Grace is not fair. Fairness means treating people as they deserve. Grace means treating people better than they deserve. Grace, after all, means unmerited kindness. Because of this, theologians have traditionally spoken of a conflict between justice and grace. In this way of thinking, justice is about there being consequences for wrong action (usually in the form of punishment), and grace, in contrast, is about leniency -- overlooking problems rather than actually dealing with them.
Over the last century however, there have been major shifts in how we understand justice and its relation to punishment. While it was common in the past to think it was good to beat children at home and at school, or to beat one's servants and workers, we as a society have largely come to realize that, far from being good for a person's soul, such violence instead can cause significant psychological damage that stunts a person's healthy development.
One of the last places where we still embrace the idea of punitive justice today is in our prison systems. Yet even within our criminal justice system there is an increasing awareness that a strictly punitive approach rarely produces reform. Offenders who simply serve their time commonly go right back out and commit more crimes because the root factors have not been dealt with. In contrast, where rehabilitation programs have been made available, there have been dramatic drops in repeat offenses. In other words, this is not merely a matter of compassion, but of societal self-interest, because it means working to stop the "revolving door" of our prison system.
While punitive justice does little to actually mend wrong, restorative justice in contrast is all about making things right, about changing negative dynamics and helping people to overcome hurt. That's what grace is all about: It does not ignore problems, but in fact addresses them on a much deeper level than punitive justice does. So while grace may be in conflict with a strictly punitive understand of justice, it is not in conflict with restorative justice. In fact, grace is all about restorative justice.
Despite these broad trends away from a punitive understanding of justice, clearly evident in the changed approach to child rearing and education, grace is still largely a foreign language to us, while the language of payback remains our native tongue. Recall the Amish school shooting in 2006: The emphasis on forgiveness and reconciliation in the response of the Amish community was widely discussed in the national media. Reporters hardly knew what to do with it because it was so radically different from the usual tenor of sensationalism and fear that characterizes how television news typically covers crime.
On an international scale, the way the Truth and Reconciliation Commission responded to the violence and injustice of Apartheid stands out sharply against the backdrop of so many other places in our world where cycles of violence just seem to be never-ending, each side finding a justification for their continued retaliation. In the entertainment industry, it is extremely rare to find a movie that plumbs the depths of grace, and so common to see yet another film or television show that glorifies violence and paints the world in black and white. Yet when something like the musical "Les Miserables" comes along, it is an international sensation.
These are all lofty examples, and they can therefore feel overwhelming and out of reach. But the issue here is not ultimately about being virtuous or good (let alone is it about tolerating injustice!). It is about allowing healing to take place in our lives, and refusing to be sucked into the perpetual cycle of violence and toxicity. Grace is indeed hard, but even taking a few small faltering steps in its direction can open the doors for healing to start and violence to stop. That's why grace is not an ideal luxury, but quite literally a life and death necessity. Grace is the very means by which true justice comes about.
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Understanding karma reveals everything any manifestation does to any other is destiny causing us to ultimately conform to the son's standard, as Paul told the Romans, we are free from judging. There are 2 civilization, this material one and the spiritual one of Revelation 21, that's why after the discarnated in christ are reincarnated the rest of the dead reincarnates (Revelation 20:4-5). Thus, we man are unable to make judgments concerning the actions of others concerning justice, all we can do is, as revelation 22:11 suggests, allow everyone to live as destiny has bestowed upon them to.
Forgiveness (grace) can be interpreted as weakness, particularly when the incident is testing of authority. In that case, can forgtiveness not be legitimately interpreted as contributing to repeat offenses?
Today we no longer think in terms of a universal human nature, especially when it comes to predicting a response to imposing behavior on someone. So this issue is one of the hardest to write laws about. In our current climate of "being tough on crime" we have an abudnance of laws that simply are irrelevant. But candidates get elected to office espousing irrelevant solutions.
So I suggest that the question is not justice/grace but whether any consideration limited to those concepts is relevant. I do not have a better answer. I only hope for and wish there were a better answer.
Part of move towards restorative justice would entail that we make sure that people are protected from harm. So forgiveness should never be understood to mean that we simply say "that's okay" to hurtful behavior, nor should a belief in restorative justice withing the criminal justice system be thought to imply that we should simply empty all the jail cells. Rather, we need to look to find a sophisticated approach towards rehabilitating and reforming offenders into healthy and responsible members of society, and we also need to care for the safety, restoration, healing, and empowerment of their victims as well.
I would define justice as acting positively without favoritism and I have difficulty even recognizing grace except as a form of giving out of abundance without any consideration of compensation. I don't see punishment per se as having any place in justice.
But locking up a serial child molester where he cannot come in contact with chlldren is not punishment - even though the child molester experiences it as punishment. It is really only common sense. All criminal law should handled this way. The goal is prevent more crime - not to punish for crime already committed.
I think the author would describe that as grace. The victims do not ask for revenge. I would not use grace in this sense. I would call it justice. But, in the end, the words used do not matter, only the actions.
Grace appears to suggest the absolution of responsibility for what should not be. That seems simpler to implement. Simply, eliminate certain responsibility for wrong.
However, perhaps the complexity in indentifying justice is humanity’s apparently Biblically- and secularly-suggested limitations in knowledge and discernment. To the extent that humanity is thusly limited, humanity appears to be reasonably considered to be unable to determine what should be and how to appropriately achieve it based upon what currently is.
I welcome your thoughts.
In once sense I completely agree. People do need to be protected from harm. However, because convicts can "serve their time" without needing to receive any sort of psychological treatment, that child molester can go right back out on the street after their sentence runs out and since their disease has not even been addressed while in prison, they will go right back to their hurtful patterns.
So at the very least we need to recognize that crime is often tied together with other factors (for instance with mental illness, addictions, etc.) and so we therefore need to address these issues as well, and not simply think that after "doing their time" a person is automatically better.
In other words, the mistake of a purely punitive understanding of justice (which still characterizes how some understand crime, notably how many politicians understand it) is that it completely ignores what we have learned about mental health over the last century. A restorative approach in contrast incorporates this knowledge into its approach.
Thank you for this wonderful article - so necessary in this day of blood-lust for capital punishment.
One place were I see signs of progress here is with bullying in schools: rather than simply expelling kids, the growing focus has been on helping children to develop emotional intelligence and empathy, and teaching kids how to regulate their emotions, and deal with conflict without violence.
The environment we are in shapes us. So we need to work to create environments that cultivate reform and rehabilitation.
I welcome your thoughts.
To me the sourceof morality is always inthe momentary choice; the need to reconcile our biological motivations, the competing emotional feedback loops that attach irrational valueto alternatives. Everything else is projection and intellectualizing. Wecan almost never talk about morality without bringingup examples and evoking thebrain's provisional response. Justice and grace aren't the onlytwo drives that aren't harmonious. For me morality is almost bydefinition the moral choice, the momentary conflict of compulsions that mustbe resolved. Ifour motivations were entirely harmonious, there wouldbe no morality.
The otherthing that's clear tome, is that the momentary choice cannot be resolved rationally. The onlyway competing premises canbe resolved isby a third premise and thereis none. Every moral choice is resolved bywhat we feel like doing inthe moment. It's like a condo association meeting. Everyone has anaxe to grind and tales ofpast victimization, but thereis little rational content tothe discussion. It's really justabout which side wants it more.
You make a beautiful advocacy for grace, oneof our higher social instincts, but it's ultimately just an intellectual exercise. The choice willbe made in the subconscious backwaters of the brain when the rubber hits the road. We hope that those weeks of seeking inspiration at church will change the story, but there's little evidence that it has.
As a parent of young children there have been many times when they have been screaming and having a total fit, and (since I was stressed and fatigued) my impulse was to yell back. But what I really needed to recognize is that the reason they were doing this is because they were hungry. Once I gave them food, everything was fine. It’s really hard to see past your emotions, and to instead see the needs of another person like that. But that’s what parents need to do constantly (and why its so hard to be one!).
I think that illustrates on a small scale the way grace is about having a relational-focused response rather than a self-focused reaction. I do think that the more we practice and rehearse and cultivate this counter-intuitive response, the better we get at it.
As a result, I humbly and respectfully submit the apparently reasonable yet possibly confusing theory that, when “grace” is applied rather than “justice”, grace is so applied because doing so is considered to be more just than not doing so.
I welcome your thoughts.
I humbly and respectfully submit that the apparently reasonable yet possibly confusing theory that, when “grace” is applied rather than “justice”, grace is so applied because doing so is considered to be more just than not doing so. Apparently, in this context, a larger scope of factors is taken into account. An example might be the thief who is forgiven because the judge perceives that an unjust economic system appears to have left the thief little alternative for obtaining appropriate resources.
I welcome your thoughts.
This is a very interesting commentary of attributes of grace and restorative justice. It is precisely what God intended by extending to us His grace and mercy and restoring us to a right relationship with Him.