How do we understand God’s design of justice within humanity?
“When we acknowledge Him as Lord, we recognize His ownership of our lives. In accepting His ownership, we must submit to His will. We must relinquish all rights to our lives, holding nothing back. There must be no reservations (Matt. 16:24). Just calling Him “Lord” doesn’t mean you are allowing Him to be that. You must recognize His right to that place in your life.”
—Millie Stamm
How to Live Life Well
My life has included a search for many “how-tos.” For example, how to:
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- be a Christian man in today’s society,
- parent well,
- be successful,
- live authentically with others who aren’t,
- set boundaries and lovingly confront,
- have a healthy family,
- have a great marriage,
- express anger and anxiety healthily, and
- be myself.
No matter which area I consider, I have to come to find that living life well “simply” has four features:
- Becoming relentlessly honest, curious, and connected with myself to understand who God created me to be.
- Becoming relentlessly honest, curious, and connected with a community of others who share similar, as well as different, life visions.
- Most importantly, becoming relentlessly honest, curious, and connected with God to understand who He is and His nature of His creation.
- Understanding God did not create all three features to exist alone but in synchrony.
These four features left me with the question, “How do I do these well?” God and many people helped guide me to one of the key answers to that question: understanding the relationship of God’s design of justice and love. For the scope of this article, I will expound on Micah 6:8 and other supplemental resources to focus on the design of justice, especially regarding being in relationship.
Naming Justice, Injustice, and Their Consequences
“And He has showed you, oh man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly (prudently) with your God.” [1]
—Micah 6:8
Earlier I believed, “this is the way to live life…just be good by doing what is right and just, and that is the Lord’s requirement.” However, I did not fully understand justice until understanding our God-given, inalienable rights.
Justice
Inalienable rights are “incapable of being alienated, surrendered, or transferred.” [2] This means no one can take away our rights to being human; however, we can neglect our rights and abuse others. There are extensive amounts of inalienable rights. For example, Thomas Jefferson, who was influenced by British philosopher John Locke, helped found America on unalienable rights, namely life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.[3] John Locke, stated our inalienable rights are life, liberty, and property. However, these inalienable rights seem vague and directionless without further context.
Four Virtues from the Philosophers
Aristotle, born in 384 BC, helps provide more direction through his work on ethics, elaborating Plato’s four virtues that describe what a “good” man requires, which are[4]:
- Prudence—the mother of all virtues—the perfected ability to decide what is good (wisdom)
- Justice—the virtue that regulates all relationships—knowing what is good by giving every person their due rights (prudence in action, so we can live in harmony and peace)
- Temperance—not giving one’s self over to excess (self-control)
- Fortitude—the willingness to risk suffering, which is the virtue that protects the four virtues by empowering one’s self to put the virtues into action (courage)
“In the Protagoras, Socrates holds that ‘whoever learns what is good and what is bad will never be swayed by anything to act otherwise than as knowledge (episteme) bids, and that intelligence (phronesis) is a sufficient succor for mankind” (352c4-8). It follows, then, that failures of human beings are always a matter of ignorance.'” [5]
This text is not altruistic, given the caveat is Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle did not account for the dynamic of sin causing selfishness and pride to inhibit living virtuously. They also did not account for the God-given gifts of faith, hope, and love to help combat our selfishness. However, the premise is that we do not know what is just, we do not know what is good, and we do not have the ability to be just and “walk prudently and humbly”.
Most of us have experienced this in relationships where someone is guilty of injustice towards us and apologizes blindly. Yet, the apology does not resonate because the justice has not been named well or at all. By knowing our inalienable rights, we can name what is just and unjust.
Biblical Inalienable Rights
The Bible lists several inalienable rights and ways to act justly to which Aristotle helps summarize them into three[6]:
- Freedom of will—honoring a person’s choice, opinion, and truth by listening to understand
- Imperishability—honoring a person’s humanity and desires by not taking one’s life such as objectifying or murdering
- Responsibility and ownership of oneself and property—each person honoring their well-being emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and physically.
Injustice
When we do not honor a person and their due rights, we have committed an injustice and are indebted to the person we hurt. We are indebted to that person and God because our actions have gone against that person’s humanity as well as to God’s commands and design. If we do not own ourselves and the hurts we cause, our actions can communicate messages such as “I am a more special human; my needs are superior to yours; I am above God’s design; I know better; therefore I am God” leaving the offended person not honored or respected. When injustice is not owned and amended, bitterness, grudges, distrust, contempt, and resentment can begin to grow and fester, like a splinter that creates an infection that impacts much of our body.
Examples of Injustice
The list includes, but is not limited to:
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Dishonoring a person’s will or voice.
This includes gossiping, interrupting, speaking for the other person when they have the ability to speak, judging, and shaming a person. A guiding quote to help name injustice is: “Don’t answer a question that hasn’t been asked.” Unsolicited feedback can become an injustice. For example, saying, “You ought, you need, or you should…” without permission to speak into their situation can be a micro-injustice. It may communicate the message: “I know life and what’s best for you more than you do.” This dethrones God and takes away a person’s autonomy. Even if a person does “know better” or knows more than the other, the way we communicate and relate can be unjust, despite the content being truthful. This can lead to “voicelessness” or beliefs that children are to be seen, not heard. This, in turn, can lead the offended person to isolation or disconnection due to fear of sharing opinions, suppressed emotions that lead to hostility, lack of boundaries and autonomy, and depression.
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Dishonoring a person’s life includes objectifying a person.
We see this through pornography, lust, assault, slavery, unjust workplace, murder, and war. These actions dehumanize a person so that their soul, spirit, and body are not respected and used for another person’s benefit. Whenever we say, “You…./you are….,” we must be slow and careful with our words because we have the possibility of defamation or naming a person unjustly. Further, whenever a person dishonors another through objectification, the offender can communicate, “I am worth more than your life; I have more value than your life, or my humanity is more important.” This can lead to intense shame, suicidality, addiction, objectification of self, and therefore others. Other possibilities include indifference toward humanity, hunger for power and control, revenge, narcissism, or excessive pride, so we aren’t harmed again. It may also result in the sense of entitlement, addiction, and a severe amount of other consequences.
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Dishonoring a person’s responsibility and lack of ownership presents a polarity.
A person that doesn’t honor and own themselves can be irresponsible and have no accountability or become overly responsible and too accountable. The consequence, despite the polarities, is the person does not take care of themself and their innate needs. Examples of this are dishonesty and manipulation, judging and shaming another person, avoiding or ignoring injustice (James 4:17), gossiping, blaming-shifting, not apologizing for the injustice done, speaking up for another, holding grudges (Lev. 19:18), slander, plagiarism, wrongfully accusing, stealing, disobedience toward an authority that is acting justly, and many others.
Whenever we say, “Don’t feel {emotion}, I’ll handle it,” and a person is able to handle responsibility, it can be a subtle injustice by taking away a person’s responsibility and ownership of themselves. It may communicate various messages such as, “Don’t be human and feel feelings. You are weak, you can’t do this on your own, you are less of a human, and I know better. It’s okay to keep being irresponsible. It’s your fault I did this and that I feel this way”.
On a related note, for parents who are unsure how to discipline an unjust child, please refer to my article, What to Do When You’re Child Won’t Listen. The dishonoring of responsibility and ownership of one’s self can lead to codependency, entitlement, depression, lack of resiliency and tolerance, lack of boundaries, taking care of everyone’s needs but their own, lack of confidence and identity, and several other consequences.
After reading this, you may feel overwhelmed with the subtleties and distinctions of injustices in your action towards others and others toward you. I ask you to remember, justice kept perfectly is impossible in this life. However, we can act justly and own ourselves in love and forgiveness to help restore humanity (2 Jn. 1:3-6, Rom. 12:18-19).
Serenity
How to “Stay on Your Side of the Street” and Have Serenity
Most of us avoid being honest and accountable to ourselves. We are ashamed of the reality of our sin and do not want an awareness of truth to expose our wicked thoughts, beliefs, and actions. However, it is crucial to be honest and accountable to ourselves and have others help us “stay on our side of the street.” By setting boundaries and focusing on controlling ourselves, we honor ourselves and inevitably others, therefore establishing serenity (Col. 3:15, Matt. 6:33, Rom. 14:17).
Living Justly
Some examples of living justly are as follows but not limited to:
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Honoring a person’s will includes listening to understand versus listening to respond.
Helpful statements to honor a person are, “Are you open to feedback?”, “Would you consider….”, “Would you be willing to….?”, “Can I push you, challenge you, encourage you, or suggest an idea?”, “Could we talk about….?”. These statements ask permission to “step onto the other person’s side of the street” lovingly and gently (Gal. 6:1). Also, reflectively listening with prompts such as, “So what you’re saying is….is that accurate?”; “I hear you say….did I get that right?”,“I don’t know what to say, but I’m here to listen “ are fundamental in honoring a person’s voice. These actions communicate, “I want to understand you, you are important and matter to me. I care about you. You’re not alone” (2 Cor. 13:11). The central aspect of honoring a person’s free will is curiosity and understanding.
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Honoring a person’s humanity and desires.
This includes statements like “What do you need?”; “How can I support you?”; “I’m with you, I’m proud of you, and I believe in you”; “I feel your feelings of….”; “I get you, you make sense to me”; and “I see you (reflection of what they are trying to accomplish).” These statements communicate sincerity and honesty in love (Rom 13:8, Gal. 5:13).
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Honoring a person’s own well-being.
This includes naming their feelings and expressing them to others; owning their injustices toward God and themselves and others with prompts such as, “I apologize, I own that I….”; expressing needs saying, “I need help, can you help me?”; relating well to others with statements such as “I can relate to that or I get that”, “I can imagine you feel….”, “For me, I….”, “In my experience….”; setting boundaries and limits of what a person is willing and not willing to do; forgiving a person and themselves; growing in humility and mercy; balancing taking of one’s needs as well as helping meet other’s true needs; not being responsible “for” another’s actions but being responsible “to” another. The core principle of honoring one’s self is serenity and speaking for ourselves through deep, honest awareness of the motivation of our hearts (Matt 7:5).
Benefits of Naming Justice and Acting Justly
First, naming justice and then acting justly leads to living “life on life’s terms,” serenely and lovingly. Therefore, the benefits are integrity, trust, intimacy, success, community, passion, stability, awareness, respect, autonomy, identity, resiliency, confidence, clarity, peace, joy, authority, safety, and authenticity, righteousness, and several others.
Written by:
Micah Mabe, MA MFT, APC
Roswell Location
micah@restorationcounselingatl.com, ext. 158
Micah comes from a Christian background and enjoys working with adolescents and families and couples. His focus is coming alongside families, adolescents, and teenagers who desire help and resolution. His other focus is helping couples who want to understand better and love their partner to enhance their marriage. He also helps couples in conflictual relationships struggling with disconnection and isolation.
Resources:
[1] Micah 6 (ESV) – He has told you, O. Retrieved from https://www.blueletterbible.org/esv/mic/6/8/t_conc_899008
[2] Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Inalienable. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved November 28, 2021, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/inalienable
[3] Hamilton, C. V. (2008, January 27). Why did Jefferson change “property” to the “Pursuit of Happiness”? History News Network. Retrieved November 29, 2021, from https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/46460.
[4] Aristotle, Ross, W. D., & Urmson, J. O. (1980). The Nicomachean ethics. Oxford (Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press.
[5] Krasovec, J. (2000). Plato’s and Plutarch’s Theories of Punishment. In Reward, punishment, and forgiveness: The thinking and beliefs of ancient Israel in the light of Greek and modern views (p. 716). essay, E. J. Brill.
[6] Brown, E. (2017, September 12). Plato’s ethics and politics in the republic. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved December 6, 2021, from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-ethics-politics/#EthiPartOneWhatJust.