VI. The Justification for Forgiveness

T-30.VI.1. Anger is never justified. ² Attack has no foundation. ³ It is here escape from fear begins, and will be made complete. ⁴ Here is the real world given in exchange for dreams of terror. ⁵ For it is on this forgiveness rests, and is but natural. ⁶ You are not asked to offer pardon where attack is due, and would be justified. ⁷ For that would mean that you forgive a sin by overlooking what is really there. ⁸ This is not pardon. ⁹ For it would assume that, by responding in a way which is not justified, your pardon will become the answer to attack that has been made. ¹⁰ And thus is pardon inappropriate, by being granted where it is not due.

T-30.VI.2. Pardon is always justified. ² It has a sure foundation. ³ You do not forgive the unforgivable, nor overlook a real attack that calls for punishment. ⁴ Salvation does not lie in being asked to make unnatural responses which are inappropriate to what is real. ⁵ Instead, it merely asks that you respond appropriately to what is not real by not perceiving what has not occurred. ⁶ If pardon were unjustified, you would be asked to sacrifice your rights when you return forgiveness for attack. ⁷ But you are merely asked to see forgiveness as the natural reaction to distress that rests on error, and thus calls for help. ⁸ Forgiveness is the only sane response. ⁹ It keeps your rights from being sacrificed.

T-30.VI.3. This understanding is the only change that lets the real world rise to take the place of dreams of terror. ² Fear cannot arise unless attack is justified, and if it had a real foundation pardon would have none. ³ The real world is achieved when you perceive the basis of forgiveness is quite real and fully justified. ⁴ While you regard it as a gift unwarranted, it must uphold the guilt you would "forgive." ⁵ Unjustified forgiveness is attack. ⁶ And this is all the world can ever give. ⁷ It pardons "sinners" sometimes, but remains aware that they have sinned. ⁸ And so they do not merit the forgiveness that it gives.

T-30.VI.4. This is the false forgiveness which the world employs to keep the sense of sin alive. ² And recognizing God is just, it seems impossible His pardon could be real. ³ Thus is the fear of God the sure result of seeing pardon as unmerited. ⁴ No one who sees himself as guilty can avoid the fear of God. ⁵ But he is saved from this dilemma if he can forgive. ⁶ The mind must think of its Creator as it looks upon itself. ⁷ If you can see your brother merits pardon, you have learned forgiveness is your right as much as his. ⁸ Nor will you think that God intends for you a fearful judgment that your brother does not merit. ⁹ For it is the truth that you can merit neither more nor less than he.

T-30.VI.5. Forgiveness recognized as merited will heal. ² It gives the miracle its strength to overlook illusions. ³ This is how you learn that you must be forgiven too. ⁴ There can be no appearance that can not be overlooked. ⁵ For if there were, it would be necessary first there be some sin that stands beyond forgiveness. ⁶ There would be an error that is more than a mistake; a special form of error that remains unchangeable, eternal, and beyond correction or escape. ⁷ There would be one mistake that had the power to undo creation, and to make a world that could replace it and destroy the Will of God. ⁸ Only if this were possible could there be some appearances that could withstand the miracle, and not be healed by it.

T-30.VI.6. There is no surer proof idolatry is what you wish than a belief there are some forms of sickness and of joylessness forgiveness cannot heal. ² This means that you prefer to keep some idols, and are not prepared, as yet, to let all idols go. ³ And thus you think that some appearances are real and not appearances at all. ⁴ Be not deceived about the meaning of a fixed belief that some appearances are harder to look past than others are. ⁵ It always means you think forgiveness must be limited. ⁶ And you have set a goal of partial pardon and a limited escape from guilt for you. ⁷ What can this be except a false forgiveness of yourself, and everyone who seems apart from you?

T-30.VI.7. It must be true the miracle can heal all forms of sickness, or it cannot heal. ² Its purpose cannot be to judge which forms are real, and which appearances are true. ³ If one appearance must remain apart from healing, one illusion must be part of truth. ⁴ And you could not escape all guilt, but only some of it. ⁵ You must forgive God's Son entirely. ⁶ Or you will keep an image of yourself that is not whole, and will remain afraid to look within and find escape from every idol there. ⁷ Salvation rests on faith there cannot be some forms of guilt that you cannot forgive. ⁸ And so there cannot be appearances that have replaced the truth about God's Son.

T-30.VI.8. Look on your brother with the willingness to see him as he is. ² And do not keep a part of him outside your willingness that he be healed. ³ To heal is to make whole. ⁴ And what is whole can have no missing parts that have been kept outside. ⁵ Forgiveness rests on recognizing this, and being glad there cannot be some forms of sickness which the miracle must lack the power to heal.

T-30.VI.9. God's Son is perfect, or he cannot be God's Son. ² Nor will you know him, if you think he does not merit the escape from guilt in all its consequences and its forms. ³ There is no way to think of him but this, if you would know the truth about yourself.

⁴ I thank You, Father, for Your perfect Son, and in his glory will I see my own.

⁵ Here is the joyful statement that there are no forms of evil that can overcome the Will of God; the glad acknowledgment that guilt has not succeeded by your wish to make illusions real. ⁶ And what is this except a simple statement of the truth?

T-30.VI.10. Look on your brother with this hope in you, and you will understand he could not make an error that could change the truth in him. ² It is not difficult to overlook mistakes that have been given no effects. ³ But what you see as having power to make an idol of the Son of God you will not pardon. ⁴ For he has become to you a graven image and a sign of death. ⁵ Is this your savior? ⁶ Is his Father wrong about His Son? ⁷ Or have you been deceived in him who has been given you to heal, for your salvation and deliverance?