God Cannot Forgive Us
In my theological reflections I have described the death of Jesus on the cross as the Theophany of God's Love. Over against pagan visions of God, God does not need to do anything, by way of sacrifice, in order to forgive us. God is love, and mercy pours forth from God as naturally and organically as light from the sun. Our pardon is simply the expression of God's own self. Thus, what we behold in the cross of Christ is a theophany, a visible disclosure, communication, and manifestation of God's nature.
This idea is not new or liberal. It can be traced through the tradition. A lovely example of this comes from Julian of Norwich's Revelations of the Divine Love.
Here's what Julian says in Chapter 49:
Our Lord God, so far as He is concerned, cannot forgive--because He cannot be angry--it would be impossible.
What could Julian mean that God "cannot forgive"? Isn't that the whole point of grace, that God forgives us?
What Julian is describing here is what I've often pointed out: God is impassive toward human sin. God doesn't have emotional reactions about our sin. This is what Julian means when she says God "cannot be angry." As Julian says elsewhere in Revelations, there is no wrath in God. Because, again, God doesn't have emotional reactions toward our sin. Consequently, in the death of Jesus there is no change in God's emotions toward us, from wrathful to merciful or from angry to pleased. This is what it means to say God is impassive toward sin. God doesn't have triggered or conflicting emotions. Nor are there emotions within God that demand satisfaction or reconciliation. We cannot find a season in the heart of God (like the interval of time between the Fall and Jesus' death) when we were not forgiven. And if we cannot find a season in the heart of God when we were not forgiven that means we've always been forgiven. Ergo, God cannot forgive us.
More simply put, if by "forgiveness" you mean a change in the heart of God, this is impossible. God cannot "forgive" if you are describing forgiveness as an emotional flip-flop. Forgiveness can only ever name God's eternal posture of mercy toward human sinfulness, something that never wavers or changes. Forgiveness is simply a description of God's character. God doesn't forgive. God is Forgiveness. And Forgiveness does not need to forgive as it was always Forgiveness.
Here’s something else that Julian says that sounds paradoxical. God, she says, “never started to love mankind.” For the obvious reason that if God “started” to love us there was a time prior when God had not loved us. Therefore, God never started to love us as He has always loved us. As Julian succinctly puts it, “Before ever He made us, He loved us.”
Do you think God is impassive in general? Is God impassive to joy as well as to anger? Or does God feel the good stuff only and not the bad?
Or say I do something injurious to a friend, something that really makes that friend feel bad. Does God compassionately and empathetically feel the suffering of my friend too, just not any anger at me for having does something awful? Does God feel sorrow for me too because I let myself be corrupted enough to treat a fellow human being badly?
My sense, totally speculative, of course, is that God feels it all, the good, the bad, and the ugly (and Bible stories seem to illustrate this). But God chooses to forgive everything because God knows that, in the long run, the only way for everything to work out and usher in a perfect community of every soul ever created (human, animal, alien being) is if we all learn to practice self-giving love no matter what and perfect forgiveness no matter what. So God does that now and hopes we will all come to it eventually.