Expert: John Willemsens aka Advayavadananda - 2/26/2008

Question
Can a Buddhist accept a heartfelt apology, or is it preferred to seek atonement?

What is your opinion of the difference?

Answer
Hello Caryn,
Heartfelt apology is more than enough.
The following is from www.pineknoll.org/
Does it answer your question?
Kind regards,
Advayavadananda.

What Does the Word “Atonement” Mean?:

If the King James Version had not chosen to use the word “atonement” in the last line of Romans 5:11, we might not be raising this question. Actually, this is the only occurrence of the word “atonement” in the entire New Testament of the King James Version. And in the margin of this verse, later editors of the King James have added a note reminding the reader that this is the regular word for “reconciliation.”

If you really want to find the meaning of an English word, settle for nothing less than the multivolume Oxford English Dictionary. In that enormous lexicon you can trace the historical development of the meaning of a word.

Volume One explains that the term “atonement” was made up of “at” and “one” and “ment.” At-one-ment.

That great old dictionary shows how back in the thirteenth century the word “atonement” was used to mean “being at one,” “being in harmony,” the opposite of “being at odds.” And the verb “to atone” meant in those days “to set at one,” “to unite.” There was even a verb back then that was pronounced “to one.” Not w-o-n, but o-n-e. Peacemakers still try to “one” enemies.

A Later Change in the Meaning:

Dictionaries all seem to agree that the original meaning of atonement was “harmony, concord, agreement, unity of feeling.” And the verb “to atone” used to mean “to restore friendly relations between persons who have been at variance; hence, reconciliation.”

These early meanings, however, are now marked as “archaic and obsolete.” In 1611, when the King James committee decided to use the word “atonement” in Romans 5:11, they understood it in that old, “archaic” sense.

As time passed, the word “atonement” came to be used more and more to denote “appeasement, making amends, paying a penalty to satisfy legal demands.” As the Oxford English Dictionary observes, “Here the idea of reconciliation or reunion is practically lost sight of under that of legal satisfaction or amends.”

In common speech today, we often use the word “atone” in this later sense of making amends.

A husband comes home much too late to take his wife out to dinner as he had promised—on their wedding anniversary, no less! On the way home he desperately picks up a box of her favorite chocolates and a large bunch of beautiful roses. These he presents repentantly at the door. (In theology, that’s called appeasement or propitiation).

After considerable effort, at least some measure of communication is re-established between husband and wife. The wife comes up with a solution.

“Husband,” she announces, “you can atone for this disgraceful thing you’ve done by taking me out to dinner every Monday night for the rest of the year.” Now, that’s atonement in the later sense of the word.

Hopefully those efforts to make amends will result in reconciliation and at-one-ment between that husband and wife. The unity of such at-one-ment is the original meaning of the word “atonement.”