Truth, Penance, and Forgiveness

On the way forward when guilt has been acknowledged

The first demand of guilt is truth.

Not punishment. Not revenge. Not forgiveness. Not reconciliation. Before all of this comes the question of what actually happened. Who did what? Who was harmed? Who had power? Who had responsibility? Who carried a guilt that did not belong to him or her?

Without truth, guilt becomes unclear. It drifts between people. It may attach itself to the one who was harmed, while the guilty person moves on. It may be hidden behind explanations, excuses, diagnosis, system, loyalty, or silence. It may become a fog in which no one any longer knows what was done, what was intended, and who should have acted differently.

For this reason, the work of guilt must begin in truth.

Truth does not mean that everything becomes simple. Human actions often have backgrounds, causes, and contexts. People act out of fear, shame, need, anger, betrayal, intoxication, pressure, tradition, and blindness. All of this may be important to understand. But understanding must not become a way of dissolving responsibility.

A human being is more than the causes that shaped him.

This has been a recurring thread throughout this essay series. Guilt is not the same as the feeling of guilt. The one who feels guilty is not always guilty. The one who does not feel guilty is not always innocent. Therefore guilt must be placed. Not according to who carries the greatest unrest in the body, but according to action, responsibility, and power.

The first task of truth is to say: This happened.

For the one who was harmed, this can be the beginning of redress. What happened is no longer left to doubt, silence, or self-reproach. The violated person hears: You did not imagine it. You did not overreact. You did not carry responsibility for what another person did to you.

Truth does not automatically liberate. But it can break the grip of the lie.

For the guilty person, truth is more difficult. It may threaten the self-image. It may open a story one would rather avoid. It may make it impossible to continue saying: It was not that serious. Everyone did it. I did not mean it that way. I was only following the rules. The other person misunderstood. It was a different time.

But without truth there is no real way forward.

It is possible to escape. It is possible to remain silent. It is possible to make others doubt. It is possible to live for a long time in self-defense. But that is not the same as freedom. Guilt that is not acknowledged rarely disappears. It remains in relationships, in the body, in the pain of others, in broken trust, and in a language that constantly has to protect itself against reality.

This is why truth and penance belong together.

Penance is an old word. It may sound religious, heavy, and unfamiliar. But the word contains something important that our time can easily lose. Penance is more than remorse. Remorse can remain inside the person. It may concern my pain, my self-image, my shame, my unrest. Penance turns outward. It asks: What can I do now?

Penance is responsibility in action.

The person who has violated another human being cannot merely say: I feel guilty. That may be true, but it is not enough. The question is what the feeling of guilt leads to. Does it lead to defense, self-absorption, and a demand to be forgiven? Or does it lead to acknowledgement, change, repair, and respect for the other?

Penance often begins with a simple but demanding sentence:

This I did.

Not: It happened. Not: It was unfortunate. Not: Someone was hurt. But: This I did. The other person was harmed by my action, my omission, my cowardice, my lie, my silence, or my misuse of power.

Such acknowledgement is not self-annihilation. It is moral adulthood.

To take guilt upon oneself does not mean saying that the whole person is identical with his guilt. It means refusing to flee from what one has actually done. A person may have done something wrong without being only that wrong. Precisely for this reason, penance is possible. If a human being were wholly identical with his worst action, there would be no way forward.

But the way forward must pass through responsibility, not around it.

Penance may involve asking for forgiveness. But an apology is not valuable simply because the words have been spoken. It must be true. It must not pressure the other person. It must not be a demand for relief. It must not say: Now I have apologized, so now you must put it behind you. A true apology does not give the guilty person control over the other person’s path forward.

A true apology says: I see what I did. I see that you were harmed. I have no right to demand anything from you.

Penance may also mean repairing what can be repaired. It may involve financial compensation, public acknowledgement, changed practice, distance, treatment, relinquishing power, or clear responsibility in relation to others. Sometimes penance may consist in not seeking out the person one has harmed, because the other person needs peace. That too can be responsibility.

Penance is not first and foremost about the guilty person feeling better.

It is about reality becoming more truthful, about responsibility being carried by the one who has it, and about harm not continuing in new forms.

Only then can the question of forgiveness approach.

Forgiveness is a beautiful word, but also a dangerous one. It can open a new beginning. But it can also be used to place the burden back on the one who was harmed. People who have been subjected to violence, abuse, betrayal, or serious injustice may be told that they must forgive in order to move on. They may be told that bitterness harms them more than the other person. They may be told that forgiveness is necessary for peace.

Sometimes this is meant as care. But it can become a new injustice.

The violated person does not owe the guilty person forgiveness.

Forgiveness cannot be demanded. It cannot be made a duty for the one who has already been harmed. It cannot be used to create peace for the family, the institution, the congregation, the workplace, or society before the truth has been spoken. Forgiveness without truth can become a new form of silence.

Therefore we must distinguish between forgiveness and pressure to forgive.

Forgiveness, when it is genuine, must be free. It must come from the one who has the right to give it. It must not be confused with forgetting, minimizing, or renewed closeness. To forgive does not necessarily mean trusting again. It does not necessarily mean restoring the relationship. It does not mean that what happened was no longer serious.

Forgiveness can be an inner liberation. It can also be a relational act. It can be a refusal to let the past have the final word. But it can never be used as a tool against the one who was harmed.

Hannah Arendt connects forgiveness with the human possibility of a new beginning. Because human beings act, they can also do what is irreversible. Action cannot be undone. Human life therefore needs the possibility of forgiveness; otherwise we could become completely trapped by what we once did.

This is a profound insight.

But it must be held together with responsibility. Forgiveness does not abolish truth. It does not turn guilt into innocence. It does not remove the need for penance. It may open a future, but it cannot be built on denial of the past.

Without truth, forgiveness becomes cheap.

Without penance, forgiveness often becomes unreasonable.

Without freedom, forgiveness becomes a new demand.

Therefore the order must be protected: truth, responsibility, penance, and perhaps forgiveness.

Perhaps.

This small word is important. For there are injustices that cannot be reconciled in any simple way. There are wounds that cannot be fully healed. There are people who must live on without being able or willing to forgive. This must be respected. Not forgiving is not necessarily a moral failure. Sometimes it is a way of holding on to the truth.

At the same time, there is also forgiveness that is genuine, free, and life-giving.

It may come after a long time. It may come quietly. It may come without great words. It may mean that the violated person no longer wants to let the guilty person define life. It may mean that the guilty person is allowed to be more than his guilt. In rare cases, it may mean that the relationship receives a new form.

But forgiveness is never something the guilty person owns.

The guilty person may ask for it. He may hope for it. He may do penance whether it comes or not. But he cannot demand it. Penance that depends on being forgiven is not yet full penance. True penance does what is right because it is right, not because it guarantees reconciliation.

This is perhaps guilt’s most difficult lesson.

Taking responsibility is not a transaction. One cannot say: I acknowledge guilt; therefore you owe me forgiveness. The one who has done wrong must endure that the other person uses his or her own time, his or her own language, and his or her own freedom. Sometimes the most responsible thing is to stand in guilt without demanding relief.

In this way, guilt can become a path toward maturity.

Not because guilt in itself is good. Guilt can destroy, distort, and bind. But true guilt, correctly placed and carried with responsibility, can prevent a person from becoming indifferent. It can remind us of the other. It can make us more careful with our power. It can teach us that freedom is not escaping responsibility, but being able to answer for the life we live with others.

This series began with the claim that guilt has a face.

It ends with the claim that guilt needs a path.

The face of the other makes guilt concrete. Truth gives guilt language. Penance gives guilt action. Forgiveness may, when it is free and truthful, give the future an opening. But none of these words must be separated from the others. Truth without care can become harsh. Care without truth can become sentimental. Penance without responsibility can become theatre. Forgiveness without freedom can become abuse in gentler language.

We therefore need a precise language about guilt.

We need to be able to say to the one who carried false guilt: This was not your fault.

We need to be able to say to the one who acted wrongly: This you did, and this you must take responsibility for.

We need to be able to say to the community: Do not protect the guilty person by making the harmed person silent.

And we need to be able to say to ourselves: I am more than my guilt, but I am not free from responsibility for what I have done.

In this space, practical philosophy lives.

Not as abstract theory, but as work with life between human beings. Guilt, truth, penance, and forgiveness are not only concepts. They are ways of living with the irreparable. They concern how human beings can carry truth without being destroyed, and how communities can protect the one who was harmed without depriving the guilty person of the possibility of responsible change.

There is no simple road from guilt to reconciliation.

But there is an honest road.

It begins with truth.

It continues with responsibility.

It is tested in penance.

And sometimes, when no one demands it, forgiveness may come as a free gift.

Not as forgetting.

Not as acquittal.

But as a new beginning in which the truth no longer needs to be hidden.

References

Arendt, H. (1998). The human condition (2nd ed.). University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1958)

Baumeister, R. F., Stillwell, A. M., & Heatherton, T. F. (1994). Guilt: An interpersonal approach. Psychological Bulletin, 115(2), 243–267. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.115.2.243

Herman, J. L. (1992). Trauma and recovery: The aftermath of violence: From domestic abuse to political terror. Basic Books.

Leer-Salvesen, P. (1991). Menneske og straff: En refleksjon om skyld og straff som et bidrag til arbeidet med straffens etikk [Human beings and punishment: A reflection on guilt and punishment as a contribution to the ethics of punishment]. Universitetsforlaget.

Leer-Salvesen, P. (1998). Tilgivelse [Forgiveness]. Universitetsforlaget.

Leer-Salvesen, P. (2009). Forsoning etter krenkelser [Reconciliation after violations]. Fagbokforlaget.