Mercy Uber Alles? St. Irenaeus Says “Heresy”

In recent months there has been much discussion of “mercy,” particularly “God’s mercy.” Typical topics in these discussions include:

Does God have “attributes” like our human attributes?
Does God have a greatest attribute, and, if so, is it mercy?
Can God’s words in Holy Scripture about mercy trump, nullify, or negate other things God says?
Can God’s words regarding mercy contradict His words regarding judgment?
Can Jesus’s words about mercy nullify His words about sheep, goats and Hell?
Can one, even a penitent, continue to live in sin because God will be merciful?
Do confessors have a sacred duty to inform penitents that a well-formed conscience cannot include a belief that one can remain in confessed sin because God is merciful?

It is not surprising that, in the Church’s history, similar questions have arisen in the past. Some followers of Origen of Alexandria (185 A.D. – 232 A.D.) proclaimed what has come to be known as the “Universalist” heresy: the doctrine that all persons will be saved due to God’s mercy, and that a God who is merciful will not condemn anyone to an eternal hell. That some would interpret Origen to have espoused some form of a “universalist” view is based on Origen’s writings, such as this from his work First Principles (De Principii) commenting on Ephesians 1:9-10:

“ . . . .which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ …”
Origen attempted to explain how this could be possible and ended up suggesting that, eventually, the Devil himself might be saved:

“ . . . who are called the devil and his angels….after having undergone heavier and severer punishments…improved by this stern method of training, and [are] restored…and thus advancing through each stage to a better condition, reach even to that which is invisible and eternal… “

One of the first Church Fathers to address the universalist or “mercy” heresy was St. Irenaeus (died 202 A.D.) in his work “Against Heresies”, a work which was directed primarily at the heresy of Gnosticism, but which discussed other heresies as well. Without explicitly naming it “mercy heresy,” to those who said that God’s mercy would insure that everyone would go to heaven, Irenaeus responded that they were creating another god, a god who was not the God of Holy Scripture, a god who was not revealed in the person of Jesus Christ:

“Those persons prove themselves senseless who exaggerate the mercy of Christ, but are silent as to the judgment, and look only at the more abundant grace of the New Testament; but, forgetful of the greater degree of perfection which it demands from us, they endeavor to show that there is another God beyond Him who created the world. (Against Heresies, 4:28)

“ . . . the elders pointed out that those men are devoid of sense, who, arguing from what happened to those who formerly did not obey God, do endeavour to bring in another Father …” (Id.).

Irenaeus notes that these senseless heretics focus only on what Jesus did regarding sinners “taking compassion upon them,” but that they ignore “His judgment.”

In addition to this, Irenaeus said that those who elevated God’s mercy to a sin-trumping overarching quality or attribute were in fact accusing Jesus who would send a sinner to eternal fire of not being the best god possible. Irenaeus said that these heretics were indicting Jesus, who judges sinners, for not being, to paraphrase a current slogan, “all that He could be.”

“For the same heretics already mentioned by us have fallen away from themselves, by accusing the Lord, in whom they say that they believe.”

Irenaeus confirms that “ . . . the Lord, . . . judges for eternity those whom He doth judge, and lets go free for eternity those whom He does let go free . . . For to whomsoever the Lord shall say, ‘Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire,’ these shall be damned forever; and to whomsoever He shall say, ‘Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you for eternity,’ these do receive the kingdom forever, and make constant advance in it; since there is one and the same God the Father, and His Word, who has been always present with the human race, by means indeed of various dispensations, and has wrought out many things, and saved from the beginning those who are saved, (for these are they who love God, and follow the Word of God according to the class to which they belong,) and has judged those who are judged, that is, those who forget God, and are blasphemous, and transgressors of His word.” (Id.)

“God will send the spiritual forces of wickedness, and the angels who transgressed and became apostates, and the impious, unjust, lawless, and blasphemous among men into everlasting fire” (Against Heresies 1:10:1).

As for those who would teach and spread the “mercy” heresy, or any heresy, Irenaeus says they will suffer and “remain among those in hell”. Irenaeus goes on: “But it is also incumbent to hold in suspicion others who depart from the primitive succession, and assemble themselves together in any place whatsoever, looking upon them either as heretics of perverse minds, or as schismatics puffed up and self-pleasing, or again as hypocrites, acting thus for the sake of lucre and vainglory. For all these have fallen from the truth. And the heretics, indeed, who bring strange fire to the altar of God— namely, strange doctrines — shall be burned up by the fire from heaven, as were Nadab and Abiud. Leviticus 10:1-2. Such as rise up in opposition to the truth, and exhort others against the Church of God, shall remain among those in hell (apud inferos), being swallowed up by an earthquake, even as those who were with Chore, Dathan, and Abiron. Numbers 16:33. But those who cleave asunder, and separate the unity of the Church, shall receive from God the same punishment as Jeroboam did.” (Against Heresies, 4:26).

One person is loving, but she is short and not very artistic or able to run fast; and it may be correct to say about this person that her greatest quality is that she is loving. But God is simple; He does not have parts, aspects, characteristics, attributes, or qualities like people do. To say God is good or omnipotent or merciful, using our human concepts, is the same as saying “God is God.” Theologically, it makes no sense to say “Of all God’ attributes, His attribute of mercy is His greatest, greater than his attribute of Love, greater than His attribute of justice, and greater than His attribute of __________(fill in the blank).”

Just as a person who would say that all of us are to be condemned to hell, or to purgatory until the final judgment because God’s greatest attribute is His justice (or His anger), St. Irenaeus is telling us that it is an error to say that all of us are going to heaven because God is merciful. Also, focusing on one of what we refer to as God’s attributes, while ignoring others, can lead to contradictions in different points of God’s revelation to us. In the words of St. Irenaeus, such an error leads to the creation of a god who is not the God of Holy Scripture, to the making of a Savior who is not the Jesus Christ of the gospels.