{"id":2254,"date":"2011-08-24T07:43:33","date_gmt":"2011-08-24T14:43:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tgdarkly.com\/blog\/?p=2254"},"modified":"2011-08-24T07:43:33","modified_gmt":"2011-08-24T14:43:33","slug":"what-is-justice-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/2011\/08\/24\/what-is-justice-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Justice, Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m doing a series on Jesus Creed<\/a>\u00a0 on Nicholas Wolterstorff\u2019s most recent book, Justice in Love (Emory University Studies in Law and Religion)<\/a><\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 Go over there and join the conversation!\u00a0 Here’s my first post:<\/p>\n

Introduction<\/em><\/p>\n

Nicholas Wolterstorff<\/a> is a leading Christian philosophical theologian who combines his intellectual erudition with a warm evangelical faith.\u00a0 Recently he published an important two-part series of books on the theme of \u201cJustice\u201d \u2014 Justice: Rights and Wrongs<\/a><\/em><\/strong> and Justice in Love<\/em>.\u00a0 Although both books touch on some difficult philosophical and theological themes, they are readily accessible to anyone.\u00a0 If you\u2019re involved in justice ministries, legal or law enforcement work, government or military service, or are otherwise interested in the theme of justice, these are books you should read.<\/p>\n

Here are some opening questions:\u00a0 Why two fat books on \u201cjustice?\u201d\u00a0 Don\u2019t we already know what \u201cjustice\u201d means?\u00a0 What do you think comprises \u201cjustice?\u201d\u00a0 Do human beings have inherent \u201crights\u201d?\u00a0 Is a concept of \u201crights\u201d required for a concept of \u201cjustice?\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cJustice\u201d and \u201crights,\u201d in fact, are slippery concepts.\u00a0 Western liberal theories of justice and rights, after the rise of modernity, generally attempt to avoid reference to God or any other transcendent source of rights and justice.\u00a0 John Rawls\u2019 highly influential approach, for example, is rooted in social contractarian ideas.\u00a0 For Rawls, \u201cjustice\u201d requires that each individual give to others what she would desire for herself, if all individuals were ignorant of any other person\u2019s desires.\u00a0 Other theories, such as the \u201ccapacities\u201d approach of Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen, conceive of \u201cjustice\u201d as what is necessary to maximize the innate capabilities of each person in a way that supports human flourishing.\u00a0 Each of these theories, and others like them, focus only on human<\/em> or \u201cnatural\u201d factors.<\/p>\n

Christian theology, of course, must think beyond the human to the divine.\u00a0 But how do notions of \u201cjustice\u201d and \u201crights\u201d fit into a Christian theistic framework?<\/p>\n

In Roman Catholic theology, \u201cjustice\u201d is woven into the \u201cnatural law,\u201d which is to some degree accessible to all human beings through the exercise of natural reason.\u00a0 For Thomas Aquinas, the great medieval theologian, natural law served as a pr\u00e9cis to the fuller understanding of truth and the virtues that could be acquired only through faith. \u00a0Following Aristotle, Thomas\u2019 ethical theory is a eudemonistic<\/em> one \u2013 it posits an ideal \u201cgood life,\u201d a life in which the vision of God is the ultimate good, and develops virtues and practices required to attain the good life.\u00a0\u00a0 Although Thomas considered faith necessary for a fully virtuous live, he believed ordinary human reason could grasp the basic principles of justice.<\/p>\n

Wolterstorff argues that eudemonistic theories of ethics fail to supply a stable basis for \u201crights\u201d and \u201cjustice\u201d because they fail to offer an account of inherent<\/em> human worth.\u00a0 (JR&W at p. 179).\u00a0 The \u201clife-goods\u201d of eudemonism, he says, are activities \u201ceach of us must choose \u2026 with the goal in mind of enhancing one\u2019s own happiness.\u201d\u00a0 Wolterstorff suggests that, \u201c[t]here is no room in this scheme for the worth of persons and human beings, and hence none for one\u2019s right against others to their treating one a certain way on account of one\u2019s worth.\u201d\u00a0 (JR&W at p. 179).\u00a0 This argument against eudemonism is interesting because it turns the usual Protestant \/ Reformed argument against eudemonism on its head by suggesting that eudemonism is not \u201chumanistic\u201d enough.<\/p>\n

Thomistic natural law theory \u2013 or at least a version of it \u2013 was subject to severe attack during the Protestant Reformation.\u00a0 Martin Luther, in particular, famously battled with Thomist scholars of his day over the relationship between nature and grace.\u00a0 This basic question of theological anthropology \u2013 to what extent, if at all, can human beings know and do good through natural reason, and what is the necessary role of God\u2019s grace \u2013 remains a fundamental question for any Christian theory of justice.<\/p>\n

For some strands of Protestant Christian theology, following Luther and to some extent John Calvin, the notion of \u201chuman rights\u201d is eyed suspiciously or flatly rejected.\u00a0 If God\u2019s sovereignty is such that he \u201ccan do whatever he wants,\u201d then human beings have no inherent \u201crights.\u201d\u00a0 For Reformed thinkers in this vein, the only real basis for \u201cjustice\u201d and \u201crights\u201d is God\u2019s divine command.\u00a0 The Decalogue provides us with the blueprint for God\u2019s law, which we are bound to obey, and that law gives people obligations to each other, with corresponding rights.\u00a0 For example, the command not to steal (Exodus 20:15) supports a right against other people to personal property.\u00a0 But these are not \u201cnatural\u201d rights that inhere in persons apart from God\u2019s commands.<\/p>\n

One problem with this kind of divine command ethic is that it raises the specter of arbitrariness.\u00a0 Is theft wrong merely because God says so?\u00a0 Could God then change the command and at some point declare theft to be lawful and \u201cgood?\u201d\u00a0 On the other hand, is there a standard of \u201cgood\u201d to which even God must adhere, suggesting that there is something greater than God?\u00a0 Most divine command theorists avoid this problem by noting that God Himself is the perfection of good in His being, so that His commands, which are always consistent with His own being, are neither arbitrary nor indebted to a standard above His own being.<\/p>\n

Wolterstorff, however, argues that divine command theories fail because they rest on an analogy to human commands.\u00a0 We know what a \u201cmoral command\u201d looks like because we as human beings issue such commands to each other.\u00a0 But if human beings can issue moral commands to each other, Wolterstorff says, then the standard for morality can be at least in part a human one, which does not rest on God\u2019s<\/em> commands as divine command theory requires.<\/p>\n

Further, Wolterstorff argues that divine command theories fail because all such theories rest on an inherent moral obligation to obey God\u2019s commands, even prior to any specific command from God (JR&W, at p. 275-76).\u00a0 The reason we are morally obliged to obey God\u2019s commands cannot itself arise from one of God\u2019s commands, or else we become stuck in an infinite regress.\u00a0 We must be morally obliged to obey God\u2019s commands because of something inherent in the God-human relation that precedes the divine commands.<\/p>\n

In other important strands of Reformed thought, the imago Dei<\/em>, combined with a theology of \u201ccommon grace\u201d supports a concept of natural human rights.\u00a0 This seems to be the approach taken by many contemporary protestants who cite Abraham Kuyper as an influence.\u00a0 But it remains difficult to understand exactly what about the imago Dei<\/em> grounds a universal concept of rights.\u00a0 Is it a set of human capacities that arise from the imago<\/em>?\u00a0 If so, what about people who have not yet developed all their capacities (infants) or who have lost them (mentally incapacitated adults)?<\/p>\n

Wolterstorff argues that \u201crights\u201d and \u201cjustice\u201d cannot derive from eudemonism, divine commands or the imago Dei<\/em> alone.\u00a0 Rather, he says, \u201chuman rights\u201d flow primarily from the fact that every human being is loved<\/em> by God and is thereby a \u201cfriend\u201d of God (Wolterstorff calls this the \u201clove of attachment\u201d).\u00a0 The imago<\/em> is itself the fruit of that love:\u00a0 God wishes to relate to us and he desires us to share in His creative life, which is what the imago<\/em> makes possible.\u00a0 The fact that God loves us and wishes to relate in friendship to us endows each one of us with inherent dignity.\u00a0 We each have rights in relation to each other because each one of us is loved by God.\u00a0 As Wolterstorff summarizes his position in Justice:\u00a0 Rights and Wrongs<\/em>:<\/p>\n

I conclude that if God loves a human being with the love of attachment, then that love bestows great worth on that human being; other creatures, if they knew about that love, would be envious.\u00a0 And I conclude that if God loves, in the mode of attachment, each and every human being equally and permanently, then natural human rights inhere in the worth bestowed on human beings by that love.\u00a0 Natural human rights are what respect for that worth requires.\u00a0 (JR&W, at p. 360).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This notion that \u201ceach and every human being\u201d is loved \u201cequally and permanently\u201d by God obviously appears to conflict with some important passages in scripture, notably in Romans 9, particularly when read through an Augustinian \/ Reformed theology of Divine election.\u00a0 If God \u201cloved\u201d Jacob and \u201chated\u201d Esau (Rom. 9:13), and if God shapes vessels for different purposes, as the potter shapes the clay (Rom. 9:19-21), is it possible to say that God loves \u201ceach and every human being equally and permanently?\u201d\u00a0 Wolterstorff devotes an entire chapter to this problem in Justice in Love<\/em>, which I will leave for another post.\u00a0 In short, Wolterstorff interprets Romans through the lens of both Karl Barth\u2019s theology of election and the New Perspective on Paul, and argues that Paul is not addressing the question of individual salvation and individual election that occupied the Reformers in their reading of Romans.<\/p>\n

In sum, Wolterstorff\u2019s central argument is that \u201cjustice\u201d and \u201chuman rights\u201d are substantive concepts rooted in the love of God for each and every human being.\u00a0 Because we are each created to share in God\u2019s own life and are loved by Him, we owe to each other the dignity due to creatures loved in this unique way by God, and have corresponding rights with respect to each other.<\/p>\n

What do you think of Wolterstorff\u2019s arguments against eudemonism, the imago Dei as a basis for rights, and divine command ethics?\u00a0 Is he correct to locate inherent human dignity in God\u2019s \u201clove of attachment\u201d to us?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m doing a series on Jesus Creed\u00a0 on Nicholas Wolterstorff\u2019s most recent book, Justice in Love (Emory University Studies in Law and Religion).\u00a0 Go over there and join the conversation!\u00a0 Here’s my first post: Introduction Nicholas Wolterstorff is a leading Christian philosophical theologian who combines his intellectual erudition with a warm evangelical faith.\u00a0 Recently he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21,38,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-justice","category-religious-legal-theory","category-theology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p824rZ-Am","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2254\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}