A Taxonomy of forgiveness

A schematic approach

This is something that has been percolating in my brain for a long while. It's the compilation of a few different books I've read, distilled and compiled.¹ Mapping things out like this helps my analytic brain find places for different things and make pertinent distinctions.

Firstly, we can talk about three different dimensions of forgiveness: vertical, internal, and horizontal.²

The vertical dimension is between God and us. Before we even begin to talk about human forgiveness, we need to talk about divine forgiveness, because human forgiveness is essentially an extension and response to divine forgiveness. When we receive forgiveness from God, we are recipients of a gift, the gift of mercy, in that God bears the cost of our wrongdoing, treats us as if we had not sinned, and brings us into a relationship of grace and favour with him. That prior act of forgiving is means, model, and motivation for human forgiveness.

Horizontal forgiveness, or relational forgiveness, is what I think we can best term reconciliation. It's the interaction between the two parties, where one (or both) repents, and the other (or both) forgives, and a restored relationship is brought about. I'll return to this shortly.

The internal dimension is what happens within ourselves as we forgive another. I think we can break it down into three aspects, which we can call: decisional forgiveness, emotional forgiveness, enacted forgiveness.

Decisional forgiveness is an act of the will. It's the choice, made in a moment, to forgive. It may or may not proceed other aspects, but I think it's best done first, because it's also a commitment to pursue the other two. It's the statement, to oneself or to others, "I forgive person X for Y, and I'm going to live that out"

Emotional forgiveness is a process whereby we learn, over time, to bear the cost internally. And what that means is that we replace negative thoughts and emotions towards the other person, with positive ones. Instead of giving in to anger, resentment, bitterness, hatred, we think well of them, desire their good, extend grace and love and kindness towards them.

Enacted forgiveness is the consequence of decisional forgiveness in our actions and deeds. Whereas emotional forgiveness lives out our commitment to forgive in our interior, psychological and emotional life, enacted forgiveness lives it out in our words and deeds. It's refraining from speaking ill of the person, not seeking to damage them physically, emotionally, socially, but instead speaking and acting for their good, in whatever and whichever ways are possible. It's no less than refraining from harm towards them, but in fact positively seeking their good through your behaviour.

Before I come back to the horizontal dimension, let me address two questions:

1. What does the Lord require?

I think Matthew 6:14-15, 18:35, make it really clear to me that followers of Jesus must forgive, because they have been forgiven. The language of reciprocity makes it clear that failing to forgive is a failure to grasp the forgiveness you've received, and so fundamentally a failure to be transformed by the gospel.

But what sort of forgiveness is required? There's a danger that this question is asked, much like the classic Christian youth group question: "How far can I go with my boyfriend/girlfriend?", i.e. seeking a minimum. Matthew 18:35 says 'from the heart', which given the way Jesus speaks throughout Matthew's gospel I take to mean "from the depths of your essential being".

So, on the one hand, I do think the answer is that decisional forgiveness is what the Lord requires, but if there's genuine decisional forgiveness, then it must flow forth into emotional and enacted forgiveness, and horizontal forgiveness, if at all possible. Forgiveness that says "I forgive you, but that's just an internal thing for me, and I'm not going to treat you with grace or seek restored relationship" is hypocritical forgiveness. It's punishing the other person still. It's Matthew 21:28-31 in living colour.

When, then, is decisional forgiveness all that's required? When it's all that's possible. There are cases when you can't do anything more than this.

1. Emotional forgiveness can be hard. It might take years. It might take therapy. It just might suck. Learning to rewire the brain and emotions to truly love someone who has done evil things to you or those you love, just might be a lifelong journey.

2. If a person is dead, or physically distant, or out of your life in some other way, then it's going to be difficult or impossible to extend forgiveness through your actions.

3. Similarly, if the other person is not present, then you cannot pursue horizontal forgiveness or reconciliation. You cannot extend that kind of forgiveness if the other party isn't there even to receive the offer.

Here's where I think Volf's gift illustration really helps. Forgiveness is like a gift. If you say, "well, I've forgiven in my heart, so I don't need to do anything with it", that's buying a gift and giving it to yourself. It sits on the shelf. But if you buy the gift, and the other person just isn't there to give it to them, what do you do? A heart that's truly forgiven will put that gift on the table by the entrance door, so that if that other person ever appears, they are ready to offer it.

2. Is forgiveness owed where repentance is lacking?

There are obviously two different positions on this, but I'm with Volf and Keller on this - yes.³ If we understand forgiveness well, then it's a gift bought at a cost that is offered before and even without the other party repenting.⁴ Why, though? Well, God's act in Christ to offer himself as the ransom for our sins pays the cost first, without any prior act of ours. Christ dies for our sins while we were yet God's enemies. That offer exists and is made to us, calling and inviting (and commanding!) us to repentance: the acknowledgement of our sin and the willingness to receive God's forgiveness on our behalf.

To return to the gift analogy, when someone refuses to repent, they are rejecting the gift of forgiveness. Either because they reject the idea they need it ("I haven't done anything wrong") or they want to pay the debt ("I don't deserve this, let me earn it/pay it off/work for it"), or a number of other dimensions and rejections. But they all boil down to a refusal to accept the gift, and so a determination to pay the cost oneself.

Repentance is the act of receiving the gift of forgiveness, not an act that brings forth forgiveness.⁵ And so, like God's forgiveness of us, our forgiveness of others is prior to and not dependent upon the other's repentance.

Reconciliation, revisited

It's only after those two questions that we can return to talk more about the horizontal dimension of forgiveness. If we've grasped that forgiveness from the heart begins with decisional forgiveness, and is always seeking in love to pursue emotional, enacted, and horizontal forgiveness, then it's ultimate aim is to bring about reconciled relationship.⁶ Indeed, that's what we have with God in Christ. Only when the other party, or loss or death, make this impossible, ought we give up on this process. Love never stops.

Forgiveness is one side of that equation: the injured party bears the cost of forgiveness, and is willing to treat the perpetrator as if they had not sinned. Repentance is the other side: the perpetrator recognises the evil of their act, their need for forgiveness, and receives forgiveness for it. Evil is not ignored, swept away, minimised in any way; it is named, and it is dealt with. Justice and mercy meet.

If there is no forgiveness, repentance finds no peace. If there is no repentance, the gift cannot be received. But when both occur, then reconciled relationship can begin. The relationship can begin, slowly, to heal. That process, especially where trust has been broken, may also be a slow one, and indeed it should be. And yet, just as God's forgiveness of us does not simply take us back to a point of 'zero', of diffidence and disinterest, but in fact draws us into relationship with him, deeper and more fully known and loved; so too our relationships with others, if they are properly reconciled, will seek first to re-establish what was, and then to grow in depth and breadth of love.

Photo by Sunguk Kim on Unsplash

1. Miroslav Volf's Free of Charge, and Tim Keller's Forgive provide much of my framework. The original threefold framework here comes from Keller, and the distinction between internal and horizontal he gets from David Powlinson and D.A. Carson. Everett Worthington's work is the basis for distinguishing decisional and emotional forgiveness. I haven't seen anyone tease out Enacted forgiveness as a separate category, but it made sense to me in the framework here.

2. Yes, internal isn't a dimension per se. But ‘depth’ or ‘width’ aren’t what we’re going for here.

3. Chris Brauns articulates such a view in his book Unpacking Forgiveness: Biblical Answers for Complex Questions and Deep Wounds, and lists some theologians that back it here. Obviously I don't agree, but I don't agree primarily because I think there's not a sharp enough analysis of forgiveness going on in some of these works. For example, Craig Blomberg warns against the danger of forgiving where there's no repentance, of acting like everything's okay. I agree, but I think this actually refers to horizontal forgiveness, not to the internal aspects. As long as repentance doesn't take place, things aren't okay, and relational justice can't be done.

4. Partly this also dovetails with how you think of the atonement. I hold that's its sufficient for all, efficient for some. Which means that Christ's death holds infinite value and would suffice to redeem every human being for every sin. In that sense, the price has been paid. If you hold that it's sufficient only for the elect, then you might also think that God's offer of forgiveness is logically conditional upon repentance, because he's only borne the cost for those that repent. I haven't attempted to correlate positions on the extent of the atonement, with theologies of human forgiveness though.

5. On the theory level. Obviously on the pragmatics of it, there are occasions where someone’s repentance elicits forgiveness from an hitherto unforgiving party.

6. You might be wondering if there’s a difference in my scheme between enacted forgiveness, and horizontal forgiveness/reconciliation. There is, and it’s this. Horizontal forgiveness and reconciled relationship can only take place with repentance, and then the way the forgiver acts towards the perpetrator changes. You treat them as if they hadn’t sinned against you, you actively work to restore the relationship to what it was before. You aren’t pretending it didn’t happen, you are working to undo the evil. Enacted forgiveness, though, doesn’t do those particular things. It’s living in love and grace in your actions towards the perpetrator who hasn’t repented or with whom reconciliation isn’t happening or can’t happen. That doesn’t mean treating them as if they haven’t sinned, and it doesn’t mean acting like everything is okay. That kind of behaviour is indeed a way of saying, “what you did isn’t that bad, I excuse it, I deny that it’s wrong”, it’s justifying and indulging and sweeping under the rug. All the kinds of things that people rightly object as a forced and fake forgiveness and the continuation of injustice. Enacted forgiveness still says, “no, this was wrong and you have done wrong and need to be held to account”, it just also holds out the offer, the gift, “and I forgive you precisely because you have done wrong”.