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Punishment, Forgiveness, and Divine Justice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Thomas Talbott
Thomas Talbott
Affiliation:
Williamette University, Salem, Oregon 97301
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Abstract

According to a long theological tradition that stretches back at least as far as St Augustine, God's justice and mercy are distinct, and in many ways quite different, character traits. In his great epic poem, Paradise Lost, for example, John Milton goes so far as to suggest a conflict, perhaps even a contradiction, in the very being of God; he thus describes Christ's offer of himself as an atonement this way:

No sooner did thy dear and only Son

Perceive thee purpos'd not to doom frail Man

So strictly, but much more to pity inclin'd,

Hee to appease thy wrath, and end the strife

Of Mercy and Justice in thy face discern'd

Regardless of the Bliss wherein hee sat

Second to thee, offer'd himself to die

For man's offence.

Type
Research Article
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , June 1993 , pp. 151 - 168
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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References

1 Bk. III, 403–10.

2 In De Trinitate Augustine writes: ‘God is truly called in manifold ways, great, good, wise, blessed, true, and whatsoever other thing seems to be said of Him not unworthily: but his greatness is the same as His wisdom; for He is not great by bulk, but by power; and His goodness is the same as His wisdom and greatness, and His truth the same as all those things; and in Him it is not one thing to be blessed, and another to be great, or wise, or true, or good, or in a word to be Himself’ (VI, 7). Note that Augustine here identifies God's greatness, not with his love, but with his power, and he identifies his goodness with his greatness; hence he seems to reduce everything to mere power. It seems to me, however, that one can defend a doctrine of absolute simplicity and be faithful to the biblical witness only if one identifies God's power as the creative and transforming power of love.

3 See Augustine, Enchiridion, ch. XXV.

4 City of God, Bk. XX, ch. 1.

5 Ibid. Bk. XXI, chs. 2–10.

6 John, Milton, Christian Doctrine reprinted in The Complete Prose Works of John Milton, vol. vi (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1973), p. 628Google Scholar.

7 Cur Deus Homo I, ch. 11.

8 Ibid. ch. 14.

9 Ibid.

10 For a good popular treatment of this difficulty, see Lewis, C. S., ‘The humanitarian theory of punishment’, in God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1973), pp. 287–94Google Scholar.

11 Enchiridion, ch. XIV, sect. 50.

12 Institutes, Bk. II, ch. I, sect. 8.

13 Loraine, Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination (The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1968), p. 63Google Scholar.

14 Cur Deus Homo, ch. 21.

15 Ibid.

16 Ibid.

17 See Enchiridion, ch. XIV, sect. 48.

18 Herbert, Morris, ‘Persons and punishment’, The Monist, LII, no. 4 (10, 1968),Google Scholar reprinted in Murphy, Jeffrey G., Punishment and Rehabilitation (Selmont: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1973), p. 43Google Scholar.

19 Richard, Swinburne, Responsibility and Atonement (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), p. 107Google Scholar.

20 Matthew 5:28.

21 I John 3:15.