Book Review: On Forgiveness

I was not expecting this book to reference religion, honestly, I thought it would be about how to forgive people, but it is not. It explores forgiveness but does not direct you to forgive for forgiveness's sake. But then again, it shouldn't come as a huge surprise, how does the famous saying go? ‘To err is human, to forgive divine’. It has been a while since I dipped my toes into religious rhetoric, so I am a little rusty, but bear with me.

I did find the book references interesting, especially about conditional forgiveness, it was not something that had crossed my mind as ‘conditional’. Take, for example, the Parable of the Prodigal Son, where the youngest son squanders away his inheritance and only realises his sins when he is reduced to living like a pig. Only then does he confess his sins to his father and ask for forgiveness. Essentially, it boils down to,” Okay, so I know I've done wrong, but you see my acknowledgement of my sins, and so you’ll obviously forgive me, right?” Conditional forgiveness has interesting dimensions within this context as it deals with family; it borders the fine line between conditional and unconditional love. Does it mean that forgiveness is conditional, too? I believe Holloway is saying yes, it very much can be.

Another interesting tie-in that Holloway looks at is Freedom. I’m not necessarily looking at freedom physically, but also freedom from ourselves and past offences done to us that hold us back. This was one of the reasons I read the book. We all have people who we believe have done us wrong. Whether they be petty, small or large pieces of what we personally perceive as evils done to us. Being “free” in Holloway’s context means being free to move forward with the future. We cannot change the past, but we are able to form our own futures. The question is - are we able to forgive the unforgivable?

Looking at the text as a whole and knowing the contradictions and all the holes that exist in the bible. Is the bible a relevant text to be used as a beacon for forgiveness? I don't think I will be able to answer that question in a 500-ish-word book review. It is also not the motive of Holloway to try and answer some of the biggest questions in religion. I must ask - does forgiveness set us free? For those who have endured physical and psychological pain, does the pain lessen once the perpetrator has been forgiven? Maybe it will be easier to move on; perhaps it won't. But there is a question that was not fully covered: is forgiveness supposed to set me free of the perpetrator from guilt? Holloway has written extensively on religion, theology and humanism - perhaps he explores these themes further in those books and I’ll just have to read more.