PWJ: S1E20 – MC B3C7 – “Forgiveness”

Lewis had previously said that he thought chastity was the most unpopular thing in Christianity. In today’s episode, he changes his mind, suggesting that it is, in fact, forgiveness.

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Episode 20: “Forgiveness” (Download)

— Show Notes —

• My outline for today’s chapter is available here. Unfortunately, there isn’t a C.S. Lewis Doodle for it.

• The Quote-of-the-week was from the book we are currently reading in our San Diego book club:

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal.”

– C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

• The Drink-of-the-week was another scotch. Today Matt and I were drinking Ron Swanson‘s favourite, Lagavulin 16. Here is Ron Swanon’s Pyramid of Greatness.

• In a previous episode, we said that Lewis thought the most unpopular aspect of Christianity was chastity. In this episode, he amends his answer. He thinks the most unpopular element is forgiveness.

• Forgiveness is inextricably linked to the Golden Rule, do as you would be done by.

• I quoted Chesterton’s comment about loving our neighbours and enemies:

“The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people”

– G.K. Chesterton, Illustrated London News (16 July 1910)

• I mentioned the 37th Annual Chesterton Conference in Orlando Florida. At this conference, actors Kevin O’Brien and Dave Treadway will portray J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis discussing Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man, the book that influenced them both.

• Jack explains that people don’t always think forgiveness a good thing, particularly when they have to practise it themselves…

“Every one says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive And then, to mention the subject at all is to be greeted with howls of anger. It is not that people think this too high and difficult a virtue: it is that they think it hateful and contemptible”

– C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book III, Chapter 7)

• Although this teaching on forgiveness is uncomfortable, Lewis explains that he is presenting what Christianity teaches, not how well he lives up to it, or how he would behave under extreme pressure.

• We considered the words of Jesus concerning the need to forgive others:

“But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins”

– Matthew 6:15

• I told the story of my experience in prayer, where I realized the impact of my unforgiveness on my relationship with God.

• Matt told a story about two veterans at the Vietnam War Memorial.

• I quote Matthew Kelly’s saying about unforgiveness:

“Unforgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. Unforgiveness enslaves the human spirit. Unforgiveness is the thief from our past that robs us of our future.”

– The Seven Levels of Intimacy, Matthew Kelly

• Matt told us about a book he’s reading, As We Forgive: Stories of Reconciliation from Rwanda by Catherine Larson.

• What advice does Lewis have concerning the forgiving of enemies? He has two suggestions:

1. Start by forgiving small offenses

2. Truly understand what it really means to love yourself.

• I love myself, but I don’t always like myself. That means that to love my neighbor doesn’t necessarily mean that I have to like him. I can look at things I’ve said and done with horror. That means that I don’t have to say that evil committed by my enemies wasn’t actually that bad.

• As a child, Lewis had heard the saying “Hate the sin, not the sinner”. He thought it was silly, but later realized something:

“But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life-namely myself. However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightest difficulty about it. In fact the very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the man”

– C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book III, Chapter 7)

• Matt quoted Chesterton:

“No one doubts that an ordinary man can get on with this world: but we demand not strength enough to get on with it, but strength enough to get it on. Can he hate it enough to change it, and yet love it enough to think it worth changing? Can he look up at its colossal good without once feeling acquiescence? Can he look up at its colossal evil without once feeling despair? Can he, in short, be at once not only a pessimist and an optimist, but a fanatical pessimist and a fanatical optimist? Is he enough of a pagan to die for the world, and enough of a Christian to die to it? In this combination, I maintain, it is the rational optimist who fails, the irrational optimist who succeeds. He is ready to smash the whole universe for the sake of itself.”

– G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

• We should still hate sin:

Consequently, Christianity does not want us to reduce by one atom the hatred we feel for cruelty and treachery. We ought to hate them… But it does want us to hate them in the same way in which we hate things in ourselves: being sorry that the man should have done such things, and hoping, if it is anyway possible, that somehow, sometime, somewhere, he can be cured and made human again.

– C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book III, Chapter 7)

• Matt and I applied this principle to thinking the worst of people, wanting grey to be a little blacker.

• Does loving my enemy mean that he should never be punished. Jack says no.

• The section of the Catholic Catechism on Capital Punishment is found here:

Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm – without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself – the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity “are very rare, if not practically nonexistent.”

– Catechism of the Catholic Church, Paragraph 2267

To understand the arguments in favour of capital punishment, I’d recommend the book By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed by Edward Feser.

• There are two different Greek (and Hebrew) words for “kill” and “murder”. Not all killing is murder.

• The central difference between Christian morality and the regular view is that Christian morality concerns itself with what goes on in the heart and soul.

• Learning how to forgive is a lifelong process.

I mean that every time it bobs its head up, day after day, year after year, all our lives long, we must hit it on the head. It is hard work, but the attempt is not impossible.

– C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book III, Chapter 7)

• We may have to forgive an act against us multiple times, as the feelings of bitterness rise again.

• I spoke about an experience I had with an FSSP Priest. He told me to write a short prayer, which I was to pray each time I thought of a particular person who had hurt me deeply:

“Lord, please bless [name] with every grace and blessing. Bring them happiness, holiness and Heaven”

• We are trying to work towards…

…we must try to feel about the enemy as we feel about ourselves- to wish that he were not bad. to hope that he may, in this world or another, be cured: in fact, to wish his good.

– C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book III, Chapter 7)

• The definition of “love” used by St. Thomas Aquinas is to “seek the good of the other as other”.

• Matt offers a third way of growing in forgiveness: prayer. Each week, spend an hour in Adoration of the Eucharist, go to Mass during the week, spend time reading Scripture…