Forgetting and Forgiving: Miroslav Volf's Theological Perspective

Forgetting and Forgiving: Miroslav Volf's Theological Perspective

Andres S. TANG

This paper aims to introduce Miroslav Volf's theological understanding of forgiving and forgetting through an analytical presentation of his two books, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Explanation of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (1996) and The End of Memory: Remembering Rightly in a Violent World (2006). Volf's personal experiences of abuse and sharing in the suffering of mass killing of south Europe in the 1980s and 1990s respectively caused him to reflect theologically on what forgiveness and forgetting means in a Christian sense. This paper is divided in two parts. The first part is on forgiveness while the second is on forgetting. Each part consists of three sub-divisions: personal experience, Christological understanding and eschatological interpretation. For Volf, forgiveness is a necessity for humans as social beings; forgetting follows forgiveness. Otherwise both parties will live in an isolated and alienated world in which exclusion destroys humanity much more deeply. However this does not mean ignoring the truthfulness of suffering or being sinned against. Indeed, a proper remembering of this is important but this is possible only within the framework of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Ultimately, forgiveness and forgetting could only be done under the cross and the final judgment of Jesus Christ, eschatologically, in which embrace happens between the two parties.