24. Reconciling justice and mercy
24. RECONCILING JUSTICE AND MERCY
Since justice gives to each his due, but mercy gives more than what is due, how can God be both just and merciful at the same time without contradiction? If He does that, can we do it too?
(1) God acts mercifully not . . . by going against His justice but by doing something more than justice. Thus a man who pays another 200 pieces of money, though owing him only 100, does nothing against justice, but acts liberally or mercifully. The case is the same with one who pardons an offence committed against him, for in remitting it he may be said to bestow a gift. Hence the Apostle calls remission a forgiving: Forgive one another, as Christ has forgiven you (Eph 4:32). Hence it is clear that mercy does not destroy justice but in a sense is the fullness thereof. And thus it is said: Mercy exalteth itself above judgment (Jas 2:13).
(2) Justice must exist in all God’s works (but) the work of divine justice always presupposes the work of mercy, and is founded thereupon. For nothing is due (by justice) to creatures except for something pre-existing in them. . . . And since we cannot go on to infinity (in pre-existing causes), we must come to something that depends only on the goodness of the divine will (viz. our own very existence) (I,22,3-4).
Since both justice and mercy are true of God, since this is the nature of ultimate reality, therefore it ought to be true of us too, if we live in conformity with reality. The reason we should be both just and merciful is that God is: “Be ye holy for I the Lord your God am holy” (see Lev 11:44).
(1) In one way justice takes priority—mercy must presuppose justice in order to define itself as going beyond justice.
(2) But in other ways, mercy takes priority. First, in time. Mercy came first. Since we were created, our very existence is a gift, and we were not there to deserve the gift before we got it (we didn’t exist before we received the gift of existence)—therefore mercy comes first. God’s motive for creation is not justice, it is mercy (or, more exactly, it is like mercy in that it is pure charity).
And everything God does after creation is grace. “Everything is a grace”, said St. Thérèse of Lisieux. And grace is gift, and that means mercy, not justice.
The ultimate foundation for grace (gift) is the very life of the Trinity. God is pure gift to us because He is pure gift to Himself: the Father gives Himself eternally to the Son, and the Son to the Father, and the Holy Spirit of love eternally proceeds from that giving. To be real is to be like that. The alternative is to be phony, unreal. That is the ultimate difference between sin and sanctity, and between Hell and Heaven.
This eternal life of the Trinity is both perfect justice (since each of the divine Persons deserves infinite love, and receives it from the others) and perfect mercy (since each freely gives Himself as pure grace, pure gift, pure agape).
Because both justice and mercy exist in God, that is why both justice and mercy must exist in all God’s works, and why they should exist in ours.