Chapter 09. How the all-just and supremely just God spares the wicked, and ... (Proslogium (Discourse on the existence of God)) (Anselm of Canterbury, St.)
Chapter 09. How the all-just and supremely just God spares the wicked, and ... (Proslogium (Discourse on the existence of God)) (Anselm of Canterbury, St.) somebodyChapter 9. How the all-just and supremely just God spares the wicked, and justly pities the wicked. | ||||
� He is better who is good to the righteous and the wicked than he who is good to the righteous alone. Although God is supremely just, the source of his compassion is hidden. God is supremely compassionate, because he is supremely just. He saveth the just, because justice goes with them; he frees sinners by the authority of justice. God spares the wicked out of justice; for it is just that God, than whom none is better or more powerful, should be good even to the wicked, and should make the wicked good. If God ought not to pity, he pities unjustly. But this it is impious to suppose. Therefore, God justly pities. | ||||
But how do you spare the wicked, if you are all just and supremely just? For how, being all just and supremely just, do you aught that is not just? Or, what justice is that to give him who merits eternal death everlasting life? How, then, gracious Lord, good to the righteous and the wicked, can you save the wicked, if this is not just, and you do not aught that is not just? Or, since your goodness is incomprehensible, is this hidden in the unapproachable light wherein you dwell? Truly, in the deepest and most secret parts of your goodness is hidden the fountain whence the stream of your compassion flows. | ||||
For you are all just and supremely just, yet you are kind even to the wicked, even because you are all supremely good. For you would be less good if you were not kind to any wicked being. For, he who is good, both to the righteous and the wicked, is better than he who is good to the wicked alone; and he who is good to the wicked, both by punishing and sparing them, is better than he who is good by punishing them alone. Therefore, you are compassionate, because you are all supremely good. And, although it appears why you do reward the good with goods and the evil with evils; yet this, at least, is most wonderful, why you, the all and supremely just, who lackest nothing, bestowest goods on the wicked and on those who are guilty toward you. | ||||
The depth of your goodness, O God! The source of your compassion appears, and yet is not clearly seen! We see whence the river flows, but the spring whence it arises is not seen. For, it is from the abundance of your goodness that you are good to those who sin against you; and in the depth of your goodness is hidden the reason for this kindness. | ||||
For, although you reward the good with goods and the evil with evils, out of goodness, yet this the concept of justice seems to demand. But, when you bestow goods on the evil, and it is known that the supremely Good has willed to do this, we wonder why the supremely just has been able to will this. | ||||
O compassion, from what abundant sweetness and what sweet abundance do you well forth to us! O boundless goodness of God how passionately should sinners love you! For you save the just, because justice goes with them; but sinners you free by the authority of justice. Those by the help of their deserts; these, although their deserts oppose. Those by acknowledging the goods you have granted; these by pardoning the evils you hate. O boundless goodness, which so exceed all understanding, let that compassion come upon me, which proceeds from your so great abundance! Let it flow upon me, for it wells forth from you. Spare, in mercy; avenge not, in justice. | ||||
For, though it is hard to understand how your compassion is not inconsistent with your justice; yet we must believe that it does not oppose justice at all, because it flows from goodness, which is no goodness without justice; nay, that it is in true harmony with justice. For, if you are compassionate only because you are supremely good, and supremely good only because you are supremely just, truly you are compassionate even because you are supremely just. Help me, just and compassionate God, whose light seek; help me to understand what I say. | ||||
Truly, then, you are compassionate even because you are just. Is, then, your compassion born of your justice? And do you spare the wicked, therefore, out of justice? If this is true, my Lord, if this is true, teach me how it is. Is it because it is just, that you should be so good that you can not be conceived better; and that you should work so powerfully that you can not be conceived more powerful? For what can be more just than this? Assuredly it could not be that you should be good only by requiting (retribuendo) and not by sparing, and that you should make good only those who are not good, and not the wicked also. In this way, therefore, it is just that you should spare the wicked, and make good souls of evil. | ||||
Finally, what is not done justly ought not to be done; and what ought not to be done is done unjustly. If, then, you do not justly pity the wicked, you oughtest not to pity them. And, if you oughtest not to pity them, you pityest them unjustly. And if it is impious to suppose this, it is right to believe that you justly pityest the wicked. | ||||