Forgiveness and the Limits of Ethics

Abstract

This chapter focuses on Chapter 12 of The Ethical Demand, while offering a concluding interpretation of the book as a whole. In Chapter 12, Løgstrup returns to the proclamation of Jesus, and what it is that makes his proclamation a religious matter, not a merely secular one. Løgstrup suggests that Jesus proclaims God’s forgiveness for failing to meet the demand, and so speaks on divine authority. He also suggests that such forgiveness can only come from God, as human beings are all equally prone to failure and so are not in a position to forgive each other, as they are not in a position to blame them either. Thus, whereas the demand is comprehensible in strictly human terms, divine forgiveness belongs to the unforeseen part of Jesus’s proclamation, but not in a way that jeopardizes Løgstrup’s claim to have made the ethical demand itself comprehensible from a human standpoint.