Why Guilt is a Valuable Human Experience

1. It is evidence that we respect the tension between what we are and what we strive to become.
2. Without it, we tend towards apathy and indifference towards ethical ideals.
3. It is an outgrowth of interpersonal relationships in which persons care for one another enough to offer approval or disapproval.
4. To live without guilt is psychopathic.

-Paul Johnson, “Psychology of Religion Revised and Enlarged”