(March 5, 2014 at 2:59 am)Urizen Wrote:
The apparent contradiction is really between God's love and his justice. How can the God of Love be so 'cruel' in the punishment of sin? Justice is severe, rigorous, exact. Love is merciful, compassionate, forgiving. In the Old Testament, God's justice is emphasised in the form of Divine Law; in the New Testament, the emphasis is on God's love, as personified in Jesus Christ. How can these two natures be compatible?
God is love: sin is forgiven. God is justice: sin has corrective consequences. To see only God's justice, or look only at his punishments, makes him appear cruel and unforgiving; on the other hand, to disregard justice would mislead people into thinking that transgressions are without corrective consequence. Moreover, since justice requires reward as well as punishment, there can be no justice without love; for only love is proportionate to the human soul, and there is no reward greater than love. Christ would not be Love, if he were not also Yahweh, God of justice. Love enters justice through divine mercy, and justice requires love through its very rigour and perfection. Divine Rigour requires Divine Mercy.
So infinite Love is not incompatible with perfect justice. Rather, the two complement and imply each other. You may therefore rejoice in the knowledge that unconditional love and rigourous justice are the ultimate principles of reality.
Sounds legit.
