Wendell Berry has written in Citizenship Papers " Even justice, without mercy ,forgiveness, and love is intolerable." Sleeth, In serve God, Save the Planet has voiced similar statements. Micah 6:08 says,"He has showed you,O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love mercy. and to walk humbly with your God." Doubtless there are innumerable other statements like this that I am unaware of. It is a subject worth thought.
Where can I find the need for justice and mercy in my everyday life? When I eat in a restaurant I should give a fair tip to the waiter (waitress). She is working and has to live ,too. Mercy might provide a larger than necessary tip, or an adequate tip even if service was not so good. (She may be just starting or having a bad day.) I should give the benefit of doubt. After all, I will receive recompense based on what I did and thought, not what someone else did or thought.
When I am stopped for speeding and instead of a ticket, receive a warning (could it be my white hair?), that is clearly mercy.
Since I began mulling this topic several days ago, I have become more confused, not less. Virtually all the examples I came up with related to either legal or religious matters. The other examples seemed to fall more in the realm of kindness rather than justice/mercy.
So... what do you think? Give me some input. Posting to comments will allow me to edit and also easily make your thoughts avaiale to everyone who cares to look.
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The Justice Principle is central to civilized life. The Golden Rule, in one form or another, has been around since Hammurabi and is a basic tenet in every major religion in the world. It is our fundamental belief that to be treated fairly is to be treated by others no worse than we would treat them or that they would treat themselves. If we are to be civilized we need some basis for playing nice.
ReplyDeleteIt is natural that the Justice Principle is then the fundamental root of our system of laws. By extension we believe that justice must be equally applied to all. And it must be proportional to the harm or the benefit. So we assume that no one is above or beyond the Principle of Justice and that equality will be preserved. Almost by definition this is a naïve concept as compliance and enforcement are dependent on human responses. Human behavior is, after all, human; i. e., naturally self centered. Better people behave better and the rest behave badly. , So, legal and social justice will always be determined in light of some personal perspective and will always be less than perfect.
But then, thank God, there is mercy. To be treated justly is to be treated fairly (be given our due or “just” deserts); whereas, to be treated mercifully is to be given more good than we deserve. Justice comes from an innate sense of fairness. Mercy comes from compassion. Alternately stated, justice is a rational action, whereas mercy cannot be rationalized by some balance of benefits and cost. Mercy involves the heart of man. It moves beyond the secular and comes directly from the spiritual. Alexander Pope is credited for saying that “to err is human; to forgive, divine”. Human judgments (meeting the Principle of Justice) are prone to error. We often fail in playing nice because of self. But divine inspiration allows is to go beyond, and to be merciful, to forgive.
Glad to see you liked “Serve God, Save the Planet”. It makes us all question our fairness and our lack of compassion.
guf
Well, almost all subjects/things we do everyday have a moral
ReplyDeletedimension and a chance for what Aaron and I call structural violence,a term from anthropology. The example I always cite is
malaria vaccinnation. One vaccine costs 6 dollars, but the way the
global healthcare is structured, even with millions in aid, somehow
the vaccines don't get to the people who need them. Where does
the fallout stop? Are the people who buy cellphones whose parts
require the killing of gorilla culpable? How about when you don't call one of your friends when you think they might be down? Justice, the way Berry uses it, I think mean %100 fair, competely evenhand.
Unlike politicians who want us to believe that we deserve everything
all the time, and so we require an empire, he says that we are bound
to sin, and recieve less than we need and want and are standing first in the need of forgivemess and love from the get-go. Me, I don't really try to deal with people using justice. I just do what I want to, and sometimes it is merciful, but sometimes it isn't even fair.
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ReplyDeleteJustice seems to me to be an Old Testament concept, basically relying on the Ten Commandments. Mercy is God’s domain. From the example of the life of Christ, Christians are taught that the goal of our lives is to live in “love” – agape love. The goal is elusive, but what a world it would be if we even tried to reach it.
ReplyDeleteI will be pondering these ideas further, but I think trying to incorporate all of humanity’s dealings with each other into justice, kindness, etc., will only muddy the waters. God’s teachings are clear. Then again, not everyone believes in God – or His Son. Where do we go from there? Christians are taught that we are to spread His Message.