Blog 4
This year we want to have a strong focus on missional justice. Over 5 weeks, we are reposting a helpful article from Tim Keller (Gospel in Life Q4 2020) looking at how the Bible critiques secular visions of justice. Last time, he critiqued “freedom” and “fairness” views of justice. In this blog he addresses “happiness” and “power”.
3. Utilitarian – “Happiness” A just society maximizes the greatest happiness for the greatest number.
This third theory, associated with John Stuart Mill, is not as influential in formal jurisprudence and yet its basic idea makes a great deal of intuitive sense to secular people. Arguably, utilitarianism dominates most public discourse over public policy, and lies behind many individual justice claims. In this view the essence of justice is the greatest happiness for the greatest number. This is another effort to have justice grounded not in moral absolutes but in some kind of “practical rationality.” If something makes the majority of people happy, then it is just. But where are the guardrails? Does it mean that anything the majority desires for happiness is ok? Utilitarians use the “harm principle” to create limits. They argue that people should be free to pursue whatever makes us happy as long as it doesn’t harm others. It is obvious, however, that there will be inevitable clashes over what makes people happy and so the final arbiter for Utilitarians is majority rule. Today, the news media relies heavily on utilitarianism when it argues, explicitly or implicitly, that polls tell us that most Americans now favor X—and therefore X is now OK. Utilitarianism is not as individualistic as the first two theories of justice—it is ‘majoritarian’. Indeed, many Utilitarians see individual rights as barriers to majority happiness. “If you believe in human rights, you are probably not a utilitarian”.[21]
Quick biblical analysis:
First, without a doctrine of creation, this view does not honor individuals as having a dignity that must not be violated. Could the majority of a national populace define their happiness in such a way that it can only be achieved if a minority of the population is put in internment camps? On the premises of Utilitarianism, that could easily be argued (and it was, in Nazi Germany and even in the U.S. with regard to Japanese-Americans during World War II).
Second, without a doctrine of sin, it naively assumes that what will make a majority happy can’t be something evil. Just because something makes a person happy, it doesn’t mean it is right to do it. Lots of foolish and cruel things can make us happy. Also, without an understanding of humans as souls and bodies, this view assumes “happiness” can be delivered by providing material goods and wealth and pleasures, when long wisdom across the cultures has recognized that this is inadequate for real happiness.
Finally, the “harm principle” is useless as any guide or as a barrier to abuse. The moment you say something is harmful, you are rooting your statement in some view of human nature—how human beings ought to live—and in some understanding of right and wrong. To say that something doesn’t harm anyone is based on some view of human nature and human purpose that is ultimately a matter of faith. Defenders of Jim Crow laws often used utilitarian arguments and the harm principle, telling African-Americans that segregation was not harmful, but was for their good. Without any moral absolutes—who is to say what is good for a minority? The majority–not the minority–gets to define it.
4. Postmodern–“Power” A just society subverts the power of dominant groups in favor of the oppressed.
The fourth justice theory in some ways is the newest on the scene, though it has an older pedigree. Drawing on the teaching of Karl Marx, what can be called postmodern Critical Theory has emerged very recently with its own account of justice which is sharply different from the others.[22] Because it has taken shape more recently and has come on the scene so forcefully, we will take more time to describe and interact with it.[23]
Postmodern critical theory argues:
First, the explanation of all unequal outcomes in wealth, well being, and power is never due to individual actions or to differences in cultures or to differences in human abilities, but only and strictly due to unjust social structures and systems. The only way to fix unequal outcomes for the downtrodden is through social policy, never by asking anyone to change their behavior or culture.[24]
Second, all art, religion, philosophy, morality, law, media, politics, education and forms of the family are determined not by reason or truth but by social forces as well. Everything is determined by your class consciousness and social location. Religious doctrine, together with all politics and law are always, at bottom, a way for people to get or maintain social status, wealth, and therefore power over others.
Third, therefore, reality is at bottom nothing but power. And if that is the case, then to see reality, power must be mapped through the means of “intersectionality.” The categories are race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity (and sometimes others). If you are white, male, straight, cisgender then you have the highest amount of power. If you are none of these at all, you are the most marginalized and oppressed–and there are numerous categories in the middle. Most importantly, each category toward the powerless end of the spectrum has a greater moral authority and a greater ability to see the way truly things are. Only powerlessness and oppression brings moral high ground and true knowledge. Therefore those with more privilege must not enter into any debate—they have no right or ability to advise the oppressed, blinded as they are by their social location. They simply must give up their power.
Fourth, the main way power is exercised is through language—through “dominant discourses.” A dominant discourse is any truth-claim, whether grounded in supposed reason and science or in religion and morality. Language does not merely describe reality—it constructs or creates it. Power structures mask themselves behind the language of rationality and truth. So academia hides its unjust structures behind talk of “academic freedom,” and corporations behind talk of “free enterprise,” science behind talk of “empirical objectivity”, and religion behind talk of “divine truth”. All of these seeming truth-claims are really just constructed narratives designed to dominate and, as such, they must be unmasked. Reasoned debate and “freedom of speech” therefore is out—it only gives unjust discourses airtime. The only way to reconstruct reality in a just way is to subvert dominant discourses—and this requires control of speech.
Fifth, cultures, like persons, can be mapped through intersectionality. In one sense no culture is better in any regard from any other culture. All cultures are equally valid. But people who see their cultures as better, and judge other cultures as inferior or even people who see their own culture as “normal” and judge other cultures as “exotic”, are members of an oppressive culture. And oppressive cultures are (though this word is not used) inferior—and to be despised.
Finally, neither individual rights nor individual identity are primary. Traditional liberal emphasis on individual human rights (private property, free speech) is an obstacle to the radical changes society will need to undergo in order to share wealth and power. And it is an illusion to think that, as an individual, you can carve out an identity in any way different or independent of others in your race, ethnicity, gender, and so on. Group identity and rights are the only real ones. Guilt is not assigned on the basis of individual actions but on the basis of group membership and social/racial status.
Quick biblical analysis:
First, it is deeply incoherent. If all truth-claims and justice-agendas are socially constructed to maintain power, then why aren’t the claims and agendas of the adherents of this view subject to the same critique? Why are the postmodern justice advocates’ claims that “This is oppression” unquestionably, morally right, while all other moral claims are mere social constructs? And if everyone is blinded by class-consciousness and social location, why aren’t they?[25] Intersectionality claims oppressed people see things clearly—but why would they if social forces make us wholly what we are and control how we understand reality? Are they less formed by social forces than others? And if all people with power—who “call the shots” socially, culturally, economically, and control public discourse—inevitably use it for domination, then if any revolutionaries were able to replace the oppressors at the top of the society, why would they not become people that should subsequently be rebelled against and replaced themselves? What would make them different? The Postmodern account of justice has no good answers for these questions. You cannot insist that all morality is culturally constructed and relative and then claim that your moral claims are not. This is not a flaw that only Christians can see, and this may therefore be a fatal flaw for the entire theory.[26]
Second, it is far too simplistic. The postmodern view of justice follows Rousseau and Marx, who saw human beings as inherently good or blank slates. Any evil is instilled in us by society, by social systems and forces. So any pathology (poverty, crime, violence, abuse) is due to one thing only- wrong social policy. But biblically we know we are complex beings–socially (both individual and social creatures made in the image of a Three-in-One God), morally (both sinful and fallen, yet valuable in the image of God), and constitutionally (we are equally soul-spirit and body). The reasons for evil and for unjust outcomes in life are multiple and complex.
So, for example, the restoration of a poor community will require a rich, multi-dimensional understanding of human flourishing. There certainly is a need for social reform and the dismantling of systemic injustice. But people also need meaning in life, and strong families, and ways to grow in character, and healthy, functional communities, and moral discipline as well. This view ignores the complexity of what makes humans thrive and therefore its programs will not actually work to liberate oppressed people. It ignores too much of what makes us human.
Third, it undermines our common humanity. Biblically, we are primarily individuals before God, made in his image, and secondarily members of a race/nationality. The postmodern view, however, makes one’s racial or group identity primary, superseding all loyalties to the nation or to the human race as a whole. This comes close to saying that there are humanities rather than a common, human race.
And therefore, fourth, it denies our common sinfulness. The Bible teaches that sin is pervasive and universal. We are each members of a race or nationality that contains much unique common grace to contribute to the world. But every culture also comes with particular sinful idolatries. No race or people group is inherently more sinful than others. But in this postmodern view of justice groups are assigned higher or lower moral value depending on their power, and some groups are denied any redeeming characteristics at all. To see whole races as more sinful and evil than other races leads to things like the Holocaust.
Fifth, it makes forgiveness, peace, and reconciliation between groups impossible. Miroslav Volf writes: “Forgiveness flounders because I exclude the enemy from the community of humans even as I exclude myself from the community of sinners.”[27] Without using the word “sin”, the adherents of this view continually do what Volf describes. So reconciliation flounders.
Sixth, it offers a highly self-righteous ‘performative’ identity. The Christian identity is received from God’s gracious hands, not achieved by our actions—we are loved absolutely apart from our performance. Contrarily, this view provides two kinds of identity that are highly perfomative: either being a member of an oppressed group fighting for justice or a white ally anti-racist. Both identities—like all other identities not based in Christ—can produce anxiety because of the need to prove oneself sufficiently justice-oriented. The secure identity of Christians does not require shaming, othering, and denouncing (which is always a part of a highly performative identity). Also, the new Christian identity—that we are simultaneously sinful and infinitely loved—changes and heals former oppressors (by telling them they are just sinners) as well as former oppressed (by assuring them of their value). See James 1:9.
Finally, it is prone to domination. This theory sees liberal values such as freedom of speech and freedom of religion—as mere ways to oppress people. Often this view puts these “freedoms” in scare quotes. As a result, adherents of this theory resort to constant expressions of anger and outrage to silence critics, as well as to censorship and other kinds of social, economic, and legal pressure to marginalize opposing views. The postmodern view sees all injustice as happening on a human level and so demonizes human beings rather than recognizing the evil forces–“the world, the flesh, and the devil”–at work through all human life, including your own. Adherents of this view also end up being utopian — they see themselves as saviors rather than recognizing that only a true, divine Savior will be able to finally bring in justice. When dealing with injustice we do confront human sin, but in addition “we wrestle not [merely] with flesh and blood” (Ephesians 6:12).
Next week, Keller will conclude by comparing Biblical justice to these alternatives.