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Justice
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 and
What's the state of justice in America?
Because of the
increase of wickedness,
the love of most will grow cold. [Matthew
24:12]
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Our Character, Our Future: Reclaiming America's Moral
Destiny
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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
Justice then is very close to
love and grace. Justice is grace received and grace shared.
What is the
source of justice?
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.]
Many seek an
audience with a ruler, but it is from the LORD that man gets justice. -
Proverbs 29:26
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I will proclaim the name of the LORD. Oh, praise the greatness
of our God! He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A
faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he. - Deuteronomy
32:3-4 |
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). God's justice is not a
distant external standard - it is the source of all human justice (2 Chron.
19:6,9).
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
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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. 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.
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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.
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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 |
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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.
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 |
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