c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Andrew M. Greeley is a Roman Catholic priest, best-selling novelist and a sociologist at the University of Chicago National Opinion Research Center. Check out his home page at http://www.agreeley.com or contact him at agreel(at)aol.com.)

UNDATED _”Moral theology,”the late Rev. John Courtney Murray once remarked,”is necessary, or at least a necessary evil. But God is not a moral theologian.”One can add that God is not a canon lawyer either. Or a Vatican bureaucrat.

Moreover, there is no reason to think God takes his orders from any such folk, and human attempts to constrain God’s mercy or to stretch his compassion on the procrustean bed of human rules is both blasphemous and sacrilegious.

I reflect on these rather self-evident observations in response to those who have protested my recent columns on God’s compassion.

God, I have said, is compassionate, forgiving love. He has no choice but to forgive; he can’t help himself. It is God’s very nature to forgive.

Yet people write me insisting God can forgive only after the sinner expresses sorrow for his sins and pledges not to sin again. Thus, God is constrained to follow the rules of catechism, and sinners are warned they must obey those rules or there will be no place for them in the place God has prepared for those who love him.

It is not my intent to tell people they don’t need to worry about sorrow or amendment. These are prerequisites for reconciliation. Rather, I want to challenge those who would domesticate the image of God.

God is not the Great Accountant in the Sky who keeps careful records and eagerly slaps down those who are a little less than adequate. Nor is God the Old Irish Monsignor with a thorn stick, closely watching over little boys and girls to make sure they’re not fooling around.

No, no, God is not a canon lawyer. He is a parent, a lover, a relentless, play-it-by-ear empiricist who pursues his beloved with an implacable determination that they will not escape his love no matter how hard they might try.

God’s ingenuity is far more devious than human stubbornness. God’s persistence is far more determined than human malice. And God’s mercy is far stronger, as the late Cardinal Hans Urs Von Baltassar once wrote, than his justice.

Do I agree with the cardinal who taught _ or at least hoped for _ universal salvation? I’m not a theologian, and besides, I’m willing to leave such matters to God.

But I do know universal salvation is what God wants. (Urs von Baltassar, by the way, is the darling of many Catholic conservatives. I think they’d be much less enthusiastic about him if they knew he leaned in this direction.)

So why are so many of us eager to put constraints on God’s love even though the unconstrained truth is at the heart of Jesus’ message? Why must people rush in with limitations on the limitless power and passion of God’s love?

They develop these ideas, I presume, because that is what they are taught by their clergy and teachers, who fear that if people knew how much God loves them, they won’t try to lead a good, moral life. You must put the fear of God in humans so they’ll act right, they believe. Fear, they seem to think, is a more powerful motivation than love.

My sister, a theologian, once remarked that clergy and teachers are afraid to tell people what a good and wonderful gift sexual love is for fear they’ll enjoy it too much. It’s the same mentality that tries to downplay the recklessness of God’s love.

Better that God be portrayed, for example, as firm though not unkind, a religious superior who keeps a very close watch on us and notes carefully all our faults and virtues so he can make a balanced judgment about us.

But based on my reading of the Scriptures, if there’s one thing that God is not, it’s balanced. No lover ever is, especially one that is both powerful and passionate.

So, in a nutshell, to my critics who want to force God to obey all their rules I can say only,”Who can know the mind of God and limit his love?”

MJP END GREELEY