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Search and Justice in Gospel and Pauline Teaching

By John Taylor; 2007 Dec 12, 1 Masa'il, 164 BE

I promised to look at how Christian justice mediates the individual and society, and how it reconciles the conflicting implications of compassion and justice.

We have seen that the example of Jesus' sacrifice and crucifixion teaches that as far as the individual is concerned, justice *is* one's search for truth, and self assessment is the first religious duty. "...let a man examine himself." (I Cor 11:28), and, "... every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour." (I Cor 3:8) Yet although Jesus spoke to the individual, He hardly considered it a good thing to narrow one's circle of concern to limited personal considerations. Such a circumscribed attitude would be unjust and unholy, against the parable of the Good Samaritan, and the direct teaching of the Sermon on the Mount,

"How blest are those who hunger and thirst to see right prevail; they shall be satisfied." (Matt 5:6)

 Having said all that, it would be pointless to try to contend that justice is the central teaching of Christianity. Such is not the case. Love, spirit and mercy to our fellow man are indisputably the focus. Christians are expected never to avenge themselves, always to turn the other cheek. This set up a need to accommodate the demands of forgiveness alongside justice.

As they became distinguished from their Jewish roots, the early Christians were enabled by faith in Spirit for the first time to set up a cross-ethnic community. Here, judgment of one another was suspended to hold what they called a "love feast." Backbiting and gossip, the habits and ploys of divide-and-rule tyranny, were excluded and each believer held to Jesus' promise that holding to His Word, the truth, rather than force, would in itself make them free.

"Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (John 8:31-32, KJV)

This was freedom from rectifying their brothers and sisters; they learned to suspend judgment of one another and concentrate upon their own flaws. Withdrawal from justice allowed Christian love to catch flame. "For if we would judge ourselves we should not be judged." (I Cor 11:13) A benign social atmosphere gives moral strength to develop the painful habit of taking a judgmental attitude towards one's own sins and shortcomings, while ignoring those of others. Sustaining this was a feeling, derived from pure monotheist faith, that personal judgment is the province of God only, and that humans are meddling when they presume to lay down the law on others.

"For it is written, 'As I live,' says the Lord, 'to me every knee will bow. Every tongue will confess to God.' So then each one of us will give account of himself to God. Therefore, let us not judge one another any more, but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block in his brother's way, or an occasion of falling." (Rom 14:11-13, WEB)

Thus the creative thrust of the message of Christ is to trust to God to change others, and to refrain from direct action in judging others, but at the same time never neglecting to respond to the demands of justice by "removing stumbling blocks," or in modern jargon, making systemic, infrastructural changes that conduce to moral progress. The social worker is the first child of Christianity.

Before I finish discussing justice and Christianity I want to bring up a recent series of scientific findings reported in the New York Times. I think they explain why forgiveness, the temporary suspension of justice, is so necessary for a clear spiritual as well as social atmosphere. Mercy requires of us what psychology labels as "denial," that is, temporarily favoring our nearest and dearest by suspending our bred-in-the-bone concern for justice.

"In the modern vernacular, to say someone is in denial is to deliver a savage combination punch: one shot to the belly for the cheating or drinking or bad behavior, and another slap to the head for the cowardly self-deception of pretending its not a problem.
"Yet recent studies from fields as diverse as psychology and anthropology suggest that the ability to look the other way, while potentially destructive, is also critically important to forming and nourishing close relationships. The psychological tricks that people use to ignore a festering problem in their own households are the same ones that they need to live with everyday human dishonesty and betrayal, their own and others. And it is these highly evolved abilities, research suggests, that provide the foundation for that most disarming of all human invitations, forgiveness.
"In this emerging view, social scientists see denial on a broader spectrum -- from benign inattention to passive acknowledgment to full-blown, willful blindness -- on the part of couples, social groups and organizations, as well as individuals. Seeing denial in this way, some scientists argue, helps clarify when it is wise to manage a difficult person or personal situation, and when it threatens to become a kind of infectious silent trance that can make hypocrites of otherwise forthright people.
"The closer you look, the more clearly you see that denial is part of the uneasy bargain we strike to be social creatures, said Michael McCullough, a psychologist at the University of Miami and the author of the coming book "Beyond Revenge: The Evolution of the Forgiveness Instinct." We really do want to be moral people, but the fact is that we cut corners to get individual advantage, and we rely on the room that denial gives us to get by, to wiggle out of speeding tickets, and to forgive others for doing the same.
"The capacity for denial appears to have evolved in part to offset early humans hypersensitivity to violations of trust. In small kin groups, identifying liars and two-faced cheats was a matter of survival. A few bad rumors could mean a loss of status or even expulsion from the group, a death sentence..."  <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/20/health/research/20deni.html?ref=science>