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Religion or Justice? Chicken or Fish? Could religion mean justice or do they contradict one another? Are religion and justice compatible with the violence? People have been trying to find the answers to these complicated questions since the ancient times. The relations of religion with the human laws were the subject of study of writers, philosophers and theological scholars.
Nobody was able to prove the adequacy of religion to justice. A history of mankind shows that religion was the main reason of the majority of wars in the history of civilization, or at least the formal cause of the wars. Such reasons have been traced from the crusades of the 11 th century to Ulster and September 9 / 11. If we assume that the main religious domain is the fate and the fate is governed by God then everything which is going on is just. Therefore justice is a manifestation of fate. A fate may be ironical.
A fate is unavoidable. The relations between the justice and religion were the theme of the classic of the ancient Greek tragedy Sophocles. The topics of the fate and religion are in the centre of the tragedy Oedipus Rex. The justice is blind according to Sophocles, and the Gods have the right to punish innocent. But if we generalize an individual to the entire mankind which is sinful from the fall of the first man then the justice is the notion which could be interpreted by God only. If the fate is supposed to be just then it may play tricks with people as it has played with Oedipus.
The Greeks did not expect justice from the. Even on heavens the holy dynasties were changeable. The Greeks were concerned only of not angering and praising the. That was the Greece piety 1. Oedipus killed his father in strange circumstances. He did not know that Laius was his father.
The fate plays the cruel game with Oedipus. He marries Jocasta without knowing that she was his mother. This is another terrible trick of the fate. The play of Sophocles is the story of search of the Oedipus identity. He is facing a never-ending question Who am I?
He is not a sinner because the fate puts him in the situations from which he can not find the way out. The plague epidemic made people apply to their king because he once succeeded to save them from a disaster. The main paradox of the play is that a man is free but he is under the fate which may do anything with the person, so the humans freedom is restricted by his fate which is in its turn restricted by nothing. If we assume that there is nothing in the world which may guide the fate then the fate is the Gods providence. It may be unjust to the individual but it is just for the entire mankind. This is a weak argument to support the justice of religion which is sometimes beyond understanding of people suffering from their fate.
Vengeance does not correspond to the justice in our perception, but it is indicated in the Bible, Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. That means that the religion assumes Vengeance, i. e. injustice. It is difficult to judge about the justice of religion because religion is very convenient to approve any deed.
A theory of just and unjust wars contradicts to the religious justice. If we assume that the life is an utmost gift of God, then it may be taken by God only and nobody else. The law is taking the Gods function to sentence to death. By sentencing to execution the justice contradicts to the Gods will if it is not accepted that the death sentence is the Gods will. If we consider the justice as a legal category then it is a domain of state.
According to Thomas Hobbes a man transfers a part of his natural rights to the sovereign (a state) to provide the natural law. But when the state sends a man to war or sentences him to death it breaks the agreement between the individual and sovereign to provide his natural right. man can transferred his Right to save himself from Death, Wounds, and Imprisonment 2. According to Martin Luther King a law can be just in face and unjust in application 3. That means that the law can be just in its essence and unjust in its implementation. That is, the provisions of law can be just but the interpretation may be unjust.
The situation is terrible when people apply the conventional religious law gaining their political goals as it occurs in some Islamic countries. Thus, the 35 -year-old divorcee from a poor village in northern Nigeria was convicted of adultery because she was found to be pregnant and was sentenced to death by stoning 4. Muslim religion is different from Christian but it conveys the principles of justice similar to those advocated by the Christian one. The Sharia law may seem barbarian but this law is introduced as a religious one. What kind of justice may be discussed while speaking on the Sharia law? Meanwhile this is the indication of the Gods providence, at least it is declared like this.
Still, in case with the greatest American, Martin Luther King, he did not divide people according to the racial principle as it was done by the official justice and indicated that When I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery, Alabama, a few years ago, I felt we would be supported by the white church felt that the white ministers, priests and rabbis of the South would be among our strongest allies... 5 At the same time other religious leaders distanced themselves from the racial segregation issues. It may be assumed that very often the relations of religion and justice are expressed by people who are supposed to bring the word of God, but they are only people, not the Gods prophets and they may commit mistakes. The theme of justice and religion or the justice versus religion is in the centre of the Blakes poem Chimney Sweeper. The second part of the verse is especially shocking. The boy says it was Because I was happy his parents condemned him to his early death. The most important in the poem is that the parents went to church to praise God.
Blake intentionally opposes religion to justice. What can be more unjust than the death of a child and praising the God for success at the same time? And because I am happy, & dance & sing, They think they have done me no injury: And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King Who make up a heaven of our misery 6. The conflict between the religion and justice is obvious, but Blake blames not the religion as it is but he associates it with the official ideology. He speaks of God in the same context as of priest and king. This seems to be the main clue to the relations of justice and religion.
A human being needs religion because people need to develop themselves thus improving themselves. The religion is the way of the human improvement; it is a moral code of humanity. Religion is just in its essence but it may be unjust in its interpretation. It is worth recollecting the medieval Holy Inquisition, the crusades, 9 / 11 catastrophe and other unjust events done in the name of God.
It is worth recollecting massacres committed by the Nazi SS superhuman's who had the engraving God mit Uns (God With Us) on their belt plates. One can hardly recollect any war in the history of mankind which would not touch the religious issue. When Hannah Arendt studied the case of the Nazi Eichman who eliminated the Jews under the same slogan (God Mit Uns), she proved the necessity of the death penalty for Eichman stating that Eichmann did not want to share the Earth with the Jews and that means that the Jews are not obliged to share the earth with him 7... The religion and the justice are not the same phenomenon. If we assume that religion is just, then the way it is interpreted may not be just. Justice, being the state domain is utilizing religion, conventional codes and laws to adapt itself to the aims of the ruling majority.
Bibliography Sophocles, Oedipus the King, ISBN: 1416500332 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan; Penguin Classics; New Ed edition (February 25, 1982) ISBN: 0140431950 Martin Luther King, Letter from Birmingham Jail, available at web retrieved 23. 04. 2005 Stephan Faris, Religion and Justice in Nigeria, March 18, 2002, available at web retrieved 23. 04. 2005 William Blake, The Chimney Sweeper (Songs of Experience), 1794, available at http: // 165. 29. 91. 7 /classes / humanities /britain/ 97 - 9 8 /blake/POEMS. htm; Stephen J. Whitfield, Hannah Arendt, available at web Citation Sophocles Thomas Hobbes Martin Luther King Stephan Faris Martin Luther King William Blake Stephen J. Whitfield
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