The Arminians posit a conflict in God between His justice and His mercy, a conflict in which divine mercy is victorious and overcomes divine justice. According to His mercy God yearns for the happiness of the sinner and cannot cause suffering and misery to him. Although His justice requires the sinner to be stricken with the curse and to be killed, God cannot exercise His justice without doing violence to His mercy. His mercy prevails. He denies His justice, and without the satisfaction of His justice He bestows upon the sinner forgiveness and eternal life. The fundamental error in this conception is the denial of the unity and simplicity of God and the essential unity of His attributes. It separates between Gods attributes; it posits a schism in God. We must not imagine that the fathers in Dordrecht go to the opposite extreme and maintain Gods justice in preference to His mercy. Not at all; they maintain both divine justice and divine mercy in essential unity, not in irreconcilable conflict. Gods justice is the attribute of His goodness according to which He maintains Himself as the only good, the infinitely perfect God, and according to which, with reference to His moral creatures, He rewards the good with good and the evil with evil. Gods mercy is the attribute of His goodness according to which He is in Himself blessed as the infinitely good God and according to which, with reference to creatures, He is the sole fount of all blessing and therefore delivers them from all misery and fills them with life and joy. As God is one, so His mercy and justice are one in Him. God is His attributes. His mercy is His justice, and His justice is His mercy. Never is there in God unjust mercy or unmerciful justice. His justice never functions without His mercy, and His mercy never operates apart from His justice. There is no conflict in God. Such is the fundamental truth of this article.
Posted on: Fri, 07 Nov 2014 23:55:29 +0000
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