Why a Mediator Was Necessary — The Question Reformed Theology Cannot Answer
If God is all-powerful, why couldn’t he just forgive? The question exposes a fault line at the center of Protestant soteriology — and points to the only coherent answer.
The Reformed Dilemma
Reformed theology holds that God is absolutely sovereign — the uncaused first cause, bound by nothing outside himself, author of all law, answerable to no external standard. If that is true, then God made the rules. And if God made the rules, God can change them.
So why couldn’t God simply decree that sins are forgiven? Why was blood required? Reformed theology is caught between two equally uncomfortable answers.
Horn 1: God chose to require blood sacrifice before forgiving. He could have done otherwise, but he didn’t. This makes the Atonement feel like cosmic theater — God satisfying a requirement he himself invented and could have waived. The suffering of Christ becomes a performance for an audience of one. The Atonement is not necessary; it is merely chosen.
Horn 2: God couldn’t waive the requirement. Justice is a constraint on God, not simply an attribute of God. He is bound by it whether he wishes to be or not. But this directly contradicts the claim of absolute sovereignty. If God is bound by justice, he is not unconditionally sovereign. Something exists outside God that governs him.
Reformed theology has no escape from this dilemma within its own framework. It can only assert both sides without resolving the tension — God is sovereign, and the Atonement was necessary — without explaining why.
The LDS Answer: Co-Eternal Law
The Gospel of Jesus Christ resolves this dilemma with a concept Protestant theology has no category for: co-eternal law. Justice is not God’s invention. It is co-eternal with intelligence itself.
“Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be. All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also; otherwise there is no existence.”
“Therefore, according to justice, the plan of redemption could not be carried out, only on conditions of repentance of men in this probationary state, yea, this preparatory state; for except it were for these conditions, mercy could not take effect except it should destroy the work of justice. Now the work of justice could not be destroyed; if so, God would cease to be God.”
This resolves both horns of the Reformed dilemma simultaneously. God is not bound by justice in the sense of submitting to an external authority. Rather, justice is constitutive of the eternal order — it is woven into the fabric of reality itself. God did not invent it, and he cannot destroy it, because to destroy it would be to destroy the conditions that make existence and exaltation coherent. If justice ceased, God would “cease to be God” — not because a superior power would overthrow him, but because God’s own nature is inseparable from the eternal order.
God didn’t choose to make the Atonement necessary. The nature of co-eternal justice made it necessary. He then chose to provide the only resolution: himself, in the person of his Son.
Alma 42 — The Full Resolution
Alma’s explanation to his son Corianton is the most precise treatment of the justice-mercy problem in scripture.
“But there is a law given, and a punishment affixed, and a repentance granted; which repentance, mercy claimeth; otherwise, justice claimeth the creature and executeth the law, and the law inflicteth the punishment; if not so, the works of justice would be destroyed, and God would cease to be God. But God ceaseth not to be God, and mercy claimeth the penitent, and mercy cometh because of the atonement; and the atonement is brought to pass by the resurrection of the dead, and the resurrection of the dead bringeth back men into the presence of God; and thus they are restored into his presence, to be judged according to their works, according to the law and justice. For behold, justice exerciseth all his demands, and also mercy claimeth all which is her own; and thus, none but the truly penitent are saved. What, do ye suppose that mercy can rob justice? I say unto you, Nay; not one whit. If so, God would cease to be God.”
The logic is tight. Justice has a claim. Mercy cannot simply override that claim — that would be robbery. The Atonement does not cancel the demands of justice; it satisfies them. Christ paid what we owed. Justice is honored in full. Mercy then flows not by violating justice but by working through it. The mediator does not circumvent the law — he fulfills it on behalf of the debtor.
This is why a mediator was necessary. Not because God invented a rule requiring blood. Because the eternal order is constituted by justice, and justice required satisfaction before mercy could operate without destroying the very structure that makes exaltation possible.
Anselm Got Close — But Needed More
Anselm of Canterbury asked exactly this question in his 1098 work Cur Deus Homo — “Why Did God Become Man?” His answer: infinite sin against an infinite God requires an infinite satisfaction. No finite creature could pay the debt. Only a being who was both fully human (able to represent humanity) and fully divine (infinite in nature) could satisfy it. Therefore God became man.
Anselm was right about the logic. The Atonement is necessary, not arbitrary. The satisfaction must be proportional to the offense. A mediator must bridge both sides.
But without the co-eternal law framework, Anselm’s answer still sounds like God satisfying a requirement he invented for himself. The justice in his scheme is ultimately God’s own honor — God satisfying his own honor, God paying himself. The circularity is uncomfortable.
The Restoration provides the missing piece: the law is not God’s invention. Justice exists independently, co-eternally, as part of the fabric of existence. God is not satisfying himself. He is satisfying an eternal law that governs all intelligent beings including himself. Christ satisfies that law on our behalf. The logic holds without circularity.
Verdict
The Atonement was not arbitrary. It was not cosmic theater. It was not God satisfying a rule he invented and could have waived.
Co-eternal justice required it. The eternal order demanded satisfaction before mercy could operate without unraveling existence itself. Christ provided that satisfaction. Mercy now flows freely — not by robbing justice, but by working through it.
This is the answer Reformed theology cannot give because it lacks the framework. The Restoration provides the framework. The mediator is necessary. The Atonement is necessary. God is both fully just and fully merciful — not in spite of these categories being in tension, but because the Atonement resolves that tension in the only way it could be resolved.