Justice

[Patzak]

I often see justice (or infinite justness, righteousness or whatever) paraded as one of the key theological attributes - God must punish unbelievers because that's the only way justice can be done, etc.; however, I think that's a rather weird and very outdated conception of justice.

Justice, as I see it, pertains only to property and means simply to restore the situation as it was before an unjust act was committed. If somebody steals something I own, the just thing to do is to take it away from them and give it back to me; or, if the item in question cannot be recovered, for them to be forced to reimburse me in some other way. The just thing to do is not to inflict the same on the perpetrator: if the judicial authority just stole the same thing from the criminal in an eye for an eye fashion, such an act would not yet constitute justice. Justice is achieved when the authority returns the item in question to myself.

With crimes that result in bodily harm, this is impossible to achieve. If somebody beats me up, the damage is impossible to undo. Again, beating them up as well in an eye for an eye fashion achieves nothing to ease my pain: all we end up with is two people who are beaten up instead of one. Perfect justice in such a case is therefore not possible - though it can be worked towards by for example forcing the perpetrator to pay for the medical treatment I require because of the injuries they inflicted on me.

There is no "justice" in jailing criminals. Somebody going to prison for beating me up does not in any way restore the original situation as it was before the "unjust" act was committed. Imprisonment only serves to remove the perpetrator from the society in which they apparently cannot function and hopefully to reform them to such a degree that something like that doesn't happen again when they are released.

I contend that the demand for justice or the feeling of justice being served when somebody is imprisoned or executed is nothing more than the personal satisfaction of revenge; it's only interpreted differently (as justice instead of revenge) because it's carried out by a recognized authority while it's actually the same primitive satisfaction of seeing somebody suffer because they were responsible for our own suffering. Calls for justice to be done are thus no different from calls for simple revenge and there is nothing basically just about them.

Consequently, the infinite justice of God seems to be an outdated attribute as well; rewarding the good and punishing the bad (I'm not even going into the actual conceptions of rewarding those who believe and punishing those who don't) in heaven and hell again does nothing to undo the injustices suffered by these people while alive and only serves so that the "good" might gloat about the bad "getting what they deserve".

Also, as an added bonus, the conception of justice that I presented works equally well in a deterministic world (which is the view I personally hold) as it's not based on any sort of ultimate personal responsibility; instead, it just serves to regulate a society and keep it functioning.

 

[ReluctantProphet]

Also, as an added bonus, the conception of justice that I presented works equally well in a deterministic world (which is the view I personally hold) as it's not based on any sort of ultimate personal responsibility; instead, it just serves to regulate a society and keep it functioning.

I agree very much with much of what you posted, but I see it as incomplete.

You properly stated that "justice" is the act of restoring back to a prior state. And that normal thoughts concerning how that is done are very often not really restoring. I agree.

But there are 2 additional concerns.

1) The notion of justice is often (especially today) being used merely to promote a hidden cause. Today, in many states (and growing) a man can be convicted by his wife of a crime without her needing to present any evidence at all that any crime was really committed. If the man can not prove without doubt that he absolutely could not have committed the supposed crime, then he is pronounced guilty and must endure a life long criminal record. That criminal record was the only pursuit of the court as it prevents the man from gaining any authority in society while allowing his former wife to come into any office she wishes.

The entire affair of course is also an economic one in that the man must buy back from the "system" anything he had gained and must do so under even more harsh circumstances than before.

2) What is the real intent of "justice"? You stated that it involves restoration and I agree. But why is restoration "good"?

The actions described in (1) above are taken by the excuse that to be just for past "sins" of white males, for example or Germans in Europe (being taxed so as to pay the Jews for losses), punishing, enslaving, and even destroying the accused by any means is "just" as long as the benefactor includes both the system which allowed for it and the purported victim.

Of course the concept of pay back to the proper state of restoration can be applied all the way back to Adam and Eve or any time prior resulting in nothing but the assurance that all things are restored to the most conceivable past state - anti-progress.

So the real question becomes, "Restore to what point?" - Why, for what end purpose should we be restoring anything??

IF justice is "good" then it must be good for some logical reason. So what is that reason?

 

[LordoftheLeftHand]

I agree with Patzak:

Justice is an illusion and not possible (except possibly for minor property disputes). Justice is one of those buzz words that gets thrown around a lot that means different things to different people. Many times when someone uses the word justice, they really mean punishment.

LLH

 

[PETE_]

Justice — is rendering to every one that which is his due. It has been distinguished from equity in this respect, that while justice means merely the doing what positive law demands, equity means the doing of what is fair and right in every separate case.


Justice of God — that perfection of his nature whereby he is infinitely righteous in himself and in all he does, the righteousness of the divine nature exercised in his moral government. At first God imposes righteous laws on his creatures and executes them righteously. Justice is not an optional product of his will, but an unchangeable principle of his very nature. His legislative justice is his requiring of his rational creatures conformity in all respects to the moral law. His rectoral or distributive justice is his dealing with his accountable creatures according to the requirements of the law in rewarding or punishing them (Ps. 89:14). In remunerative justice he distributes rewards (James 1:12; 2 Tim. 4:8); in vindictive or punitive justice he inflicts punishment on account of transgression (2 Thess. 1:6). He cannot, as being infinitely righteous, do otherwise than regard and hate sin as intrinsically hateful and deserving of punishment. “He cannot deny himself” (2 Tim. 2:13). His essential and eternal righteousness immutably determines him to visit every sin as such with merited punishment.​

http://www.christianforums.com/t3096473-justice.html#_ftn1http://www.christianforums.com/t3096473-justice.html#_ftnref1Easton, M. 1996, c1897. Easton's Bible dictionary. Logos Research Systems, Inc.: Oak Harbor, WA

 

[ReluctantProphet]

Justice — is rendering to every one that which is his due. ..​

The remains - How do you determine what is really "due"?

Justice of God — that perfection of his nature
...

The question still remains - How do you determine "perfection"?


The question is still open -
If justice is GOOD then it must be good for some reason, what is that reason?
​

 

[Patzak]

1) The notion of justice is often (especially today) being used merely to promote a hidden cause. Today, in many states (and growing) a man can be convicted by his wife of a crime without her needing to present any evidence at all that any crime was really committed. If the man can not prove without doubt that he absolutely could not have committed the supposed crime, then he is pronounced guilty and must endure a life long criminal record. That criminal record was the only pursuit of the court as it prevents the man from gaining any authority in society while allowing his former wife to come into any office she wishes.

I believe this doesn't really have much to do with the basic concept of justice but rather with its practice. In my post I assumed that there was no problem in determining the guilt of the perpetrator. But I think you do have a good point: with some crimes that suddenly hog the spotlight I think there's a tendency to not just restore the situation as it was before the crime, but to try to serve some "greater justice" by, for example, reducing the historical inequality between men and women and thus having the perpetrator pay back more than he himself took to make up for previous injustices. While I support some ways of reducing such inequalities, I definitely don't think that courts of law are the place to do it.

So the real question becomes, "Restore to what point?" - Why, for what end purpose should we be restoring anything??

That's a good question and I don't have a definite answer. We have a situation here in my country, where most of the private property was nationalized after the WWII and has now mostly been returned to the previous owners again. But there were probably some that have acquired the property they're now getting back through illegal means. Should they get it back or should it be returned to the previous owners from which they have taken it? - I don't know, I'd probably say that it would be best to restore the situation as far back as possible - as far as we have any records of rightful owners. As in: do not return the property to abstract entities (in our case for example the loosely defined "Slavs" from whom the Catholic Church apparently acquired a lot of land) but to actual people or their descendants that can be clearly identified. But I'd have to think about it, it's definitely a muddy area.

IF justice is "good" then it must be good for some logical reason. So what is that reason?

Well, as long as a society has some concept of private property, I believe such a notion of justice is to some extent necessary to keep it functioning. As for any higher justification, I don't know what it should be and neither do I think it necessary.

 

[PETE_]

For me God determines what is "due" and "perfect"

As to why..I see it like this.

When I was a child my father's discipline seemed harsh and undeserving at times, but now that I am a father I understand that it is for the best. Since God is my heavenly father I trust that He is doing what is best, even if I do not fully undestand it right now. How much better a father is He than I could ever be.

 

[Faith In God]

I often see justice (or infinite justness, righteousness or whatever) paraded as one of the key theological attributes - God must punish unbelievers because that's the only way justice can be done, etc.; however, I think that's a rather weird and very outdated conception of justice.

Justice, as I see it, pertains only to property and means simply to restore the situation as it was before an unjust act was committed. If somebody steals something I own, the just thing to do is to take it away from them and give it back to me; or, if the item in question cannot be recovered, for them to be forced to reimburse me in some other way. The just thing to do is not to inflict the same on the perpetrator: if the judicial authority just stole the same thing from the criminal in an eye for an eye fashion, such an act would not yet constitute justice. Justice is achieved when the authority returns the item in question to myself.

With crimes that result in bodily harm, this is impossible to achieve. If somebody beats me up, the damage is impossible to undo. Again, beating them up as well in an eye for an eye fashion achieves nothing to ease my pain: all we end up with is two people who are beaten up instead of one. Perfect justice in such a case is therefore not possible - though it can be worked towards by for example forcing the perpetrator to pay for the medical treatment I require because of the injuries they inflicted on me.

There is no "justice" in jailing criminals. Somebody going to prison for beating me up does not in any way restore the original situation as it was before the "unjust" act was committed. Imprisonment only serves to remove the perpetrator from the society in which they apparently cannot function and hopefully to reform them to such a degree that something like that doesn't happen again when they are released.

I contend that the demand for justice or the feeling of justice being served when somebody is imprisoned or executed is nothing more than the personal satisfaction of revenge; it's only interpreted differently (as justice instead of revenge) because it's carried out by a recognized authority while it's actually the same primitive satisfaction of seeing somebody suffer because they were responsible for our own suffering. Calls for justice to be done are thus no different from calls for simple revenge and there is nothing basically just about them.

Consequently, the infinite justice of God seems to be an outdated attribute as well; rewarding the good and punishing the bad (I'm not even going into the actual conceptions of rewarding those who believe and punishing those who don't) in heaven and hell again does nothing to undo the injustices suffered by these people while alive and only serves so that the "good" might gloat about the bad "getting what they deserve".

Also, as an added bonus, the conception of justice that I presented works equally well in a deterministic world (which is the view I personally hold) as it's not based on any sort of ultimate personal responsibility; instead, it just serves to regulate a society and keep it functioning.

Where does the outcry for justice of a man who has murdered an unidentified victem come from?

Vengeance?

I don't think man's innate yearning for justice is the same as man's selfish desire for revence...

 

[Patzak]

Where does the outcry for justice of a man who has murdered an unidentified victem come from?

Mostly from the desire to keep the community and oneself safe. To prevent the murderer from murdering again. I know that if an unidintified body turned up in my neighbour's cellar, my first reaction would be "get this person as far away from me as possible" - ie.: lock them up or (if you support capital punishment) execute them.

Regarding the justice of punishing the murderer: I see no difference between the outcry for justice that demands such punishment to be inflicted by the authorities and the act of vengeance in which one inflicts the punishment by themselves. The only difference is that one is regarded as civilized and the other isn't - probably because carrying out the vengeance yourself often only serves to perpetuate the cycle of violence.

If you consider eye for an eye (or eye for two eyes or vice versa, whatever) retribution to be just - how do you tell the difference between this sort of justice and revenge?

 

[Faith In God]

I don't know if I can really alter your opinion on the first counts, but

If you consider eye for an eye (or eye for two eyes or vice versa, whatever) retribution to be just - how do you tell the difference between this sort of justice and revenge?

Eye for an eye is a limit on vengeful feelings to keep justice from becoming vengeance. You can't ask the government to return to you more than what was taken.

...

Past that, I'm not sure I'm understanding your question (if you are indeed asking me. )

 

[quatona]

Where does the outcry for justice of a man who has murdered an unidentified victem come from?

From fear.

 

[Sojourner<><]

This is a really weird concept of God's justice/judgement (and should be taken as such) but it's how I rationalize the problem...

Pandersen that was a good quote on God's justice.

Justice is not an optional product of his will, but an unchangeable principle of his very nature.

Since God created the universe, I believe that we can find some similarities between the way the natural universe operates and spiritual principles. For instance, consider Newton's third law (for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction) or how energy is never destroyed but transferred from place to place. Are these principles 'just' by human standards? I don't think human standards even apply. I think 'balanced' is more applicable. Now in the spiritual realm if we think about God's justice as perfectly balanced, you might get the picture that every immoral action that is against His perfect nature creates a debt that requires an equal satisfaction.

The Bible teaches that the human race is fallen... very, very fallen. And that God is very, very holy or perfect. So if this principle applies, that will leave us very, very dead. Fortunately for us, God became a man and satisfied that debt for us on the cross, which killed Him but He rose again because, well, He's God. If you believe in Jesus you are safe from this judgement.

you made a good statement Reluctantprophet...

So the real question becomes, "Restore to what point?" - Why, for what end purpose should we be restoring anything??

In God's economy the answer to this question depends on which side of the divide you fall. In the context of your statement I believe that which is restored is the debt that is owed. However, if you are in Christ, who paid our debt, restoration takes on a whole new meaning and becomes the process by which we are restored from our fallen nature. Jesus turned the tables for us.