The Dilemma of Forgiving Those who Harm You

i would say Jesus and others probably advise forgiveness because it's for your own good, your own sanity. because if you don't forgive it's like that old saying 'unforgiveness is like drinking poison yourself and waiting for the other person to die'. so you're harming yourself by harbouring these thoughts and feelings while the other person doesn't feel it and is probably not even thinking about you.

the other issue is that we all want to be forgiven when we harm someone. like not even criminals want to be punished when they go to trial. so it's an issue of 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you'. i mean, it's not really fair to say 'i deserve to be forgiven for my sins, but you don't'. like what makes you so special(?). all that said, i definitely am not perfect at practising forgiveness and i don't believe everyone deserves it from a human's perspective, (which makes me a bad Christian ) i mean i can think of some pretty heinous crimes i'd truly never forgive. just sayin the poison thing and the fairness thing is probably the rationality behind it. i suppose you're right tho that the reason we don't forgive is the fear or being taken advantage of.

Personally I think it comes down to energy. Hate takes up so much energy and leaves you feeling bitter and unsatisfied. Forgiving and forgetting is just a way of self preservation and allowing for a state of contentment. Forgiveness for me is about the person forgiving, not about the person being forgiven. In a way, what the forgiven do afterwards is irrelivant.

No one wants to be at the receiving end of harm, and forgiving those who harm one seems to be tantamount to absolving them from any obligations to make reparations to one, which leaves one's unaddressed.

True. But you only have a few options. You could get revenge ehich ultimately harms you both and essentially reduces you to the same the person who harmed you.

Or leave it to our justice system knowing that this may well fail.

Short of revenge or litigation, is exposing them to public ire not an option?

"Turn the other cheek".

"Resist not what is evil".

"Love your enemies and pray for those who revile you".

We all know how puzzling such advices can be, especially when there are people that tend to take advantage of your forgiveness after they hurt, revile, or rob you of self-esteem. It doesn't seem practical when not everyone observes it like the boxing rules of the Marquess of Queensbury.

On the other hand, they make some sense when we take into account the fact that everyone wants to be correct, which does bring respectability, and that people don't do bad things if they have their way.

Besides, when we forgive those who do us wrong, a likelihood of them freeriding on our generosity exists, and it's no bueno, and the burden of being done wrong while go their way scot-free seems unfair.

You could. But that is a form of revenge that makes you come across as desperate, bitter and a bit pathetic. Like those people who post online when service didn't meet their over-inflated expectations. I always end up thinking that if they will never use that business again, the business i probably better off.

I think when you "forgive" someone, it's something you do for yourself rather than for them.

It doesn't mean that you condone their behaviour and let them carry on with it. It doesn't mean you continue to put yourself in the way of the harm that they might cause you. It just means that you don't let their past actions continue to burden your mind or your happiness, you don't let yourself feel awkward or angry every time you come across them etc.

It's a way of allowing yourself carry on with life as normal, and not continue to be mentally affected by whatever it is they have done.

One major drawback to this happens when it doesn't change those who do you wrong into becoming more responsible and accountable to everyone, especially when such people also happen to wield power over you and other people.

I think that’s a very separate issue from whether you “forgive” them or not though.

As I said, forgiveness doesn’t mean allowing someone to continue behaving the way they are (if you have the ability to change it at all, that is). And it doesn’t mean continuing to put yourself in harm’s way.

It works in some cases if the perpetrator feel shame enough to change for the better. The point is that forgiveness doesn't seem to be a surefire way to force them to make them behave well.

No, forgiveness is not a way to make them behave well. It’s not really intended to be.

There may or may not be good ways to encourage the person to behave well in future. But I think that’s a separate issue. I see forgiveness as a way for you to not continue to be haunted by something that has happened in the past.

That might be true, but forgiveness does entail disregarding what the perpetrator does to you, which only serves to incentivize one to persist in bad behaviour, hence the existence of a dilemma in forgiveness.

Real life seems more uncertain when it comes to popular response to reviews, and besides, exposing nasty people to public ire has been deterring other people from adopting their habits and sentiments.

By “forgiveness” I don’t mean simply disregarding something that has happened.

As a very simple example: suppose my child carelessly drops an expensive China plate and breaks it. I would certainly tell them that they did something wrong, teach them to be more careful to try and stop it happening again in future (as all of this is my responsibility). I might also avoid giving them breakable plates until I feel that their behaviour has changed enough that I can trust them with plates. So I’m certainly not disregarding what they did and forgetting that it ever happened.

But I’m still forgiving them in the sense that I personally am not going to carry on feeling sad about the loss of my expensive plate, or continuing to give them the cold shoulder over something that they can’t reverse. Neither of these things would serve any purpose other than to make both of us feel bad, since that plate is gone and isn’t coming back either way.


It’s more a case of managing your own emotional state and not letting yourself feel awkward or tense in the presence of that person based on past events, as opposed to allowing them to continue doing whatever they did even in future. That’s the distinction I’m making.

I agree. But doing it within the law is more satisfying that the sort of vigilante style exposes. An I would argue that the public shaming way doesn't work. It simply makes people more careful and less likely to report.