God and Fair Play

From George MacDonald:

"I will accept no explanation of any way of God that involves what I should scorn as false and unfair in a man...If it be said by any that God does a thing, and the thing seem unjust, then either we do not know what the thing is, or God does not do it...because more is required of the Maker, by his own act of creation, than can be required of men - not less...

If, for instance, it be said that God visits the sins of the fathers on the children, a man seeking to grasp the meaning behind the words and who takes 'visit upon' to mean 'punishes', and the 'children' to mean 'the innocent children', ought to say, 'Either I do not understand the statement, or the thing is not true, whoever says it.'

The justice of God is this - he gives every man, woman, child, and beast, everything that has being, fair play. He renders to every man according to his work. And therein lies his perfect mercy, for nothing else could be merciful to the man...God does nothing of which any just man, the thing set fairly and fully before him so that he understood, would not say, 'That is fair.'"