The Virtues of the Divine Will: Justice and Mercy

§3: The Virtues of the Divine Will — Justice and Mercy

THE VIRTUES OF THE DIVINE WILL, AND IN PARTICULAR, JUSTICE AND MERCY Virtue (virtus, V7^) is defined as “a habit that a man has got of doing moral good, or doing that which it befits his rational nature to do.” 1 It is quite clear that those virtues only can be predicated of God which contain no admixture of imperfection ; all others can be applied to Him merely in a metaphorical or figurative sense. The various virtues can be reduced, on the one hand, to the three theological virtues : faith, hope, and charity ; and, on the other, to the four cardinal virtues : prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude. Of these seven there must be excluded from the Divine Will in the first place those virtues which connote either subordination to a higher principle, as, e. g., faith and hope (humility, obedience) ; or composition of soul and body, as e. g., temperance (chastity, sobriety) ; or some passion, as, e. g., bravery (ambition, lust of power). Prudence, being primarily an intellectual virtue,2 is more nearly related to wisdom and providence, of which we 1 Jos. Rickaby, S. J., Moral Phi- tellectual and moral virtues, cfr. St. losophy. New Impression, London Thomas, S. Theol., la aae, qu. 56, 1908, p. 69. art 3, in corp. (Rickaby, Moral 2 On the difference between in- Philosophy, pp. 73 sqq.) 454

will not treat in this chapter. There remain as the proper virtues of God those which, in the words of Scheeben, “do not tend to increase the inner perfection of the virtuous subject, but manifest and bring into action His dignity.” Now, the dignity and majesty of God are one with His objective holiness, which is the basis of ethical holiness. Consequently, holiness (or, what is the same, God’s infinite love for Himself) is the fundamental virtue of the divine Will. Cfr. i John IV, 8: * Deus caritas est — God is charity.* This holy love, when directed towards the universe, engenders goodness, of which the chief offshoot is mercy. Divine justice, too, has its root and foundation in God’s Sanctity. Under it St. Thomas3 subsumes chiefly truth (veracity) and fidelity. Since we have already dealt with the virtues of sanctity, goodness, truth (veracity), and fidelity in previous chapters, there remain to be considered justice and mercy, the mutual relations of which St. Jerome tersely characterizes as follows: ” Miserir cordia iustitiam temperat, iustitia misericordiam” * St. Thomas, too, treats both these virtues as organically related to each other. i. Preliminary Observations. — Both in profane and in sacred usage the term justice {iustitia, Sucatocruviy) has many meanings. In its widest sense it is synonymous with rectitude, or moral perfection, which is the same as sanctity. Here 8 S. The oh, 2a 2ae, qu. 109, art. 3. 4 In M alack., Ill, i#

Article 1: God’s Justice

god’s justice

we take justice in its narrowest sense, as that cardinal virtue which the famous Roman legist Ulpian defines as “constans et perpetua voluntas ius suum cuique tribuendi — A constant and abiding will to give every one his due.” 5 In this sense the concept of justice has four essential notes, viz.: (i) debt or obligation (debitutn) ; (2) a certain proportion or equality between what is rendered and what is received; (3) a plurality of persons, or the existence of one who metes out and another who receives right treatment; (4) the firm will of the former to perform his obligations towards the latter. a) The chief function of justice is to equalize a performance and its quid pro quo. It is this note which formally constitutes the concept of justice. Hence the Sacred Writers frequently designate justice as ” truth.” Now, there are two kinds of equality, and consequently, also two kinds of justice. If the equality aimed at implies geometrical proportion, we have distributive, if it implies arithmetical proportion, commutative justice. Distributive justice by its very nature ” is the virtue of the king and of the statesman, of the commander-inchief, of the judge, and of the public functionary generally ” ; the matters it distributes are public emoluments and honors, public burdens, rewards, and also punishments.6 Its contrary is not injustice, which entails the duty of restitution, but rather personal favoritism (acceptio personarum) , which has no regard for “the eternal fitness of things.” Commutative justice, on the other • L. X de lust, et Jure. 6 Cfr. Rickaby, L c, p. 104.

hand, which alone is justice strictly so called, requires a rigorous equality, and its violation imposes the duty of restitution. b) Retributive justice may be treated as a species of distributive justice. It is called remunerative when it rewards, and vindictive when it takes the form of punishing. As judge a superior is bound to reward merit and to punish crime; in other words, to treat each subject according to his deserts. As arithmetrical proportion can hardly ever be attained, it is sufficient to observe geometrical proportion. 2. Divine Justice. — Though strictly speaking there can be no commutative justice in God, yet His distributive justice is bound by His veracity and fidelity to such a degree that we may consider the retribution He metes out by rewarding good and punishing evil as an analogue of commutative justice. a) Right reason tells us that God, as the Creator, Preserver, and Sovereign Proprietor of the universe, can have towards His creatures no obligation which would correspond to a mathematically equivalent right. Whatever a creature is and has, it possesses as a free gift from God. There was not on His part any obligation to create, just as little as there existed on the part of any creature a right to be created. Hence there is no common basis on which to establish a strict parity between obligation and service rendered. “Quis prior dedit 30 458 GOD’S JUSTICE Mi et retribuetur ei? — Who hath first given to him, and recompense shall be made him?” 7 “Quaecunque sunt bona opera mea, abs te mihi sunt et ideo tua magis quam mea sunt — Whatever are my good works, I have them from Thee [God], and therefore they are Thine rather than mine,” says St. Augustine.8 We have absolutely nothing that we can call our own, except sin. Hence there can be no obligation of strictly commutative justice on the part of God. b) The virtue of distributive justice, on the other hand, may doubtless be ascribed to God, though not, of course, in its creatural sense. As the Creator, Preserver, and Governor of the world God owes it, not indeed to His creatures, but to His own attributes, to give to each created being whatever is due to it, according to the measure of its being and its final destiny. “Suum cuique” It follows that, since God has of His own free will assigned to rational man a supernatural destiny in the beatific vision of the Most Blessed Trinity, He is obliged to grant him the means (graces) that are absolutely necessary for the attainment of this end; that is to say, at the very least sufficient grace (gratia suiHciens). God likewise owes it to His veracity and fidelity to give His creatures the promised 7 Rom. XI, 35. 8 In Ps., 37. THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 459 reward and to inflict on them the threatened punishment in just proportion to their deserts.9 When God made Himself the debtor of men, He can have acted from no other motive than that it so pleased Him. The duty of justice which springs from such a relation rests entirely upon a free basis. The creature did not bind the Creator; He bound Himself. c) Given this free juridical relation between God and the creature, it is easy to see why Holy Scripture conceives retributive justice in a manner analogous to commutative justice. There exists a sort of contract between the Creator and His creatures, by virtue of which the creature has a legal claim (taking this term in an analogous sense) to be rewarded for his merits, and must expect to be punished for his crimes. «) Not only is God frequently termed “the Just One/’ 10 but the Bible expressly enforces His retributive justice, both remunerative and vindictive. In respect of the former it will suffice to quote 2 Tim. IV, 8: “In reliquo reposita est mihi corona iustititae, quam reddet mihi Dominus in ilia die iustus index — As to the rest, there is laid up for me a crown of justice which the Lord the just judge will render to me in that day.* 11 His punitive or vindictive • Cfr. S. Thom., S. TheoL, ia, tus es Domine. et rectum indicium qu. 2\t art. 4. tuum.* lOCfr. Ps. CXVIII, 137: ”/«■ nCfr. also Hebr. VI, 10. 460 GOD’S VINDICTIVE JUSTICE justice clearly appears from Rom. II, 5 : “Thou treasurest up to thyself wrath, against the day of wrath, and revelation of the just judgment of God. Cfr. Deut. XXXII, 35 : *Revenge is mine, and I will repay them in due time.” 12 As historical proofs for the vindictive justice of God we may mention: the expulsion of our First Parents from Paradise; the Deluge; the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha; the destruction of Jerusalem; and, most terrible of alU the Passion and death of our Saviour, in Whom all the sins of the human race were vicariously punished. P) The argument from Tradition is equally clear and stringent. We can trace the dogma back to the most ancient creeds. Thus already the Apostles’ Creed says of Jesus: Qui venturus est iudicare vivos et mortuos. 18 St. Augustine faithfully interprets the belief of Primitive Christianity when he says : Deum iustum negare sacrilegum est, et de eius iustitia dubitare amentia 14 3. Theological Controversies Regarding the Doctrine of God’s Vindictive Justice. — In defining the nature of God’s vindictive justice we must avoid the two extremes of attenuation and exaggeration. It would be an attenuation to 12 Cfr. also Rom. XII, 19. 13 For other passages see Eschatology. U De Lib. Arbit., I, 1. THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 461 claim that God aimed only at correcting and deterring, and not at punishing the sinner ; and an exaggeration to assert that God is obliged to punish even the contrite sinner according to the full measure of His justice. Both the attenuation and the exaggeration of divine justice are repugnant to the teaching of the Church. a) Certain philosophers and rationalist theologians, holding God’s vindictive justice to be incompatible with His Divine Love, reduce it to the level of a mere corrective and deterrent. Those who adopt this wrong attitude are forced to explain all the Scriptural texts that assert God’s vindictive justice in a purely figurative sense. By an elimination of the notion of atonement and restitution of the disturbed moral order, God’s vindictive justice would lose its proper character and sink to the level of a mere make-believe. This theory furthermore squarely contradicts the clear teaching of Scripture, that virtue will be definitively rewarded, and vice punished, on the day of the last judgment, ” the day of wrath,” — a teaching which is enforced particularly in the Epistles of St. Paul. Cfr. Rom., XIII, 4: Dei enitn minister est, vindex in irani ei, qui malum agit — For he is God’s minister : an avenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil. ltt The so-called Psalms of Malediction directly appeal to the vindictive and avenging arm of divine justice. Hermes asserts that the justice of God is not vindictive, but merely ” medicinalis et emendatrix” He supports this assertion by a tissue of utterly futile arguments. God, he says, is pure Love, which seeks nothing is Cfr. Pa. LXXIII, 22.

for itself. Hence, if He threatens and inflicts punishment, it can only be to correct the sinner and to deter others from committing sin. We reply: God’s Love is in the first place and above all a Love of Himself, of His own dignity and majesty, which has the right, and eventually the duty, to avenge the crimen maiestatis of mortal sin. Besides, how could the eternal pains of Hell serve as a corrective, or as a means of deterring sinners, after the ” day of wrath ” ? Who will remain on earth after the Last Judgment to be corrected or deterred? But, says Hermes, wrath is an imperfection, because it delights in punishing others, while God, according to His own assurance, does * not delight in our being lost * — * non enim delectaris in perditionibus nostris* 16 Hermes’s objection was refuted many centuries ago by St. Prosper of Aquitaine : ” Non concupiscit Deus paenam reorum, tamquam saturari desiderans ultione, sed quod iustutn est, cum tranquillitate decernit et recta voluntate disponit, ut etiam mali non sint inordinati.* 17 St. Gregory the Great remarks in a similar vein : * Omnipotens Deus, quia pius est, miserorum [i. e., damnatorum] cruciatu non pascitur; quia autem iustus est, aV iniquorum ultione in perpetuum non sedatur.”1* b) Certain other theologians have fallen into the opposite error of pushing the notion of iustitia vindicativa beyond its proper limits. Thus, following St. Anselm,19 Tournely 20 and Liebermann 21 teach that God is in duty bound to punish all sins, even those for which the sinner is sincerely sorry, without grace or mercy 16 Tob. Ill, 22. 20 De Deo, qu. 19, art. 1. 17 Sent. August., 12. 21 Instit. Theol., III, lib. 1, cap. IB Dial., IV, 44. • 3, «519 Cur Deus Homo?

and according to the strictest measure of His divine Justice; and that He can forgive them only on condition that they be fully atoned. Hence the absolute necessity of Christ’s vicarious atonement, without which forgiveness of sins would be absolutely impossible. Now, while it is a divinely revealed truth that God de facto insisted on adequate atonement as an indispensable condition of forgiveness; — to assert that he could have forgiven sin on no other condition whatsoever runs counter to the common opinion of theologians, with the solitary exception of St. Anselm, who perhaps should be interpreted more mildly than was customary until a short time ago.22 Of the Fathers of the Church not one can be quoted in support of this strange theory. The common opinion of the Schoolmen (with the possible exception, already noted, of St. Anselm, and perhaps also Richard of St. Victor), is thus voiced by St. Bernard: ” Quis negat, omnipotenti ad manum fuisse alios et alios modos nostrae redemptionisf — Who will deny that there were ready for the Almighty, other and yet other ways to redeem us ? ” 28 All other theologians, with St. Thomas at their head, oppose this view of St. Anselm.24 They argue thus: Every sovereign has the right of pardon, by virtue of which he can annul or commute the sentences of criminals, at least of such as evince sorrow for their misdeeds. Surely this right cannot be denied to God, Who is infinite mercy as well as infinite justice. Now, whoever makes use of a right commits no injustice. 22 Cfr. B. Funke, Grundlagen 23 Ep. 194, sive Tract, de Error, und Voraussetsungen der Satisfak- Abelardi, c. 8. Honstheorie des M, Anselm, Mun- 24 Cfr. S. Theol., 3a, qu. 1, art. ster 1903. 2; qu. 46, art 2.

Tournely, by the way, entangles himself in a manifest contradiction when, on the one hand, he insists on the necessity of an infinite atonement even for such sins as have been properly expiated by penance and sorrow ; while, on the other hand, he admits vicarious as a full equivalent for personal atonement. If God’s vindictive justice were so inexorable that it could not be appeased by anything short of adequate satisfaction, He would surely insist that the guilty criminal himself, not a stranger or a substitute, should atone for his crime. This would not argue the necessity but, on the contrary, the impossibility of Christ’s vicarious atonement; for no mere creature can give adequate satisfaction to an offended and wrathful God. i. Definition of Mercy. — Without entering into the altogether unimportant question whether mercy (misericordia, IXcos) is an independent virtue, with a formal motive of its own, or merely a special form of goodness,25 we will begin this final subdivision of our treatise by pointing out that the Latin term misericordia contains its own definition. Misericordia is that virtue which moves the heart (cor) to compassion for the misery (miseria) of others. Inasmuch as it involves suffering and sadness, mercy is, of course, a mixed perfection, which’ cannot 25C£r. Lessius, De Perfect. Moribusque Divin., L XII, 1.

Article 2: God’s Mercy

god’s mercy

be predicated of God; — though it is no doubt a touching reflection that the Divine Logos, moved by infinite love for humankind, created for Himself in His most Sacred Heart an organ by which He was enabled to feel as we do and to share in our sufferings. Cfr. Hebr. II, 17: “Debuit per omnia fratribus similari, ut tnisericors fieret et fidelis pontifex ad Deum — It behooved him in all things to be made like unto his brethren, that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest before God.” Taking mercy as “the effective will to remove or relieve the misery of others” (and we can employ it in this sense without destroying its essence), it is a pure perfection which must be attributed to God in an infinitely exalted degree. De misericordia si auferas compassionem/’ beautifully says St. Augustine, ita ut remaneat tranquilla bonitas subveniendi et a miseria liberandi, insinuatur divinae misericordiae qualiscunque cognitio.” 26 In this sense God is truly merciful. 2. God’s Mercy as a Revealed Dogma. — The principal forms of God’s Goodness converge towards His Mercy as their pivot. They are: magnanimity (ntagnificentia) , graciousness (pietasy gratia) , kindness (humanitas), and especially that indulgence towards the misery of sin which Holy Scripture sometimes calls 26 Ad Simpl., 1. 2, qtu 2, clemency (dementia) or meekness (mansuetudo), sometimes patience (patientia) or longsuffering (longanimitas) . Cfr. Ps. CII, 8: “Miserator et misericors Dominus, longanimis et tnultum misericors — The Lord is compassionate and merciful: long-suffering and plenteous in mercy.,, 2 Pet. Ill, 9: “The Lord delayeth not his promise, as some imagine, but dealeth patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance.” Holy Scripture gives a most sublime description of divine mercy, both as to its essence and its comprehension, in the Book of Wisdom.27 The full import of this divine virtue will impress the student when he comes to consider God’s will to save humankind (voluntas salvifica), which belongs to the treatise on Grace. In lieu of an extended argument from Tradition, which is unnecessary, we will only quote St. Augustine’s beautiful dictum: Maior est Dei misericordia, quam omnium misericordia. 3. The Relation of God’s Mercy to His Justice. — How can justice and mercy, conceived as infinite attributes, co-exist in the Divine Will ? The simultaneous exercise of infinite justice and infinite mercy seems indeed to involve a contradiction. For a solution of the difficulty we must recur to the proposition, which we demonstrated on a previous page, 27Wisd. XI, 24 sqq. THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 467 that both . these divine virtues have their measure, end, and corrective in God’s sanctity, borne by His Divine Love, from which they spring as a germ from the mother seed. Being ” a jealous God,” the All-Holy can neither allow His mercy to degenerate into undue leniency or unmanly weakness, nor His justice into excessive harshness or inconsiderate cruelty. Thus both extremes repose in God’s Holy Love as their immovable centre, balanced in the calm security of an eternal equilibrium. But the difficulty is only half solved. The subjoined brief hints will help the student to clear it up fully. Whenever God allows His justice to hold sway, He simultaneously exercises mercy, in so far as He rewards the just beyond their deserts, and punishes the wicked more leniently than they would have a right to expect.28 Conversely, God’s mercy is always allied with His justice, inasmuch as God forgives sin only on condition that the sinner do penance.29 We have a living example of the simultaneous exercise of both these attributes to the full extent of their infinity in the agonizing death of our Saviour on the Cross. This reveals God’s infinite mercy. * For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son ; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting. 80 But it also exemplifies His truly infinite justice; for our sins were terribly avenged upon the Son of God made Flesh, Who had to make adequate atonement for them before they 28Cfr. S. Thorn., S, TheoL, ia, iustificatione impii apparet [etiam] qvu 2it art. 4, ad 1: ” Et tamen iustitia, dum culpas relax at propter in damnatione reproborum apparet dilectionem, quam tamen ipse mis[etiam] misericordia, non quidem ericorditer infundit, sicut de Magtotaliter relaxans, sed aliqualiter dalena legitur: Dimissa sunt ei pecallevians, dum punit citra condig- cata, quia dilexit mujtum. num. 2»Cfr. St. Thomas, /. c: In so John III, x6.

were forgiven. Both features are emphasized in Ps. LXXXIV, ii : * Misericordia et Veritas [i. e., iustitia] obviaverunt sibi, iustitia et pax [i. e., misericordia] osculatae sunt — Mercy and truth [t. e.f justice] have met each other: justice and peace [i. e., mercy] have kissed.” Readings : — *St. Thomas, S. Theoi, ia, qu. 21 ; Id., Contr. Gent., I, 92-94, and the Commentators. — Scheeben, Dogmatik, Vol. I, §§ 100-101 (Wilhelm-Scanneirs Manual, I, pp. 241 sqq.). — *Lessius, De Perfect. M or ib usque Div., lib. 12-13, Antwerpiae 1626.— Heinrich, Dogmat. Theol., Vol. Ill, §§ 202-204.— * Ruiz, De Voluntate Div., disp. 55 sqq. — *Kleutgen, De Ipso Deo, pp. 352 sqq. — L. Janssens, De Deo Uno, t. II, pp. 323 sqq., Friburgi 1900. — J. Hontheim, Instit. Theodicaeae, pp. 717 sqq., Friburgi 1893. — B. Boedder, Natural Theology, pp. 308 sqq., 402 sqq.