In Face of Injustice How Do We Explain Divine Justice?

The following is a story told by Elder Paisios about a man who was seeking to understand the nature of Divine Justice.  The man's elder sent him to observe life from a hidden place and here is what He saw.


First, he saw a rich man stop along the road where there was a spring for a rest.  He watched him take out his purse and count 100 gold coins.  But, when he got back on his horse he absentmindedly left his purse lying there.  Later, another man comes along and finds the purse and immediately takes off with it.  Next, a poor man comes and sits down in the same spot to eat some bread.  About this time the rich returns to retrieve his lost purse.  He finds the poor man there who knows nothing about the purse. Thinking the poor man was lying, the rich man beats him thinking he stole the purse. He beat him so badly that he died. But when he examines his pockets he does not find the purse.


The man sent to observe life turned to the Lord in prayer saying: "Lord, what is the meaning of this Will of yours? Please explain how Your Benevolence can tolerate such injustice?"  A angel of the Lord then answered him as follows:

"Of all the things you just witnessed, some were by God's concession, others were for education, and others had providential reasons.  He who lost the coins was the neighbor of the one who found them.  The latter had an orchard worth 100 gold coins.  Being greedy, the rich man forced him to sell it for only 50 coins.  The disadvantaged man turned to God in prayer and asked for God to take care of this injustice. Therefore his discovery of the purse with the 100 gold coins was God's providence which had responded to his prayer to give him his money back two fold."

"The poor man who was murdered unjustly also committed murder once in his life.  He had repented and afterwards lived a God pleasing life.  He constantly asked God to forgive him for the murder and to give him a death just like the one he had inflicted."

"Naturally, the Lord forgave him based on his repentance.  God was moved by his sincerity and his efforts to live a life according to His commandments and his desire to pay for his crime.  Thus the Lord granted him his wish and allowed  him to die a violent death and then took him into His bosom.

Finally, the greedy man who lost all his gold coins and then committed the murder would have a disastrous end due to his greed and love of money. God therefore allowed him to fall into the sin of murder so that his soul would be severely pained and he would seek to repent. The result was that this person did repent and abandoned all worldly pleasures and become a monk.

"Now in which of these cases did you find God to be unjust or cruel or insensitive?"

This is the nature of Divine Justice.  You must not concern yourself with in-depth examination of God's judgments, because He metes them out fairly, in the manner that He deems appropriate, when you on the other hand misconstrue them as injustices.

Divine Justice vs Human Justice

When Elder Paisios was asked what makes the difference between a saint and the rest of us he said they have divine justice instead of human justice.


Here is how the Elder described Divine Justice:

Suppose two men are sitting at the table to eat.  In front of them, there is a plate with ten peaches.  If one of them greedily eats seven peaches leaving three for his friend, he is being unfair to him, this is injustice.

Instead , if he says: "Well, we are two and the peaches are ten.  So, each one of us is entitled to eat five peaches." If he eats the five peaches and leaves the other five for his friend, then he applies human justice;

That is why, many times, we go to court to find human justice.

However, if he understands that his friend likes peaches very much, he can pretend that he is not very fond of them and eat only one, and then says to him: "Please eat the rest of the peaches, as I don't really like them; besides, my stomach aches and I should not eat any more."  This person has divine justice; he prefers to be unfair to himself by human standards and be rewarded for his sacrifice by God's grace, which he will abundantly receive.

The  true Christian must never condemn, or press charges against his fellow men, even if someone takes by force his clothes.  There is a difference between those people who believe in Christ and those who do not.  Christians abide by the law of divine justice whereas the unfaithful ones by the law of human justice.

Divine justice is such a higher standard than human justice.  Isn't it true that most of us are imbued with the notion of human justices assuming that what is asked of us is equality for all?  Often even this is difficult. Divine justice is much more. It involves charity and compassion based on a love of others.  It requires a capability to sacrifice our own desires for the benefit of others.


The Elder says,

If we acquire divine justice, ignore ourselves, and love God and our fellow men, then God will take care of us and will see that we have everything.

Source: Elder Paisios of the Holy Mountain, pp 61-62, 67