We Are the Risk of God: Reflections On the Limits of Divine Mercy

We Are the Risk of God: Reflections On the Limits of Divine Mercy | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J. | February 25, 2011 | Ignatius Insight

"It could be said that human history is marked from the very beginning by the limit God the Creator places upon evil."
— John Paul II, "Redemption as the Divine Limit Imposed upon Evil." [1]

"Later, when the war was over, I thought to myself the Lord God allowed Nazism twelve years of existence, and after twelve years the system collapsed. Evidently this was the limit imposed by Divine Providence upon that sort of folly."
— John Paul II, "The Limit Imposed on Evil in European History." [2]

I.

Pope John Paul II will be beatified on the Feast of the Divine Mercy in May. In his reflection on "The Mystery of Mercy," John Paul II wrote: "It is as if Christ had wanted to reveal that the limit imposed upon evil, of which man is both perpetrator and victim, is ultimately the Divine Mercy." [3] He had lived through the two great totalitarian experiences of the twentieth century, now becoming vague memories for most of us. Yet, he could not help but want to know, if he could, why God allowed such terrible things to happen. Not a few use these evils as reasons not to believe or to claim that God is not good. But John Paul used them rather as an occasion to reflect on what God was teaching us by allowing them to happen with, of course, the free cooperation of the men who carried them out.

In a famous passage, St. Augustine said that God never allows evil unless some good can result through its occurrence. He does not "cause" it but allows it. The persistent question that most of us have, however, has to do with God's "relation" to evil. We want to "blame" Him, not ourselves. Thus, if evil exists in the world, as most will recognize that it does, we must, to explain it, involve God's part in the whole mess. This approach would leave us innocent. We shift the blame to God.

John Paul comes at the question of evil through the perspective of the divine mercy, a teaching of the Polish nun, Sister Faustina, whom John Paul admired. Pope Benedict XVI later explained in Spe Salvi that the divine mercy has to be properly related to the divine justice, to judgment. A world of justice alone is barren and cold. A world of mercy alone tends to accept everything. Both are necessary. But they do not replace each other.

The first section of Pope Wojtyla's little book Memory and Identity: Conversations at the Dawn of a Millennium is entitled "The Limit Imposed upon Evil." The very first thing we notice in logic on reading this title is that evil is not absolutely unlimited. More broadly, no "absolute" evil exists. Nor is evil a "thing." Evil always exists in what is good. Evil has its limits, however extensive its presence may seem. God, in other words, will not simply eradicate evil from the world as if he has the power or desire to do so. The possibility of evil is contingent on the possibility of freedom and love.

Read the entire essay on Ignatius Insight...