Date of Award
4-22-2010
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Religious Studies
First Advisor
Vincent Lloyd - Committee Chair
Second Advisor
Peter Lindsay - Committee Member
Third Advisor
Timothy Renick - Committee Member
Abstract
This essay traces two trends in current philosophical and theological debates concerning forgiveness. One, advocated by Vladimir Jankélévitch and Jacques Derrida, I label “impossible” forgiveness. The second, advanced by John Milbank and L. Gregory Jones, I label “communal” forgiveness. I explore and critically examine each of these positions in the first two sections of the thesis. In the last section of the thesis I examine a recent conversation amongst religious ethicists against the background of the theoretical conversations described in the first half of the essay. Bringing the theoretical conversation together with the religious ethicists’ conversation, I argue that whether or not we embrace forgiveness depends in large part in what tradition, religious or secular, we place ourselves.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.57709/1338590
Recommended Citation
Lupo, Joshua Scott, "Can We Be Forgiven?: On "Impossible" and "Communal" Forgiveness in Contemporary Philosophy and Theology." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2010.
doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/1338590