Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
But, they say, once evil had erupted, and from that point God's goodness began to have to deal with an adversary, that same justice of God took on a further task as well: now that things had turned adversarial, it had to direct goodness accordingly — setting aside its freedom, by which God is good of his own accord, and weighing it instead by what each person has earned — granted to those who merit it, withheld from those who do not, revoked from those who show no thanks — and so on every count defended against its rivals. So this whole work of justice is a stewardship of goodness: what it condemns by judging, what it punishes by condemning, what you call its savagery — all of it, in fact, serves the good, not the evil. In short, fear of judgment contributes to good, not to evil. It was not enough for the good to be commended purely on its own merits, laboring as it already was under an adversary. For even granting that it is commendable on its own account, it is not thereby preserved, since it is already assailable through that adversary — unless some force of dread stood over it, compelling even the unwilling to seek out and guard the good. Besides, with so many enticements of evil laying siege to the good, who would pursue a good he could despise with impunity? Who would guard something he could lose without any risk? You know the way of evil is broad and far more crowded — would not everyone slide down it, if there were nothing to fear along it? We shudder at the terrible threats of the Creator, and even so we are scarcely torn away from evil. What if he threatened nothing at all? Will you call this justice evil, when it gives no favor to evil? Will you deny this is good, when it looks out for the good? What sort of god, tell me, would you want? What sort would actually suit you better? One under whom sins could rejoice, and the devil could mock at will? Would you judge that god good who could make man more evil still by giving him security in his wrongdoing? Who is the author of good, if not the one who also exacts it? So too, who is a stranger to evil, if not the one who is also its enemy? Who is its enemy, if not the one who also fights it? Who fights it, if not the one who also punishes it? Thus God is wholly good, in that he is everything for the sake of the good. Thus, finally, he is almighty, because he has power both to help and to harm. It would be a lesser thing merely to do good, as if he were capable of nothing but doing good. With what confidence could I hope for good from a being like that, if that is all he can do? How could I strive after the reward of innocence, if I did not also have cause to dread the reward of guilt? I would inevitably lose confidence, fearing that a god who had no power over the one side would not reward the other either. To this extent justice is even the very fullness of divinity itself, exhibiting God as perfect, both Father and Lord — Father through mercy, Lord through discipline; Father through a gentle power, Lord through a strict one; Father to be loved out of devotion, Lord to be feared out of necessity — to be loved because he would rather have compassion than burnt offering, and to be feared because he has no wish for sin; to be loved because he prefers a sinner's repentance to his death, and to be feared because he does not want sinners who, even now, refuse to repent. That is why the law lays down both commands: "You shall love God," and, "You shall fear God." One is set before the obedient, the other before the wayward.
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