A question about justice...

by bebu 20 Replies latest jw friends

Deputy Dog

I prefer grace to justice every time that my butt on the line.
Tigerman

Yes, without doubt, let the child of experience bear us Justice. Let me paraphrase Sir Malcolm Longhorn when he states . . . life without justice is a life in pain, no matter the smallness no matter the largeness . . . exit the soul that does not cry out for the truth of it all.
Narkissos

Stories (fiction or non) that satisfy me (ie, don't get me depressed) typically have some kind of just resolution. (Just an observation on the side.)
I agree this is basically a narrative issue. An perhaps a question of literary taste.
Every book (play, movie, etc.) has an ending, which is essential to its meaning. Life doesn't -- or, when it eventually ends there will be nobody around to "read" it.
Add a chapter to any story and you can change, even reverse, its meaning (cf. the famous Chinese tale, http://www.noogenesis.com/pineapple/Taoist_Farmer.html).
I just read an interesting book on ancient Greek theatre (both tragedy anc comedy). One point the authors highlighted is that even the older tragedies (Eschylus, Sophocles) had "fair" or "happy" endings in a sense -- only it was read from the perspective of the gods and on a time scope of several generations (curses and blessing fulfilled, restoration of cosmic/national order). But with the shift of focus to the individual hero (Sophocles -> Euripides) such endings were no longer satisfying, and this paved the way for the rise of comedy (Aristophanes, Menander).
One of the deepest criticisms of "just resolution" from an individual (and Christian) perspective imho is that which Dostoevsky puts on the lips of Ivan Karamazov: http://www.online-literature.com/dostoevsky/brothers_karamazov/35/
bebu

Thanks for the link. I read The Brothers Karamazov about 20 years back, and that chapter is haunting (as well as the one following it--The Grand Inquisitor). Ivan brings up the struggle with justice so very well. He destroys the simple arguments for justice very quickly: the tears of children are unatoned for because what 'good' can hell do if innocent people have already suffered? Declaring that the price for forgiveness and harmony is higher than should ever be paid. (etc.)
For justice to be even remotely real, it will have to satisfy Ivan's (and our!) objections at the very least.
HEB 11:1 Now faith is being sure of what wehope for and certain of what we do not see (e.g., justice).
Other (somewhat random) thoughts here... 1 Cor 13 says that the three greatest things are faith, hope, and love. I'd always been able to nod with the faith and love part, but struggled with 'hope'. Why should desire be so important if this verse is really true? Why would our wills be included in such a short list of what 'remains'? Besides, as mentioned earlier, some people (such as Buddhists) trace the source of our misery to desire/hope. Hope always seemed like something so ho-hum... is it something important I was overlooking?
bebu
Narkissos

On a purely exegetical level, I'm pretty sure Paul would actually oppose "desire" (epithumia) and "hope" (elpis), somewhat along the line of "flesh vs. spirit". Fleshly/natural/individual "desire" he does point to as the root of sin and death (and there he is not far from Buddhism), cf. Romans 7:7f -- which most translations water down with the use of "covet(ousness)".
"Hope" to him is a highly paradoxical notion (cf. Romans 4:18, "hoping against hope"). It's actually God/the Spirit hoping within the Christian (Romans 5:4f; 15:13), against the desire of the flesh.
Btw, even though "hope" ranks in the top three in 1 Corinthians 13, it is explicitly superseded by love -- love being the only one which fulfillment does not abolish, cf. Romans 8:24 (what is said there of hope is equally valid for faith, cf. 2 Corinthians 5:7).
But I don't think "justice" is the real object of the Pauline hope -- only perhaps his rhetorical definition of justice as grace, which blatantly reverses the plain meaning of the word.
In spite of many a vindictive comment in the NT, I doubt the main thrust of Christian hope is longing for "justice" in the sense of retribution. After all, when the Christian gets to love and imitate God as the one who "makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous," would s/he be satisfied with the final revelation of God as a mere moral judge? Against the classical (and scriptural) representation of final judgement, I believe the religious leap beyond morality (as Kierkegaard construes it) is a one-way ticket.
bebu

On a purely exegetical level, I'm pretty sure Paul would actually oppose "desire" ( epithumia ) and "hope" ( elpis ), somewhat along the line of "flesh vs. spirit". Fleshly/natural/individual "desire" he does point to as the root of sin and death (and there he is not far from Buddhism), cf. Romans 7:7f -- which most translations water down with the use of "covet(ousness)".
"Hope" to him is a highly paradoxical notion (cf. Romans 4:18, "hoping against hope"). It's actually God/the Spirit hoping within the Christian (Romans 5:4f; 15:13), against the desire of the flesh.
I'm not so sure we are talking about the same thing--or perhaps we are... but I don't think that Paul would consider the hope/desire I'm referring to as paradoxical, or just the Spirit working against the desire of the flesh. Surely he saw it as something more than the negation of evil.
For example, Jesus said that where our hearts (desires) are, there are hearts would be. Prov. 37:4 says "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desire of your heart." Paul even writes about desiring Christ above all other things (Phil 3:8); that "Christ in you" was the hope of glory (Col 1:27) (which I take to mean, the longing in our hearts to be like God is not misplaced).
Btw, even though "hope" ranks in the top three in 1 Corinthians 13, it is explicitly superseded by love -- love being the only one which fulfillment does not abolish , cf. Romans 8:24 (what is said there of hope is equally valid for faith, cf. 2 Corinthians 5:7).
Yes, I think so too.
But I don't think "justice" is the real object of the Pauline hope -- only perhaps his rhetorical definition of justice as grace, which blatantly reverses the plain meaning of the word.
I readily agree that justice is ultimately not the object of Pauline hope. Mostly, I am just noticing the way hope and justice intersect a lot. I think that justice is a major concept for which humanity hopes--or, at least people do make decisions as to whether it is or not.
In spite of many a vindictive comment in the NT, I doubt the main thrust of Christian hope is longing for "justice" in the sense of retribution. After all, when the Christian gets to love and imitate God as the one who "makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous," would s/he be satisfied with the final revelation of God as a mere moral judge?
No--I also cannot see that (personally) as an endpoint. Love includes a finite justice (positive and negative), but love is greater than justice--it includes grace. What positives grace allows/grants could be infinite.
Against the classical (and scriptural) representation of final judgement, I believe the religious leap beyond morality (as Kierkegaard construes it) is a one-way ticket.
I think that the Bible does hint frequently at getting "past" morality and final judgment, but I have to say I don't know what you mean by one-way ticket. We have to work thru judgment somehow, imo, to go beyond it. And to complicate this little conversation just a bit more, I often muse about how forgiveness and trust are like two sides of the same coin. IOW, we usually feel our sense of justice piqued when we are wronged by men, or allowed miseries by God. Forgiveness and trust are both, at times, thoroughly irrational and simply "mad" decisions we may make to deal with a situation where our natural desire for justice (or even restitution) is apparently being denied. Justice is an intriguing concept. bebu
Narkissos

Hi bebu
For example, Jesus said that where our hearts (desires) are, there are hearts would be.
Are you sure it's you're drinking?
It's an interesting slip though (albeit marginal to this topic), since many Christians use to hear the opposite of what the saying actually says. They read "Where your heart is your treasure will be," making the heart (desire, mind, spirituality) the effective cause of the process. The Gospels really say "where your treasure is your heart will be," making any spirituality dependent on a material condition (real wealth or poverty). This is indeed materialistic thinking, and very close to cynicism, cf. the famous dialogue of Diogenes, preparing his own vegetables, with Plato (approximately):
P: If you would serve the tyrant, you wouldn't need to prepare your own vegetables.D: If you would prepare your own vegetables, you wouldn't need to serve the tyrant.
Prov. 37:4 says "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desire of your heart." Paul even writes about desiring Christ above all other things (Phil 3:8); that "Christ in you" was the hope of glory (Col 1:27) (which I take to mean, the longing in our hearts to be like God is not misplaced).
I think Paul tries hard to split desire asunder with his obsessive dualism of flesh vs. spirit (I agree with you that he can use the vocabulary of desire on both sides, although he mainly associates epithumia with the flesh -- he also slips). I often thought that Paul might be seen as the ideal study case for the Lacanian concept of "the desire of the Other". It's either "his flesh" or "sin" desiring this or that (Romans 7), either the Spirit (Romans 8, remember the difference between "spirit" and "Spirit" in most Bibles are artificial). "Where are you, Paul? -- Nowhere. I am not. I was a slave under a foreign law. Now I am a slave to Another. Actually I no longer live, it's Another who lives in me." Perfect alibi, perfect suicide for a hiding subject. And great example of where "internalising the Law" leads to.
(Btw, this is not cold-blooded criticism. I can feel the "pathological" in Paul because I have been very close to it. And I think that through the "pathological" aspects of his argument he does make his point to a large extent -- some people will never be "justified" by a legal-moral system of values.)
Against the classical (and scriptural) representation of final judgement, I believe the religious leap beyond morality (as Kierkegaard construes it) is a one-way ticket.
I think that the Bible does hint frequently at getting "past" morality and final judgment, but I have to say I don't know what you mean by one-way ticket. We have to work thru judgment somehow, imo, to go beyond it.
LOL. I meant, once you accept the principle of grace for yourself you can hardly revert to exacting justice against others. There's a Matthean parable about that if I remember correctly.
Forgiveness and trust are both, at times, thoroughly irrational and simply "mad" decisions we may make to deal with a situation where our natural desire for justice (or even restitution) is apparently being denied.
Exactly. What we love in the Sermon of the Mount is this kind of madness -- quite different from Paul's but not completely unrelated imo.
funkyderek

Deputy Dog:
I prefer grace to justice every time that my butt on the line.
I prefer justice, but then I don't have anything to feel guilty about
greendawn

Justice should exist for everyone fairness for all, but in practice justice works properly only up to a point, this is not an angelic world.
bebu

LOL Narkissos! Today it's espresso, the other day was drip. But I'm checking the contents more carefully now due to that slip. (Hmm. Looks like the espresso has me rhyming, too.)
The Gospels really say "where your treasure is your heart will be," making any spirituality dependent on a material condition (real wealth or poverty). This is indeed materialistic thinking, and very close to cynicism
MT 6:19 "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
I don't know if spirituality is dependent upon a tangible material condition, for how may anyone prove to another what his bank account in heaven looks like? Obviously, this has got to be more of a metaphor--I'm quite sure you agree-- rather than an encouragement to throw coins up into the sky.
I think that rather than conveying that "any spirituality (is) dependent upon a material condition", the verse states that the degree of spiritual wealth or poverty depends upon gaining "heavenly treasure" (--whatever that is--) and not "earthly treasure" (material wealth). And of course, that "heavenly treasure" is superior to earthly treasure because it is lasting.
So I don't find this quite materialistic thinking, although it uses the concepts people are familiar with (desire, value, pursuing). For example, I don't know how well the same point to the listeners could be made by using other terms that were more abstract. Even when I paraphrased the verse, I replaced the word treasure with "heart's desire", meaning whatever the heart values like gold. Metaphors, again.
I'm really not trying to beat this into the ground. To sum, I always read this verse saying something more positive rather than more cynical. And my reading of Paul's 'hiding' in Christ has never left a taste of pathology, but expressing passion. (Of course, there is admittedly a fine line between these two... I also admit to knowing some people who are definitely more pathological than passionate. )
Anyway, loved your post and glad for your comments. We've strayed a bit off-topic perhaps (my fault), but not too far I hope.
...And I enjoy reading everyone elses' comments too, btw! Thanks!!
bebu

A question about justice...

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