Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-hgkh8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T01:43:38.936Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Redeeming the past

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 1998

PATRICK SHERRY
Affiliation:
Department of Religious Studies, University of Lancaster, Lancaster LA1 4YG

Abstract

I take up Richard Swinburne's point, in his Responsibility and Atonement, Ch. 5, that although the past cannot be changed, wrongdoers may change its significance by ‘disowning’ their actions through atonement, just as their victims may do so through forgiveness. I argue that the point can and should be pressed much more strongly than it is by Swinburne within the terms of his own discussion; and that it has a much wider significance, transcending that discussion, for there is a constant interplay between events, human actions, and our retrospective assessment of the past. Finally, I look tentatively at the question in an eschatological perspective.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 1998 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)