Forgiveness and Feelings. The Garden of Eden. The Church's Building Blocks. by Pastor Walter Snyder Before we visit this week's questions, I want to wish all the readers of Ask the Pastor a blessed Holy Week and a joyous Easter. No time in the church year excites or comforts me more that the Feast of the Resurrection. In this splendid festival, we celebrate Christ's victory over sin, death, and devil as God gives us proof of our own resurrection to life everlasting. Q: I've been hurt by someone who sinned against God and against me. She says that she knows that God forgives her even though she doesn't feel guilty. Can people be forgiven if they feel no sense of guilt or remorse for their sins? A: Some people's feelings seem more independent of the conditions in which they find themselves than those of others. Thus, they operate more in the realm of thought or belief than emotion. Guilt is actually a state of being even more than a feeling---the feeling is an internal reaction to a certain condition. Guilty feelings often come to certain people without any true guilt, or in they appear or continue long after something is forgiven and in the past. Satan uses our feelings to drive us away from a merciful God; he makes a person feel that he is too sinful to deserve anything from God. This is wrong, since ~none~ of us deserves anything good, and only receive it by grace. However, it still happens. At other times, the reverse seems to be the case: People don't feel particularly sinful, even while participating in gross wrongdoing. If this is the case, they may not realize that they have done anything wrong. However, this person says that she knows she has done wrong. She claims to trust in God's forgiveness. Remorse, while a part of repentance, is not the chief part. She might have already worked through these feelings. Thus, I would take her statement at face value unless her actions or words contradict her. She may have ~known~ she was wrong and sought forgiveness without ever ~feeling~ particularly sinful. In any case, to withhold forgiveness from one who asks for it is to stand in judgment and to invite God's judgment on yourself. Q: Where is the Garden of Eden? Does anyone really know where it is? If so, how do they know it's the Garden of Eden? While the Bible mentions the rivers it sat among, no one knows exactly where it was. However, the garden no longer exists. Whatever may have remained of it after the expulsion of Adam and Eve was certainly destroyed in the Flood. Even the rivers that are named may be totally different from those on the earth before the destruction of the flood. Q: What are the building blocks upon which the church is built? A: Ultimately, the Church has only one Building Block, Christ, the Cornerstone. This being the case, you could also say that the Gospel of the forgiveness of sins is the building block, since only forgiveness for Christ's sake allows us entry into the Church. Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from ~The Holy Bible, English Standard Version~, © 2001 by Crossway Bibles. Ask the Pastor, © 2002 by Walter P. Snyder. It may be reproduced in totality, including this disclaimer, by anyone, provided that no profit is generated by said republication and redistribution. Translations into other languages should similarly note the United States and any appropriate international copyrights, as well as God's Scriptural injunctions concerning the property of others. To Ask the Pastor, please write Ask the Pastor, PO Box 12, Emma, MO, 65327 or send email to askthepastor@aol.com. Walter Snyder is the pastor of Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Emma, Missouri and coauthor of the book "What Do Lutherans Believe."