From Fiona and Terryl Givens, a previous post, Justice:
Dostoevsky pointed out the fruitlessness of justice as retribution. As his character Ivan cries out to his brother, “What use is vengeance to me, what use to me is hell for torturers, what can hell put right for me again? . . . I don’t want anyone to suffer anymore.”8 (now continuing)
This is the topic that occupies Alma in his great discourse on the subject, delivered to his troubled son Corianton. Why, his son wonders, must punishment follow misconduct? Especially because, as we discussed previously, God is not affronted by anything we can do. Their honor is not threatened, and they do not demand our punishment. As Paul taught, nothing “shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39). Julian of Norwich wisely wrote that “it is [Satan’s] meaning to make us so heavy and so sorrowful in this [that we are not able to see] the blessed beholding of our everlasting Friend. . . . our falling does not prevent him from loving us.”9
The false traditions of the fathers are unflagging in their assertions that punishment is God’s “justice.” The Book of Mormon, however, gives us a radically different way to think about justice. And the central concept in that scriptural framework is agency. No other religious tradition has made agency so central to its theological understanding. “God gave unto man that he should act for himself,” said Lehi (2 Nephi 2:16). But that freedom to choose is always freedom to choose something. Alma calls this principle, the principle by which every choice brings a consequence that is tied to it, “the plan of restoration” because we shall have “restored” to us that which we most desire (Alma 41:2). As we manifest our “desires of happiness, or . . . desires of good,” then we are “raised to happiness . . . or good” accordingly (verse 5). Julian of Norwich wisely perceived that in most of us is a “godly will that never assents to sin nor ever shall.”10 Pico della Mirandols, who loved this simple principle, exclaimed, “O great and wonderful happiness of man. It is given to him to have that which he desires and to be that which he wills.”11 It is precisely this principle that the Book of Mormon calls “the justice of God.” In this essential regard, justice works in our favor. (For when it does not, see chapter 11, “Repentance.”) Justice is the principle by which God assures us that They will stand us surety behind this law of restoration. And this explains why Latter-day Saint scripture twice refers to such agency as a supernal gift (Doctrine and Covenants 101:78; Moses 7:32). As B.H. Roberts wrote, this “inexorableness of law is at once both its majesty and glory.” Because within its domain we can choose with full sense of security, . . .safety . . . and rational faith.”12 Because of the law of restoration we can be assured that we will have “good for that which is good; righteous for that which is righteous; just for that which just; merciful for that which is merciful” (Alma 41:13).
~Fiona and Terryl Givens, All Things New (Meridian, ID: Faith Matters Publishing, 2020), 115-116
