How do we counter the pride of virtuous magnanimity, the second form of pride associated with forgiving?\u00c2\u00a0 As forgivers, we should remind ourselves that, on our own, we have neither the power nor the right to forgive and that we are neither knowledgeable nor virtuous enough to forgive well.\u00c2\u00a0 When we forgive, we make God’s forgiveness our own.\u00c2\u00a0 And even as we do, it’s Christ who forgives through us, not we who forgive on our own.\u00c2\u00a0 Our forgiveness is proper to the extent that it reverberates with God’s.\u00c2\u00a0 When offenders thank us for forgiving, we should respond the same way we respond when recipients thank us for giving — we should deflect gratitude and direct it to God, the true source and the true agent of all forgiving.\u00c2\u00a0 When we forgive well, there’s in fact very little to be proud of.\u00c2\u00a0 God being the source of our forgiveness, the better we forgive, the less reason there is for pride.<\/p>\n
Prideful forgivers are bad forgivers partly because pride subverts what forgiveness seeks to achieve in the first place.\u00c2\u00a0 As we saw in the two previous chapters, forgiveness is not a private, virtuous act.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s part of a larger strategy of overcoming evil with good and bringing about reconciliation.\u00c2\u00a0 It doesn’t just relieve us from bitterness and resentment.\u00c2\u00a0 It enacts love for the enemy.\u00c2\u00a0 Good forgivers can’t therefore just dispense forgiveness without any regard for how it is received by the offenders.\u00c2\u00a0 Forgiveness will help overcome evil with good if it nudges offenders to repent, reconcile, and be restored to the good.\u00c2\u00a0 Humble forgiveness might achieve that goal.\u00c2\u00a0 Prideful forgiveness will have the opposite effect.<\/p>\n
— Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge, <\/em>p. 217<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How do we counter the pride of virtuous magnanimity, the second form of pride associated with forgiving?\u00c2\u00a0 As forgivers, we should remind ourselves that, on our own, we have neither the power nor the right to forgive and that we are neither knowledgeable nor virtuous enough to forgive well.\u00c2\u00a0 When we forgive, we make God’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forgiveness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderquotes\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}