The Holy War — Page 171
Proceedings—Debate 31 May 1893 171 breaking of which sin comes into being and then this attribute makes its appearance and fulfils its requirements. But so long as there is no law present or no sin born in disobedi- ence to a law—for example, there should be a person who is incapable of understanding the Divine Law, like a child or an insane person or some like of animals—till such time this attribute does not make its appearance. Nevertheless, by virtue of His being the Master, He may do as He wills because He has a right over all His creation. So it has been proven from this study that justice has no relation whatsoever with mercy; mercy is indeed God’s eternal and foremost ranking attribute. Just as the Christians themselves hold to this belief that God is Love, it is not written anywhere that God is Wrath— meaning, He is Just—and Wrath is similar to Just because the wrath of God is not like the wrath of humans, that manifests itself without any reason, or on trivial annoyance, but instead God manifests this attribute at the precise and relevant time of justice. Now, the second question is: What are the injunctions regarding him who breaches the Divine Law? The answer is that action will be taken according to the conditions of this law; mercy has no connec- tion with this. In other words, the issue of mercy without recompense has no relevance here because the philosophy of sin is that it comes into being due to the breaking of a Divine Law. Therefore, it is neces- sary first to have a law but the law will be present in a certain epoch, which is why God’s mercy cannot go hand in hand with His justice, but it comes into effect when the law has been established and con- veyed, and then its rules are breached and transgressed. So the Maker of Law has this general authority that He can assign whatever pun- ishment He likes for the breaking of any law, and then also to make certain conditions and rules and limitations, as He wishes, to provide for a pardon from those punishments. So now we see that this problem of mercy without any recom- pense has become a completely different and clear issue. However, we