Forgiveness is an expression that befits agents who are at heart morally frail and imperfect. There is strong disagreement regarding its structure, conditions, and permissibility. Søren Kierkegaard's pseudonymously authored Fear and Trembling—already well understood as a challenge to our understanding of faith, religion, and the moral law through its focus on the biblical tale of Abraham's binding of Isaac—offers an indirect challenge to our understanding of forgiveness. Isaac is too often overlooked as characterless and philosophically uninteresting. What such a reading (...) ignores is his potential expression for what Kierkegaard understood as forgiveness: a dutiful commitment to love equally. Rather than dispelling traditional accounts of forgiveness, Isaac's binding reveals the extent of its diverse expressions. (shrink)

The paper presents some historical (Plato, Aristotle, Plotin, Augustine, Boethius, Aquinas) and main contemporary topics about different accounts of goodness of God understood as ontological goodness, perfection and as ethical goodness - impeccability and benevolence. The arguments for goodness of God are presented, mainly from stance of Thomas Aquinas classical theism as well as arguments against compatibility of essential goodness and omnipotence (N. Pike) and being an moral agent. The article draws perspective of different philosophical issues connected with goodness of (...) God, like a problem of evil, the Euthyphro dilemma, divine command ethics and divine motivation theory. (shrink)