Some thoughts on Justice

A couple of nights ago I walked into the middle of a conversation between a jubilate friend of mine and a vocal atheist. We were at the U-Singers/Symphony Christmas concert and my friend had asked this guy (who I guess he knew was an atheist from something else he'd seen him at) if he celebrated Christmas or just secular "Holiday Season" and how he felt about the traditional music that was being played. Anyway, by the time I walked in on the conversation he was philosophizing about the nature of God's Justice and how for God to be infinitely Just he could not be a loving God, because it would be injust for him to save any of us, etc. Therefore there is no God because an entity cannot logically be in contradiction with itself.

It's actually an old argument. Very old. Early humanists confronted this problem 700 years ago, and it was one of the complications during the Reformation. I think, but I could be completely wrong, that it was the early Reformation thinker (and genius actually, getting his Doctorate of Theology at 19) Phillip Melancthon who first said that "God cannot be infinitely just and infinitely merciful." Someone look it up so I don't look stupid. Anyway, it got me thinking about the nature of God's justice. There are two ways that I look at it. First, I'm inclined to think that maybe this guy was right - it isn't just of God to forgive us without punnishment. Therefore, maybe God isn't infinitely Just. Maybe we should just get over it and be grateful.

But that's not really satisfying is it? That would basically be to say that whatever we do doesn't matter - our actions have no consequences. Everything about that is wrong to me. If there are no consequences then it follows that there is no responsibility, that there is nothing expected of us, which means there is no growth and no possibility to be more than animals, creations, rather than children and honored servants of God. (Note that this is not a discussion of Free Will, or Grace vs. Works - I think wherever you stand on the Elect, you can agree that God expects certain things of you, even if already saved).

Here's an alternative view. Maybe our conception of Justice is misguided. We tend to think of it as putting things right. That in the end, the bad people will be punished while the good victims will get their due. But that sounds oddly like revenge, not like Christian doctrine. Yes, of course, "Vengenance is mine sayeth the Lord." but if we are all potential children of God, and he loves the most base villain, then vengenance is not what he's primarily after. If you pull back to get some perspective, maybe it's not just at all. After all what would you do if a Toddler kicked you in the shins? Is it just to kick him back with equal force? Of course not. What if there was some awful tragedy and two of your kids were fighting, maybe one was emotionally disturbed and killed his brother. You would be heartbroken, but could you possibly want the police to take your other child to be executed? Our very nature rebels against this, and tells us that this is wrong, that it doesn't make anything right or better, which is what Justice is really all about. So maybe it's not as contradictory as it seems to be both Just and Merciful - perhaps they're not so far apart.

Finally, a third but related view (I know I said 2 but I can't help myself). To the Christian view there cannot be a paradox. God created a world in which actions mattered, and we had to take the consequences. Unfortunately, that means we all deserve death. Whenever we treat a fellow human being as a tool, whenever we cheapen a fellow soul by making them into nothing but an animal (either in a small way - using someone for sex - or a large way - the holocaust) we deserve for God to treat us the same way. In other words to take away our eternal nature as well, aka death. So to satisfy Justice, to make sure that our actions still mattered, but that his desire for us to live with him as human beings forever (love) also be satisfied, he died himself to pay the price. Whether you believe or not, if you assume a Loving God, but also a Just God, as well as our own fairly easily corruptible natures, then it makes sense that events would play out in this way.