What is Justice?

In families and other deep relationships, the question is not whether we will wound each other, but how we will respond when we wound and when we’re wounded.

Sometimes we throw tiny pebbles at each other that we can mostly ignore. Sometimes we take aim with sharp rocks that bruise and draw blood. And sometimes we break each others’ hearts with boulders so crushing it feels like we’ll never breathe again.

In pre-marital counseling I encourage couples to imagine such wounds, and to reflect on how their vows are intended to shape their view of justice. What will you do when you’ve inflicted pain? What will you do when the one you love crushes you? How will you embody justice in your life so that the world learns what the word means?

If we think about justice in our personal relationships, then it’s daunting to imagine how we entrench justice in the laws we create.

Many think that justice is about retribution. “If you commit murder, then justice means that you will go to prison for the rest of your life.” Or, “they crossed the border without due process, so justice demands that they be penalized so that we don’t reward non-compliance with our laws.” Retribution for our offenses — thatʼs perhaps the most common conception of justice I hear from folks when I ask them to define the word.

As I contemplate our Christian story, and especially the Christ on a cross, I learn that justice is not about retribution, but transformation.

• First, justice looks back in time to address old wounds, rectifying and healing our broken relationships, correcting and making restitution for past wrongs.
• Second, justice looks forward, imagining how the impossible might become possible, resurrecting our hope for tomorrow.
• Third, justice often enacts unmerited grace, an amazing grace given so that a new tomorrow dawns.

In other words, everything I need to know about justice, I learn from Easter: it does whatever is necessary to bring about a new beginning, so we can walk together as friends. It’s the point at which love and truth meet, where righteousness and peace kiss (Ps 85:10).

And that transformative justice is the highest value by which we evaluate our laws.

Just laws provide the context for you and me to address each other, especially in our disputes, as equals, and for groups and individuals to address each other in the same way (Pettit, 77).

Justice, it turns out, restores broken relationships to equality and freedom.

When I am just, I affirm you as one whom God has already declared ‘beloved.’ Who am I to call God a liar! When I am just, I similarly treat you as one whom our American creed has already declared my equal.

When our laws are just, we establish — and have the transformative means to re-establish when necessary — the context necessary for us to live side-by-side as neighbors who refuse to dominate one another because in the face of the other, we meet our equal.

Pettit, Phillip. 2013. On the People’s Terms: A Republican Theory and Model of Democracy. The Seeley Lectures. Cambridge University Press.

If you liked this, click the💚 below so other people will see this here on Medium.