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Political Theology 2: Social Justice
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 April 2024
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The gospel preached by Jesus promised the liberation of man and woman, both Jew and Gentile (see Matt. 11: 4-6; 12: 18-21; Luke 3: 4-6; 4: 18-21; 6: 20-23). Essential to this liberation — though not the whole of it — is liberation from injustice and oppression. Since this is what people do to one another, the gospel promises the rectification of human communal living. Salvation itself consists in belonging to the redeemed people of God, living according to his will. Human beings are not saved one by one, on their merits, but by their becoming members of a a new people raised from the dead in Jesus Christ. So belonging to this people is salvation for those who were oppressed and salvation too for those who were their oppressors, in so far as they have repented of their injustices and learned to live in a different way. But if men do learn to practise justice, it is not this which saves them, but their belonging to Christ. Justice as it is ordinarily understood — a respect for the rights of others — is not saving in itself. Nor would a society which faultlessly observed the demands of this justice be equivalent to the Kingdom of God. Jesus in his preaching demanded something greater than this justice (see Matt. 5: 17-48; Luke 6: 27-38; Matt. 25: 31-46). Matt. 25: 31-46). But it is not adequate to identify this “some-thing greater” as love, in the sense of virtue distinct from justice. We cannot, like some modem philosophers, make a sharp distinction between the virtue of justice, having to do with rights, and the virtue of love and benevolence, which is supererogatory. (The scriptural reasons for not making this sharp distinction in theology are discussed in my article, “A Christian View of Justice” in New Blackfriars, August 1978).
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- Copyright © 1980 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
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1 It is perhaps observations of this kind which cause liberal conservative theorists such as Hayek (as discussed by Weislaw Lang, “Marxism, Liberalism and Justice” in Kamenka and Tay op. cit. pp 116-148) to declare that the moral concept of desert has no place in the distribution mechanisms of a free society. The value of people’s work is “articulated in the price which people are ready to pay for service, regardless of the moral deserts of the people rendering the services. There is no link between commutative justice (the only form of justice) and the personal circumstances, virtues, needs and desires of the parties” (Lang p 131). On this theory, social justice is a mirage, interfering with the natural working of the market society. It introduces morality where it can only cause damage and loss of freedom to individuals. Moral concepts like justice only have a place in interpersonal relationships. This position, while being fundamentally amoral, is more honest than the conventional one which attributes real moral significance to a person’s rise or fall in the market society. But it is also incoherent, since the freedom of a few is only gained at the expense of the slavery of the majority.
2 Miller rejects this possibility on the ground of sociological ‘facts’: i.e. that the working class are no more egalitarian in their ideals and practices than are the middle class. But a Marxist would say that questions of this kind cannot be answered by reliance on sociological research into the ideals and motives of people in present society. These ideals and motives are conditioned by ideologies and the possibilities open to people and do not reflect a permanent “human nature” which has to be taken into account in all possible societies.
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