From The Unrepentant Son, in The Orthodox Heretic and Other Impossible Tales by Peter Rollins (2009)

Forgiveness is a word that has a lot of currency in our personal relationships, discussion in churches, political discourse, and even business affairs. Yet, the question we must ask concerns how much of what we baptize with the name forgiveness is really worthy of that name. 

In politics when the word is used, we can assume something is afoot, and that there is a reason for the forgiveness being offered. One can assume that the word is uttered only after a variety of in-depth citizen surveys have been carried out and the legal experts have worked out a cost/benefit analysis. In short, this forgiveness is strategic and comes with conditions. 

This is also true in the world of work. Here, forgiveness can be a great strategy for helping to ensure return business and a good reputation. Again, the word comes with implicit conditions. It is inscribed in a type of economics (whereby something is offered in return for something else). 

Sadly, when it comes to religion, the same economic approach can also be seen at play. As John Caputo notes in his book What Would Jesus Deconstruct? forgiveness all too often comes after a set of criteria have been met, namely an expression of sorrow, a turning away from the act, a promise not to return to the act, and a willingness to do penance. Forgiveness thus follows repentance and so cannot take place until repentance has occurred.
This is the common understanding of forgiveness, and such an approach would have been welcomed by the religious authorities of Jesus’ day. Religious groups have always loved repentant sinners. After all, there is nothing quite like parading a repentant sinner in church for inspiring the faithful. 

But what if Jesus had an infinitely more radical message than this? What if Jesus taught an impossible forgiveness, a forgiveness without conditions, a forgiveness that would forgive before some condition was met? Now, that kind of forgiveness can really annoy people, and might help to explain why Jesus got a reputation for hanging out with drunkards and prostitutes (rather than with ex-drunkards and ex-prostitutes)! Indeed, it would seem clear from the Bible that Jesus did not hang out with drunkards and prostitutes merely as a strategy to make them ex-drunkards and ex-prostitutes. 

Yet is it not true that the unconditional gift of forgiveness, without need of repentance, houses within it the power to evoke repentance? As most of us know, it is often impossible to change until we meet someone who says to us, “You don’t have to change. I love you just the way you are.” 

What if a forgiveness that has conditions, that is wrapped up in economy, is not really forgiveness at all, but rather is nothing more than a prudent bet? What if such forgiveness is like a love that loves only those who love us? What if repentance is not the necessary condition for forgiveness but rather the freely given response to it?
So, is this idea of forgiveness really what Jesus is talking about in the Gospels? Upon first looking at the original story of the prodigal son we might conclude that forgiveness is bound up in economy. After all, we read, When he came to his senses, he said, “How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.” So he got up and went to his father. (Luke 15:17–20) 

It would initially seem then that repentance in the story came before the forgiveness. Yet, is the younger son really repentant here? The text states that he came to his “senses,” that is, he started to make a sensible calculation. One would have expected the narrative to claim something like, “in repentance he returned to his father’s home,” but the story describes the son’s internal monologue as a strategic decision rather than a change of heart. 

But even if this repentance were genuine, and not some kind of strategy that would allow the son to get a good meal and sleep in a warm bed, the father’s response shows that no economy is at work in the kingdom. After all, we read these powerful words, “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him” (Luke 15:20). 

The father has no interest in whether or not his son is repentant. All he cares about is the son’s return. In these lines, the Father is presented as having no idea what his son is thinking, and of having no concern about whether or not his son has a contrite heart. The father does not wait to see what his son says but simply embraces him in love.

The above story thus simply attempts to draw out the radical idea of forgiveness that is already embedded in the original story. It adds a conclusion that imagines how such unconditional love may have actually provided the power needed to precipitate a change of heart in the son, rather than his experiences of eating with pigs.