Space for Thought: Anger and Forgiveness

In this Space for Thought, we look at forgiveness. And since forgiveness is usually understood as a response to anger, we will explore anger as well.

It is easy to dismiss anger as an unpleasant and destructive emotion – something to get rid of or disavow, and as quickly as possible. But what if anger and resentment are somehow “moral emotions” that express and reflect our beliefs about what is most valuable, and our sense of what is wrong? How should we understand these powerful, but problematic emotions? Can they be tamed, or cultivated, or channelled – or must they simply be renounced?

Equally, it is easy—especially for Christians—to elevate forgiveness without considering it too deeply. But “forgiveness” is something that can easily be appealed to when people want to forget things that are inconvenient to remember, or to ignore things that need addressing. So how can forgiveness be compatible with the pursuit of justice? It could easily seem that forgiveness stands opposed to justice: it seems that justice is about giving what is deserved, but when we forgive, we give what is not deserved. But at the same time, Christianity presents God’s forgiveness as an act of justice. So how does divine forgiveness relate to the human desire for justice?

In this event we will probe some of our intuitive assumptions about anger and forgiveness, in the hope of developing a renewed sense of one of Jesus’ most central teachings.

In advance of the day itself, there are a few readings below, which I will refer to on the day, and which you may look at in advance, if you would like to.

1. Anthony Bash, Forgiveness and Christian Ethics:

- This chapter gives a helpful introduction to some of the New Testament material on forgiveness, particularly as it relates to the connection between divine forgiveness and human forgiveness

2. Charles Griswold, Forgiveness (extract on Butler)

- This is an overview of a very influential piece of writing from the 18^th century, by Bishop Butler, the theologian and moral philosopher. In particular, it helps to explore the idea that emotions like resentment may be importantly connected to our moral intuitions, especially our sense of ‘fellow-feeling’ – that we have reason to care how others are treated, regardless of how we ourselves are affected.

3. Martha Nussbaum, Anger and Forgiveness, ch. 7.

- This thoughtful book is an excellent place to start if one wishes to explore the moral significance of anger. In this chapter, Nussbaum explores the way in which Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr and Nelson Mandela each regarded anger – and how the energy of anger relates to these arch for justice.

4. Miraslav Volf, ‘The Final Reconciliation’, in Modern Theology

- This is a fairly dense theological article, but it makes quite a simple point about the way that Christian eschatology has a ‘horizontal’ dimension (i.e. it concerns the reconciliation of human relationships).

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