“His Love endures forever.” (Psalm 136)

Introduction 

In the lectures we delivered, sometimes, we made a point in asking the audience: “Does God forgive?”, only to see how people would react when faced with such curious inquiry. Invariably the majority would say yes; we would claim he didn’t, waiting a little in order to measure their reaction (pure mischief, a friend would say, but with lots of love. lol), then we’d explain why we thought this way.

Only after a long time we arrived at the conclusion that God never forgives, for He is “unoffendable”, using this word, not yet found in the dictionary, but used elsewhere by philosophers and bible scholars.

Indeed, for God to be offended it’d be necessary to have a being that would match Him in elevation and power, which does not exist, as we know. Furthermore He’d need to be offended by something we did to Him; but, obviously, such word does not exist in the divine’s vocabulary, which by the way, does not unite with unconditional love; since that “God’s love endures forever” (Psalm 136), an affirmation that is repeatedly recited by Hebrews, in the great thanksgiving litany during Easter.

On the other hand, from the people who said yes to the ones who didn’t understand our explanation, they haven’t yet realized the infinite love that God nourishes for each one of His creatures, in a way that He sees them as children who “do not know what they are doing” (Luke 26, 34), using this expression by Jesus.

Don’t be surprised, dear reader, us claiming we found biblical support to justify our belief that God does not forgive and there’s no reason why He should:

Job 35, 6-8: “If you sin, how does that affect Him? If your sins are many, what does that do to Him? If you are righteous, what do you give to Him or what does He receive from your hand? Your wickedness only affects humans like yourself, and your righteousness only other people.”

We believe that Job was utterly right, for our actions, either good or bad, only affect us, never God. Furthermore, it is opportune to remind that it is our neighbor that we offend, and he will give his forgiveness and not God, who has nothing to do with this issue. However, that does not mean that we haven’t broken the Law of Love, with which, even if it takes a few centuries, we ought to harmonize.  

How to see forgiveness  

In order to understand how we, usually, see divine forgiveness we need to make a small comparison. Perhaps the example might not be the best but, of lack thereof, at the moment, we present it:

Raoul, a pharmacist from the little town of Blue Lake, concerned about the news he’d received, wakes up, a little sleepy, after a sleepless night. His problem was: How to get the money to renovate the place, he was offered to move the pharmacy to (much better than the last one), in order to adapt it to legal requirements.

At breakfast, when talking to his wife, she suggested, as a viable alternative, he took a bank loan. It was something he had thought of, but was afraid to bring up fearing his wife wouldn’t give him support.

Resolute, he goes to the bank manager, saying the he needed a certain amount that, even though wasn’t very much, he’d need at least six months to pay off. As he enjoyed credit, there was no problem getting the loan. Some time goes by, and Raoul now had his pharmacy better located and sales were going very well; however he still couldn’t get the money to pay the bank, as he used the money to pay his wife’ medical bills due to an illness, which she had now recovered from. The payments were overdue and he hadn’t even gone to the bank out of embarrassment for not being able to fulfill the agreement. So, with him hiding behind his embarrassment, three months go by after due date, when he receives a letter from the bank asking him to regularize the situation.

As there was no way out, feeling kind of bad, he went to the bank manager. The manager put him in ‘the corner’, and he, finding the last bit of courage told the manager: “Mate, you know me very well, you know perfectly well that I never fell back on my payments; but it was because of an unplanned event that I wasn’t able to pay my debt; however, I’d like you to, because of my good record with this institution, forgive my debt altogether”.

The manager almost fell over his chair when he heard such preposterous request, and as he wasn’t able to help him, he suggested he paid the amount, with legal interests, in monthly installments he was able to afford. He would, then, be able to assist him.

Raoul mentally worked out the figures and told the manager he would be able to pay a certain amount monthly, which was agreed upon, without any problems. In fact, our friend Raoul was able to fulfill this new agreement and pay the whole amount he owed the bank.

What people want, when referring to God, is exactly what Raoul asked the manager, which is, to simply forgive the debt. Well, the manager could never do it, for he would have to do the same with every client and then, no more banks… In what concerns God, this fact would be, at least, a “farewell” to the law of cause and effect (Justice). But, as the manager knew his debtor well, he made him the offer to pay it off over a period of time and according to his means. That for Raoul was his lifeline.

In the same way, “God will never forgive us” for the faults which we have committed against the Law of Love; but somehow will give us the opportunity to harmonize with it in small “installments”. So, if you want to recognize that God forgives, it is only possible if we understand this forgiveness as Him giving us new opportunities to pay off our debts.

This is a warning for those who want the “heavens” for free, for they will have unpleasant surprises when they return to their spiritual home.

The point of view of Spiritualism 

In Spiritualism we hold as the truth the “Law of Cause and Effect” (which we consider the utmost principle of justice), to which, as we know, makes up the row of fundamental principles that “demand” from the offender the reparation of all his deeds when breaking the Law of Love. In the reparation, divine mercy provides a chance to “pay” with love, doing Good to others, or “suffer” the evil done, aiming, in this case, to give us better conditions to evaluate the extension and the consequences of our actions in order not to repeat them in the future.

In the Spiritualistic Magazine, June, 1859, we find something rather interesting. It has to do with a report about a séance done on the 25^th of March in the Spiritualistic Society of Paris, in which several questions were asked to the Spirit Andre Luiz. Among them we highlight this one: “Do White people sometimes reincarnate as Black people?”

Here’s the answer:

Yes, when, for instance, a slave lord abuses a slave, he may ask for himself, for expiation purposes, to live in the body of a black person in order to suffer, in his turn, all the harm he’d done and, through this, move forward and be granted God’s forgiveness. (KARDEC, 1993e, page 163.)

From that, it becomes clear that “God’s forgiveness” is only granted when the detractor is willing to repair the evil he has caused; however, this is rather symbolic, for it is the divine law that is broken and not God’s per se. 

In The Gospel According to Spiritualism, on chapter V – blessed the afflicted, an excerpt of Kardec’ commentary about the causes of our afflictions:

“Human law addresses certain flaws and punishes them. The convicted is able to, then, acknowledge the fact that he is suffering the consequences for what he’s done. But the law is not able to punish all the faults; it reaches specially those which have caused harm to society and not those that cause harm only to the ones who commit them. God, however, wants all His creatures to progress and, thus, does not leave any deviation unpunished. There are no faults, as mild as they may seem, no transgressions of His law, that don’t lead to forceful and unavoidable consequences, more or less deplorable.” (our highlight) (this article will resume in our next issue).

Bibliographical references:

BRAGA, K. F. Alvorada de Bênçãos. 2012.

KARDEC, A. Revista Espírita 1859. Araras, SP: IDE, 1993e.

KARDEC, A. O Céu e o Inferno. Rio de Janeiro: FEB, 2007d.

KARDEC, A. O Evangelho segundo o Espiritismo. Rio de Janeiro: FEB, 2007c.

XAVIER, F. C. e VIEIRA,W. O Espírito da Verdade. Rio de Janeiro: FEB, 2006.

REDAÇÃO MOMENTO ESPÍRITA. Nem castigo, nem perdão. http://www.momento.com.br, acesso em 20.06.2012, às 14:10.

GREGÓRIO, S. B. Bem-aventurados os misericordiosos in; http://www.ceismael.com.br/artigo/bem-aventurados-misericordiosos.htm, acesso em 20.06.2012, às 14:17.