Trying to Fly with One Wing, Part 15: The Forgiveness Principle

God forgets, they say. I hope so. It was about 30 years ago, so I guess I can be excused for forgetting. But the temporal effects stick around. I do remember the physical consequences of my behavior — a broken kitchen window. Pam and I were arguing. Or, should I say, I was arguing and Pam was cooking — in two ways, on the stove and in her mind. Back then I was intense, passionate, and I knew everything — about all places — about all people — about all time. I was omniscient. Today I'm less intense, less passionate, and omniscient only occasionally.

There we stood in the small kitchen of our house, me by the window and Pam by the stove (she was cooking, remember?) The argument ensued, and I remember picking up something — maybe it was a frying pan that Pam was threatening to bong me with — and I flung whatever it was through one of the small double hung windows over the kitchen sink. Did I mention this was an old house? I'm looking for excuses here.

What a mess! Oh, sure, there were glass and wood splinters everywhere, and a bent up pan on the driveway. Luckily it missed the car's windshield. I'm not sure if my car was covered for collisions with UFOs (Used Frying Objects).

The real mess, however, was not of a physical nature, but of a psychological one. I might as well have flung that frying pan through the fragile glass of our marriage.

The Fallibility Principle Antidote

This series of articles is about the role of reason in the discovery of truth. We arrive at truth through the application of faith and reason, which are like "two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth" (John Paul II, Fides Et Ratio). Truth does not come to us by faith alone, nor does it come by reason alone. To rely on one, to the exclusion of the other, is to fly with one wing, mostly in circles, as we misapply the ordered principles of good argumentation, or we introduce fallacies into our thinking, and throw things through windows.

The last article introduced us to T. Edward Damer's 1st Principle of the "Code of Conduct for Effective Rational Discussion" — The Fallibility Principle. That principle encourages us to begin all arguments (assuming we're entering such arguments calmly enough to think of the principles) with the awareness that we could be wrong. (It's amazing to think that we could be wrong, isn't it?) Nonetheless, The Fallibility Principle means our position could be wrong. Even if the conclusion of our argument is correct, the evidence we present to support our position may be invalid or fallacious in some way.

The second half of The Fallibility Principle (not mentioned by Damer) is what I call The Forgiveness Principle, a process that involves three elements: (1) Willingness to Forgive, (2) Remorse and Restitution, and (3) Restoration.

Willingness to Forgive is something the victim offers up to the aggressor, whether or not it is asked for by the aggressor. Remorse and Restitution are something the aggressor offers up to repair the psychological and physical damage. Restoration is what happens in the process, when both parties recognize in the other a sorrow and meekness that reflects the dignity of God's image.

Although restoration of the relationship (and I suppose the discussion) is the goal, it may not be easily achieved because either the victim refuses to reject bitterness and to forgive, or the aggressor fails to show remorse and to make restitution. What is encouraging about this natural process is that either party can take his respective step toward restoration without the other party's participation. That is, the bitterness that the victim experiences because of the aggressors' actions can be rejected and replaced with a spirit of mercy without the aggressor asking for forgiveness or even being sorry. And the aggressor can make right the sin by seeking forgiveness, doing penance, and repairing any damage that was inflicted without the victim asking for it.

Yes, a demonstration of remorse by the aggressor does help the victim to forgive, but it's not necessary. Christ exemplified this spirit of forgiveness (not actual sacramental forgiveness) on the Cross when he said, "Forgive them Father, for they do not know what they do."

Notice that the soldiers and the Pharisee priests did not ask for forgiveness. In fact, they were in the midst of murdering Jesus and gambling for His cloak. Nowhere in the Bible are we commanded to show mercy toward someone only when he shows remorse for his aggression toward us. In fact, the prayer Jesus taught His disciples commands us to "forgive others as we want God to forgive us." There is no qualification on our merciful attitude that requires someone to first say "I'm sorry."

Nails Leave Holes

The Forgiveness Principle however does not necessarily remove the temporal effects of the initial transgression. Forgiveness, Restitution and Restoration, even when done with great sincerity of heart, do not easily remove all the effects of what happened.

The son of a farmer had developed the habit of lying to his father. The lying became so bad that the father drove a large nail part way into the barn door each time he caught his son in a lie. Soon the barn door was covered with nails protruding. When visitors to the farm would ask the farmer about the now very obvious collection of nails, the father explained that every time his son lied, another nail was added to the door. After a while the son became so embarrassed that he changed his ways, and having proved himself over time asked his father to remove the nails from the door. His father gladly removed the nails and gave them to his son. But the boy, looking up at the door, was disheartened. The door was covered with nail holes, never to be erased. Such is the character of our temporal life on earth. Heaven offers a solution, but here on Earth there are consequences to all our actions.

The nail story should remind us that even after The Forgiveness Principle is followed, we should not expect the restoration to make us perfectly whole. Many people, after living with bitterness for years toward an aggressor, expecting restoration to leave them whole, without stain or scar, discover that their bitterness has become a ball, chain, and padlock to which only they possess the key.

Catholic lay evangelist Bill Wegner tells the story of a close Christian friend who made a pass at his wife, and how Bill carried with him for a long time a deep bitterness and hatred toward the man, which destroyed Bill's work habits and was significantly eroding other relationships. Finally, Bill (the original victim) confronted the man (the original aggressor) and asked the man to forgive him for the hatred, bitterness, and slander that Bill had committed against the man out of a feeling of revenge. The man's response at that confrontation is not important for the moment. What is important, and what Bill learned, was the immediate and immense peace that flooded his own body, mind, and soul. Bill gave the man "forgiveness" without the man ever showing an ounce of remorse, resulting in Bill's work and personal life being restored. Bill's spirit of forgiveness toward the man did not alone restore the relationship with the man, but it did restore Bill and his ability to work and carry on a normal and peaceful life.

The Logic of Forgiveness

Why is forgiveness part of a discussion on logical reasoning and discussion? The reason is simple. The Forgiveness Principle allows the discussion to continue — hopefully in a rational way, and speed both parties on to the discovery of truth. That is, if the discussion is terminated because one or more of the parties throws a frying pan through the discussion, shattering the relationship all over the landscape, then the situation has to be restored before discussion can continue.

The Forgiveness Principle comes in handy when one of the parties involved in the discussion forgets to practice The Fallibility Principle. In other words, some aspect of the Forgiveness Principle will probably be needed soon after we take on the mantle of omniscience and tell our friend, our boss, or (more dangerously) our spouse: "I know ALL about this, and you don't have a clue." And our opponent starts thinking, "What kind of 'god' pill did he take (a thought that Pam has had on more than one occasion — well, maybe it was only once)?"

This is true even if you're alone and debating with yourself when it is very easy to think you know it all. I do it all the time. When I'm driving around town I often find myself — yes, I'm frequently lost — rehearsing hypothetical conversations with a phantom adversary. If you were hiding in the back seat and heard me, it would be obvious that I was the intelligent, omniscient party and my opponent the ignorant, know-nothing party (please stay out of my backseat).

Hopefully, you've noticed that this series has a great deal to do with "fallacies" and "principles." The "principles" are the things that help us to avoid "fallacies." Fallacies are rational mistakes; they represent the "sins" of reason. If you sin, you need forgiveness, and possibly you also need to make restitution, before the discussion and the pursuit of truth can be restored. The whole point of reason is the discovery of truth. If we're going to discover truth, then reason, in partnership with faith, needs to move forward. When fallacies are committed the process stops; or it gets shoved down a path that isn't going to lead to truth. The Forgiveness Principle gets us back on track.

An Historical and Current Example

I mentioned this in an earlier chapter, but perhaps the more significant historical example of the need to apply both The Fallacy Principle and the Forgiveness Principle occurred during the Protestant and Catholic Reformations. (Yes, there were two of them — well, sort of.) We might date the first false "reformation" with Martin Luther's Halloween trick (yes, this all started on the day before All Saints Day), tacked to the Wittenberg Church doors in 1521. What he started then did not reform the Church but created a revolt from it. The second, and true Reformation, came a quarter of a century later, in 1545, when Pope Paul III convened the Council of Trent that eventually curbed the abuses within the Church that had significantly triggered the revolt.

But, at that time, both sides committed more than a few fallacies of understanding. The writers of the documents found in the Book of Concord (the Lutheran Confessions) attack straw-dogs, or misunderstandings of Catholic teaching. They condemned concepts that were never true.

The writers of the Catholic Trent documents were careful not to mention any particular group, and held up a list of heresies about justification and faith alone (sola fide) that the Church still proclaims as accurate and with which many Protestants groups agree. The most famous of these were Trent's anathemas against what the Trent writers presumed were Protestant beliefs regarding the doctrine of justification. These were the 36 Justification Canons that came out of Trent's Sixth Session (January 13, 1547). As an example, the first canon states:

CANON I. If any one says that man may be justified before God by his own works, whether done through the teaching of human nature or that of the law without the grace of God through Jesus Christ, let him be anathema.

That articulates what Catholics understood to be the crux of the Reformation. But Protestants don't all believe the same. While the Catholic Trent Council played it safe by not mentioning names and accurately condemned some Protestant positions, it is likely that Trent misunderstood the subtleties of exactly what the Lutheran position was attempting to articulate. Thus, after 451 years, in 1998, the Lutheran World Federation and the Vatican admitted that the anathemas (that both groups had pronounced toward the other) no longer applied, and that the crux of the Reformation was null and void.

Huh!?

Well, they're right. It's just hard to believe that it took "intelligent" men 451 years to figure it out. The 1998 document that did this "remarkable" thing is called "JOINT DECLARATION ON THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION" and you can find it on the Vatican and some Lutheran websites.

Section 41 of the joint declaration states:

Thus the doctrinal condemnations of the 16th century, in so far as they relate to the doctrine of justification, appear in a new light: The teaching of the Lutheran churches presented in this Declaration does not fall under the condemnations from the Council of Trent. The condemnations in the Lutheran Confessions do not apply to the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church presented in this Declaration.

What happened here is that both sides asked for forgiveness and opened the door to further discussions (hopefully rational) as Christians work toward unity of mind and heart. Today, we understand that we are actually closer to each other than both sides have believed these past centuries.

Restoring the Window

Recall the UFO through the window? How can I forget? Actually, the story has a good ending. Yes, I asked Pam to forgive me — and she did. But before there was true restoration, I had to make true restitution.

We lived in an old house, and the single-pane, double hung windows positioned over the kitchen sink were ugly and drafty in the winter, with wide casements that hid the view of trees out the window. We did not have air conditioning, so we had to crack the windows for ventilation, and opening the windows was difficult because they were old, often stuck in their jambs, and we had to lean awkwardly over the sink for leverage.

I decided that, instead of repairing the windows, I would replace them with a custom design that went beyond a simple repair. I ripped out both windows, cleaned out the resulting opening, and installed oak sill, jambs, and head. I then found a large piece of thermopane glass (a small picture window) that fit the opening yet allowed me to create beneath it a six-inch high vent that, when flipped open, created an extra wide shelf for small plants. I even custom-formed a Styrofoam insert that filled the vent during the winter against the cold. I stained and varnished the wood, and, for many years after that, we looked through the beautifully restored window of our restored marriage and the effects of The Forgiveness Principle.