Original Research - Special Collection: Romania

Love and justice from a canonical perspective

Irimie Marga
HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies | Vol 77, No 4 | a6748 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v77i4.6748 | © 2021 Irimie Marga | This work is licensed under CC Attribution 4.0
Submitted: 15 April 2021 | Published: 29 October 2021

About the author(s)

Irimie Marga, Department of Theology, Orthodox Faculty of Divinity, University of Sibiu, Sibiu, Romania; Department of Systematic and Historical Theology, Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa

Abstract

What is the relation between love and justice? In God, love and justice are in perfect harmony. In humans, this harmony depreciates as a result of the sins committed by them. Christ restores harmony between love and justice by tying them to a common element: sacrifice. The Church continues Christ’s work and, through all its Mysteries, especially Confession and Liturgy, it searches to raise man to a sacrificial statute, which leads to a harmonisation in love and justice. Apocatastasis and inquisition are the extremes people fell in by the exaggeration of love and justice.

Contribution: Some theologians say that God is more loving than righteous. Others say the opposite. The answer is that in God, love and justice are in absolute harmony. In humans, love and justice are inequitable. Christ restores this lost harmony through a common element: sacrifice. The Day of Judgement will show how much people harmonised love and justice, through Christian sacrifice.


Keywords

love; righteousness; harmony; sin; canon; sacrifice; cross; resurrection; church; mysteries

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