ABSTRACT
Theology often struggles to hold together notions of God’s judgement and God’s grace.1 Grace may naturally be aligned with terms such as ‘benevolence’ and ‘mercy’, judgement easily finds a place with ‘wrath’, even ‘vengeance’. Within this tension either set of categories may be traded upon or devalued according to the predilection of the theologian, but perhaps most common is a certain reticence regarding divine judgement.2 The tendency has been most marked in the West, and within that tradition we might well identify a form of the doctrine of election as an obvious example of the inclination to bifurcate judgement and grace.3 The development of the doctrine of ‘double predestination’ typifies a disjunction in God’s supposed dealings with humanity: some are elected to life, the recipients of unmerited divine favour; others are destined to death, and receive the divine judgement they deserve. Within such a frame, God’s justifying grace is sharply opposed to the movement of God’s wrath: both are seen as essential to the story of God’s action, but they are not considered to be necessarily united, or viewed as aspects of the singular action of the holy God.4
