Loving and forgiving your enemies

[Excited Penguin]

The underlying point is, forgiveness is all about understanding a person's future intentions. If you know for sure someone is irredeeamable, you would have no grounds to excuse them. Conversely, if you knew they wouldn't ever do it again, or knew for sure why they did it and think you can prevent it from repeating you would "forgive" them.

I disagree. Someone could die on the spot after harming me or someone I love very greatly with malicious intent, and even after they have died and have no future intentions, I may or may not still bitter be about their actions.

Even though the person is dead, if I think that while they were still alive they "should and could have done otherwise" and I believe in free will, then I'm likely to still feel bitterness to them. I will never "forgive" them. However, if, on the other hand, I don't believe they could have done otherwise and they were unlucky to have the brain they did, although of course their actions were horrific and they should have been detained , I won't feel bitterness to them, I may indeed be able to forgive them. And in my most dispassionate analysis I may recognize that it makes no sense to hold them ultimately responsible in the first place.

I wasn't talking about feelings of bitterness. I was talking about practical forgiveness. As in whether or not you excuse someone for doing something in the sense that you don't think they'll do it again.