I have been reflecting on the issues touched on in a recent post (“The Big Issue of Divine Justice”) and so decided to post up a very brief rejoinder. I simply want to say three things, all of which come off the back of that short post.
First of all, this is no simple issue that is easily navigable; by no means are the issues of justice and unjust suffering reducible to mere platitudes about God and the end of the world. Never are we to retreat into a comfortable, pietistic corner and ignore the brute reality of unspeakable human suffering. God hasn’t; indeed, in the Person of his Son, he suffered through life and endured a death of excruciating physical, mental, emotional and spiritual agony on the cross. Furthermore, God submitted himself to the supreme injustice; Christ was condemned to crucifixion in the wake of a mock trial. The religious and military powers of his age conspired to crush and maim him. In Christ, God became a victim of hatred, abuse, unjust violence and mockery. In the Person of Christ, God has come close to the suffering and the broken-hearted.
Secondly, it seems to me that a Biblical eschatology propels us toward the alleviation of suffering in the world; the Kingdom of God is now amongst us, the new age of the reign of God in Christ has been inaugurated. To refuse to bind the wounds of the broken or being the good news of liberation to the oppressed is to stand against the Kingdom work God is bringing to pass in his Son, now, this very moment. We dwell in a world so broken and torn by sin but the outcome – newness, redemption, renewal – is already certain. As such, we have a great incentive to seek to bring justice to the world now.
Lastly, (and perhaps this is merely a restatement of the last point) if the victory is already certain, if the work of justice is neither fruitless nor aimless nor a waif in an absurd universe, if to bring justice now is to merely echo that which is to come fully when Christ returns – then, as Christians, we are blessed with a third incentive to seek and do justice in the world.
So, three incentives – the character of God demonstrated in his Son, the one who has suffered with the suffering, enduring the lash of military might and corrupt religious authority; the reality of the spreading Kingdom amongst us now; and finally, the certain outcome: the rule of Christ will prevail. He will be all in all and all things will be made new.
It seems to me that on the basis of these three incentives (Biblically grounded, I think) we cannot retreat from injustice and merely voice pious platitudes. The work of justice in the world is the vocation of every Christian. However, harking back one last time to the previous article (“The Big Issue of Divine Justice”), there was a particular point I was driving at. Namely, it is only if we believe that God will bring about ultimate justice that we ourselves can be fortified and strengthened to refrain from doing violence to others in our thirst for revenge.
Surely, if we cannot expect cosmic justice when history has run its course, we human beings are truly pitiable creatures. If, indeed, there is no cosmic weighing of the balances and a true and perfect meting out of justice at the last, can we endure life on this earth?
Cardinal Newman was once asked “What would you do if all the evils and injustices of the world were never to be put right by a loving, just God after all?” He replied “Well, I think I should go mad!” Quite right - I’m with Newman there. If all the grave injustices of the world, all the unspeakable violence and unthinkable atrocities were never to be accounted for by the God of history…well, surely the only options left to me are the poor alleviants of escapism, absurdism, anguish, bitterness or a stoic self-resignation and a tight-lipped commitment to the “common good”.
To my mind, the last is the most noble by far. However, in the face of the heinous evil humanity is capable of and our seemingly inexplicable, uncontainable appetite for the most appallingly capricious and degrading crimes, it seems to me there is no human reservoir of moral fortitude deep enough to enable any one of us to somehow face it all down or arrive at the bottom of it. None of us can make full sense of human evil or injustice, let alone bring alleviation and complete healing to the broken and maimed. No one can re-align the cosmic balances of justice perfectly and right every wrong committed throughout the course of human history. Such a task is utterly beyond us. None of us possess the omnipotence nor the banks of knowledge and memory, nor the inexhaustible love required for such a task.
Every one of us is myopic; even our base understanding of justice is construed by our limited, selfish conceptions of the reality we inhabit. Beneath every assessement of wrong, there lurks the prejudice born of moral blindness and the sheer lack of balanced understanding required to bring about true justice. Indeed, few of us manage to honour and love orthers in the simple everyday niceties of life, nevermind facing up to the far more pressing (and challenging) responsibilities of honouring the stranger, the immigrant, the hungry, the debased and the addicted.
Only God is capable of facing up to the exacting, monolithic task of ultimate, cosmic justice. Further, he has shown himself to be so much more loving and wise than we are. Ultimately, the only satisfying answer to the perplexing riddle of human evil, the unquenchable human passion for justice and the reality of suffering is the revelation of God encountered in the person of Jesus Christ.
Until next time,
The Scribbling Apprentice.
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