No Redemption Absent Admission of Guilt

Or, no one can truly be forgiven if we eradicate “right” and “wrong”.

Mike Adams has a short piece that underscores some of the same issues that brought Dr. Karl Menninger, of the well-known and highly-respected Menninger psychiatric institute to write, “Whatever Became of Sin?” in the 1970s.

There are a number of problems associated with redefining all undesirable forms of behavior as “disorders” to be cured. Among them is the unanticipated consequence of depriving man of his humanity. If a man is merely a victim of some disease then he cannot really be considered evil. If he has no potential to be evil, he has no potential to be good.

C.S. Lewis pointed out another unanticipated consequence of our rush to treat, rather than punish, people who do evil things. He noted that the same intellectuals who determine when an illness has set in will also determine when that illness has dissipated. And they have a powerful incentive to drag out the entire process. Who among us would not rather take our punishment and be done with it – as opposed to waiting in perpetuity for the official clearance of a doctor?

Adams emerges at a slightly different place than Menninger, but both raise the issue of converting what is simply bad behavior into “treatable” so-called “medical conditions”.

The really critical issue to me is that wrong-doers can NOT obtain forgiveness for their wrong-doing and move on to reformation and redemption absent admission of guilt and genuine repentance–a desire to abandon their wrong-doing and change their evil ways. Yes, I said “evil”–so? 🙂 A part of admission of guilt and repentance must embrace a willingness to accept punishment and an attempt to make restitution for wrong-doing. While those last two things may stand apart from being forgiven by those they have wronged, full restoration into (whatever) society must hinge on demonstrations of willingness to make genuine restitution, however much it is possible to do so.

BTW, that last is one reason why I am a firm supporter of capital punishment for some crimes. There are simply some things for which no one can make restitution, and the criminal taking of another human life is one of them. No amount of repentance or genuine expression of remorse can restore the life (or lives) taken by a drunk driver, for example, but as long as society wrongly excuses such drunken manslaughter by giving drunk drivers a “bye” for their supposed “disease”, proper punishment of their crime (and the resultant “encouragement” of other drunks to eschew driving in the condition they created by choosing to be drunks) will not occur. (Yes, I do believe the proper punishment of someone who commits vehicular manslaughter as a result of choosing to drive drunk is execution. Preferably by having their own car–or whatever remains of it–dropped on them repeatedly, in public, until they are a greasy smear.)