© 2021 Marc Belleau
© 2021 Urantia Association of Quebec
Marc Belleau
Montreal
We live in an era characterized more and more by freedom of thought. We should therefore not be surprised to see the proliferation of a variety of visions, sometimes opposing, on justice and divine mercy. Traditional religions sometimes opt for implacable justice, like the vengeful God of the Old Testament, while other ideologies offer us a God who can absolve everything and whose love is so compelling that it does violence to the very idea of justice and the free will of creatures. In reality, God in all his perfection wisely combines mercy and justice.
Our Heavenly Father is necessarily merciful towards his creation; this is what characterizes his relationship with each of us. He created us incomplete, without knowledge, without experience and asks us to respond to his invitation: “Be perfect, as I am perfect.” He knows well that we will make mistakes along the way; this is the lot of those who rise from the imperfect spheres of time and space to the perfection of Paradise. We could define mercy as divine justice adapted to the particular conditions of each creature struggling in the universe. It is a credit of time granted to all intelligent beings to allow them to perfect themselves.
“Mercy is not a contravention of justice but rather an understanding interpretation of the demands of supreme justice as it is fairly applied to the subordinate spiritual beings and to the material creatures of the evolving universes.” (UB 2:4.5)
God forgives with love and wisdom; he understands our state of incompleteness and gives us all the time we need to fulfill ourselves. He takes note of each of our motives in order to adapt his judgment. Without the brake of mercy, growth in the universe would be impossible, because justice, effective, precise and expeditious, cannot tolerate the presence of evil.
“Supreme justice can act instantly when not restrained by divine mercy. But the ministry of mercy to the children of time and space always provides for this time lag, this saving interval between seedtime and harvest.” (UB 54:4.6)
God loves the sinner supremely, but he also hates sin, and it is sin that is destined to be destroyed by divine justice. Evil becomes real when the creature uses his free will to indulge in it; by repeatedly choosing it, he becomes wicked. The love of God, powerful but never compelling, is powerless against the deviant will of his children. It is, therefore, the creature who chooses to become unreal by complete identification with evil. The day will come when all creatures will have learned to choose good—when evil will have no existence of its own, since there will be no one to choose it and make it factual; this is the purpose of this vast superuniverse educational system which begins here on Urantia and extends to the blazing of the Universal Father on Paradise. Evil is therefore not destined to become a persistent reality in the grand universe and so it is with personalities who have completely identified with it.
“Such a sin-identified mortal would then become wholly unspiritual in nature (and therefore personally unreal) and would experience eventual extinction of being. Unreality, even incompleteness of creature nature, cannot exist forever in a progressingly real and increasingly spiritual universe.” (UB 2:6.8)
If mercy is granted by our Heavenly Father, taking into account the specific situations of each person, justice, for its part, is entirely impersonal. Indeed, the law is always promulgated for the whole, it is impartial and is interested in the whole; it is not concerned with the particular conditions of individuals. It is impossible to govern while taking into account the will of each part of the group. It is therefore up to the individual to comply with the laws promulgated, and this, in order to ensure the harmony of the whole.
In the grand universe, the Father does not judge his creatures; rather, this is the function of the Paradise Trinity or its agents, the Ancients of Days (three per superuniverse). Justice, to be precise, must be administered by groups of competent individuals (a group is always made up of a minimum of 3 people) in order to avoid any possibility of personal interpretation. Jesus, during a discussion with his Indian friend Ganid, explained this aspect of the administration of justice well:
“. . .mercy may be lavish, but justice is precise. Cannot you discern that no two persons are likely to agree as to the punishment which would satisfy the demands of justice? . . . Can you not see that on this world such responsibilities had better rest upon the group or be administered by chosen representatives of the group? In the universe, judgment is vested in those who fully know the antecedents of all wrongdoing as well as its motivation.” (UB 133:1.2)
Although he is the ruler of our local universe, Michael of Nebadon, during his incarnation, categorically refused to judge his deviant sons during the Lucifer rebellion.
To the many proposals and counterproposals of the emissaries of Lucifer, Jesus only made reply: “May the will of my Paradise Father prevail, and you, my rebellious son, may the Ancients of Days judge you divinely. I am your Creator-father; I can hardly judge you justly, and my mercy you have already spurned. I commit you to the adjudication of the Judges of a greater universe.” (UB 134:8.7)
Reflecting on the nature of justice and mercy allows us to understand how we should behave in our daily lives. In light of what we have just read, we can conclude that judgment is not the responsibility of the individual; let us not pass judgment on others, even in the most mundane situations of our lives. Michael did not want to judge his own rebellious sons and I do not see how we could justify the judgments that we sometimes make on our brothers and sisters. The only choice left to us then is to walk in the footsteps of the Master and develop our capacity to forgive.
“Mercy ministry is always the work of the individual, but justice punishment is the function of the social, governmental, or universe administrative groups. As an individual I am beholden to show mercy;” (UB 133:1.2)
Being merciful does not mean excusing sin, but rather consists of ceasing to struggle with situations of iniquity by returning good for evil, which is, in reality, the positive way to do things. God is merciful because he is always open to the repentance of the creature; his love even goes so far as to rehabilitate the sinner. In the image of God, let us be proactive. We can hate evil, but we must learn to love those who commit it in order to give them every chance to understand and become better. It is sometimes very difficult, I agree.
We have every interest in exercising mercy because it keeps us from struggling with error and evil, which is a negative use of our energy. In doing so, we focus on the evil instead of the sinner, which requires love and kindness, two highly positive attitudes that, when inhabited, energize us, renewing our minds and spirits. There are great benefits to being merciful.
“Jesus portrayed conquest by sacrifice, the sacrifice of pride and selfishness. By showing mercy, he meant to portray spiritual deliverance from all grudges, grievances, anger, and the lust for selfish power and revenge. And when he said, “Resist not evil,” he later explained that he did not mean to condone sin or to counsel fraternity with iniquity. He intended the more to teach forgiveness, to “resist not evil treatment of one’s personality, evil injury to one’s feelings of personal dignity.”” (UB 141:3.8)
In summary, justice is always impersonal and is concerned with the rules that govern all individuals who live in the same community. Mercy is the personalized expression of this justice, adapted to the conditions of each creature. Since the administration of justice belongs to groups of people, we must learn, as individuals, not to judge; let us therefore be merciful, it is the only truly valid alternative if we want to become more and more like God. In his great tenderness, he gives, for our perfection, a credit of time that goes well beyond what we will need in reality.
“The Import of Time. Time is the one universal endowment of all will creatures; it is the “one talent” intrusted to all intelligent beings. You all have time in which to insure your survival; and time is fatally squandered only when it is buried in neglect, when you fail so to utilize it as to make certain the survival of your soul. Failure to improve one’s time to the fullest extent possible does not impose fatal penalties; it merely retards the pilgrim of time in his journey of ascent. If survival is gained, all other losses can be retrieved.” (UB 28:6.9)
There is a connection between time and mercy and to the extent that we waste the former, we squander the latter. Let us therefore be wise stewards of this wonderful resource and make good use of the time allotted to us by fostering activities that will bring us closer to both God and His creation.
“Orvonton, the seventh superuniverse, the one to which your local universe belongs, is known chiefly because of its tremendous and lavish bestowal of merciful ministry to the mortals of the realms. It is renowned for the manner in which justice prevails as tempered by mercy and power rules as conditioned by patience, while the sacrifices of time are freely made to secure the stabilization of eternity. Orvonton is a universe demonstration of love and mercy.” (UB 15:14.2)
