How can that be? How can justice destroy peace? Let's take a closer look.
Peace or "shalom" is not just an absence of conflict, but the presence of all that is good. So, isn't justice a virtue? Is it's presence not good? Let's ponder justice a bit more and see.
Justice is merely reciprocity. It is the actions that restore equilibrium. Justice is "an eye for an eye" and "you reap what you sow." The problem is what is just for one person is often an offense to another. I can do whatever to you I want if I deem you deserve it. Acts of justice are rampant in marriages often leading to divorce. "You have not treated me fairly so I can leave." We find enacting justice leading to broken relationships between parents and their children. Discipline is too often a punishment for wrong doing, not instructional. We see justice in organizations when people are fired, in public discourse when injustice needs to be protested and of course in the criminal JUSTICE system.
Are you beginning to see that when humans enact justice they create havoc for someone and division between people? Is this "creating all that is good" for everyone?
You are probably thinking, "God sees justice as a good thing, doesn't He?" Yes, in fact it is in His nature to be just. He also frowns on humans taking over that role in His name. This is really Adam and Eve's fault. We inherited this obsession from them. They were persuaded by the serpent that they could decide what was right and what was wrong. If man's obsession with justice is a flaw inherited from the fall, how can it create shalom?
The Jews were continually in chaos and separation from God because "everyone continued to do what was right in their own eyes." Jesus said, "you have heard it said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I say ..." in contrasting what the Kingdom of Heaven is like.
Humans have a natural bent to justice. This is not something that appears in Kingdom dwellers only. The desire for justice is a built in bias in everyone. That's actually the problem, not the solution. Jesus did not come to judge, but to save us. From what? Judging? Jesus did not come to bring peace to this world (His words, not mind). He came to make a way for us to be reconciled back to the God of shalom. The futility of peace in this world through our efforts JUST points us to a Kingdom of shalom that is not our making.
We have everything good in our relationships when we are not standing on our rights, demanding what we deserve and seeing justice through our own eyes. This would transform the Middle East, reconcile our political parties in the US, restore marriages, and make us all great parents, but for our need for justice.
We say we want an "attitude of gratitude," so what is in our way. You should at least ponder a little bit that to have this attitude and a heart of thanksgiving, you may need to "JUST take a wrecking ball to justice." Unmerited favor (grace) produces shalom, not justice. This idea about justice and peace will sound strange to you until it doesn't. Jesus knew this when He said, "He who ears to hear let them hear."
Great muse. There is great nuance around the ideas of justice...it means many things, but the basic notion of "reciprocal" justice is a human construct. Thanks to Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau, we begin from the position of inalienable rights. Mired in sin, humans cannot possibly exert peace toward each other without a sense of reciprocal justice as the overarching framework. But, you're right, an obsession with "ultimate" human justice - where all wrongs are made right, every time, and all humans accept it as truth - can erode the foundations underpinnings.
ReplyDeleteYour muse prodded me to remember the epic themes of justice in Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. Great stuff to ponder, especially as we see revolutionary ideas in play around the globe.
ReplyDeleteThx for the pondering, Justice as a sense of bringing into equilibrium was found in the earliest writings of antiquity, including old Hebrew writings. "Making the crooked straight" is the foundation of reciprocity based in restoring equilibrium. All nature seeks equilibrium. Aristotle claimed it as the greatest virtue found in universal law. Many have written about justice across history and is reasonable to believe the power of justice is what Adam and Eve sought as something thy could take onto themselves. Everyone can justify their actions as right as long as they can convince themselves it is just.
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