God's perfect mercy and justice?

[awatkins69]

I was talking to my friend. He brought up a good point. How can we reconcile God’s perfect mercy and perfect justice? It seems that to be perfectly just means to give exactly one’s due, and to be perfectly merciful means to give less than one’s due. Seems like a contradiction at first, no? What are your opinions, theologians?

 

[Abu]

To be all just and all merciful means that God justly rewards our good deeds and punishes our misdeeds. His mercy means that there is no sin too great for God to forgive. Purgatory enables this cleansing for us to reach perfection.

His rewards are out of all proportion to our deeds.

 

[tonyrey]

You have the answer in the prayer Jesus gave us:

“Forgive us **as **we forgive others”…

 

[Texas_Roofer]

I was talking to my friend. He brought up a good point. How can we reconcile God’s perfect mercy and perfect justice? It seems that to be perfectly just means to give exactly one’s due, and to be perfectly merciful means to give less than one’s due. Seems like a contradiction at first, no? What are your opinions, theologians?

You have some good answers above. But I think you misunderstand mercy you are due certain treatment as a human, a child of god, and you will receive that treatment while you receive your justice.

 

[LilyM]

I was talking to my friend. He brought up a good point. How can we reconcile God’s perfect mercy and perfect justice? It seems that to be perfectly just means to give exactly one’s due, and to be perfectly merciful means to give less than one’s due. Seems like a contradiction at first, no? What are your opinions, theologians?

Lots of things SEEM like contradictions.

The idea that God is omniscient and all-powerful and yet a) we have free will and b) neither evil or Hell are His will.

The idea of Jesus at one and the same time being truly God and truly Man.

The Trinity.

The Eucharist being the same sacrifice as Calvary.

The problem is that we humans are never perfectly just and only rarely particularly merciful. So we probably don’t even have an accurate understanding of what justice and mercy ARE, let alone how God reconciles them. We just need to know that He does. :getholy:

 

[JRKH]

I was talking to my friend. He brought up a good point. How can we reconcile God’s perfect mercy and perfect justice? It seems that to be perfectly just means to give exactly one’s due, and to be perfectly merciful means to give less than one’s due. Seems like a contradiction at first, no? What are your opinions, theologians?

Try to look at this from the unitve Law of Love.
God Love us - and offers us mercy.
God is merciful - We must accept His mercy and repent our sins.

God Loves us - and gives us free will.
God is Just - He rewards us based on what we choose.

God does not choose sin for us. - We do.
God does not choose to withold mercy - We do.

Peace
James

 

[tbcrawford]

I was talking to my friend. He brought up a good point. How can we reconcile God’s perfect mercy and perfect justice? It seems that to be perfectly just means to give exactly one’s due, and to be perfectly merciful means to give less than one’s due. Seems like a contradiction at first, no? What are your opinions, theologians?

Because we are only human and have limited understanding it is always best to leave Our Blessed Lord to His will and not try to judge it.

I do however feel your point " It seems that to be perfectly just means to give exactly one’s due]"
We cannot be perfect anything, as we are mere mortals.We can strive to be just, in accordance with God’s teachings to us through the bible and His commandments.

and to be perfectly merciful means to give less than one’s due]. I don’t see any contradiction im afraid.We can strive to emulate Our Blessed Lord to be Christ-like but only God is perfect.

God is The Word.

 

[1WATCHER]

I was talking to my friend. He brought up a good point. How can we reconcile God’s perfect mercy and perfect justice? It seems that to be perfectly just means to give exactly one’s due, and to be perfectly merciful means to give less than one’s due. Seems like a contradiction at first, no? What are your opinions, theologians?

Yes it is an infathomable question of understanding, just how can we reconcile Gods perfect mercy and justice? We can not with our limited understanding of our own humanism. By reconcile do you mean how do we do this? or rather attempt to simply understand his Glory? If we receive only what we merit and nothing of his Perfection we perish into hell. By assuming to be perfectly merciful one must receive one’s due, Then God would not be perfect nor his justice for us.

I seem not to answer your question, but the possibilty of more questions…

 

[tonyrey]

Yes it is an infathomable question of understanding, just how can we reconcile Gods perfect mercy and justice? We can not with our limited understanding of our own humanism. By reconcile do you mean how do we do this? or rather attempt to simply understand his Glory? If we receive only what we merit and nothing of his Perfection we perish into hell. By assuming to be perfectly merciful one must receive one’s due, Then God would not be perfect nor his justice for us.

I seem not to answer your question, but the possibility of more questions…

If we lived a good life and received only what we merited and nothing of his Perfection we would not perish into hell. We would not deserve to go to **either **heaven or hell. We would live in a state of natural happiness - after atoning for the suffering we have caused…

No one deserves to go to heaven but it is not unjust, still less unmerciful, for God to share His life with us. God is infinitely just and infinitely merciful but He is also infinitely loving. And His love transcends everything else. Why did Jesus die for us? So that we can live with Him…

 

[1WATCHER]

If we lived a good life and received only what we merited and nothing of his Perfection we would not perish into hell. We would not deserve to go to **either **heaven or hell. We would live in a state of natural happiness - after atoning for the suffering we have caused…

No one deserves to go to heaven but it is not unjust, still less unmerciful, for God to share His life with us. God is infinitely just and infinitely merciful but He is also infinitely loving. And His love transcends everything else. Why did Jesus die for us? So that we can live with Him…

Jesus tells us being neither hot or cold is the worst but lukewarm is the worst of the 3 and would spit us out. How is it that you understand words but not the meanings? What exact reason do you understand that it would be better to live in a state of natural happiness that would end when one takes the last breath of life, is it that you think we deserve because of a GOOD LIFE a natural happiness by what force would you employ that would allow you or any other to maintain that state by oneself. How would one atone for yourself as you quoted “Atone for the sufferings we have caused?”

You perceive that no one deserves to go to heaven? and would not be unjust and still less unmerciful of God. God created Heaven “just for us” to be with him, do you still not understand why Jesus died for us? Because if we did what we thought was right and in the end with out the eternal conseqence of Heaven or Hell we are void of any goodness done while we lived because it would not matter and would not be logical to do what would not serve only you.

 

[tonyrey]

If we lived a good life and received only what we merited and nothing of his Perfection we would not perish into hell. We would not deserve to go to either heaven or hell. We would live in a state of natural happiness - after atoning for the suffering we have caused…

You have misunderstood my post. If Jesus had not died for us we could not expect to go to heaven even if we lived a good life on earth. All we could expect would be to live in a state of natural happiness after we die. An imperfect creature cannot **expect **to share life with the perfect Creator.

God would have not been unjust if He had not created us. Life is a wonderful gift and a privilege. We had no right even to be born as animals. God did not create Heaven “just for us” because Heaven already existed. We can never repay God for all that He has given us but we can express our love by doing what He asks of us. That is all that matters…

 

[warpspeedpetey]

I was talking to my friend. He brought up a good point. How can we reconcile God’s perfect mercy and perfect justice? It seems that to be perfectly just means to give exactly one’s due, and to be perfectly merciful means to give less than one’s due. Seems like a contradiction at first, no? What are your opinions, theologians?

sounds like something one of the brights once said to me.

it simply assumes that mercy and justice are mutually exclusive. they arent. one can only be examined in the light of the other. mercy alters the limits of justice and justice alters the limits of mercy.