Montague Brown: Augustine on Justice, Mercy, and Freedom

We hold by faith that God is both just and merciful: all of us will be judged according to our deeds, and God always offers us the grace to be saved. So much does our judge love us that he died so that we might not come to judgment but may live in Him. This affirmation of both justice and mercy, however, is not so easy to understand, for it is not at all clear why intentional wrongdoing should be forgiven. In his Tractates on the Gospel of John, Augustine sheds light on this matter in a particularly illuminating way. This presentation has three parts. The first part considers briefly the kind of approach Augustine takes in his Tractates, and how this opens up philosophical and theological insights not always as forthcoming in his more systematic works. The second part examines a particular passage in Tractate 33 where Augustine comments on the scene in which the Scribes and Pharisees challenge Jesus to judge the woman caught in adultery, supplementing this with passage from Sermon 46, in which Augustine speaks of God’s continuing mercy even in the face of our hostility. The third part draws some connections between these particular passages and broader matters of judgment, mercy, and freedom, relating to the fullness of the moral life.