36. Shallow Thinking on Forgiveness

Shallow Thinking on Forgiveness

Such careless and shallow thinking is well illustrated by what Priestley said on the forgiveness of sin. He said: “It is required of us that if our brother only repent, we should forgive him, even though he should repeat his offence seven times a day. On the same generous maxim, therefore, we cannot but conclude that the Divine Being acts toward us.” This sounds reasonable and convincing at first thought, and many of the unwary are caught by its shallow sophistry. If God requires us to forgive one another on the single condition of repentance, why should He require something in addition to our repentance—for example, the death of Christ, before He will forgive us? If He instructs us to forgive our fellows on the simple condition of their repentance, isn’t the doctrine that He required the death of His Son before He would forgive us, an immoral doctrine?

We can easily see the sophistry of this reasoning if we will simply recall that there are only two kinds of government thinkable: private and public. So it only remains to ask: Which kind of government is God’s?

Since God’s moral government must take in the last moral being in His universe, it is very obvious that it cannot be private, and so it is inescapably public government.

Take an illustration from family life. Parental love seeks the welfare of each child, and therefore wills it. The parent’s will for each child, then, will take the form of various regulations for his welfare to which the child must conform, if his welfare is to be realized, and this constitutes parental government.

Now no parent has any right to make private regulations for any child, which will not have in full view the welfare of every other child in the family. But just the moment the interests of all the children are reckoned with in the government of each individual child, just that moment the family government becomes universal, and therefore public. Universal, that is, in the fact that it has in view the utmost limits to which the parents’ governmental will extends, and public in the fact that the relation of each child to the parents’ will is also a relation, through them, to every other child in the family.

Now it can be seen where Priestley’s philosophy would lead. It would make God’s government private, not public. It would have God found the moral government of His universe on the principles He has given for the regulation of our private relations with our fellow men. Private citizens may indeed forgive private wrongs without in the least disturbing the laws and principles on which the welfare of the State rests. But for a public ruler to forgive public wrongs in that way would be a straight pathway to public ruin.