A Debate (Part Two) - Justice or Fairness?

You may remember that in my last post I mentioned an attempt was made at distinguishing justice from fairness.

Now, when it comes to justice and fairness, I don't believe there is a difference. And there doesn't seem to be a distinction between the two in God's Word: different versions of the Bible translate the same Aramaic word as either "just" or "fair", implying that these words mean the same and are interchangeable. Similarly, the Oxford Thesaurus* list "just" and "fair" as synonyms for each other and the Oxford Dictionary* defines the word "just" as "right or fair; deserved".

Case closed. Yet there is still doubt as to God's true justice.

An example used in our Life Group session to explain God's justice was as follows:

"If you picture God as a parent (which He in fact is, in a supernatural, heavenly sense – something to ponder), at dinnertime He will stand with a big bowl of dessert and dish up equal amounts for each of His children."

Now, while I fully believe that God loves each of us equally, I do not agree with this analogy.

I know that we live in an imperfect world and we are not all going to get the same opportunities, talents or rewards. For that matter, we are not all going to experience the same challenges, setbacks or heartaches either.

But God does promise that we will never get more than we can handle (good – Matthew 25:29 & Luke 12:48 – or bad – 1 Corinthians 10:13).

God also gave us free will for us to make our own decisions and so much of what we experience is due to the choices made by ourselves and others.

God does not micro-manage our lives. He does not tell us where to work, who to be friends with or who to marry.

Going back to the example of earlier, God as a parent at dinnertime will hand the whole bowl of dessert over to His children and say, "Here you go, divide this up amongst yourselves and make sure you all get an equal amount".

Whether we listen to Him and share equally is up to us.

*Oxford University Press. 2007. Oxford Paperback Dictionary & Thesaurus. Oxford, Great Britain. 331, 502.