The Justice and Mercy of God

by John Draney

I devote this post to a translation of a portion of the September 2013 Ensign article, The Justice and Mercy of God, “from a fireside address, ‘Borne Upon Eagles’ Wings,’” by Jeffrey R. Holland and “delivered on June 2, 1974, at Brigham Young University.”

Elder Holland, regarding the “Justice of God”:

A basic principle of Latter-day Saint doctrine is that we have to know that God is just in order to go forward. One of God’s attributes is justice, and we would not have the faith—because of fear—to live righteously or to love better or to repent more readily if somehow we didn’t think that justice would count for us, if somehow we thought God would change His mind and decide there was another set of rules (See Lectures on Faith [1985], 50-54). Because we know that God is just and would cease to be God if He weren’t so, we have the faith to go forward, knowing that we will not be the victims of whimsy or caprice or a bad day or a bad joke. That assurance is very encouraging. (Alma 34:16).

Translation:

Does “justice,” “[o]ne of God’s attributes,” divine and holy perfect justice, “count for us”?

Do we correctly expect such justice to protect or shelter us, or otherwise come to our aid or defense?

Is the consuming absolute justice of God, a defining characteristic of the divine nature, our friend?

Does knowledge of that singular justice bestow on us “the faith to go forward” because we realize that we are not “the victims of whimsy or caprice or a bad day or a bad joke”?

Is the justice of God, an innate quality of the Almighty, “very encouraging” to fallen, mortal beings, all of us similarly situated among the fallen, mortal family of Adam and Eve?

No.

I marvel at such an appraisal of the awful and fearful justice of God in its raw, unmitigated form, completely removed from the context of Christ and the plan of salvation, for this divine trait per se is terrible and dreadful; it demands nothing less than the eternal banishment of the fallen, mortal Adam and Eve in the company of all their children, and the permanent repossession of our temporal bodies.

Elder Holland, regarding the “Mercy of God”:

Then I had another thought. How grateful I was that because God is who He is, He has to be a merciful God also. In Alma 42, after Alma had established with Corianton that God had to be just, he declared that that same God would have to be merciful as well and that mercy would claim the penitent. …

…

A favorite British scholar said: “I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road. A [mathematical] sum [incorrectly worked] can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and [then] working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on. Evil can be undone, but it cannot ‘develop’ into good. Time does not heal it. The spell must be unwound” (C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (1946), viii).

So God is just, “mercy claimeth the penitent” (Alma 42:23), and evil can be undone.

…

… I know that we must repent of our sins and that God has to be just, but I take great delight in the scriptures and in the words of the living prophets that where sin abounds, grace may much more abound and that “mercy claimeth the penitent.”

Translation:

As fallen, mortal beings, do we directly confront the justice of God, one part of him that defines “who He is”?

As fallen, mortal beings, do we have any reason whatsoever to suppose that we can successfully manage the consequences of this justice because the same God who is just “has to be a merciful God also”?

As fallen, mortal beings, do we face the unmitigated extremes of the holy justice and mercy of God?

How does the expression of the justice and mercy of God manifest themselves to fallen, mortal beings?

Holland, interpreting the words of Alma, argues that “God had to be just” and “that same God would have to be merciful as well.”

How?

The apostle does not specify, and leaves us to ponder a scenario in which the competing claims of divine justice and mercy attempt to assert their particular jurisdiction over us.

Indeed—

God help us if his justice, the justice that makes him who he is, somehow gains the upper hand.

God help us if we are not “penitent” and therefore fall prey to the demands of justice.

God help us if “mercy claimeth the penitent” (Alma 42:23), and we are not found among that blessed group.

How do we become numbered among the penitent?

Turning to C. S. Lewis, Holland finds his metaphors of choice—

Make an error in the calculation of math problem?

Go back, fix the error, and redo the problem.

Want to undo an evil?

Go back, eliminate it, and proceed from there.

What is the reasonable implication of such an analysis?

Want to repent?

Go back, find the error, fix it, and then move forward.

Not just one error, but all of them.

All the imperfections.

All the mistakes.

All the missteps.

All that makes us fallen, mortal beings.

Go back and fix it—fix it all—perhaps even to the boundaries of Eden.

Is this the “assurance” that is “very encouraging”?

Is this the prescribed methodology for fallen, mortal beings to successfully navigate the justice of God?

Is this how “evil” is “undone”?

I marvel at such an appraisal of the alleged mercy of God. It becomes like a royal treasury surrounded by castle walls and impenetrable fortifications that make the gift inaccessible to everyone.

I marvel at the explanation that we must “repent of our sins” because “God has to be just,” and his justice is sure to find us if any of the calculations of our lives are wrong, or any part of them is evil.

How do we comply with “justice,” “[o]ne of God’s attributes,” divine and holy perfect justice, such that it “count[s] for us”?

We do not (Alma 42:15).

We cannot (Alma 42:6, 11-12, 14).

Jesus can (Alma 42:15).

Jesus does (Alma 42:15).

In Christ Jesus and his atonement—not in us and what we do—the divine attributes of justice and mercy find their full expression.

The Savior, having independently and completely satisfied the demands of divine justice, acquires the power to administer a “plan of mercy” (Alma 42:15, 31)—not a plan of justice and mercy, but a plan of mercy—for the benefit of fallen, mortal beings—we who fall to be free (Alma 42:7).

The Lord reserves the fullness of his mercy for those who comply with his “conditions of repentance” (Alma 42:13), even “the penitent” (Alma 42:23), those who come to Christ in the attainable path of his attainable gospel.

But are those who are not penitent excluded from any measure of the mercy of Jesus?

No.

Those who are not penitent still receive at least some measure of the mercy of Jesus. (Even sons of perdition rise in a resurrection that gives them power over the devil and his angels.)

In his benchmark treatise on the justice and mercy of God, Alma never declares that the impenitent are utterly cut off from the mercy of God; rather, the prophet firmly decrees that, among those who have sufficient knowledge, “none but the truly penitent are saved” (Alma 42:24)—that is, covered by a fullness of the grace of Jesus, raised in glory, and elevated to heaven in the full presence of God.

Those in the restored church of Christ who insist that mercy comes only to the penitent should remember that Alma’s answer to his son Corianton (Alma 42) concerns the special case of sons of perdition (Alma 42:1)—those who, with eyes open, raise the sword against God—not the general case of humanity at large. Consequently, Alma uses justice—the justice of the Son of God—to illustrate the extreme of damnation, and mercy—the mercy of the Son of God—to illustrate the extreme of salvation. In between these two extremes lies a spectrum of mercy.

The legalism that runs rampant among the Latter-day Saints  insists, contrary to scripture, that we fallen, mortal beings can measure up to the justice of God, the divine attribute manifest in his holy, perfect existence, and find protection in the divine construct that in reality seeks our eternal destruction.

The justice of God is so exacting, so demanding, so infinitely unforgiving that only Jesus can confront it. For this reason, in the plan of salvation, Jesus contends with and forever silences the justice of God.

We face the justice of the attainable gospel arising from the merciful atonement of Christ, which gospel is first and foremost a gospel of mercy, and which atonement, by nature, establishes a generous spectrum of salvation for fallen, mortal beings.

The “‘right road’” is the attainable road to Christ, which road we indeed traverse “‘by simply going on,’” for we cannot undo all our wrong steps—all we can do is abandon the false paths, find the right road, and walk its attainable course.

If we Latter-day Saints struggle to come to grips with the competing claims of the justice and mercy of God in the plan of salvation, then how are we to know Christ?

Clearly, Christ settles that conflict (Alma 42:15).

How does that fact escape our collective understanding?

How does that fact find little or no mention in our framing of the issue?

How do we misplace or gloss over something like that?