Logos
The Nature of Justice | Spring 2016
Yale’s Journal of Christian Thought
Dear Reader,
e are proud to present you with our second
teaching Christians to be wary of blind spots in their
issue of the Logos on “The Nature of Justice.”
approaches to Justice. Our inadequacy in carrying out
Last semester provoked significant reflection
Justice becomes very real in our article reflecting on
among the Christian community and Yale’s campus
feelings of helplessness after watching arrests made
in general about Justice. Many students felt lost, hurt
in low-income neighborhoods. The church’s silence
and confused during those events. The Christian
on many injustices, that writer explains, is deafening.
community at Yale also realized its own shortcomings
However, there is an appropriate place for silence and
in trying to bring the gospel’s hope and love to the
Justice. We look to John the Baptist who condemned
campus at that time. In response, our staff gathered
the oppression of the poor. His approach to Justice
in a final meeting last semester and resolved to
required retreats into isolation to encounter God’s
make “The Nature of Justice” this issue’s theme.
presence, shaping his heart and words to carry out his
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ministry. Similarly, we read about one writer’s approach Our writers and editors proceeded with humility and
to Justice and how much it is tied to her prayer life.
love to try to think about and live out Justice with the gospel as our guide. As usual, we try to approach
Towards the end, we see a curious article about
our themes from multiple angles to present a holistic
how technology affects our view of Justice and
picture of Christianity’s contribution to the life of the
how the Trinity is a perfect expression of Justice.
mind and to the heart. Our writers put their passions
Society boasts in technology and its ability to solve
and talents towards addressing these questions. Our
problems, encouraging its rejection of absolute
first article looks to philosophers and early Christian
principles of Justice not created by man. Our last
writings, as these shape the West’s approach to
article compares the idea of absolute Justice in light
Justice. The second inserts the centrality of love to the
of two ideas of God, Monism and Trinitarianism.
conversation about Justice. The next few tackle tensions between mercy and justice in the message of
We hope you appreciate our efforts to wrestle with
the gospel. How can God command us to forgive and
these issues and encourage you to write to us with
extend mercy without trivializing injustices? Why does
your feedback and thoughts. What are questions or
an all-powerful God withhold Justice? Does a faith-
topic we missing that you would have liked to see?
based gospel mean God extends mercy to the faith but
Feel free to engage with us. But we encourage you to
demanded moral perfection from Old Testament saints?
keep seeking Justice and keep the conversation alive.
There is another aspect of tackling Justice in this issue:
Sincerely,
the practical one. Finding ways to live out a Christian approach to Justice requires looking to those who came before us. The following article exposes the injustice
Pedro Enamorado
upheld by a man who fought slavery in colonial Brazil,
Editor-in-Chief
The Staff Executive Board Pedro Enamorado, Editor-in-Chief Nicholas Dacosta, Executive Director Keniel Yao, Business Manager Sydney Wade, Production Manager
Mission Named for the Greek term meaning “word,” “reason,” “principle,” and “logic,” The Logos seeks to stimulate discussion of a Christian worldview in a way that is relevant and engaging to the Yale community.
Annie Jones, Graphic Design Manager Valentina Guerrero, Communications Director
Editors Dinnie Ee Max Graham
Acknowledgements This issue of the Logos has been made possible in partby the generous contributions and continuing support of the Cecil B. Day Foundation, the Rivendell Institute, Christian Union, and Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.
Kenneth Kiambati
Writers Sean Bland Tori Campbell
Involvement Interested in writing an article for The Logos or responding to one of the articles in this issue? Contact Nicholas Dacosta, Executive Director, at nicholas.dacosta@yale.edu.
Nia Campinha-Bacote Luke Foster Armando Ghinaglia He Li Ethan Young
Production Consultants Justin Hawkins Andrew Shuman
Disclaimer The Logos is published by Yale College students; neither Yale University nor its affiliates are responsible for the material herein.
Contents
02 05 08 11
14
What is Justice? Love: the Life of Justice
Forgiveness: Unjust and Illogical?
God’s Justice: A Shifting Standard? Why God Withholds Judgment
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To Loose the Bonds of Wickedness
20
Impetus
22
Justice Beneath the Babel of Technology
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Christian Mysticism in the Age of Social Justice Monism vs. Trinitarianism: Justice in God’s Very Nature
What is Justice? by Luke Foster
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hoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it… So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy” (James 2:10-13 ESV). “Each man kills the thing he loves… yet each man does not die” - Oscar Wilde1
1
Oscar Wilde, “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”
Everybody wants justice, or says they do, whether they have in mind primarily the punishment of the guilty or the redress of the victim. But seldom do we think through what holistically seeking justice might involve. Both the ancient Scripture and the Victorian poem express a central truth of the Christian Faith: by the standard of absolute justice, we all deserve death. St. James speaks to an audience familiar with the Mosaic law of the Old Testament, and explains that the standard of holiness before God is absolute perfection. Any failure to keep the law in all its fullness is an infinite falling-short of the glory of God. He celebrates the fact that what we, as Christians, receive from God is not the vengeance we deserve, but mercy. Therefore showing mercy towards sinners also ought to
characterize the Christian life. Wilde writes from the perspective of a convict witnessing another be hanged. The whole haunting poem stems from the narrator’s consciousness of the irony that he should live while another man dies. While not himself a murderer, the narrator knows that in his heart he too has trampled on all that is good. Wilde’s convict onlooker thus stands in for those of us who might be inclined to describe ourselves smugly as “good people,” not seeing how arbitrary it is that we should be spared punishment. This tension that James articulates and Wilde evokes between holiness and mercy, between the law and grace—arises because Christian history does not itself offer a definition of justice in the abstract. Our history offers first and foremost an image: The image of a frail body, beaten, mocked, stretched out grotesquely and pinned to the rough wood of the Roman cross. This was a juridical execution, and Christian liturgies the world over commemorate in the Nicene Creed—with the line “crucified under Pontius Pilate”—the petty Roman official who authorized it. In its immediate context, this is the archetypical miscarriage of justice, the condemnation of an innocent, the cynical triumph of political power over principle. Yet it is also, understood in light of Jesus’ resurrection, and of the witness of the New Testament, the supreme expression of God’s justice. The self-sacrifice of Christ, the pure, holy, divine victim, obtains mercy for all those who will place their faith in Him. The cross of Christ is a holy God’s condemnation of sin and vindication of righteousness, and this kind of self-sacrificing “love is the fulfilling of the law.” 2 How much does that knowledge tell us about how to conceive of justice in the realm of this-worldly politics? One of the classic philosophical statements on justice comes from Plato’s The Republic. Socrates elicits two definitions of justice from his fellow Athenians, beginning with Cephalus’, “It is just to give to each what is owed to him.” 3 In this paradigm, justice is like balancing your checkbook. It is possible to fully know and to answer the claims of justice. Thrasymachus next answers, “Justice is nothing other than the advantage of the stronger.” 4 This formulation has a kind of appealing simplicity about it, speaking to our sense that laws are often little but the assertion of the will 2 4
Romans 13:10; 3 Plato, The Republic, 331e; Plato, The Republic, 338c
of those in power. It implies legal positivism— that there is no standard apart from the current regime by which to evaluate the laws on the books. Socrates finds both definitions too simple, too disconnected from the attempt to discover what we ought to want, and proceeds to work his way to a vision of justice in the individual as analog to justice in the polity. “Isn’t to produce justice to establish the parts of the soul in a natural relation of control”, with each fulfilling its individual role?5 Plato sees justice as first and foremost concerned with a flourishing individual life in which both the physical and spiritual desires are rationally ordered. There can be no societal or juridical justice without addressing the personal, moral
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Christian history does not itself offer a definition of justice in the abstract. Our history offers first and foremost an image.
level. And justice in the polity is not merely a matter of equality before the law—Plato aims for the higher standard of harmony. If Jesus’ loving death on the cross becomes the Christian archetype of justice, our vision has more in common with Socrates’ than with Thrasymachus’ or Cephalus’. Jesus’ self-surrender violates the zero-sum game of power, and God’s cosmic debt-forgiveness frees us from vengeful grasping. Believers of our generation therefore rightly yearn to work for justice for our neighbors, especially as it comes to redressing centuries-old racial wrongs. And we rightly want to set the bar higher than Thrasymachus’s positivism, and even than Cephalus’ tit-for-tat-ism. We have a sense that mere equal treatment of Americans of different skin colors by the law does not adequately reflect the circumstances, opportunities and temptations that have accumulated over generations. The white Yale Law School graduate who cheats on his taxes and the black Baltimore high school dropout who shoplifts for the same amount have 5
Plato, The Republic, 444d
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not committed a moral transgression of equal magnitude. Even the growing recognition of the role of “implicit bias” in racial judgments reflects an inchoate concern for justice’s penetration from the external world of perceptible actions into the individual soul. St. Augustine in The City of God concurs that most of the time, Thrasymachus seems right that the will of the stronger dictates laws. Man before the Fall had “a fellowship of equality under God” 6, in which no one lorded it over everyone else. But because of human fallenness, in which we are often at war with ourselves, with our own desires at odds, it is a great and fragile achievement when human laws obtain a measure of peace. This-worldly attempts at justice, which are coercive, can only evaluate external actions, and are notoriously bad at reading the heart and discerning spiritual states. Justice, for Augustine, is another and more difficult matter altogether: Justice is found where…the soul rules the body in all men who belong to this City and obey God, and the 6
Augustine, The City of God, Bk. XIX, Ch. 12
reason faithfully rules the vices in a lawful system of subordination…the association, or people, of righteous men lives on the same basis of faith, active in love, the love with which a man loves God as God ought to be loved, and loves his neighbor as himself. 7 Even Socrates’ justice is lacking without the loving submission of the mind to God, which the gift of grace at the Cross makes possible. The Christian tradition on justice, then, contains a profound ambivalence. The law is sacred, and even the worst human laws have a catechetical purpose, teaching us to respect peace and order. But because the impersonal apparatus of the state cannot love us, we should be wary of assigning human laws the task of renewing our souls and leading us to divine love and the love of neighbor. It is through Spirit-filled witnessing to God’s love in civil society that we can remind our cultures to yearn for the perfection of justice that Jesus’ reign will inaugurate. 7
Augustine, The City of God, Bk. XIX, Ch. 23
Article written by Luke Foster Director, Elm Institute
Love: the Life of Justice by Armando Ghinaglia
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ighteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; steadfast love and faithfulness go before you.” -Psalm 89:14 (ESV)
Christians often talk about God’s love and justice as being in a creative tension with one another. God loves us but must satisfy the demands of justice—hence penal substitutionary atonement.a Or, God is just and loves us as more of a disciplinarian—hence God as Father or Mother. My aim is to (re-)introduce an alternative
about the relationship between justice and love, one expounded by earlier church writers and supported by the scriptures. My intention is not so much to diminish the emphasis that Christians place on justice so much as to offer that justice, for Christians, must always point back to love. In this conception, justice is a virtue that we practice. It finds its form and is made perfect in love, caritas or agape, which refers to a particular kind of friendship with God.b This leads us to two starting points: God is just, and God is love or agape. Beginning with justice, we generally seek to become more just by imitating God. We also recognize justice as a quality in others and call people more or less just, even if we do so reluctantly. In comparison with God, of course, these
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comparisons fall short, but we live our ordinary lives as though these relative, earthly comparisons do indeed matter. We avoid interactions with unjust people, and we seek the company of the just. So far, then, justice is a divine attribute that human beings share and develop “by doing righteousness and justice.”1 In the Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom teaches virtues, including justice, to those who seek her: “if anyone loves righteousness, her labors are virtues; for she teaches self-control and prudence, justice and courage” (8:7). Justice, for the apocryphal writers, is a virtue—a habitual disposition toward some good end that we exercise in our daily lives.2 Justice is not just the province of rulers and authorities, or of courts and politicians; justice is a virtue central to how every Christian lives a life in holiness and righteousness before God. But what exactly is justice about? Justice often finds itself paired with equity throughout the scriptures, and injustice often consists in harming the poor or taking too much from others.3 Justice requires one “not [to] be partial to the poor or defer to the great.” 4 More concisely, justice is about “the set
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Love, not justice, is the beginning and end of the Christian life.
and constant purpose which gives to every man his due.” 5 Justice, then, goes beyond laws and bears on every aspect of our interactions with other people in ways that few other virtues can. Every interaction with another person is an exercise in acting justly. On a grander scale, we live in a country with the occasional unjust law that gives people more or less than what they are due. While this article cannot do justice to this issue, fellow Christians, from Dorothy Day and Martin Luther King, Jr., to Dietrich Bonhoeffer and others, have affirmed by Genesis 18:19; 2 Maccabees 1:18; 3 Exodus 23:6 and Proverbs 29:4, respectively; 4 Leviticus 19:15; 5 Justinian, Institutes, I.I; 1
their example that justice is central to living a life oriented around the love of God and neighbor. Although Christian discourse often places some forms of love in some tension with justice, the scriptures present a curious distinction for agape or caritas. For hundreds of references throughout scripture about justice, they never state that God is justice. 1 John 4:8, by contrast, poetically and concisely states that “God is love.” The scriptures and tradition point us to a God fundamentally known as love, known in Trinity of persons in eternal relationship with one another: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Love, not justice, is the beginning and end of the Christian life. Yet, this runs counter to how we envision love as a mushy feel-good emotion. We often talk about loving things—like music, dance, or food—and contrast this love with the love that we have for people—a love we tend to call friendship. For most people, the love of friendship is the higher love, a love that elevates us and gives us meaning, one that allows us to be ourselves and to become who we are meant to be. Caritas or agape refer specifically to the higher love of friendship that we share with God. Caritas/agape is the virtue that perfects justice. Jesus’ words in John 15 make this explicit: “as the Father has loved me, so I have loved you … no one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.” We ultimately offer ourselves as a living sacrifice to God in this friendship, even to physical death.6 Christians live this life to draw others to this God, a God who was not content to witness our failings from afar but who “became flesh and lived among us” and laid down his own life on the cross.7 Christians baptized into the death of Christ Jesus are baptized into His death, dying daily to deepen their friendship with God—not to serve an abstract notion of justice.8 Martyrs’ deaths are not merely examples of dying for justice or being right, but of dying that others might find true life in friendship with God and fulfill Jesus’ plea on the cross, “Father, forgive them,” 9 and Stephen’s cry, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” 10 For Christians, the fight for justice is a valiant struggle to reconcile people to one another and to entreat 6
Romans 12:1; 7 John 1:14; 8 Romans 6:3; 9 Luke 23:34; Acts 7:60
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all, on behalf of Christ, to be reconciled to God. Scripturally and historically, love, as agape or caritas, is not a soft thing, tempered by justice. Love is the end, the prize of the Christian life.11 Christians are indeed called to live justly—to render unto others their due—for that is what God requires and for in doing so we reflect God’s own concern for justice, for the poor, for the oppressed, and for the marginalized. At all times, however, the specifically Christian concern for justice finds its life, its motivating force, in the love of agape, the love that allowed us to be reconciled to God even “while we were enemies.” 12 In the “communion of the Holy Spirit,” to which we belong through the “grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,” we ultimately share in the “love of God.” 13 We love God and share the beauty and depth and richness of that friendship with others in the hope that they, too, may see and live the same beauty in their own lives, marked by a pursuit of justice and all good things, which come of God.14
1 Corinthians 13:8, 13 and 1 Corinthians 9:24, respectively; 12 Romans 5:10; 13 2 Corinthians 13:13; 14 James 1:17 11
The view of Christ’s death that focuses on His sacrifice as taking divine punishment for sins upon Himself for the sake of humankind. a
Aquinas uses the Latin term caritas to talk about friendship with God (II-II, q. 23, a. 1), drawing on the Vulgate translation of 1 Cor. 13. The Greek term throughout the New Testament is agape. Agape is often used in the Bible to refer to divine love, but is not employed as exclusively or systematically in that sense as caritas is for Thomas. b
Article written by Armando Ghinaglia, DIV ‘18 M. Div in Ethics
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Forgiveness: Unjust and Illogical? by Tori Campbell
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he idea of “forgiveness” has a bad reputation. Oppressors can twist the Christian faith’s insistence on forgiveness in order to argue that they are entitled to free absolution from their crimes. Sometimes, the expectation for people to extend forgiveness is used to manipulate victims into remaining in cycles of abuse. If systemically abused, it can erase the hope that any oppressor will ever receive their just desserts. Alexander Pope’s assertion that forgiveness is “divine” may look nice on paper, but, in reality, the practice of forgiveness
often looks more like the antithesis of fairness. The Bible is replete with statements of the beauty and blessing of forgiveness, but the Christian God is also supposed to be fundamentally just, upholding justice in the world and requiring us to do the same. How, then, do we address the seeming injustice in forgiveness? Is forgiveness inherently a legitimization of wrong? Before we critique forgiveness, we must define the term. It is nicely encapsulated in the definition: “to overlook an offense; to treat an offender as not guilty.”1 In other words, forgiveness is a complete erasure of the social, criminal, and moral debt accrued by an offense. This sort of total forgiveness may be easy to
extend when we are merely inconvenienced by the small or accidental faults of others. But what about deliberate offenses that wound us deeply? What about life-wrecking, historically-ingrained, or perpetual offenses? Surely it is naïve to think, or even expect, that anyone can just erase those debts from their minds. At best, such forgiveness is unrealistic. At worst, it is deeply unjust. To be clear, the Bible fully affirms that it is unjust to simply turn a blind eye to any wrongdoing. This is true of both offenses committed against God and offenses committed against people, who are created in God’s image. Both types of offense, referred to as “sin”, incur an infinite debt against God himself. The Bible makes it clear that everyone’s debt must—and will—eventually be paid. If I am honest with myself, I am not excused from this debt, either. It may be easy for me to say, “Look, I have never hurt someone in the way I have been hurt by others,” but upon examining myself before God, I see that that is simply untrue. All sin, at its heart, is a rejection of God, and since God’s nature is completely perfect, even my smallest evil thought against him is sinful. So are the offenses that I commit against humanity, which He created in His image. I choose to put myself above God and others almost continually, and therefore the debt I owe is infinite. In fact, Jesus likens my state to a servant who owes a debt that would take more than 150,000 years of wages to repay (Matthew 18:24).2 There’s no way that one person could work for that amount of time. How can I ever repay this debt on my own? The good news is that someone else has repaid my debt for me: God came to earth as the man Jesus Christ, who committed no sin and lived the fully righteous life that I could not live. While on earth, He gave up His life to pay for every inch of my sin-debt, and to transform me completely, so that I can love both Him and other people properly. This bailout that is offered to all who would believe in Him cuts at the heart of forgiveness. The extravagant mercy God extends to us reveals that, yes, forgiveness is deeply unfair from our human lens. God’s forgiveness of us is premised on an innocent man dying in exchange for my death, and my being called righteous in exchange for His perfect righteousness. It is because God Himself first committed this beautiful unfairness in forgiving me undeservedly that I can pass it on to others, and forgive them undeservedly. If God has forgiven the lifetime’s worth of debt
that I owe to Him, how can I not forgive the comparatively miniscule debt that others owe me? It is because I am forgiven of so much through the death and resurrection of Christ that I can forgive others. I have been made free to model His grace, therefore I am able to do so joyfully to those who have hurt me. Forgiven, I can also forgive without fear of justice going unmeted towards any offense committed against me. This is because Christians live in the hope that either Christ has fully paid for every crime on the offender’s behalf—just as He has for me—or that the unbelieving offender will eventually face due punishment for it at the hands of God Himself. Extending mercy does not mean that we have to act like genuinely painful events are magically
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Is forgiveness inherently a legitimization of wrong?
forgettable. Minimizing a fault functionally denies the redeeming power of the cross because Christ, in His death, dealt with our sins according to their ugliest reality. As I forgive, God’s perfect mercy and justice ensure that not one crime remains forgotten. There is no injustice in that. In the Bible one sees this fulfilled in Joseph. After being sold into slavery by his brothers, sexually harassed, maligned, and wrongfully imprisoned, he had to choose whether or not to forgive his family for their crimes. He forgave them, acknowledging that what they meant for evil, “God meant for good.”4 In forgiving his brothers, Joseph did not minimize their sin. Instead, he acknowledged their actions exactly as they were—evil. Even so, he trusted that God could work through those actions to accomplish good things, and he absolved his family completely. Joseph’s attitude also reveals another important aspect of forgiveness: honesty. Healthy forgiveness requires loving confrontation. Jesus tells us to confront one another when faced with personal offense, first on an individual level and then in
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community.5 Silent suffering is not God’s design for His people; honesty in love is. Confrontation is not an end in itself, causing division for division’s sake. Instead, because of Christ’s sacrifice and His empowering us to forgive, confrontation is inherently loving, productive, and aimed at communal restoration and growth. Of course, on the other side of healthy forgiveness is active repentance. As much as we are called to extend forbearance to others, we are called to seek it out, too, and to make restitution if we have wronged someone. Many times, the process of confrontation, forgiveness, and repentance is not easy. In fact, outside of Christ, I would argue that it is illogical, simply because it looks so antithetical to reciprocal justice. In Christ, however, forgiveness is never a legitimizing of wrong, but a restoration of right. It is a practice
made both possible and indispensable for those who have been set free from their offenses towards God, in order to extend His mercy to others.
Matthew 6:14-15 (New American Standard Bible, and hereafter) 2 Isaiah 61:8 3 Matthew 22:39 4 Genesis 50:20 5 Matthew 17:15-17 1
Article written by Tori Campbell, MC ‘16 English
God’s Justice: A Shifting Standard? by Dinnie Ee
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as God’s standard for justice shifted from Old Testament righteousness to New Testament salvation? That is, does God allow Christians to be saved by faith in Jesus’ death and resurrection, but demand of believers in the Old Testament moral righteousness? The premise of the Christian gospel is: “there is none righteous, not even one.”1 Because of original sin, human nature is fallen, and mankind cannot merit God’s favor on its own. Romans 3:10 (New American Standard Bible, and for all Biblical citations hereafter) 1
Our unrighteousness makes us guilty offenders before God, owing Him a debt that we cannot repay. Yet, certain biblical characters in the Old Testament are called “righteous.” Right from Genesis, Noah is described as “a righteous man; blameless in his time,”2 and Abraham as having righteousness “reckoned…to him.”3 How is it that there is none righteous, yet there were some righteous? Is Christianity, perhaps, an inconsistent faith or does it believe in an inconsistent God? But, why ask this? Why does the apparent inconsistency matter? Well, our answer has profound implications on the truth of 2
Genesis 6:9; 3 Genesis 15:6
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the gospel. We necessarily deny the faith-based gospel once and for all if we affirm that moral perfection made some just before God. If Noah and Abraham were just before God because they were sinless, it would theoretically be possible for any human being at any point in history to be just in the same way. If so, mankind would have paid the debt by itself; it would need no Christ to pay on its behalf. And, if there were nothing for Christ to do, there is nothing that He could have done. His death would have been ineffectual—powerless to save and futile in acquitting. This logic makes clear that it cannot be that some rare souls in the pre-Christ era were just before God on account of their own righteousness, yet the rest of us remain eligible for salvation through Christ. Either God accepts, and has accepted, people on the basis of self-merited righteousness, or He does not, and never has. So, to unlock this puzzle, we need a right understanding of “righteousness” as used in the Old Testament. Such righteousness referred not to moral perfection; rather, it is a righteousness God imputes on the basis of one’s faith. Abraham is the archetype of this. The Bible states, emphatically, that “[Abraham] believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness [emphasis mine].”4 Abraham was righteous only because he responded to God’s call in faith, and so God paid his debt of sin in advance of Christ’s coming. In the same way, Noah “found favor in the eyes of the Lord” not because he was “righteous,” but he was righteous because he found grace.5 As “men began to call upon the name of the Lord”6 after the Fall, so Noah was made righteous. Further, these biblical accounts do not even hint at the sinlessness of these people. Abraham lied about his wife, Sarah’s, identity, while Noah got drunk and lay uncovered. Righteousness, clearly, could not have been moral perfection. This solves the puzzle we started out with: there is none righteous in that none is morally perfect; the righteous in the Old Testament were so only because their debt was paid by faith in the future Christ, whose death redeemed the “transgressions that were committed under the first covenant.”7 In the end, it is Jesus’ blood that pays any person’s debt, and it is by faith that both we, and 4
Genesis 15:6; 5 Genesis 6:8-9; 6 Genesis 4:26; 7 Hebrews 9:15
“the men of old[,] gained approval.”8 And, God’s standard for justice? It never shifts. At this point, one wonders: what about the Mosaic Law, and doing good works? It certainly seemed as though some in the Old Testament were righteous because they fulfilled the Law. King David often appealed to the Lord to reward him “according to [his] righteousness,” as did the other kings in Israel’s history.9 People like Job were also described as “blameless, upright, fearing God, and turning away from evil.”10 This sense of righteousness is linked to one’s works, and does not seem to be simply a matter of faith in God. Such righteousness ought to be understood as “the fulfillment of the demands of a relationship.” a Those who upheld the Law were righteous insofar as the Mosaic Law required of them. But, crucially, this sense of righteousness does not itself accrue enough merit to be right before God. Instead, obedience to the Law was a means through which the Israelites’ faith was manifested, not a
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Either God accepts, and has accepted, people on the basis of self-merited righteousness, or He does not, and never has.
substitute for that faith. The Law, at its core, was a privilege given for Israel, the chosen nation, to know God’s will and decrees; it did not replace the grace (unmerited favor) by which it was chosen. As Paul argues, “the Law, which came four hundred and thirty years later [than Abraham], does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise”11. Since justification is based on God’s promise received through faith, law-keeping itself is powerless for, and irrelevant to, justification. One can outwardly keep the Law without inwardly believing in God, and still be unrighteous. Even if people like King David could be righteous in this narrow and moral sense, their ultimate, eternal righteousness was nonetheless 8
Hebrews 11:2; 9 Psalms 18:23; 2 Samuel 22:21; 10 Job 1:1; Galatians 3:17
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based on their faith as sons of Abraham. “That no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for, ‘the righteous man shall live by faith.’”12 More importantly, however, moral righteousness’ irrelevance to justification does not imply its unimportance. The emphasis on obedience in the Old Testament speaks of the importance of not abusing one’s status as the chosen of God as license for sin. It is because we are made righteous, and made new, that we are empowered to obey God, and we are not to cheapen that saving grace. The freedom Christ bought for us is the freedom from the curse of sin—not the freedom to turn back to it. In sum, what can we affirm about righteousness and God’s justice? For one, God’s justice is unchanging. It is demanding. No one cannot fulfill it on the account of moral perfection, and the only way we can attain it
12
Galatians 3:11
is to have faith in the One who has attained it for us. The apparent contradiction between Old Testament righteousness and New Testament salvation is only illusory, for God’s standard never shifts. We know, too, that a faith that saves is neither dormant nor undetectable. Our imputed righteousness is demonstrated by our empowered capacity for good works and obedience towards God. Far from being inconsistent, the Old Testament reveals far more consistency than we think—regarding both meriting God’s justice and manifesting His righteousness. As it was for the men of old, so it is for us today.
Katz, Art. “Righteousness in the Old Testament.” No pages. 1 September 2015. Online: http:// artkatzministries.org/articles/righteousness-in-theold-testament/ a
Article written by Dinnie Ee, BR ‘18 Ethics, Politics and Economics
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Why God Withholds Judgment
by Sean Bland he Gospel story tells of Jesus Christ’s sacrificial death, resurrection, and call for repentance and belief in Himself for salvation—but this amazing ‘good news’ ends with an apparent anticlimax. The disciples, after seeing him risen, hoped that Christ was going to usher in the end of time and judge the world. “They asked Him…‘Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?’”1 He left them with
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1
Acts 1:6
an unsatisfying answer, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by His own authority,” ascended from among them and sat at the right hand of God the Father.2 Jesus’ death and resurrection brought hope and life to the world, but His work did not bring the final judgment upon earth as we, or the Apostles, might have imagined it. Jesus Christ will return in power and glory someday, and will “judge the world with justice” as the Father’s ‘appointee.’3 But, until then, He expects Christians to do and preach justice here on earth. But why does He tarry? Why is God withholding His justice while people suffer and die? In a sense, 2
Ibid.; 3 Acts 1:11 and Acts 17:31
Christ’s work on Earth was the ultimate and conclusive victory over every wicked thing and every unjust act in the past, present, and future. The redemptive history of the world ends on the cross—“it is finished,” Jesus cries, signifying the completion of His work on Earth.4 Yet, in an equally real sense, the final victory is not yet here; it will come only when God judges the living and the dead at the end of time.5 Evils of all sorts still rage in this world which Christ has physically come to and subsequently left. Isn’t that, well, unjust? Not necessarily. We know that Christians have been commanded to use this time in between Christ’s First and Second Coming for His purposes, to be “Fishers of Men.”6 They are to preach the message of repentance and hope so that people may know the depths of their own wickedness and the greater depth of God’s forgiveness. Indeed, immediately before His ascension, Christ called His disciples to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations. . .teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”7 The Gospel message brings about an inner change that drives people towards pursuing justice out of love and gratitude. Thus, this commission works directly towards the salvation of many, and indirectly towards earthly justice. Another reason for this delay is that the Lord is growing, molding, and even testing His people. As Oswald Chambers says in The Highest Good—The Pilgrim’s Song Book, “God engineers circumstances to see what we will do. Will we be the children of our Father in heaven, . . . [w]ill we stake all and stand true to Him? ‘Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.’”a We are called to use this time for our own sanctification,b and to grow in our justness towards others and our understanding of God’s perfectly just character. Furthermore, the people of God have been called to trust in His love amidst trials. They are to “correct, rebuke, and encourage one another,” as well as to continue living in Him so that they may be found “confident and unashamed before His coming.”8 In this way, His people bring glory to God and are strengthened by Him amidst their sufferings and oppressions, refining and perfecting the love and souls of Christians. John 19:30; 5 1 Corinthians 4:5; 6 Matthew 4:19; 7 Matthew 28:19; 8 2 Timothy 4:14 and 1 John 2:28, respectively
4
Why will there be a final judgment at all? John Lennox, a notable Christian apologist from Oxford University, describes the relationship between justice and judgment. In defending the final judgment of God from critiques by the “New Atheist” philosophy expounded by thinkers like Richard Dawkins, he writes that “[The New Atheists] fail to realize that if there is no final judgment, there is no such thing as justice.” c Justice and judgment are inextricably linked because if judgment is never dispensed, then justice is never realized. Expecting final judgment also compels Christians to pursue justice in hope that their efforts contribute to the ultimate victory over evil. This worldview, where justice will most assuredly prevail gives Christians far more impetus and motivation to work for healing, restoration, and justice in this world than the absolute secularism promoted by New Atheism. Why work towards a contrived
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Justice and judgment will be the instruments of this final victory when God judges the dead at the end of time.
justice that is relative to shifting societal norms? Pastor Tim Keller also denounces this worldview in his book, Reason for God. He adamantly posits that true justice can, in fact, only be found in Christianity. He quotes N.T. Wright on this subject, who says that: “[The continuing message of the resurrection] is that this present world matters; that the problems and pains of this present world matter; that the living God has made a decisive bridgehead into this present world with his healing and all-conquering love; and that, in the name of this strong love, all the evils, all the injustices and all the pains of this present world must now be addressed with the news that healing, justice, and love have won the day. That’s why we pray ‘Thy Kingdom Come, on Earth as it is in Heaven.’”9 N.T. Wright, For All God’s Worth: True Workship and Calling of the Church, page 65 9
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We are not working for some abstract, ethereal realm of existence post-Second Coming; rather, we are working to heal a physical world that will be deeply and ultimately transformed into the perfect creation it was always supposed to be. Only Christianity has a God that condescends, as Christ did, to extend love, mercy, and perfect justice. This is our hope for justice in the present age. We may fail those we are called to love and treat justly, but Justice itself will not, and, indeed cannot, fail —it will be gloriously triumphant in the remaking of the world. Whenever Christians lose hope in their work here on Earth, they should remember that we are truly in the ‘time of the already and the not yet.’ Our place in this present age is a great opportunity and a great responsibility; let us pray to have the strength to work for God’s purposes in renewing the justice that He has already ordained.
Oswald Chambers, 1874-1917, was a renowned Scottish Baptist thinker. His seminal work was the daily devotional, My Utmost for His Highest. This quote is from his work The Highest Good - The Pilgrim’s Song Book. a
That is, the process by which God makes us holy in our conduct and attitudes. b
John C. Lennox, Gunning For God, page 134. New Atheists believe in moral relativism. They are known for rejecting the existence of anything supernatural, claiming that science can disprove God and the existence of the supernatural. c
Article written by Sean Bland, ES ‘18 History
To Loose the Bonds of Wickedness by Pedro Enamorado
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is sermon evoked the sound of galloping chariots with their hooves almost nipping at the heels of the Israelites meeting their end in the waves of the Red Sea. Father Vieira cried out, as if possessed by the impassioned spirits of the oppressed, “Oh, how I fear that the ocean for you will be like the Red Sea…and all Brazil like Egypt!...May God grant that I am wrong in this sad thought”1 Father Antonia Vieira, Portuguese Jesuit, addressed a group of colonists with the grave warning of eternal hellfire and national
punishment. Their crime was mistreating their African slaves and enslaving innocent Indians to cut their wood and work on their sugar plantations. The colonists were too lazy to work themselves and too poor to import slaves or pay whites, so they hired armed bands to go into the woods and kidnap Tapuya Indians. Vieira decried their enslavement with such boldness because he held to Christian ethics, particularly the notion of just war and natural law, to condemn certain forms of slavery. Christ condemned violence, making the notion of just war a peculiar one. Jesus stopped a crowd Father Antonio Vieira, “Twenty-Eight Sermon with the Most Holy Sacrament Present,” Colonial Latin America: A Documentary History, 228
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from legally stoning a woman and commanded His disciples to eschew violence against them whenever possible.a “Our battle,” said St. Paul, “is not against flesh and blood” but against the systems of darkness that rule in our present.2 Throughout the scriptures, God calls believers to war against internal inclinations to greed, pride, and apathy. To fight the oppression of the poor, the widow, and the orphan, and to push against the rejection of the foreigner. These systems, however, are immaterial and are fought without conventional weapons. Christian scholars have declared for centuries that only lawful governments have the right to punish evildoers through war. St. Augustine worked to reconcile the practical need to use violence in defense of justice and Christianity’s emphasis on peace. His writings in dialog with St. Thomas Aquinas’ elaborations on war, establish principles that reconcile God’s hatred of violence with His requirement that governments carry out justice. Vieira knew that the colonists had raised the sword unjustly against the Tapuyi Indians. He endorsed the criteria set by Aquinas for a just war: a legitimate authority must declare it, it must have a good and just purpose,and the authority and agents must pursue peace and the just cause during the period of violence. Vieira believed, therefore, that the Portuguese had acted without government sanction and with an unjust cause (i.e. greed) to enslave the Indians, and that carrying out their cause by kidnapping constituted an unjust means to an end. He had no scruples with upsetting wealthy sugar lords, senhors do ingenio, and wrote often to his friend King John IV to protect the Indians. Unfortunately, his ideas about just war also led to a grievous error. He did not believe he had a strong case to condemn African slavery outright. Why this sharp contrast? It was not a matter of race, as Vieira acknowledged when he asked, “Can there be a greater want of understanding…than to think that…you must be my slave because you were born nearer to it [the sun]?”3 Rather, he believed “some enslavements [of Blacks] are just” because they had been “legally” enslaved by African wars. These wars were mostly conducted by the Dahomey monarchy in Africa, which thrived off of the African slave trade. It had Galations 6:12; 3 Father Antonio Vieira quoted in Boxer, “A Great Luso-Brazilian Figure: Padre Antonio Vieira S.J. 16081697,” 23. 2
an organized military and centralized state operating through the collaboration between its monarch and a Great Council that elects him from a pool of heirs.4 In fact, it often had significant leverage in the slave trade as the Portuguese depended primarily on them. Many, but not all, slaves transplanted to the Americas had become prisoners of this empire, and legal scholars in this period viewed war prisoners as justly enslaved.b Spanish abolitionist Bartolome de las Casas, unlike Vieira, personally investigated the slave trade 50 years sooner and concluded that the conditions of enslavement, and therefore all African
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Christ condemned violence, making the notion of just war a peculiar one.
slavery, were unjust. Vieira, however, could not be sure of the conditions of their enslavement. Vieira and Las Casas did not necessarily believe that Indians or Africans were completely equal to whites, but they did consider them human persons. They believed God created a single race descended from Adam, evidenced by their reason and ability to understand and practice Christianity. Natural law dictated that human beings have rights endowed by their Creator. For instance, human persons had the right to protection by their sovereign, the right to become Christians by persuasion and not force, and the right to be free from servitude unless they behaved criminally. For these reasons, Vieira conceded the right to enslave Indians who acted barbarously by practicing cannibalism or human sacrifice because these behaviors constituted a rational defect that precluded the perpetrators of full humanity. He tried to uphold justice as well as he could understand, but his sermons still promoted oppression and inequality, judging the Indian’s worth by their behaviors and beliefs. Even Christians fighting for justice have the 4
Wikipedia. “Dahomey”
crippling stain of sin. As evidenced by the Vieira and Las Casas’ nuanced positions on race and slavery, their advocacy was often misguided or woefully inadequate. To be sure, Las Casas suggested importing African slaves to ease the burden of the Indians early on in life, but he showed remorse and a fear of giving accounts to God for such teachings in his writings at the end of his life. Vieira’s sermons may have left his audiences anticipating eternal fire for owning Indians slaves, but he offered no immediate comfort to his African listeners. And yet, one cannot hate these men for their frail efforts to bring about justice. Instead, their examples encourage Christians to humbly and boldly strive for justice. Let Christians recognize that their blind spots can make them perpetrators of unwitting injustices and let them listen to the grievances of the oppressed before passing judgment in haste on their condition. Above
all, let them live according to the reality that human beings have inherent and eternal worth.
John 8. Stoning was legal in theory but not in practice as Rome forbade the Jews from carrying out the death penalty. Additionally, Jews rarely ever administered the death penalty, according to Talmudic elaborations and ancient Jewish legal documents. a
The School of Salamanca that began in 1483 in Spain influenced many Dominicans who advocated for the Indians in the New World. It was among the first intellectual movements to challenge the justice of enslaving prisoners of war. b
Article written by Pedro Enamorado, ES ‘17 History
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Impetus by Nia Campinha-Bacote
shake what happened from my mind. I realize I have no way of knowing the details of the situation I witnessed in New Haven, but I couldn’t help but think the military-style weapons the police carried and karate-style door-kick seemed excessive. At the time, I was reading Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness and it was all too easy to relate that scene to the many very true and very real stories recounted by Alexander, such as the story of Alberta Spruill, a fifty-seven year-old woman from Harlem who died of cardiac arrest after police deployed a flash-bang grenade during a mistaken raid.1 Thinking back to that night in January, what I remember most was the overwhelming feeling of helplessness I experienced. I felt ashamed and guilty as I drove by, watching vacant lots and broken store windows abruptly transform into Starbucks Coffee and G-Heav storefronts on the safe and familiar streets of High and Elm. I was especially frustrated with my lack of response because I felt as a Christian, I needed to do something. With everything that has happened on Yale’s campus last semester with regards to race and now, having this experience, I’ve been asking myself more and more, what role does my faith play in seeking justice? How am I to just sit silent, or literally just drive by when I see so much injustice in the world around me?
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t’s 4:30PM and the flow of traffic is slow. Dim hues of blue and purple paint the sky as a school empties its parking lot of buses to take children home. Directly across from the school stands a row of houses whose chipped paint and bent shutters reveal battle scars from the relentless blizzards and heavy rains of New Haven, Connecticut. All appears to be a calm when suddenly, 6 police officers surround one of the houses. Their backs are plastered with S.W.A.T in big white block letters and their hands carry guns that seem more fit for the battlefields of Iraq than here. Without warning, they kick open the door and quickly infiltrate the house. This scene is not from an action movie. It is not from one of those law enforcement or crime television shows. The incident described above is something I witnessed this past January while I was driving on a street located a mere ten minutes away from Yale’s J. Crew and Urban Outfitter-lined streets.
If you, like me, find yourself questioning the compatibility of the Christian faith and justice, I encourage you to read Isaiah Chapter 58. The chapter begins with the prophet Isaiah calling out the Israelites for living hypocritical lives. On the outside, the Israelites looked like good and respectable church-folk, consistently fasting and praying to God. Yet, verses 3 through 4 reveal the deplorable hypocrisy of the church in their actions: “Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers. Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists.” In the midst of the Israelites’ religious actions of fasting and praying, they were perpetuating the very injustice God hates. I see striking similarities between the Israelites and the Church of today. I see a nation inundated with injustice, yet a Church that is silent. I see a people who go to church on Sundays, worshipping and Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in an Age of Colorblindness, 75-76 1
It’s been months since that evening, and I still can’t
glorifying God, but then I see Ferguson happen, and the Church is silent. I see the dehumanization of incarcerated individuals happen, and the Church is silent. I see the exploitation of immigrant workers, and the Church is silent. However, despite the frustration and anger I sometimes experience when thinking about these issues, I am filled with an incredible sense of hope when I read the latter portion of Isaiah 58: Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? (Isaiah 58:6-7) These verses not only encourage those of us who consider ourselves followers of Christ to take action, it requires us to take action. I will not lie and say these actions will be easy. In fact, I guarantee quite the opposite, as much of the work surrounding justice will require us to interact
with and love individuals our society deems as less than, unsafe, and criminal. It will require us to enter into places and spaces that might make us uncomfortable, but following Jesus has never been a path marked by comfort. An impetus is a force that causes an object to begin moving or to continue to move, and my hope is that this article gets you to start moving, or if you have already been moving, may you continue to do so, seeking justice and fighting injustice everywhere you go. At Yale, I believe this looks like getting involved in organizations like the Yale Undergraduate Prison Project (YUPP) where we can work to break the yokes of injustice and oppression we see so prevalent within our nation’s prison system. It looks like volunteering at a soup kitchen with Yale Hunger Heroes, as we share our food with the hungry. My prayer is that Christians at Yale and beyond are not known for silence towards injustice, but for a love of others that is so loud and so bold, the chains of injustice have no other option but to loosen. Article written by Nia Campinha-Bacote Ministry Fellow, Chi Alpha Christian Fellowship
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Justice Beneath The Babel of Technology by Ethan Young
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n an issue concerned with justice, it may seem odd to discuss technology. Of course, technological innovation has frequently influenced law and policy, which express and define our collective views of justice. But when one thinks of Justice (with a capital J)— the topic considered in religious or metaphysical terms—technology seems more or less irrelevant. Last year, Pope Francis joined with a chorus of theologians spanning centuries who understood
technology as an essential expression of our collective vision for society—education, transportation, environmentalism, and Justice. In the papal encyclical Laudato Si, the Pope wrote: “We have to accept that technological products are not neutral, for they create a framework which ends up conditioning lifestyles and shaping social possibilities along the lines dictated by the interests of certain powerful groups. Decisions which may seem purely instrumental are in reality decisions about the kind of society we want to build.”1 It is appropriate that Francis should describe society as being built. I would argue that much of technology is merely an expression of the human impulse to establish control and satisfy spiritual needs with 1
Pope Francis, Chapter 3, Section 2, Paragraph 107
physical devices. Ask yourself, for instance, whether your use of Facebook is more a matter of connecting with others or one of curating a flattering digital shrine. Control established by these devices, of course, is an illusion. However, this illusion fundamentally changes the way we approach Justice. This dimension of the human experience, like many others, begins in the Book of Genesis. Somewhere near modern-day Iraq and Syria, a whole population was at work burning bricks and joining them with bitumen (primitive asphalt). They were building the Tower of Babel, a structure “with its top in the heavens.”2 Generally, folks will cite this story for its famed confusion of tongues, but a closer examination of the construction project itself reveals much. Our ancestors chose to build towards the heavens to narrow the gap between the worldly and the supernatural—by reaching into the sky, we could “make a name for ourselves.”3 When human perception could not see the ends of a physical tower, overwhelmed and incapable of judgment, then God began to sound like an irrelevant myth. God did not seem surprised by this effort, and even warned, “this is only the beginning of what they will do.”4 Significantly, His response was not to destroy the tower or even its people, but rather to disrupt communication (an especially powerful act when one considers the Internet’s primary function). The Genesis account conveys both the inevitability of materialism and God’s subsequent response, which has a significant implication for our understanding of absolutes. C.S. Lewis was also fascinated with the Tower of Babel and these ramifications. In his novel That Hideous Strength, the author creates an alternate reality in which the perils of technology worship and scientific materialism are manifested fully.a Lewis’ fictional world is similar to our own: many believe spirituality is a mere by-product of chemical reactions, literal towers define urban landscapes, and an increasing number of people feel disconnected from any common, objective morality. As the story unfolds, the subject of Justice comes to the fore. Lewis diagnoses the problem in both realities, saying that we have “pulled down deep heaven on [our] heads,” and that, without an ontological inferiority complex, Justice becomes an ambiguous game of comparisons. In our world, science represents Truth, and lacking empirical proof that it exists 2
Genesis 11:4; 3 Genesis 11:4; 4 Genesis 11:6
elsewhere, heaven must simply be a self-created idea among us in the present. So, there is no eternal justice, no common rules for the respect of life (though politicians will claim such a thing can exist apart from metaphysical commonalities), and no inherent regulation for our actions apart from those developed by the best educated members of society (consider this point in light of recent campus events). Although a comparison to the Biblical account of Babel is useful, our present situation is unprecedented in human history. For the first time, technological products have ceased to serve merely as tools that respond to human demands and have begun defining human demands and culture themselves.b For a vivid example, look to health care: stethoscopes were initially seen as distracting from proper physician care; today, medical software often dictates precisely what steps a physician will take and in what order. The advent of artificial intelligence is reshaping our economy. Churches are abandoned and demolished to make room for new sources of truth and sustenance: research facilities, server warehouses, and cultural centers. To paraphrase Yogi Berra: who knows where we’re going, but we’re making good time. Most of us live in some upper-level of the Tower of Babel, far enough removed from the ground to forget we cannot fly yet far enough beneath the heavens to perceive their existence. At this point, it is unlikely that our technological Babel will be abandoned. So, as is often the case in spiritual matters, our best solution may be to descend in every way we see possible— humbling ourselves and becoming “lowly wise.”5 5
Milton, Paradise Lost, page 8
The novel’s title actually derives from a 16th century poem about the Tower of Babel: “The shadow of that hideous strength.” Sir David Lyndsay, “Mesopotamia: Babylon; The Building of the Tower of Babel, and Confusion of Tongues,” (Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes: 1876), line 29. a
Here, I am borrowing a lot from Neil Postman’s Technopoly; a great read if you’re interested in the topic. b
Article written by Ethan Young, BK ‘18 History, Education Studies
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Christian Mysticism in the age of Social Justice by He Li
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he Lord said, “Among those born of women, there is no one greater than John” (Luke 7:23). These are stark words. Not only does John outshine every child of Adam, he does so in every meaningful respect. We are right to wonder, what made John such a superlative among men? What, above all else, made his life distinct? The answer can be found in scripture: John’s life consisted of two extremessecluded devotion and public preaching. At times, he removed himself from the midst of
men so that he may take on a solitary in the wilderness. At other times, the himself the center of the public eye by the word of truth for all of Judea
existence he made speaking to hear.
John’s Public Work Being alive in the 21st Century, we should have no problem relating to John’s public ministry. We are born to a very public age. For both non-Christians and Christians, few things are as exalted as social engagement. Social media, social entrepreneurship, social justice- the same ethos is manifest in all these things; it has become an inherent virtue to attach one’s self to a wide network of people. This zeitgeist permeates all segments of society—even the most highbrow circles. With the demise of modernism
forty years ago, the world of fine art abandoned the lone artist and his outlandish visions. A new archetype—the playful social commentator— has become the guiding light of postmodern creativity. Edward Hopper is dead, and Banksy lives. The contemporary church finds itself in a similar condition; mass sermons, public outreach, and political activism have become integral to the modern conception of Christianity. It has become all but an expectation for believers to voice their beliefs regarding contentious social and political issues. Praise God that this is the case! We still hunger and thirst for what is right in the eyes of Christ two thousand years after His crucifixion. However relentlessly we seek civic justice, though, we must never forget that public work is not the most profound level of Christianity. In fact, our pursuit of visible justice is a mere expression of something much greater.
foretaste can be called mysticism—a joy detached from all the joy of the earth, a beauty that transcends the beauty of all created things. We are brought closer to a “kingdom... not of this world.”2 God’s uncreated presence overwhelms our faculties of consciousness. Likewise, John did not leave civilization to admire earthly things like fauna blowing in the wind or men clad in silken garments.b Rather, he went out to behold the spiritual truth of Christ’s coming. John, however, did not see Jesus in the flesh- or he would not have needed to ask Him whether or not he is “the one who is to come.”3 Instead, the Holy Spirit gave John the revelation of the Messiah’s coming in a mystical encounter before he saw the son of Mary at the river Jordan.
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mysticism—a joy detached from all the joy of the earth, a beauty that transcends the beauty of all created things.
John’s Work as a Recluse What, then, is this core substance of Christianity? We can find the answer in John’s other defining attribute—his solitary devotion. For the same reason that we may find it easy to understand John’s public ministries, we may have some difficulty grasping the significance of his time in seclusion. While we are blessed to live in a time during which great emphasis is placed on the public and communal facets of faith, we are also faced with a general negligence of the private and otherworldly dimension of the Holy Spirit—the mystical expression of God.a However, before we can appreciate John’s time spent in the wilderness, we must first understand the nature of God’s mystical workings. What exactly does mystical union with God entail? Although words can never fully capture the nature of divine experience, many Christian thinkers have endeavored to qualify these transcendent moments in their writings. The anonymous late medieval treatise Theologia Germanica, for one, calls such episodes “[glances] into eternity.” The writing, considered by Martin Luther the most important document in Christianity next to the Bible and Augustine’s bibliography, proposes that it is possible for human beings to “receive a foretaste of eternal life and eternal blessedness” while still on Earth.1 This
Mysticism The word “mysticism” is not without its problems. In more recent times, we have come to associate the term with things that are less than godly. Christians often consider mysticism a mark of superstition and heresy, whether we are considering the Neoplatonic ritualism of the past or the crystals and tarot cards of the present.c During the golden days of the Church—the Apostolic Age—however, the word held very different implications for Christians. The Church Fathers defined Christian mysticism as a precious gift brought to us by the Holy Spirit that allows us to know Christ when we meditate on the scriptures and on the work of God. Some Christians, though, may object to the principles of mysticism on account of the doctrine of unmerited grace. After all, it is counter-scriptural to suppose that human beings can attain spiritual redemption through their own effort rather than Trans. Susanna Winkworth, Chapter VII; 2 John 18:26; Matthew 11:3
1
3
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through God’s will alone. Emphasis on meditation, in particular, raises such suspicions. Luther, however—the originator of sola fide—was himself an admirer of mysticism; he was particularly influenced by a movement of German medieval theologians known as the Rhineland Mystics.d The Rhineland Mystics, among other things, stressed the importance of the transcendent experiences that I have described. They rejected medieval asceticism, a tradition of extreme self-mortification for the purpose of spiritual devotion. In doing so, they correctly recognized that mysticism and asceticism are not to be conflated; we cannot buy God’s mystical revelation with bodily deprivation. We must think of our mystical bonding with God as a treasure that He has brought to us by sheer grace. We can collect this treasure simply by retreating to a private place and holding our peace as the Lord’s presence touches our souls. This withdrawal only requires as much effort as bringing ourselves into the midst of a congregation when we seek to experience the communal facets of the Holy Spirit. An Exhortation Make no mistake—I am by no means calling for the Church to turn away from public ministries and its pursuit of civic justice. Rather, I am calling us to beautify our work among men by bringing ourselves closer to our foundation. God is the cornerstone on which we build our own edifice, and the best means to know this Cornerstone is by retreating into seclusion with God’s own Spirit. We multiply our hope in heaven when we take glimpses into heaven itself, and we amplify
our understanding of justice when we experience God’s just perfection first-hand. Let us not forget that John’s public ministries would have been bankrupt without the spiritual wealth that he had attained through mystical devotion. Christ certainly would not have regarded him as the greatest among men if his spiritual knowledge was not cultivated during his time alone with the Holy Spirit. Likewise, our public pursuit of justice would be all but dead if we allow ourselves to grow distant from God. Let us, therefore, be brought into the proximity of the Creator, free from any distraction brought upon us by created things.
Although Christians often describe the Holy Spirit as a force, this does not negate His personhood. a
I am referring to Jesus’ words in describing John not as, “a reed shaken by the wind” and “a man dressed in soft clothing,” but as an austere prophet. (Matthew 11:7). b
This “Neoplatonic ritualism” is epitomized by the magical invocations prescribed by the pagan philosopher Iamblicus. c
Sola fide is Latin for faith alone, Luther’s (and later Protestants’) belief that one does not need to do works to contribute to one’s salvation. d
Article written by He Li, TD ‘17 History
Monism vs. Trinitarianism: Justice in God’s Very Nature by Max Graham
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ages and pages have been written exploring Christianity’s relation to Justice. The articles in this issue scratch the surface of this deep and intriguing relationship. However, instead of talking about how a certain Christian doctrine informs our view of Justice, I intend to address what Christianity in general offers about the nature of God that makes Justice integral and compare it with another commonly held worldview. Although worldviews are nuanced and should not be simplified hastily, I will compare
the following two: Monism and Trinitarianism. Much to do about Monism Monism, simply put, is the view that “Everything is One.” It attempts to create a unifying picture of reality by doing just that...unifying reality. The advantage this view has over other views is that it’s relatively easy to defend. You just deny your opponents’ ability to offer a counter-example. “There is no imaginable counter-example,” you think to yourself, “everything is just part of the One.” What about the diversity of creation?—They are merely reflections of the essential unity of the world. What about the Self?—It is merely your own connection to the One. What about change? It is a misinterpretation of the steady, underlying nature of the
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world. Notice the use of the word “merely” in all of the situations above. Monism seems to do more in explaining away phenomena rather than explaining them. It is always unfruitful business to go around to people saying this or that is “nothing but” this other thing. You might convince yourself of this, but you will have a harder time convincing others. Yet, the presence of Monism seems to be on the rise in our culture. Many people have turned to various Eastern religions, which more or less commit themselves to this type of worldview. Many devotees to this view, however, do not see the
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The pattern of diversity that we see in the universe did not spring up randomly, but rather reflects the inner nature of its Creator.
consequences of their beliefs on their understanding of Justice. So, how does Monism relate to our conception of Justice? There are two problems which I can see from the start with Monism giving an account of Justice. First, it seems that all of the images we can think up regarding Justice have to do with a relation between two things, whether it involves relations between an individual and another individual, or between an individual and society, nature, or some sort of cosmic deity. I myself cannot seem to conceptualize a situation where a singular being is just when there is nothing around to be just towards. This might be my own inability to conceive this, but I believe it hints at the truth. Either way, this is a difficulty for Monism. If we are committed to the fact that Justice is real, then we should not assert that distinctions are illusory. If John is supposed to act justly towards Will, then John and Will must be distinct from each other. You can hold the notion that “Everything is One,” or you could hold the notion that distinctions are real and that Justice is objectively real, but you cannot hold both at the same time. The second difficulty lies in the fact that we also connect Justice with the existence of two realities.
There is the reality here and now of those things around us, of the contingent facts that make up our day-to-day existence—of what the world “is.” Then, there is the reality of what the world “should be.” We cannot seem to shake the desire to see the world in these two lights. Without it, there is no hope of changing for the better—which is really to say changing the first to become the second. And, if we allow the existence of these two realities then Monism has lost all of its main force. There is no use in talking of the Oneness of reality while at the same time suggesting its division between “what is” and “what should be.” The Trinity’s Solution Christian Trinitarianism does not struggle with this problem of distinctions. There are two reasons for this. First, Christianity, unlike Monism, loves making distinctions. By distinctions I do not mean judgments on whether one thing is superior to another; every religion has those. What I mean is the distinguishing of two things, noting their inherent differences, and rejoicing in those differences. In the creation of the world, Genesis seems to focus our attention on God’s acts of separation—the separation between sky and water, plants and animals, humans and beasts. In each division, God was not commenting on the moral superiority of one over the other. By creating the oceans, he was not criticizing the sky, or showing his preference for the sea creatures. Rather, the diversity of creation brought out the splendor of creation. God’s blessing that “It was good” filled the world, and we have all thereason to believe that “It” meant all of it. That is part of the reason why Christianity does not run into the same problem as Monism. Essential differences really exist between things, and that is why we can really relate to one another and act justly. But there is another reason for Christianity’s friendly relationship to Justice. Not only does Christianity say that God created the world with distinctions, but that God Himself is eternally distinct in Persons. That is the Trinitarian God— Three Persons yet One Being. The pattern of diversity that we see in the universe did not spring up randomly, but rather reflects the inner nature of its Creator. In this Trinity, Justice is perfectly embodied between the Persons. The Son is subservient to the Father, and the Father, in turn, glorifies the Son, in a cycle of endless love and self-
giving. So, rather than a divine commandment that is arbitrarily imposed on us from above, God wants us to act justly purely because it will make us more like Him. In the end, Trinitarianism, unlike Monism, satisfies our desire for real Justice. Article written by Max Graham, MC ‘18 Physics and Philosophy
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The Nicene Creed WE believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. WE believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father; through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation He came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate, He suffered death and was buried, and rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. He ascended into Heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and His kingdom will have no end. WE believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets. WE believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. WE confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins and we look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.
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