Mercy is more than the proud fulfillment of juridically formulated obligations

Lastly, another specific antithesis to mercy is embodied in the attitude of those who recognize moral obligations only inasmuch as they are in some way capable of a juridical formulation. Such a man will perhaps punctiliously watch over the welfare of a person formally entrusted to his care; one not so entrusted, however, simply does not exist for him.

He is emphatically correct; his only preoccupation is to aver himself irreproachable before his own conscience. It gratifies him to have accomplished whatever could be required of him according to the strict standards of legal justice. Not a step further will he go.

He takes no interest in the realization of something important in itself; he knows no genuine love for his neighbor. His only real concern is the ultimately proud one of acquitting himself of his obligations so as to be proof against any definite accusation and able to look upon himself as a being without blemish.

Should a stranger in distress cross his path, he will shrug his shoulder: “This is no concern of mine; I have not pledged myself to provide for him.” He may even quietly look on without interfering (though it were in his power) while a fellow creature rushes to his ruin: “Ah well,” he would say, “if his affairs had been confided to me, things would not have come to such a pass.” Nor will our “correct” man ever feel inclined to remit a debt. Why should he? Nobody can by rights ask him to renounce a rightful claim.

Mercy far exceeds a bureaucratic concern with obligations

Akin to this pharisaical type of man, though considerably less repellent, is the purely legalistic one, characterized by an infatuation for the idea of right, untarnished, in this case, with the motif of self-complacency. We might also call it the bureaucratic type. The morality of such a man is genuine and estimable, yet sorely defective. Though his mind is not warped by pride, he is entirely devoid of warmth of heart and therefore in an essential sense morally crippled. He simply lacks comprehension for any should and ought that is outside the range of legal obligations.

Whatever he is in justice bound or explicitly engaged to do he will do with eager readiness and conscientious thoroughness; but to perform any good work beyond that would never occur to him and indeed make no sense to him. “Am I formally obliged to do this?” is the one question he always asks himself without bothering about anything else. In possession of a claim upon someone who suffers from some misery, he, too, will be disinclined to renounce it: for so to act is not a precise and stringent duty.

Summum jus, summa injuria (“the strictest justice may mean the greatest iniquity”) is the well-known adage in which the essence of this attitude has been condensed.

The man of mercy, on the contrary, is loath to overemphasize the distinction between what is and what is not strictly obligatory. Not that he would, in ever so slight a measure, trifle with a duty or a commitment; but he in no way recognizes these as a limit to his endeavors for serving his fellows. Mercy thrives in the souls of those alone who visualize everything in conspectu Dei; who, in full awakeness, measure everything by supernatural standards.