291. Why forgiveness requires repentance
291. WHY FORGIVENESS REQUIRES REPENTANCE
Why can’t God pardon sins even without our repenting, if He is all-powerful?
It is impossible for a mortal actual sin to be pardoned without penance (repentance). . . .
The difference between the grace of God and the grace of man is that the latter does not cause, but presupposes, true or apparent goodness in him who is graced, whereas the grace of God causes goodness in the man who is graced, because the goodwill of God, which is denoted by the word grace, is the cause of all created good. Hence it is possible for a man to pardon an offense for which he is offended with someone, without any change in the latter’s will; but it is impossible that God pardon a man for an offense without his will being changed (III,86,2).
God can do everything, i.e., everything that is meaningful, everything that is not a self-contradiction. So if God cannot pardon sins without our repenting, that must be an inherent self-contradiction, like “a virtuous sin” or “a nonexistent existent”.
This does not seem to be self—contradictory, because it is possible for a man to pardon a sinner who does not repent—for instance, a king or the governor or the President could stop the execution of an unrepentant mass murderer and even free him. So why isn’t what seems to be the same thing possible for God if it is possible for man?
Because God’s grace and pardon and love (which are the same objective reality) is what creates goodness in us who are pardoned, while man’s grace and pardon presupposes and responds to, or hopes for, goodness in the person pardoned. Thus David prays in Psalm 51: “Create in me a clean heart, O God”, using the distinctive and unique Hebrew verb bara’ for the act that only God can perform. No other people had such a word because no other people knew such a God, Who could create something radically new by His infinite power.
So paradoxically, it is the very power of God that is the reason why He cannot do what man can do. There are other such things that He cannot do and we can, not because He is too weak but because He is too strong: He cannot die, or sin, or err, or lie, or break His promises, as we can.
We can pardon sins without the sinner’s will being changed, but God cannot, because when God pardons a sinner, the sinner’s will is changed by that very pardon. God is more like an author here than a judge. The judge responds to the prisoner on trial; the author makes him what he is.
(This does not take away our free will because what God makes us to be is, precisely, human beings, i.e., beings with free will, as Shakespeare makes Hamlet human and free and makes other things, like Castle Elsinore and the weather, not human or free.)
Forgiveness of sin can come from God without the sacrament of Penance, but not without the virtue of penance (repentance) . . . so that even before the sacraments of the New Law were instituted, God pardoned the sins of the penitent (III,86,6).
God is not limited to His sacraments, so God can and does pardon our sins even without the sacrament of Penance if there is the act and attitude (virtue) of repentance in us, as He did before Christ instituted this sacrament. Of course, if we do truly repent, we will want to do God’s will, and God’s will is for us to receive this sacrament.