Reality as Palindrome

Search and Justice in Christianity

By John Taylor; 2007 Dec 11, 19 Qawl, 164 BE

For months we tarried at the intersection of justice and search for truth until we hit upon the chronological approach; last time we covered the Torah and Ancient Greeks. Today let us look over the contribution of Christianity.

The Jewish tradition into which Christianity was born was strictly monotheistic. Judaism banished images and instead emphasized sounds, songs, dancing and the spoken and written word. The name of God, Yahweh, was guarded from profanation. The Word of God was revered not only because God said them but also because it informed their history, legal constitution and cultural expression. For them, what God says _is_ the truth, by definition; a prayer of David says, "All of your words are truth. Every one of your righteous ordinances endures forever." (Ps 119:160, WEB) This high reverence for Yahweh and His law rubbed off on the learned that were given by God Himself the responsibility of guarding and studying the holy text.

Christianity continued in this tradition of high respect for learning and legitimate authority. For example, while still a child Jesus entered into the discussions of the learned in the Temple, calling it "my Father's house"; later, He opened His Mission by entering into discussion with them. He only left the Temple and went out to address the public at large from the Mount when it had become clear that the learned were not going to respond. Nonetheless, the Jewish idea of a God of righteousness continued to shape Jesus' conception of truth. He declared, "If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in the darkness, we lie, and do not tell the truth." (John 1:6, WEB) Later, in the midst of His Passion, Jesus held to what he declared was his core objective, to suffer anything to uphold truth,

"Pilate therefore said to him, `Are you a king then?' Jesus answered, `You say that I am a king. To this end have I been born, and to this end I have come into the world, that I should testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.' Pilate said to him, `What is truth?' When he had said this, he went out again to the Jews, and said to them, `I find no basis for a charge against him.'" (John 18:37-38, WEB)

Pilate's fence sitting should cannot be mistaken for scientific objectivity nor his cavalier attitude with the detachment of faith. To sit back and say `what is truth?' without serious investigation allows injustice to thrive, in this case the primal, ultimate injustice. We learn from this to define a just person as one who actively investigates the reality of things, no matter what the consequences, who examines self to a set degree but is sure to go beyond navel gazing and wield the Christian criterion of good, "by their fruits ye shall know them."

The teaching of the Gospels offers what could be called a palindromic model of reality. What begins in order ends in reverse order, and vice versa. For example, it predicts that in the time of the end the last would come first, and the first come last. Jesus' own obscurity, expulsion, homelessness, persecution and crucifixion, and after the crucifixion His surprising rise to domination of the religious sensibilities of the entire human race demonstrates the last coming first. The relegation of the predominant contemporary rival gods to the dustbin of history would be the first coming last. The next instance was Paul who went from the last, a persecutor of Christians, to the first, the one responsible for its spread into Europe.

As for the content of His message, Jesus told a palindromic parable of dishes washed on the outside while being left dirty on the inside, suggesting that what is important to the outer eye has nothing to do with what matters for inner, spiritual vision. Jesus also told a palindromic parable of a rich man refusing table scraps to a sick and indigent Lazarus. Dogs are thrown table scraps and even they lick Lazarus's sores, but the rich man refuses him even the scraps from his table. But the situation is reversed in the next life -- hence, I suppose, the expression, "The tables are turned." After death Lazarus's degradation and humiliation is reversed. He is at the height of wealth and power while the callous rich man is banished to "where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth." The wealthy man fails to see the other side of the palindrome, and for this reason he bungles in both justice and compassion.

Christian justice, therefore, demands personal effort and independent judgment, "Yea and why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right?" (Luke 12:57) This is because life is a palindrome, constantly reversing itself like a revolving wheel, and only constant vigilance orients a believer to the heart, to the center of our radius where it is relatively stable and constant. This Jesus Himself did, as evidenced by His defense of Himself when accused of "having a devil," "I seek not mine own glory: there is one that seeketh and judgeth." (John 8:50) To passively tolerate injustice, or on the other side of the palindromic wheel, to imagine that any but God establishes justice, is to affront the God of righteousness.

Next time we will look at how Christian justice mediates the individual and society, and how it reconciles the often conflicting needs of compassion and justice.