Can you forgive someone who never asked for it?
I don’t know for sure – but I have my doubts.
Do not be confused here.
This is different than what I would call “getting over it” and not making someone else’s misdeed a dwelling point or excuse for the rest of your life.
That’s what most people are talking about when they say that you need to forgive someone who isn’t sorry.
But, I mean, how can you be forgiven, if you don’t think you did anything wrong in the first place?
The demand that God should forgive such a man while he remains what he is, is based on a confusion between condoning and forgiving. To condone an evil is simply to ignore it, to treat it as if it were good. But forgiveness needs to be accepted as well as offered if it is to be complete: and a man who admits no guilt can accept no forgiveness.
-C.S. Lewis, The Problem Of Pain (Amazon)
