How does love and compassion work in Christianity and secular humanism?
Consider the example of the adulterous woman:
What happens if she does commit adultery again? Does Jesus forgive her again? What about a third time?
When does ‘forgiveness’ become ‘condoning’ or ‘accepting’ or ‘enabling’?
Surely, if you define ‘good’ and ‘bad’ behavior, then you cannot continue to accept ‘bad’ behavior indefinitely.
Good questions… I’m inclined to answer that Christianity takes vulnerability to sin to the extreme of endless cycles of forgiveness. Jesus abided the cross, after all…
To me the most interesting question in the passage cited though is: what is the significance of Jesus writing in the dirt?
If we don’t understand this gesture we don’t understand at all what is going on. To be perfectly honest, I don’t understand. I think it relates to God and the commandments written in stone. But again, I don’t understand…
This is the key, I think, to your question.
I think that is explained by the fact that the Pharisees are trying to catch Jesus in some inconstancy or unorthodoxy, therefore he does not respond to them as though they are asking a serious question.
It is, however, an important question.
It should also be noted that it is agreed that the incident never actually occurred in the life of Jesus. It has become part of the standard teachings of Jesus. 
First, you need a lot of money…
Jesus may forgive her enumerable times, but he will never condone her mistakes. Forgiving again and again does not mean acceptance of a wrong act. Both are entirely different things.
With love,
Sanjay
Also. Interesting phenomenon. God-fearers are so often assaulted for promoting a hateful, vengeful God who commands wicked actions. Here you’re (quite rightly I think) pointing out how in the extreme case, loving, compassionate actions can be just as evil-inducing…
Two ways to potentially think of it:
It’s neither one nor the other but something in between that God / Jesus do. Something more like ‘wisdom’ which understands that there is a time and place for everything, and forgiveness, for example, can only go so far until another action is called for. A smiting perhaps of the recalcitrant one.
It may be possible to see love and compassion in this change of action. Is it loving your child, for example, if you continue letting it be a brat? No. Love needs to see past the immediate action to the broader goal of how to best care for and support the loved one. In the immediate, love may look a lot like hate…
If I return to Jesus’ writing in the dirt (historical accuracy notwithstanding), I think all of the questions of the Pharisees are serious. Not asked seriously, or in the serious spirit of learning, I agree, but serious insofar as they are nevertheless important questions… And Jesus gives important answers…
So I don’t think the writing in the dirt is him not taking them seriously. It’s more significant than that. If anything, I think it’s him re-writing the commandments. He is indicating to the Pharisees through a gesture similar to the original crafting of the commandments that what he is doing is in the spirit of the commandments. This is important because the Pharisees do take the commandments seriously, perhaps too seriously. But also he is indicating to the Pharisees that there is something different going on… It is no longer stone, but dirt, that the ‘commandments’ are being written in… And it’s no longer a commandment from the past that is being followed, but one being written today, here and now…
In stone, the commandments are given a long-lasting quality, but in the dirt, there is a chance they will be obliterated by the next day… Hence I almost see it as going back to 1 (and 2 above). The lesson is that life is not about following laws written in stone (Pharisees) but about discerning the path forward today and each day anew. And discerning what that right action is for the time and place.
That is the true law and how it should manifest. Discerned in the present and flowing from the heart. Not commanded in the past and religiously adhered to thereafter.
Just thinking out loud on this.
They are just words until they are converted into actions. How is the action of forgiving, different from the action of accepting? The only difference seems to be Jesus saying that “she should sin no more”. But if she ignores it and continues her behavior and Jesus does nothing else than forgive (but not condone), then Jesus forgiving and Jesus accepting amount to exactly the same result for everyone.
Interesting. I had not given it much thought and I considered it unimportant. Now I think that your interpretation of the action is correct.
The point is to convert people to good behavior via the heart, not by threatening them into compliance. And no one ever said that actions can’t be taken. The issue is that you do not condemn someone for life because they messed up. If you haven’t the skill to correct people then you shouldn’t have the authority to condemn them.
The lives of other’s are not yours to dispatch at your convenience or choose to try to control into absolute compliance to your fantasy utopia. If you cannot save them, let them go. They are not yours.
‘Letting go’ would be taking some kind of action towards the woman if she continues her behavior. Jesus does not continue to write on the ground when the woman is brought for the one hundredth time. Or does he?
I like this james
phyllo is this bible some kind of manual for good behavior from god above…
I would reject any attempt to say the bible is from god…it is not from god
it is from human guys like you phyllo
Compassion will lead to indebtitude and dependence. Look at what IMF banks are doing to struggling countries by giving them “handouts”, and slowly turning them into their slaves. There is no free lunch. The price of compassion is your freedom.
That does not explain how love and compassion should/would work in the given example.
What is your proposed solution?
it is a good question but I have no answer yet…I am working on it…I don’t like simple answers to complex questions
How is that “letting go”?
You have some reason to believe that she didn’t change her ways?
The Pharisees will keep bringing her to Jesus. The problem does not go away. So, Jesus can keep doing the same thing or he can do something different.
I’m considering that case, instead of just assuming that she changes and the problem of her morality is solved by that one interaction with Jesus.
why don’t you use a present day problem…
Adultery still exists in the present. People do it. People understand it. People are upset by it.
“Life is short. Have an affair.”
Why are you confusing or equating forgiving with acceptance or condoning? Did Jesus mention that in that story that he not only forgave but also accepted her behavior?
Jesus cannot do that, ever.
Forget about Jesus for a moment, and put any ordinary person like you and me in the place of Jesus. But, replace that woman with any of our beloved one, like our children.
Imagine our son or daughter falls for any bad habit, like drugs. They use it once and we forgave them. But, they do it again and again. Now, what will we do? Would we throw them out of the house or disown them?
Not at all. We will think that they are committing the same mistake again and again because now they are habitual of that, and unable to control themselves. We will try to rectify their behavior in which way we can, to the best of our abilities, but will never accept that or turn our eyes away.
Is it not forgiving but without condoning at the same time?
You are having problem with Jesus doing the same because you are assuming that woman is an outsider for Jesus. But, that is not true. That is the difference between Jesus and us. Each and every human is as beloved for Jesus as our children for us. That is why he is Jesus, the Messiah for the whole of mankind, irrespective of what their behavior is.
We can forgive our close ones without condoning those, but cannot do the same with third person. Then we started thinking of right and wrong, justice and injustice, and long term consequences. But, Jesus does not think in terms of justice or injustice. He is not cared about the long term consequences either.
That is also the difference between other Abrahamic prophets and Jesus. Moses and Mohammad would not forgive that woman for the second time, or even for the first time, perhaps. But, that is Jesus, the height of compassion and forgiveness, who can also forgive even his crucifiers, knowing very well that they are committing a mistake. Did he not say to them that they do not know what they are doing? Was that also not forgiveness without condoning?
Jesus does not think from the mind, but from the heart only. He does not calculate the sins or Karmas of any individual while dealing with anyone.
Even all other religions, like different sects of Hinduism, no matter how much emphasis they put on non-violence, they all show their tied hands when it comes to face the consequences of Karmas. They all say that once you committed a crime, you have to pay for it. No god assures any escape from that.
It is only Jesus who has the heart of forgiving every time but that that is not condoning by any means. That is only his unconditioned love and passion for mankind.
with love,
sanjay