Forgiveness flounders because I exclude the enemy from the community ofhumans even as I exclude myself from the community of sinners. But no onecan be in the presence of the God of the crucified Messiah for long withoutovercoming this double exclusion without transposing the enemy from thesphere of the monstrous into the sphere of shared humanity and herself fromthe sphere of proud innocence into the sphere of common sinfulness. Whenone knows [as the cross demonstrates] that the torturer will not eternallytriumph over the victim, one is free to rediscover that persons humanity andimitate Gods love for him. And when one knows [as the cross demonstrates]that Gods love is greater than all sin, one is free to see oneself in the light ofGods justice and so rediscover ones own sinfulness.
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About Miroslav Volf
Miroslav Volf was a 20th-century American croatian-american theologian and academic. Miroslav Volf is a Croatian Protestant theologian and public intellectual and Henry B. Wright Professor of Theology and director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture at Yale University. Read more on Wikipedia →