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Many things can be said about the nature of human beings—some controversial and others not. What seems beyond doubt, however, is that we are social creatures.From the beginning, the Scriptures speak of human beings in plural terms. God created "them"—male and female—in his image and gave them charge to multiply. This has far-reaching consequences. It is not simply that we are born into families, speak a language shared with others, and tend to live in social units. Our specific identity is shaped by how others relate to us and by how we relate to them, including the way we relate to the way they relate to us.Consider the relation between a parent and a child. Parents' behavior shapes the characters of their children. Recent interest in genetic factors notwithstanding, the old wisdom still holds true that parents can "spoil" their children or raise them well. But it is equally true that children influence parents. Would I be the same person without Nathanael, my young son? My world has changed since his arrival, and my identity has been and is being reconfigured.As it is with our identity, so it is with our sin. Though all sin is by definition sin against God, most of our sins are committed in dealings with others. Rather than living in peace with others, we are consistently involved in conflicts. For instance, we often violate others in small and large ways, treat them unjustly, or deceive them. From earliest childhood on, the weak suffer at the hands of the strong, and the rage of today's victims gives birth to tomorrow's perpetrators.Moreover, sin itself creates a kind of perverse bond between persons. Evil committed and suffered both severs relationships and weaves a thick network of perverted ties that keeps victims and perpetrators returning to each other—in thought or in person—to commit new offenses in an attempt to rectify the old ones.This all leads up to a crucial point. If it is true that our identity is socially shaped and that sin is social in character, then we can expect the transformation and healing of persons to involve social relationships.Consider the famous story Simon Wiesenthal tells in The Sunflower. On his deathbed, an SS soldier confessed to Wiesenthal that he killed a Jewish family trying to flee a building which the Nazis had set afire. Plagued by guilt, the soldier wants forgiveness from a Jew. Though deeply moved, Wiesenthal leaves him without a word, partly on the grounds that victims alone can forgive the crimes done against them. The perpetrator's request and Wiesenthal's refusal are instructive. The request comes out of a painful awareness that the remorseful perpetrator cannot deal with the evil he committed on his own. He needs his victim's mercy so much that, in the absence of his victim, he feels compelled to search for a substitute. Wiesenthal's refusal to show mercy stems from the correct insight that the third party cannot forgive and mend the relations between the offender and the offended.You may ask, "Shouldn't God's forgiveness be all that is needed?" Well, yes and no. Yes, because God can forgive our wrongdoing against our neighbor precisely because God is not a mere third party. But no, because divine forgiveness cannot substitute for a victim's giving and a perpetrator's receiving of forgiveness. If it could, it would make nonsense of Jesus' command that persons who remembered that their brother or sister had something against them go and be reconciled to them before offering their gifts at the altar (Matthew 5:23–24). Reconciliation with one's estranged neighbors is part and parcel of reconciliation with God. The divine embrace of both the victim and perpetrator has, in a sense, not come to completion without their own embrace.

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October 23 2000, Vol. 44, No. 12