Forgiveness and Happiness
Forgiveness is at the heart of the Christian faith, and this is never more apparent than during Lent. As we approach Good Friday and Easter, we necessarily reflect on the cross and its relationship to forgiveness. Jesus, we say, quoting Scripture, died for our sins, but exactly what that means can vary from tradition to tradition or, indeed, from Christian to Christian.
When I was working on Making Sense of the Cross
From all accounts, this theory is the dominant one in the popular American religious consciousness, particularly among conservative Protestants and traditional Roman Catholics. But while it possesses a consistent, if also rather cold and calculating, logic, it has been contested almost from the time it was first proposed by Anselm of Cantebury (1033-1109). Peter Abelard (1079-1142), for instance, wondered about how it was possible for Jesus to forgive so many sins during his earthly ministry if he had first to die on the cross to make it possible for God to forgive. Moreover, Abelard wondered how such a heinous sin (crucifying God’s Son) could possibly make up for what seemed like a comparatively minor one (disobeying God by eating an apple)!
Needless to say, there are a variety of ways to understand forgiveness, some of which we are exploring in the MOOC on Making Sense of the Cross (which you can still join, if you are interested). What I have found in that course, as with writing the book, is that it helps – both one’s theology and one’s life! – to move from forgiveness as a theory to forgiveness as a practice. That is, it’s one thing to talk about forgiveness – which changes almost nothing – to actually forgiving people and accepting their forgiveness in turn – which changes pretty much everything!
Recently, I came across a video from the great folks at Soul Pancake that sheds some light on forgiveness as an actual practice. Part of their “the science of happiness” series, the video emphasizes that forgiveness – releasing a debt or claim you have on another for some past action – actually increases happiness. And this is true whether or not you actually reconcile with the person or not. In fact, even the mental act of forgiving another – even if you never tell the other person – can demonstrably improve your happiness.
This probably doesn’t surprise you, as it’s easy to imagine how adversely we are affected by holding onto past hurts and grudges. As we release our resentments and grievances, we are free to live how we want, not trapped by the past. And so, as the video points out, we forgive others as much for ourselves as for them. All of which puts a new spin on “forgive us our sins as we forgive others,” transforming that prayer from a conditional “you’ll forgive me only if I forgive others” to a more relational “forgiveness is what this life is all about and as I am forgiven it becomes easier to forgive others.”
All this also started me wondering about God. Rather than theorize about whether or when God can forgive (which seems a silly question, if God is really God), it might be interesting to think about what forgiveness does for and to God. Does God forgive us, that is, simply because it gives God pleasure to do so, simply because it is deeply part of God’s nature to forgive. In which case the cross is not the mechanism that makes is possible for God to forgive, but rather the sign of just how far God will go to let us know that God already has forgiven us.
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