Chuck Bryant

You just think of it as punishment.

It's a system for punishment, not for redemption necessarily.

But it's also to help the victims.

I just never saw it that way before.

Yeah, it's interesting when you talk about that guy in court, and a lot of times you'll hear the courtroom forgiveness.

Sometimes you'll also hear the opposite, and you hear the courtroom like, I will never forgive you for what you did to me.

And I think, not always, but it seems to be a lot of time tied to whether the transgressor has...

really acknowledged what they've done and sought forgiveness and said that was the worst thing I've ever done in my life and I don't think you should ever forgive me.

It's an interesting sort of dance that happens there because it's not a one-to-one thing.

It's not like every time a bad criminal that does something really asks forgiveness

for forgiveness and says it was a terrible thing, the other person forgives.

Sometimes the person could laugh it off like this lady did and not ask for forgiveness and the other person could forgive, which I think goes back to the notion that forgiveness comes from the forgiver.

Right, that it's really about the person who's been wronged.

That's who it's about.

And so, yeah, now we've reached the kind of psychology's domain over the concept of forgiveness, which is that it's about you, the individual, who suffered a wrong.

releasing the pain and the anger and the resentment and all of the negative feelings that you're experiencing so that you can feel better and that it doesn't matter whether the other person is asking for forgiveness and that it doesn't even matter if the other person deserves forgiveness or not.

That genuine forgiveness, psychologically speaking, according to some psychologists, we'll hear that some disagree, but that genuine true forgiveness is unconditional.

That you forgive the person whether they deserve it or not.

Yeah, and this is where the language to me is a little...

I could see people debating this because it is forgiveness in a way, but to me it's almost more of just a letting go.