The entire essay is well worth reading. Here is a short excerpt--
As regards my own sins it is a safe bet (though not a certainty) that the excuses are not really so good as I think; as regards other [person's'] sins against me it is a safe bet (though not a certainty) that the excuses are better than I think. One must therefore begin by attending to everything which may show that the other [person] was not so much to blame as we thought. But even if he [or she] is absolutely fully to blame we still have to forgive him [or her]; and even if ninety-nine per cent of his [or her] apparent guilt can be explained away by really good excuses, the problem of forgiveness begins with the one per cent of guilt that is left over. To excuse, what can really produce good excuses is not Christian charity; it is only fairness. To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.Wow!
A note regarding this that many Wesley Seminary graduates will recognize. Harold Chikes used to say, "Christians don't forgive and forget. Christians forgive and remember differently." While that speaks primarily to Lewis's "attending to everything which may show that the other person was not so much to blame as we thought," I certainly can see that, when something is inexcusable, we must "remember differently" in that we must remember what God has done for us.
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