“Can the mouse forgive the cat for eating him?” Howard Thurman on the Freedom and Deferral of Forgiveness

“Can the mouse forgive the cat for eating him?” Howard Thurman quips after making the oddly equalizing claim that “the ethical demand upon the more privileged and the underprivileged is the same.” He identifies “forgiveness” as integral to love, yet his concluding comments are as elliptical as they are generative. How does Thurman describe forgiveness as a “spiritual discipline”? What contribution does his perspective make to this core theme of religious psychology? How can his moral vision help us navigate the dual pitfalls of what he refers to as psychological slavery to resentment, on the one hand, and oppressive religious applications of “forgiveness,” on the other? His understanding of “freedom” is key to an ethical practice of forgiveness. But Thurman adds a theological twist that helps us clarify the meaning of the term—he points away from the dispossessed to an eschatological reality that transcends any human obligation or capacity.