166 - Forgiveness

Forgiveness
By Carl Reinhold Brakenhielm
Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 1993. 99 pp. $10.00.

The theological discourse on forgiveness has been greatly assisted by Carl Brakenhielm, Professor of Theology at the University of Uppsala in Sweden. In this very brief book, he covers a lot of territory, using anecdotes from literature (Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, Dickens) and the cinema (Fanny and Alexander and The Deer Hunter). He synthesizes the works of untranslated Swedish theologians, and adds his own discerning and perceptive voice.

167 - Forgiveness

Brakenhielm attends to making several valuable distinctions regarding forgiveness. For example, he writes of exculpative and admissive categories of forgiveness (the former involves someone like a child who cannot be considered morally responsible; the latter emphasizes participation and culpability for the wrongdoing). Distinctions between forgiving an individual or a group and the differences between human and divine forgiveness are strong and insightful. Two chapters, one dealing with proverbs about forgiveness, including Miguel de Unamuno's adage, "Whoever forgives everything forgives nothing," and the other concerning the function of religious statements about forgiveness, are particularly well done. The remaining chapters, however, are solid and splendid as well.

Doris K Donnelly
John Carroll University
Cleveland, OH