Is God a God of Justice or a God of Mercy?
Samuel Cardillo
Here’s a basic question — Why do Evangelical Christians insist so emphatically on the idea of a God of Justice over against a God of Mercy?
Now the immediate response of most evangelicals (at least the ones I know) would be something like this: “God’s justice and mercy are not in conflict with each other… God is certainly merciful… his sense of justice doesn’t preclude his mercy… God can be both just AND merciful toward his created beings… he’s not limited to one or the other…” Yet, in the context of typical evangelical discussion about the Apostle Paul’s view of Election, (and this is the enigma for me) there are times when God’s justice “overrides” his mercy. Why? Very simply because (and if my claim is wrong here, I’m open to correction) justice is most often considered in evangelical thinking to be God’s “defining characteristic.”
A fair representative of that view is seen by a simple Internet search of the basic question: “How do God’s mercy and justice work together in salvation” which brings up a site that claims to have the answers for some 600,000 biblical questions: As this site puts it:
“God’s perfect justice is a defining characteristic” and the writer (anonymous) quotes Isaiah 45:21, “There is no God apart from me, a righteous [just] God and a Savior; there is none but me”… and Deuteronomy 32:4, “A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he.”
The obvious problem here is that it’s never a good idea to postulate a Biblical position based on a couple of verses pulled from their context and applied to the theory that one is bent on “proving.” Proof-texting is the simplest way to back up one’s position, yet it also happens to be a dishonest and manipulative way of building and sustaining a case.
Here are a two examples, pulled randomly from a simple internet search of the question above (“How do God’s mercy and justice work together in salvation”) …
Steven Bahls (President of Augustana College) presents a legal argument in dealing with the relationship between God’s mercy and God’s justice. His argument is based on Micah 6:8: What does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Bahls makes his point using court-room legal argumentation; he says that “the relationship between justice and mercy is one of the toughest legal and public policy questions our country faces,” and he cites depictions of the justice/mercy relationship from various works of art and literature. His bottom line is that walking humbly with God “helps us find the correct balance between justice and mercy in a way that glorifies God.” (https://www.augustana.edu/about-us/president/justice-and-mercy). As I’ll claim below, equating God’s justice and God’s mercy based on a legal argument like this results in a partial (and thus defective) view of God.
John Piper, arguably one of Evangelicalism’s most trusted representatives (using Proverbs 28:5 as his proof-text) makes the statement that “Only Christians understand true social justice” (https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/only-christians-understand-true-social-justice). Yet his proof-text doesn’t say that. It simply says that “evil men” don’t understand justice. The word used there is the basic Hebrew word ra’ with the range of meaning: “bad, evil, unpleasant, displeasing” (etc.). How that word defines (in Piper’s mind) only folks who are outside of Christianity is a mystery. Moreover it’s simply a misuse of Scripture, showing again the danger of proof-texting.
One-liners are not always helpful, but for me, the one that follows at least helps us narrow down the question to get to the core issue I want to explore. It’s a line from the recent movie “Just Mercy.” Bryan Stevenson (Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, and a professor of law at New York University Law School) says it this way: “Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.”
Here’s the basic problem that I’m trying to deal with — Yes, the Bible clearly addresses both God’s justice and his mercy. And a biblical case can certainly be built around the idea that God’s justice and God’s mercy are both active in God’s dealings with man. That much is clear. But I would claim that such a view of God (co-equality of his justice and mercy) is strictly a legalistic view of God’s dealings with humanity, and thus a deficient view of his character.
The best way I can understand God’s relationship with created humanity (in fact the only way that makes sense to me) is to look at the Bible’s own description of God as Father. Without exception, Evangelicals are universal in their view of God’s relationship with humanity as Father. We refer to him as God the Father; we are “co-heirs” with Jesus as God’s sons and daughters; and we address him as “father” when we pray.
Based on the undisputable biblical evidence of God’s fatherhood, my question is simply this (and for any father this must certainly be so clear on the most basic level, as to defy any idea to the contrary) — Would a loving father act toward his children in any way that defies the universal sense of mercy? And if so, is it not reasonable to question that father’s genuine love and care for his children?
But let’s back up a little — Is there a place for justice in human affairs? Of course; please be careful to avoid the temptation to misinterpret my point here. Think again about our father/child relationships. Of course there is a time and a place for applying justice in our relationships with our children. It’s called Discipline. But here’s my point — to act in justice should never mean taking it to the extreme that the Bible (falsely, I believe) attributes to God as father. In other words, the Bible presents a picture of God’s justice that “justifies” punitive acts that go so far beyond our (human) sense of justice as to be violent, murderous, and in fact “unjust.” Cases in point are easy enough to find — indiscriminate murder of innocent bystanders, children, livestock. By any stretch of imagination could such acts be defined as “acts of justice?”
Where does this reasoning lead me? Very simply to the idea that the biblical authors who made such claims about a violent, murderous God are simply not to be taken as authoritative scripture. I fully recognize that this idea opens a can of worms that our Evangelical view of scripture simply can’t stomach, for it opens up the question of biblical authority. And we Evangelicals can’t endure that… we simply have no category for questioning even the most insidious portion of Holy Scripture. Not only is it dangerous, its simply misguided and erroneous biblical interpretation.
But can there be another option — an option that allows for a seemingly indiscriminate and murderous god who can be, at the same time a Father who loves all of his children? I would love to propose a solution, but if there’s a reasonable answer to that question, it evades me.
