What We Deserve
Judgment is for God but it does seem we can penetrate this subject a little, what does the prodigal son deserve? The sinner trades on goodness and there is a real aspect to choosing an action being synonymous with choosing its implications. "You have made your bed now sleep in it." This would seem to be the extrinsic effect of the choice and there is yet an intrinsic/spiritual/psychological part to the prodigal son’s choice, the one concerning his identity i.e. sonship. By acting as though his father had no importance or worth, it makes sense that he would freely give up the fact he was a son to his father, to be "cut off" as it were. Yet was he successful in removing it by his choice? It would seem this identity is not removed from him biologically just as well as actually interiorly (if not only in the mind and heart of the father), even if its meaning is depleted.[1] What remains of this identity is not something the son restores Himself, but it is the father/forgiver which restores it. Therefore, it seems, with a God who is merciful as well as just we will experience the consequences of our actions insofar as it may return us to Him and assist in the redemption process of us and the human family, but also since God is infinitely merciful, we are always given the opportunity to have our deepest identity restored.
First, it seems we deserve punishment or at least, suffering. However, it should be appreciated that God largely withholds the total destruction which is what the path of sin hurdles us headlong into. The Catholic understanding of sin emphasizes this destructive nature, "It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity."[2] In fact, we have previously discussed the sense in which sin takes as being a step toward non-existence. Sin symbolizes, in a participative sense (which means it involves a causality concerning), a separation from Existence Himself, the cause of one's existence (which bridges with the prodigal son parable yet again). Moreover, to add the weight of our experience, all of history testifies to the degradation sin brings, from sibling rivalry to killing each other to solve an ideological conflict. It is historically verifiable that if the conscience is suppressed about the small things, greater moral breaches are no longer out of the question and are brought closer to the immediate potency of the corrupting sinner.[3] This is the nature of sin and in our choosing to breach good law, we ipso facto choose the consequences of those actions. In the government system, that is an artificial process of punishment. However, when we breach eternal law, which human/government law is supposed to resonate with or be permitted by, it seems God's justice permits physical/temporal consequences as well as spiritual and therefore eternal consequences. Modern culture would like to claim this oppressive, but it seems contradictive to say this because it makes sense that God would set up a system where we can choose against Him and our actual intrinsic good and be able to have a definite and defined good. In these ways, we see that we get what we deserve in choosing against good temporally, physically, and even mentally. "'You speak as any foolish woman would speak. Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?'"(Job 2:10) This is certainly the case for the prodigal son, who found himself impoverished of even that which was necessary for life and so returned to his father in his desperate need. He got what he deserved concerning his choice because that was the inevitable fruit of that choice, which sin is and which loving obedience to God who provided clarity on our good. In a way thus it can be said that God's goodness is validated by the reality of sin since He instructed us against it and it proves itself bad every time.
Second, let us concern ourselves with God's mercy. To summarize Aquinas, we are all debtors concerning God and piety is justice rent to those we owe for our existence, well-being, etc. [4] In His supreme generosity, "God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). God gave us everything from the beginning, we choose against Him, and found ourselves being at odds with the goodness of creation, in ways aforementioned as the prodigal son. The vast content of the Old Testament can be understood as God's persistence and man's inability to receive God's mercy and grace well, at least not with speed or understanding. Yet, "[God] did not abandon Him to the power of death", and still further, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life."(John 3:16) [5] This is also evident in the three other cases of the lost as described in Luke 15. It is clear God is generous with man and it is difficult to see whether it is only God's love that chose to restore in man what He lost by His choice in the eternal/spiritual sense or that it simply subsists despite the choice, but so long as we return to God and choose to receive His mercy we do not have to wonder. To speculate, even if it did subsist as a stable/unchanging aspect of the change sin incurs, we can forget it, despise it, and misunderstand it. Although to argue for this side it seems, the son still understood himself in his brokenness concerning the father. Ad contra to this is what I have been told concerning mortal sin (that it chases the Holy Spirit from the heart), but the Catechism's actual definition does not exclude (at least is not clear on the point) this perspective it seems to me, i.e. that our nature does not cease to be "a son of God", certainly does not actually insofar as He is our Common/First Cause, but it does undermine it personally/interiorly even if not completely.[6] Again nevertheless, God chooses to give us His mercy at least conditional upon us returning to Him for it.[7] It is proper to our piety that whatever terms of reconciliation God would provide for us we would receive, yet again, it is always much better than we seem to think we deserve, and it seems to me this is because we don't actually deserve the condemnation, we think we do. This is true at least insofar as we are not the arbitrator of our cause, every occasion of Christ bestowing mercy in the Gospels, and even the healings, testify to Christ seeing/loving us beyond our dysfunction which can't help but see ourselves in light of. This "seeing" and "loving" suggests something is missing in our self-condemnation which is present in the Divine Mercy. Something that we also seem to find in the command to "just as I have loved you, you also should love one another." coupled with "Treat others as you would like to be treated", i.e. our stable dignity (Matthew 7:12, John 13:34).
In conclusion, we were made good. We fell into sin by being convinced against our Creator and Sustainer. When we were found to be in indescribable need, His infinite mercy and generosity came and took on flesh. It saves that which is assumed in every experience. Whatever suffering our fall seemed to incur we seemed to deserve but our goodness is not removed only tainted by sin, and it is not us who determine what we deserve but God alone. Indeed, when the prodigal son returned to his father, his father not only recognized him but restored with haste what the son lost. Although we do not properly deserve forgiveness, it seems real love bestows it as though we do. Often, we make determinations about what others deserve or what we deserve but in what do trust there, God's mercy or ours, God's judgment or ours? Indeed, it is good and proper that we realize where our sinfulness leads us by enduring the evil it brings upon us, God's goodness is proven in this way just as well as His suffering upon the cross. In either case, it is clear God is working with what we are not what we ought to be. God has not let us be abandoned to our sinfulness, but is that what He thinks we would have deserved? It does not seem like that is His choice as evidenced by His action in the Gospels, His return to the Apostles, and in the Apostolic writings. If God's love is this way, are we to disagree with Him? The culture believes everything is permitted and nothing is forgiven. Is this not a near contradiction to God's love? Let us reflect God's love by first receiving it and leaving what we deserve to what God allows and gives and receive it gratefully so that it may sanctify us and so be redeeming. This seems consistent with the interpretation of Divine Judgment which understands it to be more of a self-condemnation than a Divine condemnation, which leads one to hell.
FN:
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1700.
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1849.
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1865.
- Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, II-II, q. 101, a. 1, at New Advent, www.newadvent.org.
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, 410-412.
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1855-1856.; Much after the fact I found an article in the Summa that Quotes Augustine saying, "The light of truth rightly deserts the prevaricator of the law, and those who have been thus deserted become blind." (De Natura et Gratia xxii). Also, it may be noted that the loss of sanctifying graces is valid, but it does not follow that all grace is removed from the soul or that it does not return in some fashion (or perhaps only left to a degree) to a repentant soul. In any case, confession restores what was lost except the immediate temporal consequences of an act.
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1864.
Written by Carter Carruthers & also available soon at Missio Dei
