Forgiveness in Not Undoing the Past But Pardoning the Impossible
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Forgiveness is concerned with past offences. We speak of turning back time, of setting right past wrongs, but as plain experience shows, there is no way of altering or even accessing the past, nor, aside from deception or wishful thinking, of making a past evil into something good. In this chapter I will argue that the impossibility of turning back time does not present an impasse for forgiveness. Rather, on closer inspection this metaphysical problem gives way to an ethical one: the seeming impossibility of the misdeed itself. The real problem is not the impossibility of turning back time but the impossibility of making sense of the seemingly unprovoked attack, the crime without a motive, or the utter reversal of values. Memories of such absurd events resist explanation and refuse to be integrated into a meaningful narrative. This shift from the problem of time to the apparent impossibility of the misdeed itself raises the question of radical evil. Is evil merely a privation of the good or is it a principle in itself? Is the human being capable of willing evil for its own sake? The claim that every offence can be forgiven implies that even in the worst of wrongs there is some good at which the wrongdoer aims, as distorted as it may be. I will argue that forgiveness presupposes the orientation of the human will to the good. Discovering this remnant of the good which allows, not a full, but a partial explanation of the misdeed is a crucial step for the victim who seeks to forgive.