Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of
most will grow cold.
[Matthew 24:12]
In the
wake of many recent prominent trials, I have heard many people question whether
'justice' was served. In listening to their arguments pro and con, I began to
wonder if these people even understand 'justice.'
What some seem to
want is not justice, but vengeance. Others express the culturally popular dogma
of blame shifting and the separation of responsibility from personal actions.
Both extremes seem to be willing to sacrifice truth in favor of their personal
bias and political agenda.
This led me to take a deeper look at
justice.
What is
justice?
Justice is defined in Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary
as:
- the maintenance or administration of what is just esp. by the
impartial adjustment of conflicting claims or the assignment of merited rewards
or punishments
- the quality of being just, impartial, or fair
- the
principle or ideal of just dealing or right action
- conformity to this
principle or ideal: RIGHTEOUSNESS
- conformity to truth, fact, or reason:
CORRECTNESS
It's important to note that justice is the standard for
both punishment and benefits. It is the standard by which penalties are
assigned for breaking the obligations of the society as well as the standard by
which the advantages of social life are handed out, including material goods,
rights of participation, opportunities, and liberties.
Cultures differ
widely in determining the basis by which the benefits are to be justly
distributed. For some it is by birth and nobility. For others the basis is
might or ability or merit. Or it might simply be whatever is the law or
whatever has been established by contracts.
The Bible presents another
possibility. Benefits are distributed according to need. God
"executes
justice for the orphan and the widow, and ... loves the strangers, providing
them food and clothing." - Deuteronomy 10:18
How is justice
manifested?
Justice presupposes God's intention for people to be in
community. When people had become poor and weak with respect to the rest of the
community, they were to be strengthened so that they could continue to be
effective members of the community--living with them and beside them (Lev.
25:35-36).
Thus biblical justice restores people to community, the
order God seeks to reestablish in His creation where all people receive the
benefits of life with Him. By justice those who lacked the power and resources
to participate in significant aspects of the community were to be strengthened
so that they could. This concern in Leviticus 25 is illustrated by the
provision of the year of Jubilee, in which at the end of the fifty year period
land is restored to those who had lost it through sale or foreclosure of debts
(v. 28). Thus they regained economic power and were brought back into the
economic community.
The way justice is dispensed in a society is a
function of its basic moral
values, especially in a government of the people, for the people, and by
the people. If the majority of its citizens understand and are committed to
fundamental principles of right and wrong - based on the Ten Commandments and
what has been called "the natural law of God" - then their judges and juries
will render decisions based on those values. But, if the people become confused
about what they believe, then their legal apparatus will also lose its focus. A
system of justice can be no better than the value system it represents.
As we move away from our Judeo-Christian underpinnings, the standard
by which we determine right and wrong has become blurred.
How else can
we explain that day in Los Angeles when hundreds of people lined the road to
cheer a man accused of killing a young mother and her friend? "Run, O.J. run!"
they shouted, as he fled from the police. It was great fun. But it was tragic.
There and elsewhere, a transformation of values appears to be occurring.
Interpretations of right and wrong are being compromised by individual rights,
grievance groups, race, money, popularity, and attorneys who will manipulate
these irrelevancies for a price. [James C. Dobson, Focus on the
Family newsletter, September 1994.] (see Mark 12:40)
The forces
which deprive people of what is basic for community life are condemned as
oppression (Mic. 2:2; Eccl. 4:1). To oppress is to use power for one's own
advantage in depriving others of their basic rights in the community. To do
justice is to correct that abuse and to meet those needs.
Whoever heard me spoke well of me, and those who saw me commended me, because I rescued the poor who cried for help, and the fatherless who had none to assist him. The man who was dying blessed me; I made the widow's heart sing. I put on righteousness as my clothing; justice was my robe and my turban. I was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame. I was a father to the needy; I took up the case of the stranger. I broke the fangs of the wicked and snatched the victims from their teeth. - Job 29:11-17
Injustice is either a sin of commission or of omission. Injustice is depriving others of their basic needs or failing to correct matters when those rights are not met.
When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood; wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow. - Isaiah 1:15-17
What is the source
of justice?
As the sovereign Creator of the universe, God is just
(Ps. 99:1-4; Gen. 18:25), particularly as the defender of all the oppressed of
the earth (Ps. 103:6; Jer. 49:11).
This is what the LORD says: "Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight," declares the LORD. - Jeremiah 9:23-24
God's justice is not a distant external standard - it is the source of all human justice (2 Chron. 19:6,9).
Many seek an audience with a ruler, but it is from the LORD that man gets justice. - Proverbs 29:26
The most prominent human agent of justice is the ruler. The king
receives God’s justice and is a channel for it (Ps. 72:1; compare Rom.
13:1-2, 4). There is not a distinction between a personal, voluntary justice
and a legal, public justice. The same caring for the needy groups of the
society is demanded of the ruler (Ps. 72:4; Ezek. 34:4; Jer. 22:15-16).
Justice is also a central demand on all people who bear the name of
God. Its claim is so basic that without it other central demands and provisions
of God are not acceptable to God. Justice is required to be present with the
sacrificial system (Amos 5:21-24; Mic. 6:6-8; Isa. 1:11-17; Matt. 5:23-24),
fasting (Isa. 58:1-10), tithing (Matt. 23:23), obedience to the other
commandments (Matt. 19:16-21), or the presence of the Temple of God (Jer.
7:1-7).
This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the
LORD: “Stand at the gate of the LORD’S house and there proclaim this
message: “‘Hear the word of the LORD, all you people of Judah who
come through these gates to worship the LORD. This is what the LORD Almighty,
the God of Israel, says: Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you
live in this place. Do not trust in deceptive words and say, “This is the
temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD!” If
you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly,
if you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed
innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own
harm, then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your
forefathers for ever and ever.
But look, you are trusting in deceptive
words that are worthless. [ Jeremiah 7:1-8]
Justice is
redefined by the godless.
People are not merely acting more
wickedly -- they are redefining righteousness, justice, and virtue according to
a new standard. In our culture, talk about individual responsibility, moral
fortitude, and facing up to one's faults isn't tolerated. The loving of what's
right, the loathing of what's wrong, and the ability to distinguish the two is
considered irrelevant.
"We are redefining in practical terms the immutable ideals that have guided us from the beginning." - President Bill Clinton
The action that despises the external restraint of law in favor of self-determination is one of self-deification. We can expect nothing from such a position but brutality. Describing the ferocity of the Chaldean hordes, one of the prophets put his finger on the source of their evil: "their justice and dignity proceed from themselves...guilty men, whose own might is their god" (Hab. 1:7,11).
No one calls for justice; no one pleads his case with integrity. They rely on empty arguments and speak lies; they conceive trouble and give birth to evil. They hatch the eggs of vipers and spin a spider's web. Whoever eats their eggs will die, and when one is broken, an adder is hatched. Their cobwebs are useless for clothing; they cannot cover themselves with what they make. Their deeds are evil deeds, and acts of violence are in their hands. Their feet rush into sin; they are swift to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are evil thoughts; ruin and destruction mark their ways. The way of peace they do not know; there is no justice in their paths. They have turned them into crooked roads; no one who walks in them will know peace. So justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us. We look for light, but all is darkness; for brightness, but we walk in deep shadows. Like the blind we grope along the wall, feeling our way like men without eyes. At midday we stumble as if it were twilight; among the strong, we are like the dead. We all growl like bears; we moan mournfully like doves. We look for justice, but find none; for deliverance, but it is far away. For our offenses are many in your sight, and our sins testify against us. Our offenses are ever with us, and we acknowledge our iniquities: rebellion and treachery against the LORD, turning our backs on our God, fomenting oppression and revolt, uttering lies our hearts have conceived. So justice is driven back, and righteousness stands at a distance; truth has stumbled in the streets, honesty cannot enter. Truth is nowhere to be found, and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey. The LORD looked and was displeased that there was no justice. - Isaiah 59:4-15
Until modern times, the foundations of law rested on the Judeo-Christian concept of right and wrong and the foundational concept of Original sin - that humans are capable of wrongdoing by nature. It was the belief of traditional law that without suitable social and moral restraints and a strong legal code, society would inevitably degenerate into chaos and anarchy. Modern secular sociology, however, shuns such biblical teachings in favor of an evolutionary hypothesis based on the ideas of Darwin, Freud, Einstein, and others. This view, often called "secular humanism," takes the view that man has evolved from the slime and that with time and ever greater freedoms, mankind will ascend to the stars. These ideas, which are contrary to the Word of God, have led directly to the bitter conflict and social chaos of our day, and furthermore, they have somber implications for the future health of the justice system in this country. [Pat Robertson, The Turning Tide, pp. 112-113.]
What happens to ethics as humanists distance themselves further from
the restraining influence of law? Mortimer Adler concluded that the naturalism
and materialism that inform humanist thought would destroy the humanitarian
ethic. For without anything transcending the material, the love ethic is
without foundation. [Mortimer J. Adler, The Difference of Man
and the Difference It Makes, 1967, pp. 283ff.]
The irony of
humanism is that it dehumanizes.
Adler's examination of the consequences of naturalist thinking led him to
conclude that if man is taken to be different from animals in degree only, and
not radically in kind, then there is no logical reason to treat him differently
from the animals. The exploitation or killing of people deemed to be inferior
could not then be condemned any more than the killing of steers in a
slaughterhouse.
Once we reject absolute law and adopt theories that
regard human beings as simply manifestations of natural forces, it only
requires a serious crisis for those ideas to bear their evil fruit. Death
becomes the answer to our economic problems. We are being given philosophical
justifications for the inflicting of death that treats such actions as
enlightened and compassionate. The elderly will be called selfish if they
insist on living, and it will be a humanitarian deed and moral duty to see that
they do not continue to live and so deprive others of the quality of life to
which they aspire.
"Among my people are wicked men who lie in wait like men who snare birds and like those who set traps to catch men. Like cages full of birds, their houses are full of deceit; they have become rich and powerful and have grown fat and sleek. Their evil deeds have no limit; they do not plead the case of the fatherless to win it, they do not defend the rights of the poor. Should I not punish them for this?" declares the LORD. "Should I not avenge myself on such a nation as this? - Jeremiah 5:26-29
Walter Olson in The Litigation Explosion correctly observes
that the problem in the structure of the law are intractable, but they are also
symbolic of a deeper failure in our philosophy. "This practical failure," he
says, "is born of an underlying moral failure. Our law has ceased to attach
moral significance to wrongful accusations." In other words, the law has lost
the moral connection between truth and justice. Principles that derive from the
Ten Commandments and from a code of Christian morality are no longer deemed
"legal" in America. Men and women today prefer to do "that which seems right in
their own eyes," and the entire nation pays a terrible price for this
arrogance. There is little certainty in the courts today, and the law is no
longer an inviolable standard.
What's the state
of justice in America?
And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. As it is written: "He has scattered abroad his gifts to the poor; his righteousness endures forever." Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. - 2 Corinthians 9:8-10
