The Impossible Possibility
Christ and the Problems of Forgiveness
- Theology
- Publisher: Cascade Books (Wipf and Stock)
- Published: 2024
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Publisher's Description
This work is a meditation on the integral mystery of forgiveness as both impossible to achieve and yet necessary for salvation. We must forgive, yet we cannot. Through themes of loss, sin, love, and virtue in literature, art, poetry, and theology, Caitlin Smith Gilson shows us how the need for forgiveness is a universal longing that directs us to the very hope for eternal life. At the core of forgiveness resides the heart of Christ who alone can complete what is lacking in us yet so desired. In Christ, forgiveness becomes the impossible possibility.
Endorsements (4)
“In an engaging style at once philosophical, prophetic, and literary—peppered with priceless quotes from Scripture, Teresa of Avila, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Ionesco, Camus, and more—Caitlin Smith Gilson here offers a profound meditation on forgiveness as, paradoxically, an impossible necessity. In so doing, by taking tensions seriously—and not collapsing mercy into justice or justice into mercy, as more facile solutions tend to do—she leads us further into the depths of the mystery of salvation in Christ.”
“Few people truly forgive—it is too difficult. But we all desperately need forgiveness. So, what is to be done? In this extraordinarily profound book, Caitlin Smith Gilson calls us to the virtues that, by Christ's grace, make forgiveness possible, despite the vast scope of sin and victimization. Smith Gilson has emerged as one of the truly important voices of our era.”
“The facticity of injustice continually tempts one to circumvent the very possibility of forgiveness and mercy. Yet, such a possibility stands on offer through the body, blood, and word of Christ who ever stands as a sign of contradiction, and who illumines the way through the heart of paradox. Caitlin’s philosophical acumen, couched in her raw, vivifying writing, and Carol’s artistic flair open multiple points of entry to consider this mystery, and to live it fully.”
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