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Father Angelo,

Is it true that God doesn’t judge? 

Is it actually so?

I’m asking you this because a priest told me so a few years ago during Confession and I heard it said yesterday on … channel when a different priest literally claimed: “God doesn’t judge – He converts”.

Claiming that God doesn’t judge seems to me like we are reducing Him to a notary who does not care about our actions, about the evil we commit or the good we omit to do.

If He were indifferent to our actions, it would follow that He would be equally indifferent to our salvation.

Among the many passages in Scripture and in the Magisterium which lead me to believe that God is a righteous judge – not in the human way – I will quote these four (but there are many more): Matthew 25 31:46 (the final judgment), Matthew 13 36:43 (the explanation of the parable of the tares), John 8 1:11 (Jesus and the adulterous woman) and, finally, the Constantinopolitan Nicene Creed (He shall come again to judge the living and the dead).

Of course, God is both Justice and Mercy, He is, in His essence, Love – like the apostle John teaches.

Warm regards
Alessandro

Priest’s answer

Dear Alessandro,

1. The expression “God judges” is very frequent in Sacred Scripture, both in the Old Testament and in the New.
The crux of the matter is to define what “God judges” means. 

2. Furthermore, Sacred Scripture states that Christ judges as well. He judges at the end of the world, as we learn from Matthew 25 31:46.
Saint Paul says: “From now on the crown of righteousness awaits me, which the Lord, the just judge, will award to me “ (2Tim. 4:8). 

3. The disciples and the apostles judge as well.
Saint Peter says: ““We have given up everything and followed you. What will there be for us?” and Jesus answers: “Amen, I say to you that you who have followed me, in the new age, when the Son of Man is seated on his throne of glory, will yourselves sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matt. 19:27-28). 

4. What does it mean that God judges?
A good Salesian theologian named Giorgio Gozzellino, who died prematurely, noted that, in Sacred Scripture, judgment is envisaged as an event of grace because the judge and the savior are the same person.
Therefore “God judges” also means: “God saves”.
He saves by separating and safeguarding His elect from evil by keeping them in His eternal kingdom and by leaving those who have rejected Him to their own devices. 

5. We are particularly reminded of the fact that there is a judgment of condemnation and not just one of salvation in John’s Gospel.
Giorgio Gozzellino writes: “the main connotation of judgment relates to the negative side of condemnation”.
The clearest passage on this is the one in John 3 17:19: “For God so loved the world that he gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their works were evil”. 

6. A new reality emerges from this: judgment isn’t as much of a divine sentence that comes from the outside, but rather a revelation of the inner secret of human hearts.
Those who prefer darkness over light because of their evil works are already condemned – in the sense that they are excluded from the economy of salvation.
Who are they condemned by? They are condemned by themselves, because they have chosen darkness (Hell) over light.
Final judgment will simply make manifest the distinction that was, until that moment, operated in the secret of the heart. 

7. We should also note that, in the New Testament, the proclamation of God’s judgment is also an invitation to conversion, since God has established a day to judge the entire universe with justice through Jesus Christ who He resurrected from the dead.
This judgment will be especially harsh for several categories of people who choose not to convert.
Think, for example, of these texts: “Do you not think that a much worse punishment is due the one who has contempt for the Son of God, considers unclean the covenant-blood by which he was consecrated, and insults the spirit of grace? We know the one who said: “Vengeance is mine; I will repay,” and again: “The Lord will judge His people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Heb 10:29-31).
And: “God will judge the immoral and adulterers” Heb 13:4 and all of those who will have chosen not to believe and sided with evil because “God is sending them a deceiving power so that they may believe the lie, that all who have not believed the truth but have approved wrongdoing may be condemned” (2Thess. 2:11-12).
“God is sending them a deceiving power” means that He allows them to deceive and blind themselves.

8. Christ’s judgment is therefore, without a doubt, a judgment of salvation but, at the same time, a judgment of condemnation as well.
He Himself will show the work accomplished for their salvation in its entirety. He will also show how some (disciples and apostles) accepted it completely, while the impenitent sinners stubbornly refused it.

9. This is how we should read the statement of the Apostolic Creed: “He shall come again to judge the living and the dead”.
This is how the Catechism of the Catholic Church comments this statement: “Following in the steps of the prophets and John the Baptist, Jesus announced the judgment of the Last Day in his preaching. Then will the conduct of each one and the secrets of hearts be brought to light. Then will the culpable unbelief that counted the offer of God’s grace as nothing be condemned” (CCC 678).

10. Also: “Christ is Lord of eternal life. Full right to pass definitive judgment on the works and hearts of men belongs to him as redeemer of the world. He “acquired” this right by his cross. The Father has given “all judgment to the Son”. (John 5:22) Yet the Son did not come to judge, but to save and to give the life he has in himself. By rejecting grace in this life, one already judges oneself, receives according to one’s works, and can even condemn oneself for all eternity by rejecting the Spirit of love.” (CCC 679).

11. In conclusion, we have to hope that the Lord will save us on the last day.
But it’s also possible that the Lord, in His judgment, will make manifest in front of everybody that this salvation has been rejected. 

12. We can appreciate, then, the ambivalent meaning of the judgment spoken about in the novissimi – those ultimate realities of our life which, according to the Catechism, are the following four: death, judgment, Hell and Heaven. 

Wishing that this judgment will be for you, for me and for all of us a judgment of salvation and not of condemnation, I bless you, wish you well and remember you in my prayer.

Father Angelo