Repentance is the personal act in which a human being recognizes their own guilt, acknowledges it as a failing, and inwardly turns away from it. It presupposes freedom, self-consciousness, and conscience: only one who knows themselves to be the author of their actions and is able to distinguish the good from the evil can repent.
Repentance is more than mere regret over unwanted consequences. It is an act of interiority in which the person beholds themselves in their failing and makes the decision to become other. Repentance therefore belongs to the third dimension of personhood: it is a free act of self-determination through which the human being does not deny their moral failing but accepts and overcomes it. The possibility of repentance shows that the human being is not fixed upon their faults — they can turn back. It is the inner counterpart to forgiveness, which comes from the other person: repentance opens the way that forgiveness completes.
Atonement
The conscious act through which the guilty person seeks to restore the disturbed moral order. Atonement supplements repentance (as inner disposition) and reparation (as material redress) with the moral-spiritual dimension.
Atonement as a personal act
Thomas Aquinas understands atonement (satisfactio) as an act that presupposes repentance and supplements it through the active assumption of a burden proportionate to the guilt. Atonement is thus deeply personal: only a person can atone, because only they possess freedom, conscience, and self-consciousness. Atonement belongs to the Third Dimension of personhood — moral perfection.
Difference from reparation
Whereas reparation redresses the concrete harm (the material dimension), atonement is directed at the disturbed moral order itself (the spiritual dimension). Reparation asks: what can be repaired? Atonement asks: how does the person stand toward their own guilt? Both are necessary, but atonement goes deeper — it concerns the person’s relation to the truth about themselves and to the Personalist Norm they have violated.
Reparation
The action through which a guilty person redresses, as far as possible, the harm done. Reparation is part of the process of reconciliation.
Difference from atonement
Reparation and atonement are often confused, yet they are ontologically distinct:
- Reparation concerns the material dimension: the concrete harm inflicted upon a person. It asks: what can be done to redress the outward consequences of the guilt? Reparation is directed at what has been damaged — the violated dignity, the loss caused, the broken relationship.
- Atonement concerns the moral-spiritual dimension: the disturbed moral order itself. It asks: how can the person stand toward their own guilt? Atonement is the conscious act through which the guilty person seeks to restore the disturbed order — through the active assumption of a burden proportionate to the guilt.
Reparation removes the harm, as far as that is possible. Atonement goes deeper: it concerns the person’s relation to themselves, to the other, and to moral truth. Both presuppose freedom and conscience and belong to the Third Dimension of personhood.
Ontological classification
Ontological relations:
- is subclass of: Action
Chapter assignment: Chapter 4: Personhood (German)
Sources: Generated by querying the Personhood ontology. Bexten 2017, pp. 279–283 (forgiveness and repentance).
Further sources:
- Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae III, q. 85—90 (atonement and satisfactio as an act of penance).
- Hildebrand, Dietrich von (1973): Ethik. In: Gesammelte Werke, vol. II. Regensburg: Habbel (repentance as a moral value-response).
- Scheler, Max (1913/1916): Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die materiale Wertethik. Halle: Niemeyer (phenomenology of repentance and guilt).