Does God forgive if asked? If so, is there anything God won’t forgive?
God’s not really in the business of forgiveness.
God’s not really in the business of forgiveness. I say this because:
God isn’t human and doesn’t get offended.
God doesn’t take it personally when humans offend other humans. If a person offends someone and needs to be forgiven, she or he must seek it directly from the wronged individual who may or may not be willing to grant it.
Similarly, God doesn’t judge wrong-doers. “Judgement” is built into each wrong deed. Do the deed; suffer the consequence. The consequences are pragmatic; they are natural outgrowths of the wrong committed. God doesn’t send weather events, financial woes, illnesses, death to punish people who act in immoral ways. Groups can do wrong and suffer collective consequences. God didn’t send Taco Trump into places of political power to punish the USA. It is a punishment, but God didn’t will it. America brought that on itself.
There are deeds that are so heinous no forgiveness is possible. If God were in the business of forgiveness, forgiveness couldn’t apply in the cases I have in mind. Any taking of human life is in this category; genocide, for example. ICE and DHS passively/callously letting people die while in custody is in this category. Maybe if there’s a way to make amends— which is never possible in cases of murder, forgiveness is possible. But again that’s between humans.
The story of Cain killing Abel, his brother, in Hebrew scripture is telling. All stories in Genesis 1-11 are aetiological myths. The Cain/Abel story is in chapter 4. Cain killed Abel because of petty jealousy.
Image: Playing card from a set of "Cartes héroïques"; used with the gracious permission of the Smithsonian, Open Access, online. Gift of Marquis Val Verde de la Sierra
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Why in the mythological tale didn’t God kill Cain on the spot? In fact, God gets the word out and no one is supposed to kill him. No, letting Cain live was not forgiveness. What happens though, and this is intriguingly omitted from the details, is to put some kind of mark on Cain that could never be hidden, and that somehow indicated to all others with whom he came in to contact that he had participated in fratricide. From that curse, Cain could never escape.