Recently I wrote on Social Justice, contrasting modern versus biblical. Commenter Craig pointed out that the modern version focuses more on outcomes and the biblical version focuses more on process. I think it's worth examining.
It's interesting to me that in God's Word He makes commands but rarely talks about outcomes of those commands. Of course, there are consequences for failing to obey those commands, but not what the expected product of obedience to those commands would be. We are commanded, for instance, to love God, but beyond a sort of "that it may well with you" outcome, we don't get any particulars. We are commanded, "You shall not commit adultery" (Exo 20:14) but not "because obedience will produce these results and and failure will produce those problems." We can figure some of this out, but God didn't specify it in His Word. In fact, Jesus suggests that we are obedient because we love Him rather than obeying Him in order to love Him (John 14:15). When the Bible speaks of rewards (e.g., 2 Tim 2:8; 1 Peter 5:4; Rev 2:10), they aren't viewed as products of obedience -- the aim or end of obedience -- but rather as rewards to return to our Lord (Rev 4:10). Now, we can certainly deduce a variety of positive outcomes from obeying God and negative outcomes from defying God. That's clear enough. It's part of the nature of things. But it's not so easy to find the whys and wherefores of what outcomes we should expect for not stealing, for showing kindness, for loving our neighbor. Very few commands express an expected outcome.
These products of obedience, then, are not the point. Loving God and, as a consequence, loving others is. Obeying to the glory of God is (Matt 5:16). The process is important. In fact, loving God is defined as obedience (1 John 5:3). The result of loving God is that we will obey God. Thus, the process is in view here -- loving God as demonstrated in obeying Him -- as opposed to the outcomes of obeying God. But, as is so often the case, our world has this all turned around. The current worldview dictates that outcome is the important thing. It's not "equal opportunity," for instance, that defines justice, but "equal outcome." If the outcome is not equal, it is clearly unjust. If a greater percentage of blacks are in prison than whites, it can only be because of racial inequity. If whites have more wealth than blacks, it is only due to racial inequity. The only way to achieve racial equity is to diminish the positive outcomes for whites and elevate the positive outcomes for non-whites. (Just examples.) Because our current worldview is more concerned about the product than the process. And God is more concerned about your motives than the outcome.
2 comments:
What’s interesting is when the Biblical writers talk about justice one of the common ways they talk about it, is in terms of impartiality. Yet so much of what we hear from the social justicicians is based on partiality.
Kind of links to the Anti-racism post.
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