Confession and Forgiveness, Recollection and Trust

Abstract

The text that describes the transition to the third stage in the development of Spirit in the concluding eleven paragraphs of the Spirit chapter takes the form of a parable, a narrative recounting sequential stages in the relationship between an “evil consciousness” [PG 661] and a “hard-hearted judge” [PG 669–670]: evil [PG 661–662], judgment [PG 662–666], confession [666], refusal of reciprocal confession [PG 667–668], the breaking of the hard heart and confession by the judge [PG 669], forgiveness [PG 669–671], and the achievement of a new kind of community. (“The reconciling Yea, in which the two ‘I’s let go their antithetical existence, is the existence of the ‘I’ which has expanded into a duality.” [PG 671])