Human Moral Imperfection and the Desire for Forgiveness

Do you ever struggle with guilt? The guilt that arises because you have done something that is bad or because you have failed to do something that is good. I think all of us would have done things that are bad or would have failed to do things that are good and therefore ought to be done at that point of time, and yet walked away without having to do it. Incidents such as these might occur over and over again. However, the guilt may not strike to every individual as much as it would strike to certain individuals. If you have ever struggled with guilt, it would serve as an evidence that you are not morally perfect; that you have at times being morally imperfect. 

But what about those who do not struggle with guilt? Can we say that they think that they are morally perfect. I don't think any grown person can really say that he or she is morally perfect. The guilt may not strike as hard it has happened to certain other people. In fact, the guilt may not just be there. But to feel guilty or to be aware of being guilty of certain bad actions is not necessarily the only outcome after having done a bad action or failed to have performed a good action. Some people just tell lies without any apparent sense of remorse even when there is no apparent compelling reason to tell a lie. By 'compelling reason' I mean a situation such as this. A friend of yours is hiding in your room. Some people came to ask you if she is hiding in your room. You sense that they intended to kill her with their machete. You are pretty confident that your friend is not wrong. In such a situation, telling a lie to save her would be a compelling reason to lie. So when we go out to the market the taxi driver may lie to us or the shopkeeper may just lie to us without any compelling reason. And when such people lie, they may not appear to have any sense of guilt. But that does not really mean that such lie is a good thing; a lie is still a lie. For such people, a lie is not followed by a sense of remorse. 

Upon probing if such a lie is bad or good, the one who lied would admit that such a lie is not a good thing. In fact if the truth is found out and the person is confronted, it is highly likely that the person would be put in a defensive mode or even be ashamed of the lie. But often a lie is not caught, and even if caught direct confrontation is avoided. And even when confronted some people would try to cover up with another lie. And this evading continues. But again evading the truth is rather like admitting implicitly that a lie is considered a lie and it is not good. 

But all of this is to do with individual's perception of good and bad. The idea of good and bad goes beyond what the individual understands for oneself. You jump the traffic light; the policeman will catch and imposes fine on you. You cannot really say that you are not aware of the traffic rule and therefore you should be let off the hook. Even when you are being honestly ignorant, you broke the law, and you must pay penalty. Now again we can argue saying that not every legislated norm is good. Fair enough! Definitely depending on the kind of government in power, laws sometime are legislated unfairly. For example, a dictator may refuse voting right to certain ethnic group just because they are different or he may even suspend the Parliament. The law is passed in such cases, yet given a free and fair condition to argue back and forth, one can establish a case that such a legislated norm is not right. So there are situations when one can say that laws are not good. However, it still remains that there are also quite a lot items of legal norms that are good and must be honored. Breaking such honorable laws, knowingly or unknowingly, entails moral imperfection on the part of the individual. Guilt may follow or not, but moral imperfection is a logical consequence of such violation of legislated norms! 

In so many literary pieces, one can read cases of men and women who have grappled with guilt because of having done something bad. For example, king David in the Bible felt terribly bad because of the kind of bad actions that he committed. First he committed adultery with a woman named Bathsheba. That was bad. But he realized that this act might possibly be found out. And therefore he had her husband killed in a battle. Being the king he was able to hatch such a plan! That was really bad. David struggled with guilt and he expressed the guilt. David did not think that he was morally perfect. Mahatma Gandhi felt terribly sorry over the fact that he could not be with his dad at his dying hour. He was with his had but then he had gone to be with his wife when his dad would have breathed his last breathe. And so when his dad passed away, he would have been sleeping with his wife. He felt that it was a moral failure on his part. Gandhi did not consider himself morally perfect. These are great figures, revered by thousands and millions of people across generations. They thought they had their moral failures. What about you? What about me? I don't think I am morally perfect. There are things that I had done and guilt did not strike immediately. There are things that I had done and guilt just struck so quickly. Examples. When I was in school, probably in the half-yearly exam of 9th standard, I did not get good result as I had thought of. I was afraid to show at home because I got bad marks. I fudged my result and put principal's signature myself. I showed at home that I got good result. Nobody at home came to know about it. I lied! I lied about my mark few years later again. My result did not show as I had anticipated. I fudged my mark sheet again.  I lied! Years later, I realized that what I had done was not right. Guilt struck me only years later, not immediately. But because guilt struck me so hard I discarded my fudged mark sheet and got hold of the real mark sheet. The time when guilt struck me so quickly was when I had watched porn videos. This is not something that took years for me to let the guilt surface in me. The guilt surfaced right after having spent sometime watching porn. And these cases show, at least to myself, that I am not morally perfect. But these are just a handful of examples. If I have to list about my moral failures, it's just so many. 

And I do think that each one of us has moral failures. In fact, to insist that one is morally perfect sounds rather like lying to oneself. But given this pervasive moral failure and therefore guilt, how do we get forgiveness or how do we sort this out? After all grappling with guilt for ages and ages is not good. It does lot of harm to oneself, if not to other people around us. For example, in Shakespeare's Macbeth, we read of lady Macbeth having to hallucinate because of her struggle with guilt. She had played a key role in getting the king murdered. And now guilt is catching up with her. Had she gotten rid of this guilt sooner, she would not have to face this predicament. But she did not get rid of this guilt. And now her life is in ruin because of her guilt. It is an extremely  wise way of living not to lie to oneself, and therefore it is important to get rid of guilt. 

If we broke traffic rule, we pay penalty. But what do we do if there is moral failure and therefore we struggle with guilt? Go and reconcile with whom I have wronged! But if I feel guilty because I have watched porn, to whom do I go to get rid of my guilt? If I felt guilty because I had fudged my marks, to whom do I go to get rid of my guilt? When king David committed sin, the first person he went to was God. He thought that since God is his Lord, to whom he is to be accountable to, he must first set things right with God. And so he asks for forgiveness from God. I believe that since God is the giver of my breathe and the moral law within, I owe my life to him and my reconciliation must take place with him first. Given this factor, I ask God for forgiveness. God is a loving God, and when I seek forgiveness, I believe, he forgives. When I see forgiveness from my mother, she forgives, because she loves me. Why won't God who loves me forgives me when I seek forgiveness! Anyone who loves you will forgive you, if you seek forgiveness. If I had stolen something from X, of course, it is good to settle with X. So if something of this sort is required to settle things, settle it. But not all of moral failure is of this sort. And when it is not of this sort, I think settling with God is what really matters! 

There is moral failure on my part from time to time. And each time I come to God. I don't want this moral failure. Yet there is a strong pull in me that drags me down and so sometimes I fall. But each time I get up and say sorry to God, he forgives me. I don't think I will ever be able to live a morally perfect life, a life that is morally perfect for, say, a year. But then the cross of Jesus Christ tells me that my sins are being forgiven and that I ought not to commit sins again. 

I imagine that the world would be a better place if all humans would address the guilt that one struggles with. If we grapple with guilt, then the possibility of not doing the same action is there. The possibility of not stealing again, the possibility of not killing again, the possibility of not lying again and so on. Given that guilt elicits in us a response that prevents us from committing the same bad action, I think, it is fair to say that awaking in us a feeling of guilt for the bad actions we have done in the past is good. Having a guilt free life is better compared to a guilt ridden life! The problem is thus not so much about not having a solution do deal with guilt because forgiveness is available so as to get rid of guilt; the problem is rather that many people do not wake from their 'moral slumber' and are not able to receive forgiveness.

Blessed are those who desired forgiveness because of their guilt and have received forgiveness!