The Collapse of Moral Calculations

The Tears of Things

The pattern found in the three Isaiahs reveals the unfolding transformation of human understanding in relation to the divine. At first, the vision of holiness is clear-cut, absolute, and rooted in a transactional sense of justice. The belief is that purity must be preserved, impurity must be punished, and virtue leads to reward (Isaiah 1:27-28). This perspective assumes that divine justice is logical, predictable, and based on merit. “It is all about getting what you deserve, instead of getting who God is!” [1] But this view, though comforting in its simplicity, ultimately proves inadequate. Holiness is not about maintaining an external purity or enforcing moral order with precision (Isaiah 6:5-7). Instead, it invites humanity into something deeper, something beyond a rigid system of cause and effect.

The prophetic tradition often begins with judgment. The early Isaiah warns of consequences, speaking as if God’s primary function is to maintain the moral structure of the world through punishment and reward (Isaiah 5:20-25). The warnings are stern, the accusations strong, the threats clear. Yet something changes over time. The prophet’s experience leads to a disruption in certainty, a deep questioning of previously held beliefs. “God shows himself differently from how he’s first imagined: more forgiving and merciful, it seems.” [1] This shift marks the beginning of a new understanding—one that recognizes divine mercy as more expansive than the rigid justice humans so often assume (Isaiah 55:7-9). The prophets, once certain of a God who punishes, now encounter a God who surprises, who forgives, who seems to be moved by human suffering in ways they had not previously conceived (Isaiah 49:13-16).

This is precisely the problem: the world does not function according to the expected system of moral balance (Isaiah 57:1-2). Good people suffer. The wicked prosper (Isaiah 10:1-3). The moral order that seemed so obvious begins to unravel under the weight of reality. How can one reconcile faith with the suffering of the innocent? It is here, in this tension, that the most profound realizations emerge. “It seems to be that those who have suffered and shed tears are those who move beyond this logic and find compassion in God.” [1] Those who experience deep loss, injustice, and sorrow often move beyond simplistic religious formulas (Isaiah 61:1-3). They come to see that divine presence is not found in the strict enforcement of fairness but in the mystery of love that meets them in their suffering (Isaiah 42:3-4). This is the turning point, the recognition that God is not merely the enforcer of moral law but the compassionate presence within the brokenness of life.

And then, something even more astonishing happens: the realization that God’s ways do not fit into any human structure of justice at all (Isaiah 40:13-14). The transactional model collapses entirely, replaced by something radical and unexpected. “A new economy of grace shows itself after observing how God operates.” [1] The divine does not merely modify the old system; it overturns it (Isaiah 43:18-19). Grace does not function according to human fairness. It operates on a completely different plane, one in which love, not merit, is the defining reality (Isaiah 55:1-2). The logic of reward and punishment is no longer the ultimate truth. Instead, God acts in ways that dismantle human expectations and replace them with something boundless (Isaiah 41:17-20).

It is through suffering that this new vision comes into focus (Isaiah 53:3-5). Pain and loss strip away illusions, forcing an encounter with the raw, unsettling truth that life is not about earning divine favor but about receiving it freely (Isaiah 30:18-19). “All forgiveness upsets the balance, our assumed economy of grace, our neat explanations.” [1] When God forgives, when God loves without condition, it disrupts everything (Isaiah 1:18). This is not the kind of justice people expect. It is unsettling, even frustrating. But it is also liberating. For those who can accept it, the old need to justify oneself before God falls away, replaced by the overwhelming realization that love was never something to be earned in the first place (Isaiah 44:22).

Again and again, the prophets return to this point. The divine response to human sin is not retribution but an even greater outpouring of love (Isaiah 49:8-11). “Some form of this is said at least a dozen times in Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel.” [1] The message is repeated because it is so difficult to accept. Humans want justice to be predictable. They want their actions to dictate their worth (Isaiah 64:6). But over and over, God disrupts this thinking, responding to failure with grace, to sin with compassion, to rebellion with an invitation to return (Isaiah 55:6-7). The cycle is not about punishment—it is about transformation. The prophets do not merely warn; they extend hope, revealing a love that is deeper than human comprehension (Isaiah 12:1-3).

This is the foundation of the new covenant (Isaiah 59:21). It is not a contract based on human performance but a relationship based on divine generosity (Isaiah 42:6). And yet, people continue to resist, trying to make themselves worthy, trying to prove they deserve it (Isaiah 64:8-9). But “salvation (infinite love) is all God’s work, and we must stop trying to renegotiate the terms to make ourselves more deserving. We never will be.” [1] This truth is difficult to embrace because it requires surrender. It demands an abandonment of self-justification, an acceptance of the reality that nothing will ever make one worthy, and that worthiness was never the point (Isaiah 63:7-9). God’s love is not a reward; it is a gift, freely given (Isaiah 45:22-25).

Isaiah articulates this in a way that shatters conventional wisdom (Isaiah 28:16-17). “A new illogical logic of unconditional love” [1] is revealed—one that makes no sense according to human reasoning but is the very nature of divine reality (Isaiah 43:25). Those who resist it remain trapped in their own calculations, trying to control a relationship that cannot be controlled (Isaiah 65:1-2). But those who surrender to it step into a new understanding, where love is not something to be measured but something to be trusted (Isaiah 26:3-4). This is the leap of faith, the shift from religion as transaction to faith as surrender, from justice as fairness to grace as infinite generosity (Isaiah 54:7-10).

And this is the ultimate revelation: that God is not a rigid enforcer of law but a presence of boundless love (Isaiah 35:3-6). This is not an invitation to abandon morality but to move beyond the fear-based structures that limit divine love to human expectations (Isaiah 9:2-7). “God is finally allowed, as it were, to be infinite and gratuitous like the universe, and we are allowed to be the struggling and failing humans that we always are.” [1] There is freedom in this realization (Isaiah 40:28-31). Freedom from the burden of trying to control God. Freedom from the anxiety of having to prove oneself. Freedom to simply be—imperfect, struggling, yet deeply loved (Isaiah 41:10-13). This is what Isaiah ultimately points toward: a vision of God so vast, so uncontainable, that the only proper response is not fear, not bargaining, but trust (Isaiah 12:2). And in that trust, a new world begins (Isaiah 65:17-25).

[1] Richard Rohr, The Tears of Things