Immanuel Kant was a philosopher in the late 1700's and early 1800's. His famous work, Critique of Pure Reason, argued that you can't prove by reason the existence of God. True or not, Kant went on to argue that without objective, ultimate justice, there is no basis for morality. And, he argued, objective, ultimate justice required a God ... like the God of the Bible. Fast forward 220 years or so, and we take another peek at the concept of "justice." The entire Trump scene has highlighted a dark secret in recent years. We call it "lawfare" -- using the legal system to take down political opponents. A perversion of justice, using the justice system.
Why did Kant argue for the need for ultimate justice? Because human justice can be perverted, twisted, abused. As it often is. It's interesting, too, that Paul says the righteousness of God is revealed in the Gospel, because "righteousness" and "justice" are the same word in the New Testament. That "justice" includes God's wrath (Rom 1:18) and Christ's perfect sacrifice on our behalf, enabling God to be both just and justifier (Rom 3:24-26). Since "mercy" is the opposite of justice, Christ's shedding His blood on our behalf made it possible for sin to be paid (justice) and justification by faith to occur (mercy).
Here's the thing. Ours is an amazing position. John wrote, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). "All unrighteousness." Paul wrote, "For our sake He (God) made Him (Christ) to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Cor 5:21). And we know, "Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died — more than that, who was raised — who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us" (Rom 8:33-34). Perfect justice meets perfect mercy for all time. That's a really big deal.
5 comments:
Christianity is the only religion or worldview that answers the problem of keeping justice intact while allowing mercy to be applied. For all other religions, justice must be ignored in order to allow for mercy. As long as your "good" deeds outnumber your bad, then God will simply overlook the bad ones and let you into heaven. Justice is destroyed in that view, and this God is neither just not good in so doing.
I have noticed what you termed “lawfare” going on in our nation--I did not realize it had a name! (I recall that a sort of “tit for tat” occurred back at the beginning of 2017 and 2021, too, when each new president moved quickly to undo his predecessor’s efforts to a degree.) Also, just yesterday I learned of the incident of the female clergy member urging Trump to “have mercy” on the members of the fringe groups the new administration will not continue to exalt; she clearly doesn’t understand “mercy”--or “justice.” (I don’t think the politicians do, either.) In any event, thanks for highlighting perfect justice and perfect mercy--the kind extended from God’s Hand, which will last for eternity (rather than bounce back and forth and all around with each new political administration). God’s righteousness is the true morality, justice, mercy, grace, forgiveness, love, and peace--and every other good thing we all need so much.
As it happens, this morning I was emailed a link to an article at Creation.com (authored by Dr. Jonathan Sarfati) about logic. This excerpt from the article strikes me as very relevant to the “lawfare” you mentioned today--and the over-reactionary behavior on display now.
Politicians’ logic
On the astute British television political sitcom, Yes, Prime Minister (episode ‘Power to the People,’ 1988), two head civil servants (Sir Arnold Robinson and Sir Humphrey Appleby) illustrated ‘politicians’ logic’. They were discussing one of the latest proposals by the Prime Minister, Jim Hacker. They boiled Hacker’s argument down to:
1. Something must be done
2. This is something
3. Therefore, we must do this.
This argument is fallacious. How can we work this out? Often, a good way to spot a fallacy is to substitute terms while keeping the same form of argument. Yes, Prime Minister did this brilliantly. As pointed out in the episode, this type of argument has the same form as this logically invalid one:
1. All cats have four legs
2. My dog has four legs
3. Therefore, my dog is a cat.
This example is a formal fallacy: the conclusion does not follow from the premises. Both premises are true. But the problem is there is nothing in either premise that says that only cats have four legs. Therefore the conclusion, which is also false, doesn’t follow. Another form of politician’s logic is:
1. To improve things, things must change
2. We are changing things
3. Therefore, we are improving things.
The term ‘politicians’ logic’ is well deserved--far too many politicians use it. The major theme of the Yes, Prime Minister series (and its prequel, Yes, Minister) was satirizing real-life self-interested behaviours of politicians and bureaucrats. This is actually the subject of serious study, called public choice theory--however, Yes, Minister was much more entertaining.
(end of excerpt)
Lawfare is not undoing previous deeds. Lawfare is when the powers that be put their opponents on trial to silence them or terminate their threat. Like putting Tump on trial for improper bookkeeping by first making a new law to extend the statute of limitations and making it a felony, then putting Stormy Daniels on the stand to testify about nothing at all having to do with the question of bookkeeping, and, finally, scheduling his sentencing (which was a farce) just before his inauguration so he would be a felon. This is abuse of the legal system to harm an opponent. "Lawfare."
It’s funny--before I comment, I almost always do a little research (if necessary) about things mentioned in your posts, but this time I didn’t, as I thought you coined that term. So I just applied it in a manner I thought was applicable and relevant. And from your first paragraph, it wasn’t at all clear to me who was harassing whom! Thanks for the clarification all around.
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