...the IRA, eg., the Basques, Palestinians, etc. Because I can grasp the cause of nationalism, I can bracket off the method of some nationalists as terrorism and condemn the act. With Jihadism, it is somewhat different, because I cannot grasp the idea of religious fundamentalism. But we still need to keep separate the two distinct battles we are fighting.

mark #63

Shouting down a speaker is no more an exercise of free speech than hiding the fact I'm spying on someone is an exercise of my right to privacy. A person who shouts down a speaker is not exercising his or her rights but violating the speaker's rights.

Certainly free speech means the right to protest outside a speaker's venue or, if there is a question and answer period, to ask tough questions. Certainly it would include the right to set up events in which you or your speaker(s) try to refute the points of another speaker. But shouting down the speaker is more than just juvenile; it is an illegitimate use of force to silence an opposing viewpoint. No one has the right to do that.

Fred,

It isn't clear to me what you mean by "no one has the right to [shout down a speaker]. The right to free speech means that the gov't cannot jail (or otherwise punish) you for the content of your speech. It doesn't mean you have the right to be heard. I, e.g., don't have the right to have my views published in the NY Times, aired on Fox News, or to speak on box on the street corner without someone countering my views in a louder voice than mine. If Peter has the right to stand up and stage and say "We should revive the American Nazi Party," Paul certainly has the right to stand up in the audience and shout "Go back to Germany" over and over and over again in a loud voice.

The person or entity who "owns" the venue controls who can speak and how much. If the owner of the hall where Peter is speaking allows Paul to shout, then Paul may shout. If A.L. wants to delete this post from WofC, he has the ability and right to do so.

mark,

The government is not the only entity that can violate rights. Individuals can violate each other's right as well, for example, a housing lender cannot violate a person's right to housing s/he can pay for by discriminating against, say, a particular race. A bus driver cannot violate a person's right to sit in any open seat by forcing particular people to sit in the back of the bus. Shouting down a speaker is a similar violation of one individual's rights by another. Paul's shouting "Go back to Germany" is a case in point. Paul's behavior is a violation of the speaker's right to speak. That's quite different than not being published in a newspaper. The newspaper isn't stopping anyone from expressing his or her view, only from expressing it in their newspaper. A better analogy would be if an article were published in a newspaper and some "activist" took it upon him or herself to gather all the copies of the newspaper containing the article and burning them (this actually happened on several college campuses in the late 90s). That "activist" is violating the author's right to free expression and the readers' right receive that expression and make his or her own decision regarding it.

Celebrim,

"BM: You are mostly demonstrating your own ignorance of theology."

Like that matters. I don't pretend to be a Catholic theologian anymore than I pretend to be an expert on Astrology, Phrenology, UFO-ology, Communism, or any of a number of other ideologies. That doesn't mean they cannot be criticized both for their internal inconsistencies and their departure from reality. Would you accept your kind of response from any of the above ideologies.

The fact that you seem to think it matters demonstrates your own ignorance of reason. Now of course, ultimately Catholicism isn't about reason but it pretends to be sometimes.

The passages you quoted are perfectly in line with Lewis and Sensing, but you just didn't understand them.

"So while the Bible does describe hell as a place of fire and burning, we need not take it literally to take it seriously. " "I‚ have come to understand hell not as a place, but as a state of ongoing rejection of God. "

The Vatican states: "Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, "eternal fire." The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs."

Here's a mental exercise so you can get the point. Suppose church doctrine was, "God is a gay male. Those who reject his "male love" are committing a mortal sin and go to hell. Immediately after death the souls of those men who die in a state of mortal sin (rejection of male love) descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, "eternal fire." The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God [and sexual congress with him], in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs."

Now given that as a hypothetical isn't it clear that "eternal fire" is not a metaphor for "male love"? Sure you burn in the eternal fire of gay hell but that's not the chief punishment. The chief punishment is missing the opportunity of getting sodomized for eternity by that man hunk, god.

My response to the threat of such a gay hell is, well I'm not being buggered by God now and frankly I’m good with it. As to the "fire" stuff well I don't want that but frankly I don't believe you for many reasons. One of them being that you claimed your God was forgiving yet he has this Gay Hell where he burns people.

Now certainly you can take the Sensing approach but that is not what the text above states. If it means something else then it is poorly written. However it does mean that "eternal fire" is one of the punishments but not the only one and that it is not identical to the separation from God.

Even when you do take the Sensing approach it really isn't that compelling. Drop the fire or reword the sentences to state, "Immediately after death the souls of those men who die in a state of mortal sin (rejection of male love) descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, "eternal fire." The chief punishment of hell, eternal fire, is a metaphor for eternal separation from God [and sexual congress with him], in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs."

Once you do that however the deception is clear. One then responds, "Well I don't like anal sex so why should I fear hell? In fact, it's preferable."

Another problem is that I'm already a first hand "sufferer" of this condition of separation from God and it doesn't consist of the things he claims it does. He claims that, "This kind of hell is a photographic negative of heaven - isolation rather than fellowship, apathy rather than love, loneliness rather than caring, desolation rather than richness." By this kind of hell he is talking about separation from God. Problem is that I have emprical evidence this statement is false. I don't suffer from isolation, apathy, loneliness, or desolation. My life consists of fellowship, love, caring, and richness. I am certainly "separated from God" since I don't even believe he exists. So empirically (tested against reality) his statement is false.

There are other problems with Sensing's article but I will not address them.

My position still stands. If hell is about eternal torment by fire then your imagined God has no business lecturing others on forgiveness. Anyone who can rationalize this away also has no business talking about forgiveness.

I certainly am not an authority on Sensing’s internal thinking on such matters so I don't know whether he falls into this trap. To do so requires that he not only believe that hell fire is only a metaphor for rejecting gods love. It also requires that he do so consistently and not have things both ways, scaring others including young children with hell fire, when all he means is ignorance or disbelief in the very stuff he's trying to scare people into.

Lest you forget, lying is immoral, and not every kind of lie is a direct one. In this case the lie does not serve a moral purpose. One can avoid this ethical dilemma by initially pointing out to every neophite "Please realize that the guys writing these texts were lying about hell. There is no hell fire. They were doing so because they believed it was for your benefit. We know better now." It would be even better and more honest to rewrite the religious texts (and catechisms) to remove such language.

Also, I retract my belief that Sensing is being reasonable. I noticed this statement in his text which leads me to believe he is trying to have it both ways. "The torment of hell is not chiefly that these things are unbearable (even though they are);" This leads me to believe that Sensing believes both that hell is unbearable via true hell fire, and separately it is unbearable because of separation from God, which he believes to be worse. This is contradictory to the idea that "hell fire" is a metaphor for "separated from God". Either they are the same thing or they are not and it can't be both. So Sensing’s solution is unworkable as he presents it. He feints towards a workable solution but then abandons it to head in a different direction.

I think the reason is clear. Under the, "hell fire is a metaphor for absence of God theory", why would anyone who either doesn't believe there is a god, or who believes there is a god but doesn't believe Catholic doctrine, or someone who believes in God but hates him, or someone who believes in God but prefers to disobey him, why should any of them fear hell if it's merely rejection of God. It's ironic but that would also give us a reason why people would stay in hell, because they'd like it. Not the solution Sensing was aiming at, so he tries to have it both ways.

Have I got things right? Kind of hard to say when the original texts, and rationalizations are so contradictory with each other, with themselves, and with common human experience.

I would also like to point out that this entire line of hell rationalization is literally psychopathic. I don't see how the reasoning in this case is anything other that crazy.

Suppose there was a pedophile that has never interacted with a child, ever. This pedophile has become obsessed with obtaining the adoration of the child. So he sends arcane threatening notes that are self contradictory asking for love. He never addresses them to her personally and instead prints them in the newspaper. They are creepy notes filled with bragging stories about how powerful he is and how many children he's slaughtered and how he will torture any child who doesn’t love him. Then the day comes that the pedophile has decided that the child's love for him must be weighed. So he captures the child and puts her through various tortures in his secret dungeon (not to mention the various "earthly tests" he put the child through prior to this like killing her cat). In the dungeon the child is blindfolded and powerless to escape. She still has no idea who is doing this.

The torture is unimaginably cruel and consists of burning her flesh off. Normally a person would die from this within a day but the pedophile is a genius physician and has learned how to extend life in well beyond normal. He keeps bringing her back from the edge to continue the torture.

Now the pedophile thinks to himself, "Why doesn't she just profess her love for me? I know it must be because she is "unteachable". He thinks to himself, "Am I a monster for torturing her with fire?" but decides that this is obviously the best course because the very worst torture she is experiencing is the absolute torture of never having known the true state of absolute love that her torturer could bring. He thinks to himself, “Surely she must be suffering much more from never having know this love than from the pain of my branding iron.”

This is the kind of reasoning we are supposed to find appealing? At what point was any nonbeliever ever given clear evidence of God's existence. Why would not believing something that is not clear ever merit hell fire? Even if God did revel himself in hell why would he expect love from someone he has already begun torturing. Note that the power difference between man and god is much more unequal than between child and adult. How can one have the "keys" to such a place? If this is merely about lack of affection then why is there the need for additional torture. In fact the torture itself once started would tend to squelch any such love even if God were to eventually reveal himself.

Now of course any person when presented with additional evidence is going to reconsider. God could present himself after death. Apparently he isn't going to do this since the belief is that if you haven't accepted this blindly before your death there will be no possibility afterwards. That's what "irrevocable character of their choice" means. It means that a choice was made and can't be changed. Certainly were God to appear to me after death I would reconsider his existence but he would still have a lot of explaining to do.

This hypothetical and imaginary God has never revealed himself to me in any credible fashion. Instead he plays hide and seek by running outside the playground to areas outside my ability to look. I have done nothing that deserves eternal torture. Yet the Catholic doctrine is that I will eventually receive it and deserve it because I don't love their imaginary friend. This kind of thinking is offensive to me. It brands me evil for something I have no control over. I can't be gullible at will. It's not in my nature.

Oh, and by the way, the bible contradicts both Sensing and the Catholic church. God doesn't forgive at least one thing, questioning the word. We wouldn't want anyone thinking for themselves now would we?

Luke 12:10 And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven.

Mark 3:29, "Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin."

Alternate milder version:

Mark 3:29 But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation.