A Tender-Hearted God

If God is a true father, does he prefer legalism or love?

In some of my recent discussions about religion, I’ve encountered some very interesting perspectives from folks who are Eastern Orthodox. Admittedly, I don’t know much about Orthodoxy at all. It’s not something I’ve ever studied, so I have only the vaguest contours in my mind.

But when a commenter here — recently banned for browbeating everyone else in the discussion and demanding that I answer personal questions in the commbox — made the claim that God only allows a finite number of mortal sins before he strikes us down and sends us to hell, I put out an inquiry on social media to ask where this deeply troubling idea came from.

As it turns out, it’s from St. Alphonsus Liguori, who begins his sermon on the question with the statement, “I intend to show in this discourse that when sins reach a certain number, God pardons no more. Be attentive.”

Conversely, an Orthodox acquaintance of mine posted the following quote from one of their saints (not one Catholics share, evidently) that I fo…