I think Professor Minas’s first premise is false. I think God could accept our sincere remorse and decide to to forgive us. Doing so would not involve changing his mind about the moral wrongness of what we’ve done, or learning some new facts about the situation, or remitting a punishment, or letting go of any resentment. It would just be God saying, “I’m forgiving you for the bad thing you’ve done.” I’m not going to hold this over you, let’s move on.

What do the rest of you think. This seems like genuine forgiveness to me and it seem to fit with the idea of an omniscient and morally just God.

Let me know if I’m missing something. I’m writing my final paper on this topic. :-)

I don’t think he would be “lying”, and I do think he knows if were sincere or not, but if we are sincere we won’t have any remorse about this kind of forgiveness and in fact we would become better people, how ever if we are not sincere when asking for forgiveness and we receive it. I believe that would create a burden on you, I don’t think you would have peace of mind, so then make the whole scenario turns into one where it wasn’t forgiveness at all but becomes more of a punishment. either way our actions determine the outcome.

Mary has a point. I think Anne Minas’ first premise contains unnecessary conditions. I believe it is very possible, and perfectly acceptable, for one to forgive another without satisfying (i) (ii) or (iii). For an example we can look at Jesus when he forgave Judas.

It is reasonable to say that Judas did a bad thing to Jesus by betraying him. Jesus knew all along that Judas was going to sell him out to the Romans. He harbored no resentment, exacted no punishment, and learned nothing new to change his mind.

I would argue that Jesus forgave Judas, and in doing so, destroyed anyone’s ability to say that God cannot forgive based on premise 1 of Anne Minas’ argument.

One can make the arguement that for (ii) God is not revising the punishment based on further consideration, but revising the punishmet based on the sinner’s futher action. For example, a man steals, so for that in the eyes of God he will recieve punishment A for his actions. Yet a while after the man decides to return the item, and ask God to have pity on him for he acted in weakness. If God changed the punishment based on this it would not be because of further consideration, but because of new details. Thus punishment B would be due to forgiveness while still not falling into the previous category of (i),(ii) or (iii).

With response to Zak, I think you meant that premise one does not contain sufficient forms of forgiveness such that Minas can write off God’s ability to forgive solely based on those three listed.

As for Steven’s input, is it fully correct to view it as a change in punishment once the man returns the item? Couldn’t it be viewed as a reward for a later action rather than a reduction of a previous punishment? If it was a reward, then it would be a separate action which would seemingly absolve God from having to admit his previous punishment as excessive given light of newer events.

With the utmost respect to the previous commentators, my own view is that attributing the human emotion of “forgiveness” to the intelligence or intelligences that may have sparked the Big Bang explosion that created the universe seems a case of over anthropomorphizing our primitive Homo sapien prejudices to this question. The flaw in the logic here is that if “God” is ominpotent,all-powerful, all-knowing, he/she/it/them/? may care little about this particular remote outpost of the universe—paying little heed to a race that barely put its foot into its own backyard by flying in a metal can to the Moon. There are many more interesting creatures, beings, and entities out there which perhaps some of them evolving to a level comparable to what we imagine to be God. But of course even these statements that I’ve just attributed to the Almighty may also be a case of anthropomorphizing our common human patterns of behavior and even existence onto an entity that we have as about as much in common with as an amoeba has to Rush Lumbaugh (on second thought….). Seriously, in effect perhaps this “God” pervades the entire universe—perhaps as so-called dark energy as well as in other manifestations much too complicated to ascribe human qualities to. Forgiveness is such a quaint notion to an intelligence that routinely constructs & modifies gamma ray bursts, neutron stars, pulsars, black holes, quasars, and countless phenomenon that we humans have yet no inkling or understanding. Maybe a better question is Can human beings begin to change their ten millennia-long pattern of counterproductive behaviors (war, genocide, rape, murder, incest, greed [i.e. AIG]) and create a viable, healthy, productive, nature-interactive global civilization that warrants first contact with other intelligences in the universe?—some of which may be able to one day put us more in touch with an intelligence or intelligences that had something to do with the creation of everything. I doubt we’ll make it, but somewhere out there in the Cosmos, other species may be getting real close. Maybe some of us will survive the millennium and be able to someday pose a question not unlike this one to our betters. Or perhaps, like the amoeba who gets disposed of after the high school science project ends, we may simply get in the way of a Galactic reclamation project and poof—all that will be left of us is an exploding Earth & Sun and our little solar system might just become a fairly interesting astronomical observation for some distant civilization.

In regards to all of the following: All is presumptive. Minas and all previous posts are beginning the math assignment with ‘an’ answer and working backwards to find a formula that is solid or has cracks.

The unnoticed assertion is that God is anthropomorphic: Jeffrey says this, but simply anthropormophizes God through Jeffrey’s eyes.

Jeffrey begins by questioning this notion of God that the argument presuposses but then goes of on a tangent in which he notes that he has a better look at God from his angle. He says basically, “God is so much more-better than us Humans, He/She/It/ doesn’t care about are puny planet cause the universe is so big, and like humans, God is probably busy and can’t come home until tuesday cause he’s in a meeting with people/things that matter and he probably thinks we suck anyway, cause we don’t recycle.”

The Minas argument is just another debunking free-will, and the questions we are asked to ponder are to lead us to discover our own belief in free-will and God, which is more common of a belief than the Minas point of view. A belief in Free Will is required to believe that God can forgive, because it implies that although God is not necessarily living in time, we kind of are and we are capable of causing our own sin but are incapable of traveling back in time to stop it or absolve it; so we need a way to rid of past mistakes.

Minas assumes that time in non-linear and that all human affairs past, present and future are occurring simultaneously and that if there were a God he would be past/present/future and not part of a ‘timed universe’ that had the concept of change at all. When Minas says “reverse” she means “change”. When Minas says “revise” she means “Change”. When she says “let go” she means “Change.”

I get it Minas, your a determinist (probably ‘agnostic’) and probably think we all anthroporphicize God.

And I get it first questioner of Minas, you think that Forgiveness is commonly misunderstood and twisted to base levels, and that thinking of Forgiveness as human caused is backwards. You may think that Forgiveness is Divine and all three of Minus’ oppositions are base/low views of Forgiveness.

Doesn’t matter if you believe in a human-like God, Free Will, Determinism, Linear/non-Linear time. Even if God doesn’t exist, the following is the answer:

Forgiveness is not determined by the actions of the sinner, but by the Moral Goodness of the Forgiver. Duh.

We may be missing the point by looking at God in this question. Obviously God is the objective, but the core debate is: can an omnipotent being forgive? Now, forgiveness is an admission of a need to change. It may not seem that way, but it truly is. To forgive one must change their view of the object of the forgiveness. This means that a being must first hold one view and course of actions toward said object, and then hold another after forgiveness. But for a being to be omnipotent, they must (by nature) be in a state of totality at all times. They can never change their mind, because their mind is in a state of infinite comprehension. Even if new information could be introduced to them, they would have possessed the foresight to have prepared for that information.

It seems that by definition any omnipotent being must possess the ability to forgive, but never utilize that ability, because if they did, they would be participating in an admission of their fallibility. And they must be infallible to maintain the title of omnipotent.

Now if you insert the following idea: God is omnipotent, then logic leads to: God cannot forgive. Now one can argue that human logic is flawed until they are blue in the face. I will be the first to agree. But nevertheless, reasoning leads to the conclusion that omnipotence cannot forgive. Now the problem may be in the definitions. And a new definition can be applied. Then the conclusions change. But if omnipotence is taken in its most common and extreme understanding. Then the argument will hold. The premises are not flawed in Minas’ argument because omnipotence possesses all of the premises in its definition.

But one must not automatically assume that the argument is definitive, only that it is sound. Logic may be only one view of reality, as some have pointed out above. Regardless, the argument holds.

Being omnipotent God has already forgiven us for the wrong doing that we WILL do, even before we come out of our mother’s womb. Being this supreme deity, he lives outside of what we consider to be time. He does not live in the past, present,or future. He sees all we were ,are, and will be. So the answer to the question is that he does not need to forgive because he already knows what we will do even before we think about doing it…even before he created mankind. If he was not able to “forgive” then he just would not have created man in the first place. He knows were this road will take us and he still created man. Many seem to just look past the point that “forgivness” is man made. What reason would a being like that have for forgivness? If anything I think that he would have to forgive himself for making a mistake. Then again, a being like that would not make a mistake…right?

Your putting human qualities and inconsistances of forgiveness to an all knowing God. I’m not sure what God we are talking about, but lets say we are talking about The Father and The Son and The Holy Spirit as one triune God. They are in definition perfect and holy.
Your proposing a defintion of forgiveness based on human Condition. Human being the key word. But I say that God’s judgement is based up concrete law.
Lets take one commandment. Thou shall not lie. A person than lies and God knew they were going to do it. Out of that persons free will they were allowed to lie. There are conditions that God can weigh. Did the person know it was wrong? How big of a lie was it? How much damage will that lie cause to everyone? These are things the omnipotent God knows. So he then sees that the person truly comes to conviction of what they did and are sorry. But he does this in the most holy and just matter. God can certainly ask. Am I going to reverse his judgement? Am I going to revise a punishment. Am I going to let go of my resentment.
God can do any of the above. According to the God of the Bible the judgement is Hell for sin and if he forgives you than that judgement is taken away. So yes he can reverse a judgement. In the Bible God wanted to wipe out Sodom and Gomorah completly, but Lot implored with the Lord and said if you find at least 10 righteous people than don’t destroy it. Unfortunately there was no righteous found so it had to be destroyed. But that’s a perfect example about how God can revise a punishment. If God outlines sins as bad. Things that seperate them from him, than yes he would have resentment. That resentment can only be taken away with forgiveness. So yes he can take away resentment. According to Scripture the taking away of that resentment was placed upon his Son Jesus Christ as the final solution. Even before Christ he made sacrifical animals in place of sin. So yes he can take away resentment. God is allowed to have emotions like a human, but his are divine, holy, and righteous. Now all your points i,ii, and iii are all human ways of forgiveness that are in no way divine or even law like. I would hate to be faced with a human judge in a real court that bases his judgements on such childish inconsistincies. It blatantly shows that humans idea of forgiveness is flawed and selfish. God knows his judgements are fair and doesn’t suddenly change his mind and go oops maybe that is too harsh or I’ll just let that one go. They have been concrete from the beginning. Since our God is also defined as never changing. God’s forgiveness is much more deep and knowledgable. So deep that he gave a part of himself(his son) to pay the price for sins. As an omnipotent God he sits standards that everyone must abide by neither going to the left or to the right. In the scriptures it states that he judges all mens work impartially. If not, than we could argue that he is not Just. And the Bible constantly proclaims that God is a just God.

In cap God can do all the things you claim he can’t.
Your arguments i, ii, and iii are inferior human understandings of what forgiveness really is.

Only in so far as people can.

Professor Minas, God has forgiven, but He has done none of the three things in your premise. He has neither (1)reversed moral judgment, nor (2)revised a punishment, nor (3)let go of some resentment. The wages of sin is still death, because God in His holiness, hates sin. He simply placed the full weight of His wrath upon the only One who did not deserve it—His Son Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God, who bore the punishment of the sins of the whole world. “We all like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” Every religion of the world has a God to whom people bow down and serve. The one unique fact about Christianity from every other world religion, is that God said, “I’m going to serve you,” and He did so by stretching out His arms and dying on a cross for the sins of the entire human race. “Those whom the Son sets free, are free indeed!”