QUOMODO "UNIVERSAE VIAE DOMINI MISERICORDIA ET VERITAS", ET TAMEN "IUSTUS DOMINUS IN OMNIBUS VIIS SUIS".
The Justice of Punishing the Wicked
Anselm reasons that God is most just precisely because He repays both good and evil according to their deserts, and that it is therefore consistent with both justice and mercy that God punishes and spares.
But isn't it also just, according to you, Lord, that you should punish the wicked? It's surely just that you are so just that no one more just can be conceived. You wouldn't be so at all if you repaid good only to the good and not evil to the evil. For the one who repays both the good and the evil is more just than the one who repays the good only what they deserve. It is therefore just, according to you, just and gracious God, both when you punish and when you spare.
Mercy and Truth, Justice Without Contradiction
Anselm resolves the apparent tension between the scriptural claims that all God's ways are mercy and truth and that God is just in all His ways by grounding justice itself in the divine will.
Truly, then, 'all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth,' and yet 'the Lord is just in all his ways.' And certainly without contradiction: those you wish to punish, it isn't just that they should be saved, and those you wish to spare, it isn't just that they should be condemned. For that alone is just which you will, and that is not just which you do not will.
Why the Supremely Just Can Will Mercy
Anselm explores how mercy flows from justice in God's sparing of the wicked, yet confesses that the particular choice of whom to save and whom to condemn surpasses all human understanding.
So your mercy is born from your justice, because it is right for you to be good in this way: that you are good even in sparing. And this is perhaps why the supremely just one can will good things for the wicked. But if it can somehow be grasped why you would will to save the wicked, this at least cannot be understood by any reasoning: why, from among similar wicked people, you save these more than those through your highest goodness, and condemn those more than these through your highest justice.
Contemplation of the Divine Attributes
Anselm concludes by contemplating God as perceptible, omnipotent, merciful, impassible, and possessed of every perfection that it is better to be than not to be.
So then, you truly are perceptible, omnipotent, merciful, and incapable of suffering, just as you are living, wise, good, blessed, eternal, and whatever it is better to be than not to be.1
Read the original Latin
Sed numquid etiam non est iustum secundum te, domine, ut malos punias? Iustum quippe est te sic esse iustum, ut iustior nequeas cogitari. Quod nequaquam esses, si tantum bonis bona, et non malis mala redderes. Iustior enim est qui et bonis et malis, quam qui bonis tantum merita retribuit. Iustum igitur est secundum te, iuste et benigne deus, et cum punis, et cum parcis.
Vere igitur "universae viae domini misericordia et veritas", et tamen "iustus dominus in omnibus viis suis". Et utique sine repugnantia; quia quos vis punire, non est iustum salvari, et quibus vis parcere, non est iustum damnari. Nam id solum iustum est quod vis, et non iustum quod non vis.
Sic ergo nascitur de iustitia tua misericordia tua, quia iustum est te sic esse bonum, ut et parcendo sis bonus. Et hoc est forsitan, cur summe iustus potest velle bona malis. Sed si utcumque capi potest, cur malos potes velle salvare: illud certe nulla ratione comprehendi potest, cur de similibus malis hos magis salves quam illos per summam bonitatem, et illos magis damnes quam istos per summam iustitiam.
Sic ergo vere es sensibilis, omnipotens, misericors et impassibilis, quemadmodum vivens, sapiens, bonus, beatus, aeternus, et quidquid melius est esse quam non esse.
Notes
- 1 ↩Anselm's paradoxical pairing of 'sensibilis' (perceptible/sensible) and 'impassibilis' (incapable of suffering) with 'omnipotens' and 'misericors' argues that God possesses these attributes in a supreme, unified way that transcends human contradiction.
Proslogion (Address / Discourse on the Existence of God) companion
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