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Evan Rosa: For the Life of the World is a production of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. Visit us online at faith.yale.edu. 

Miroslav Volf: Remember it in the way it was narrated to me to have been. extremely painful experience. And I think one of the most painful sides of it, I'm not sure that I mentioned it in the book, is at one point after the injury, my father had to carry him, uh, because there were no ambulances available for about a mile, maybe less than a mile.

Uh, and observe his life drain out of, uh, his, his body. And yet, when I look at, look at back at the experience of my family, especially at the act of forgiving, at the act of not letting that horrendous pain and loss determine in negative way how they should relate to the perpetrator, I feel. Kind of immense gratitude for what I would describe it as a kind of beauty of the character and the courage.

My parents, uh, have independently of each other, received this scriptural text in their mind as they were thinking about the event. Forgives. As you have been forgiven in Christ. And that seemed to me a beautiful illustration, both of the pain, sometimes of Christian living, but also of the beauty of it.

Evan Rosa: This is for the life of the world, a podcast about seeking and living a life worthy of our humanity. I'm Evan Rosa with the Yale center for faith and culture. 

It's easy to forget how. Utterly scandalous, the concepts of grace and forgiveness are. Grace, this unmerited, undeserved beneficence or benevolence, an excessive gift or favor.

Forgiveness, an intentional ignoring of the wrong by a wrongdoer. I mean, in Miroslav Volf's understanding, the essence of Christian forgiveness is this, and here I'm quoting at length from his book, The End of Memory. By what right would we detach the wrongdoing even from a judged, repentant, and transformed wrongdoer?

That is exactly what forgiveness does, for herein lies the essence of Christian forgiveness. On account of His divinity, Christ could, and did, shoulder the consequences of human sin. So the penalty of wrongdoing can be detached from wrongdoers. And since on account of His humanity, Christ could and did die on behalf of sinners, they, in effect, died when he died.

So guilt can be detached from wrongdoers. Echoing God's unfathomable graciousness, we decouple the deed from the doer, the offense from the offender. Miroslav goes on. Grace filled forgiveness, he says, and the non remembrance of offenses is scandalous, especially when extended to vile evildoers. That many people feel a strong urge to reject forgiveness and non remembrance is understandable.

But, he says, if God's reconciling, self giving for the ungodly stands at the center of our faith, then nothing stands in the way of opting for grace, with its pain and delight, a forgiving and ultimately releasing memory of suffered wrongs.

This kind of grace and forgiveness, this decoupling of the deed from the doer, is in fact scandalous. It's offensive. It seems incredibly unjust because the reigning understanding of justice in contemporary culture is retributive justice. According to what we deserve for what's merited, that retribution means payback.

This retributive cultural mood is honestly understandable. There's just infuriating stuff out there. Evil is real, even if we've numbed ourselves to it from overexposure or avoidance. But as philosopher Nick Wolterstorff writes in his book, Justice and Love. If redressing injury has any place at all in the moral order, God will do it.

Leave it to God. No doubt that's going to feel difficult. So, does that mean the work of justice goes out the window? No. Far from it. But it's a different understanding of justice that's at work there. The kind of justice that seeks to restore the wrongdoer, and even forgive. Miroslav Volf's book, Free of Charge, Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace, was published in 2006 and is maybe his personal favorite of all the books he's written.

That's what he told me recently when I was interviewing him about our recent extended curriculum series for free of charge. We released this 10 video curriculum series through our website earlier this month and it includes an additional discussion guide. with brand new material that we've developed to help facilitate not just deeper reflection about giving and forgiving, but hopefully a viable livable path toward these core Christian practices.

So if you'd like to get access to these, it's all free for our email subscribers. You can head over to faith. yale. edu. free of charge. Check our show notes today for the link to sign up. Today's episode features some highlights from Miroslav's personal reflections about each chapter of Free of Charge, including his thoughts about one of the most painful moments in his family's history, the death of his five year old brother Daniel when Miroslav was just a small boy.

One of my favorite expressions of the scandal of Giving and forgiving is a song by Tom Waits. It's called Down There By The Train. Forgiveness, I've 

Tom Waits: never said a prayer. I've never given up myself. And I've never truly cared. And I've hurt the ones who love me. I'm still raising King. I've taken the low road and the same.

Meet me down there by the train.

Evan Rosa: This first As well as the song in its entirety is really about the shock that comes when we realize how far forgiveness can go and simultaneous comfort. When we realize how far forgiveness can go.

Thanks for listening today.

Miroslav Volf: This idea of giving and of forgiving, they summarize the character of the Christian, uh, faith. And it's particularly, I think, in important to take up these themes. in the culture in which we inhabit, which seems to be bereft of the ability to truly give without seeking something equal or even greater in return, and that has difficulty also with forgiving.

And one way in which I've come to think about the book is that it can serve as almost something like an invitation. to the Christian faith as a whole. So thank you, friends, for joining us in this exploration of the great themes of giving and forgiving. And if I can suggest one way in which to spiritually, existentially, if you want, prepare yourself for reading of that book is to reflect on instances in your lives.

When You were good as a giver, or when you feel that you have failed as a giver, what's the difference in these two experiences? And I would say the same thing about forgiveness, except that very often for us, the need to receive forgiveness. is greater than the need to, um, to forgive. How does forgiveness look like from the perspective of you as a recipient?

And that might open up the space to think about how and what is a good way to forgive and to emulate God as the forgiver. Miroslav

Evan Rosa: began his reflections by considering the meaning of gift. We used to think of giving as somehow depleting us, taking something away. But he argues that in fact, Giving is additive. It's the proper expression of our very being as humans. 

Miroslav Volf: It seems like most of us would be much happier receiving. And when I think of my children, they're all somehow big eyes when they're supposed to receive something because we feel that we would be kind of filled.

We would be strengthened if we received something. Whereas when we are asked. to give, we feel that we are depleted. Something is taken away, uh, from us. And I think what Jesus wants us to, uh, to keep in mind is that in giving, We are also receiving, to quote from St. Francis's prayer, so that giving is, in a sense, the proper expression of our very, very being, and that giving actually redounds back to us as fulfillment.

Of that who we truly are.

Evan Rosa: Of course, the understanding of gift has to relate fundamentally to giver. God giving out of God's abundance. Miroslav comments here on what it means to say that God is a giver. 

Miroslav Volf: In some ways to claim that God is a giver is at, uh, at the very heart of the foundation of who God is and how God relates. And I think when we say God is love, we means that God is unconditional.

That it's the character of God to love no matter what. God cannot but love, which then means when I look at the very foundation of my life and life of the world, which I inhabit at the very heart of it is a gift. God has given out of God's abundance and God requires nothing more than that we also participate with God in the gift giving adventure that life truly is.

Now, not everybody thinks of life as, uh, Gift giving activity at the foundation, a lot of people think, well, it's a struggle for survival to have good struggle to have successful struggle for survival. I need to struggle for my preeminence. And then the whole character of life becomes one of competition.

And I think. Belief in God as the giver, uh, is stands, uh, in fundamental contrast to such an account of how life look looks like.

Evan Rosa: In this gift economy, it can still be difficult to understand how we should give and how we can give, particularly from the perspective that giving somehow depletes us instead of seeing it as An additive practice. So I asked Miroslav how we should think about giving, how we should think about generosity and how we can rightly orient ourselves toward the imitation of God's scandalous grace.

Miroslav Volf: You know, some people think that, uh, we have to give to the point of completely depleting, uh, ourselves. And this would counter then the idea that giving is actually fulfillment of who we are, that what we give, we give of something that has already been, uh, given to us. At least how I decide is, uh, by the nature of the proximity of the need and by the nature of what kinds of resources and gifts I may be able to, to offer.

And Jesus, when he speaks about the Good Samaritan, which is really a parable about a gift that one gives to one's neighbor. Um, there was a person, there was a need. Uh, and the need was then, then fulfilled. The other way, which I think about often is who, who am I, who am I as a giver? And how can I, from the capacities and resources that I have, how can I give a gift?

I can play a song for somebody because my skills in playing violin. I used to be much better when I was about, uh, 15, but now are completely rusty. There are many other areas in which I cannot, uh, give, but there's some areas in which I can. So we can then strengthen those areas, uh, and act in those areas where gifts, uh, can be, um, properly given by us.

You know, writing is a very interesting, uh, experience, uh, because somehow you are asked to reach at the recesses of your own self, especially if you're writing spiritual books, rather than simply something theoretical, and then make it available for somebody to read. And for me, it is always an experience of Uh, almost like a spiritual experience, introspection, uh, about what is it and who and how I have to be in order to be able to communicate what I wish, uh, to communicate.

And I've experienced this book as, um, as in some areas easy and in other areas, a kind of difficult experience of, of giving, uh, and what was difficult. is not so much what I wanted to give, but how I wanted to give it. That's what, that's our experience in many gifts, right? We know that we want to give, we're happy that we want to give, but how will, how will the recipient receive the gift that I'm trying to give?

Is that really the most appropriate gift that I may give them? What would work and what doesn't work? So in giving, the question isn't simply to give a gift, but to give a gift That befits the recipient that the recipients can recognize that as a gift and that I think is the feature of all of our giving where they're given with attention, but certainly is also an experience my experience in writing.

About giving 

Evan Rosa: the interlude of free of charge is the story of Daniel's death. That event, of course, reverberated through the rest of his family's history, but even these many decades later, Mela reflects on the significance his parents' choice to forgive in the wake of their son's death. Remember 

Miroslav Volf: it in it was narrated to me to have been.

extremely painful experience. And I think one of the most painful sides of it, I'm not sure that I mentioned it, uh, in the book is at one point after the injury, my father had to carry him, uh, because there were no ambulances available for about a mile, maybe less than a mile. Uh, and observe his life drain out of, uh, his, his body.

And when I put myself in that position, I think if I were doing that, I don't know how I would, how I would survive that experience. Maybe not in the moment, but certainly in retrospect, and I can narrate the pain after pain of that, uh, of that experience. And yet, when I look at, look at back at the experience of my family.

Especially at the act of forgiving, at the act of not letting that horrendous pain and loss determine in negative way how they should relate to the perpetrator. I feel kind of immense gratitude for what I would describe it as a kind of beauty of the character and the courage to not to react simply, but to show the love that they have received from God.

And my parents, I think I mentioned that in the, in the book, my parents, uh, have independently of each other, receive this scriptural. Text in their mind, as they were thinking about the event, forgive as you have been forgiven in Christ. And that seemed to me a beautiful illustration, both of the pain sometimes of Christian living, but also of the beauty of it.

Forgiveness, 

Evan Rosa: of course, can be exploited. And this might be one of the reasons we've become numb. To the scandal of forgiveness. Well, we've just come to expect it in a certain way. Me's law pointed out the discrepancy between our own expectation of forgiveness and then the offense that we feel at the thought of someone who's wronged us being forgiven.

But on both sides of that equation, God is essentially an unconditional forgiver. 

Miroslav Volf: Well, you know, you can say, you can say so. So, uh. What's God for if God's not there to, to, to forgive? And there is a kind of certain ways in the way in which one can understand that that claim is simply saying, I'm entitled to that forgiveness.

That's why God exists so that I can be forgiven. And suddenly in the process of affirming this character of God, the character of forgiveness as a gift. As something that is undeserved, that's something that is given out of generosity, completely disappears. And yet, there is also truth in that statement.

It is a kind of God's business to forgive, and God, as a matter of fact, forgives and forgives unconditionally. So, it's a fine line to walk, to take. Receive God's forgiveness, uh, as a gift of forgiveness. And I think, uh, what, uh, how we do that is by recognizing that there's something serious about the transgression for which forgiveness is being given.

And very often when, uh, our transgression is in view, that is to say when I am. Uh, seeking to be forgiven or needing to be forgiven, then I think, well, somehow, essentially, it must happen. But when I observe somebody else being forgiven, especially if that somebody has harmed me, then I suddenly realized how scandalous.

The forgiveness is how everything in us rebels against the idea, who is God to forgive? What shouldn't be forgiven? And suddenly their whole lives are being, in a sense, put in the turmoil. Um, we love to be forgiven. We hate to. Have forgiveness being given to those who have harmed us. And I think the Christian faith is, in God as a forgiver, kind of tries to negotiate between, between these two sentiments that we have.

Evan Rosa: So in light of God's unconditional forgiveness, how should we forgive? Hiram Yerslav explains his definition of forgiveness and puts it in contrast. With the temptation toward retribution. 

Miroslav Volf: There are many ways in which people think about, uh, the nature of forgiveness. Uh, some of those ways, uh, are simply that forgiveness shouldn't be, uh, ever given because if somebody wrongs you.

Appropriate thing, uh, is to somehow even the, the scales, uh, um, that would be kind of retribution to seek some form of retribution or at least, uh, with justice relates to the, uh, to, to, to violation. That has been, um, experience. Um, and then the problem o of course, um, e emerges that the retribution. Uh, has never, never end.

It's a spiral that, uh, that continues. Uh, the other people then think, uh, almost very opposite of that to simply to accept it as having happened and to go and continue one's own, uh, journey, something that happens internally in your, uh, in your soul, uh, especially maybe to release oneself from the burden of.

Kind of having always to return back and being gnawed at by resentment that somebody has done that to you, you can then continue freed from that, uh, impulse toward resentment. I think neither of these two, uh, works well, uh, because one magnifies, uh, Harm and the other one, uh, simply, um, insulates oneself and disregards, disregards it.

So my understanding of forgiveness is that one identifies something as a wrong that the person has committed, but then decides not to. To count that wrong against the person who has committed to treat him as if that person hasn't admitted the wrong. It's both difficult and kind of freeing experience at the same time.

Back 

Evan Rosa: to his mother's experience of losing her son Daniel at just five years old. Miroslav points out the incredible challenge of forgiving. We should not forget how very difficult it is when we decide to decouple the deed from the doer. 

Miroslav Volf: So we're When my mother used to talk about her experience of forgiving the soldier who has caused Daniel's death, she's very clear that she did what she should have done.

But at the same time, she always said this was one of the most difficult things that I have ever done, because she said everything in me. Was crying out. He must that soldier must pay for it. Retribution is appropriate because such harm was so great. And so the question of our capacity to forgive our ability to to live with that is a really very important one.

I think for my parents, and I think for me as well, this forgiveness is. that one gives is motivated by, made, so to speak, easier by the fact that we forgive, that we have always been already forgiven by God. And I think another moment for me, that's for me, is very, very important, is that when I forgive, I actually echo the forgiveness that God has already to that person or offered to that person.

And so it becomes an, an easier thing to, uh, to forgive. Now the difficulty of forgiveness and how can we forgive is that that's about the difficulty of forgiveness. The difficulty of forgiveness is first to bring oneself to the moment when one forgives, but then the second difficulty. It's how to forgive really well, because there are really lousy ways to forgive.

Ways to forgive in, in which demean the person who has, uh, committed that deed. And, and ways even more importantly, I think the ways of forgiving that kind of elevates ourselves and give ourselves pat on the back that we really are the virtuous wants and suddenly we are these proud us. Give us the treat, uh, other people, uh, as the, as if they were a wet rag.

And that's why Kierkegaard for me was really insight as I was writing that, that book, a little gem, uh, where he said, forgiveness requires two victors. One victory is over oneself to forgive. The other victory is to win the person whom we forgive to accept the forgiveness. Um, to release oneself for the proud, um, sense of pride that we are forgiving and to offer this as a fellow who is in need forgiveness himself or herself.

Evan Rosa: Miroslav closes his book by considering a skeptic, someone for whom the idea of a giving and forgiving God just doesn't make sense. What if it is all too good to be true? Miroslav suggests that for a skeptic, The proper response is to try. Try living as though it were true, Miroslav suggests, even if you continue to hold on to doubts, this kind of experimentation in the economy of scandalous giving and forgiving might be a more powerful pathway to truth and flourishing than you expect.

Miroslav Volf: This entire life of a Christian life that is life of giving and life of forgiving. is not a life that you can kind of calculate in advance. And say, uh, and, and, and describe the input that you want to, um, make, and then have a short output that you're going to get, uh, out of it. Neither giving nor forgiving, uh, is.

Guaranteed, so to speak, success. My gifts can be spurned. My gifts can be laughed at, or I can fail, uh, even as I'm trying to, to, uh, to give, um, the same. Another person may not be willing to receive or receive badly. There's so many ways in which gift giving and also forgiving can go, can go wrong. In order to Sustained the activity of giving one needs, uh, faith, one needs, I think, maybe a better word would be trust, trust that even though I cannot guarantee outcomes, Nonetheless, that fragile activity of giving and forgiving is worth undertaking.

And I think that that's really in many ways what faith in God is. It's faith in trusting oneself, obviously, into God's hands, but it's also in trusting oneself in the way of life, to the way of life, which has been both Described in as a character of God and also embodied in the life of Christ. And we have to kind of walk as if into a darkness and it's amazing thing how exciting that can be sometimes scary, but at the same time.

Uh, it can be extraordinarily beautiful. Somebody accepts the gift or I'm given something and can rejoice over it. Um, forgiveness takes place and suddenly there, where there was a rift, uh, comes to be, uh, um, You know, one of the stories that motivated writing the book was, uh, a story that I read. Uh, apparently it's a Jewish story, but I could never find, uh, a source of it.

And it basically, uh, the gist of it is that when God was creating, God saw what would happen in the world and then decided. That God has to forgive humanity before he could create. But the reason for it is that we tend to be prone to do quite a bit of nasty things that forfeit in many ways are right, even to, to existence, or at least to, to love.

And yet in order to live, we need to have just that grace that is given to us by God. And so God, uh. In the same act, giving the world existence is deciding always already, I will forgive. I think that's true of our relationship. We start a relationship. Um, and it's a gift that we give to, to one another.

And if we haven't decided at the same time that we will forgive, that relationship that is so beautiful at the beginning will go sour. And by dissolve. So it's a risk, it's an act of faith, but every act of love is an act of faith

Evan Rosa: FOr the life of the world is a production of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture at Yale Divinity School. This episode featured Miroslav Volf, Production Assistance by Emily Brookfield, alexa Rollow, Kacie Barrett. Zoë Halaban and Macie Bridge. I'm Evan Rosa, and I edit and produce the show. For more information, visit us online at faith.yAle.edu or lifeworthliving.yale.edu. There you can find all sorts of resources that help people envision and pursue lives worthy of our humanity, including this recent video series on free of charge. If you're new to the show, remember podcast app, so you don't miss an episode. And if you're a loyal supporter and a faithful listener, one of the best ways you can support our show is by sharing an episode, send it as a text or an email to a friend, put it in your social feed, or just bring it up in your next conversation.

Thanks again for listening friends. We'll be back with more soon.

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