Justice and Mercifulness

[lordfox]

(Q, please ignore this thread)
Aren't perfect justice, and perfect mercifulness concepts that are absolutely contradictory? Why and why not?

[justamuslim]

no, they are not contradictory.   let's say you wronged me causing a lot of pain and suffering that i can never be ok.  of course, you can't get away with that and there needs to be justice.  you have to stand account taking responsibility for what you did.  but if you acknowledge that you hurt me causing so much pain, feeling remorse, apologizing from your heart for the wrongs that you had done wanting to make right of your wrongs, seeking forgiveness and redemption, then you are deserving of leniency and mercy.   

[lordfox]

no, they are not contradictory.   let's say you wronged me causing a lot of pain and suffering that i can never be ok.  of course, you can't get away with that and there needs to be justice.  you have to stand account taking responsibility for what you did.  but if you acknowledge that you hurt me causing so much pain, feeling remorse, apologizing from your heart for the wrongs that you had done wanting to make right of your wrongs, seeking forgiveness and redemption, then you are deserving of leniency and mercy.

And so in your philosophy, ''mercifulness'' can only be applied when the wrongdoer is no more and sincerely feels remorse? You are mistaking the former concept with simple ''forgiveness''.

[Student of Allah]

(Q, please ignore this thread)
Aren't perfect justice, and perfect mercifulness concepts that are absolutely contradictory? Why and why not?

Shalom Aleikhem,

Ofcourse it would contradict as long as Mercifulness = forgiveness or overlooking of faults on the basis of nothing what so ever.

Thats not what I think Mercifulness is, because there is already a word for that, its called "stupidity".

Think about this case, Person A punches you unnecessarily. You think you are being Merciful by not holding him accountable for it ? You are promoting unsocial behavior that is detrimental to the welfare of humanity. This person, without learning any lesson, would not stop before punching another human being.

Now think of another case where Person B punches you unnecessarily. For the sake of the explanation, lets assume that the person had a very bad day. Random people got into fights with him, beat him up. That happened over and over again. Till the time you arrived in the scene, he is not he anymore. He is a victim of mental/physical torture. When you mess with him, he punches.

It may not be possible for a person to prove his case in the court the way I laid it down. However, in the court of God, there isnt any lack of evidence. God knows what is in the heart of a person, God would know for certain that his behavior, although anti-social is more of a result of the abuse he had to withstand prior to the crime he committed. Mercifulness will be to consider his case and be compassionate. To be honest, compassion towards this guy would be pure JUSTICE. 

Peace
----------- Student of Allah

[Maha]

Shalom Aleikhem,

Ofcourse it would contradict as long as Mercifulness = forgiveness or overlooking of faults on the basis of nothing what so ever.

Thats not what I think Mercifulness is, because there is already a word for that, its called "stupidity".

Think about this case, Person A punches you unnecessarily. You think you are being Merciful by not holding him accountable for it ? You are promoting unsocial behavior that is detrimental to the welfare of humanity. This person, without learning any lesson, would not stop before punching another human being.

Now think of another case where Person B punches you unnecessarily. For the sake of the explanation, lets assume that the person had a very bad day. Random people got into fights with him, beat him up. That happened over and over again. Till the time you arrived in the scene, he is not he anymore. He is a victim of mental/physical torture. When you mess with him, he punches.

It may not be possible for a person to prove his case in the court the way I laid it down. However, in the court of God, there isnt any lack of evidence. God knows what is in the heart of a person, God would know for certain that his behavior, although anti-social is more of a result of the abuse he had to withstand prior to the crime he committed. Mercifulness will be to consider his case and be compassionate. To be honest, compassion towards this guy would be pure JUSTICE. 

Peace
----------- Student of Allah

just my words.

[Ruuube]

I don't see how they contradict each other.

Mercy, God forgives you and overlooks your failures as long as you are of the repentant. Justice, God punishes you when you show no remorse or have no good reason.  If you have committed a massive crime, but you are repentant, you are showing remorse, and earn his mercy. Commit the same crime, show no remorse, then you have learned nothing and don't desire to progress as a person, then you are judged with justice.

[Someone]

Peace,

The god the creator provides every day for everybody on this world some air to breath, food to eat, water to drink, sun to warm up, to everybody on this earth... He is providing even the worst criminals, atheists, agnostics, sectists... He is surely the most merciful.

As for perfect justice, one can try to objectivly analyse his actions and their consequences to verify this.

[lordfox]

I think you are not analyzing my question carefully.

I have found in the translations of the Quran that Allah describes itself as being both the "most merciful" and the "most just", one should not disregard the first part of the description. The question was if the "most" is absolute, regardless of the former actions or not. If one says, absolute mercifulness goes, according to absolute justice, then it renders it to "forgiveness" which is not akin to "mercifulness" and so StudentofAllah's paragraph is self-defeating.

[IAMOP]

It fits like lego really.

If God is just to those who are just, then that is perfect justice and mercy: the unjust are corrected. Totality = justice.

If God treats the good exactly as the bad, then He is being unjust to the good. Totality = injustice.

Another way to look at it: if you jump off a tall building onto rocks, God can either bend his law to you OR let nature take its course. The prior is not just because it's not consistent in itself. The way of God does not change. It's a river that always flows downstream to enrich the Earth (mercy/grace) and always forwards in time (justice). If someone tries to flow upstream then they themselves are being unjust and unmerciful. If they swam with the river then this would not even matter!

Maybe you've heard of the Tao Te Ching?

Yet still, all beings other than God will always be less just and less merciful than God. Creation is limited and has desires whereas God is free of limits and free of desires. God is the truth itself, the only correct reality. Being unquestionable, God is always correct. Mathematically speaking it's like Godel's incompleteness theorem. If you find out why 2+2=4 then you cannot find out why the proof to why 2+2=4 is correct. Trace this recursion to the end and there is always the unquestionable - also known as God. So the answer to your question is: because.

It's a matter of the identity of God. The error in reasoning comes from treating God and truth or reality as distinct things. "Is God true?" or "Does God exist?". Questioning veiled tautologies, you see. All of these terms are synonyms.

[Student of Allah]

I think you are not analyzing my question carefully.

I have found in the translations of the Quran that Allah describes itself as being both the "most merciful" and the "most just", one should not disregard the first part of the description. The question was if the "most" is absolute, regardless of the former actions or not. If one says, absolute mercifulness goes, according to absolute justice, then it renders it to "forgiveness" which is not akin to "mercifulness" and so StudentofAllah's paragraph is self-defeating.

Shalom Aleikhem,

Well, you are 100% correct as long as the definition of Mercifulness is " Having the tendency to forgive on the basis of nothing what so ever".

If you define mercy as something which is shown on the basis of something... then there is no problem whatsoever. Just like in our human courts, sometimes a person may receive less penalty on the basis of other factors taken into consideration.

Again, showing mercy to those who deserve it is the best justice one can do.

Peace
--------------- Student of Allah