QUOMODO SIT MISERICORS ET IMPASSIBILIS.
The Problem of Mercy and Impassibility
Anselm raises the apparent contradiction between God's mercy and impassibility, arguing that if God does not suffer with the wretched, then compassion cannot arise in the divine heart, yet the wretched clearly draw great consolation from God.
But how can you be both merciful and impassible at the same time? For if you are impassible, you don't suffer with them; and if you don't suffer with them, there's no wretchedness in your heart from compassion for the wretched — which is what it means to be merciful.1 But if you're not merciful, where do the wretched draw such great consolation?
Mercy by Our Reckoning and God's
Anselm proposes that God is merciful by human reckoning but not by God's own, resolving the tension through a distinction between divine and human perspectives on mercy.
So how can you be both merciful and not merciful, Lord — unless it's that you are merciful by our reckoning, and not merciful by yours? Indeed, you are merciful by our way of seeing it, and not merciful by your own.
Mercy Felt but Not Suffered
God is merciful because he saves the wretched and spares sinners, yet not merciful because he is not moved by any feeling of compassion for human misery.
And indeed, when you look on us in our wretchedness, we feel the effect of your mercy, but you do not feel the affection of it. And so you are merciful, because you save the wretched and spare your sinners; and yet you are not merciful, because you are not moved by any compassion for our misery.2
Read the original Latin
Sed et misericors simul et impassibilis quomodo es? Nam si es impassibilis, non compateris; si non compateris, non est tibi miserum cor ex compassione miseri, quod est esse misericordem. At si non es misericors, unde miseris est tanta consolatio?
Quomodo ergo es et non es misericors, domine, nisi quia es misericors secundum nos, et non es secundum te? Es quippe secundum nostrum sensum, et non es secundum tuum.
Etenim cum tu respicis nos miseros, nos sentimus misericordis effectum, tu non sentis affectum. Et misericors es igitur, quia miseros salvas et peccatoribus tuis parcis; et misericors non es, quia nulla miseriae compassione afficeris.
Notes
- 1 ↩Compassio/compassione here names a suffering-with (co-passion) that is the ground of mercy; the argument turns on the impassibility of God and the way divine mercy is real without divine passibility.
- 2 ↩Anselm plays on two senses of 'merciful': God acts mercifully in effect (saving, sparing) but is not merciful in the sense of being emotionally affected by our misery — divine impassibility is preserved even as real mercy is affirmed.
Proslogion (Address / Discourse on the Existence of God) companion
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