Transformation in Christ_ On the Christian Attitude - Dietrich Von Hildebrand [196]
This point of difference is connected with the inherence in mercy of a certain aspect of superiority. One’s pity cannot have the character of mercy without one’s controlling the situation, in some way, from above. This, again, is impossible unless one is in some measure able to help: to mold the situation and not merely to deplore it.
Who can exercise mercy? A person in health who can assist the sick; a priest who, by virtue of his office, can cure the wounds of the soul; also, anyone who may remit a debt, renounce a right, or waive a claim for the benefit of another.
Mercy is an antithesis to justice
Having thus clearly established the distinction between mercy and compassion, let us now examine another fundamental aspect of mercy: its antithetic relation to strict justice. Merciful love—not, as is sometimes thought, love as such—embodies, indeed, an antithesis to justice. For it connotes an excess of loving kindness which is over and above the measure of merits. Well we know what our fate would be if God weighed us according to the measure of justice only: therefore do we pray, “If Thou, O Lord, wilt mark iniquities: Lord, who shall stand it?” (Ps. 129:3).
Yet, evidently, this surpassing of justice has nothing in common with injustice. Mercy is not an antithesis to justice in a sense implying a negation of the value of justice. It comprises the latter per eminentiam — by overflow, as it were. All that makes up the value of justice is contained to an even higher degree in mercy. God does not cease to be supremely just by being supremely merciful. “King of majesty tremendous, who dost free salvation send us, Fount of pity then befriend us!” (Dies Irae)
Certainly this union of justice and mercy is possible in God the absolutely Simple One, who embraces the fullness of Being and in reference to whom we may speak of a coincidentia oppositorum. But how is our mercy related to justice? What kind of situations are there in which we may and ought to follow the promptings of mercy?
There are two main lines along which mercy unfolds. It may be exercised, first, towards persons against whom we have a legitimate claim: who, for example, owe us money or some kind of service; or again, who have done us some wrong. We may, secondly, behave with mercy towards persons afflicted with any sort of misery towards whom we have no special obligations, be it in the sense of duties inherent in our office (in the widest use of that term) or of obligations implied by a particular personal relationship. It is mercy of this kind that directs us to succor, say, a strange person who is wounded or one who is destitute; or again, one who is despised and ostracized by all.
Mercy can be exercised toward those against whom we have a claim
But let us first examine the type of mercy which involves the waiving of a claim. What is meant here is, of course, our renunciation of a valid right of our own. Mercy impels us to overstep the measure of justice in a case where justice would operate to our personal advantage.
When, on the other hand, we have to decide about the conflicting claims of others—acting, for instance, as an arbiter between two contestant parties—we are not at liberty to transgress the measure of justice. We have no right simply to cancel the debt which an indigent person owes to a prosperous one. By all means, we may—having regard to the particular circumstances—try to persuade the creditor to show mercy, but we are not in a position to substitute in our own right clemency for justice. Yet, we may well do so if the creditor is ourselves.
Even in this case, however, our surrender of the claim in question may not always be an act of true mercy, nor even always the right thing to do. If it is a debt we remit, it must, first of all, be owed us by a poor man—one who, not only as regards the given juridical