Connecting With God Through Our Desire For Justice Series

Connecting with God through Our Desire for Justice

Series: Connecting with God

Brad Bailey – April 21, 2024

INTRO

Continuing in our series “Connecting with God”… allowing God to speak to us about how our

nature provides connections to God. [1]

Today… we’re engaging the process of:

Connecting with God through Our Desire for Justice

Every one of us knows that we have an innate sense that some ways of acting out are

right…and others are wrong.

Even at the youngest of age…if a child sees that their sibling got more treats… they might

raise the cry of justice… that it’s “not fair.”

Despite a world that is far from equal… we have an innate sense that equality seems right.

By our teenage years… we begin to see how cruel the world can be…as one begins to see

around them… that there appears to be the haves and have nots…. the bullies and the

bullied… as we begin to learn of atrocities like the holocaust…slavery…and so much more.

We begin to face something that is hard to face…which is just how wide and deep our moral

failures can run…and how fundamental to humanity.

We know that something is not right….that many things around us are not playing out as

they should.

We feel it…we might call it justice …or moral order… or simply the way things should be.

As N.T. Wright describes,

“All people know, in cooler moments, that this strange thing we call justice, this longing

for things to be put right, remains one of the greatest human goals and dreams.” - N.T.

Wright

We sense that this desire for justice is a part of our human nature.

This cry for justice … relating to others in a way that reflects what is right…what is fair… makes

us feel more human.

It’s a part of our nature.

And that raises the question…

What does this desire for justice seek to align with?

Is it our biology?

Are we just having a relationship to our biological nature… at some chemical level…some

genetic level?

It’s never been easy to explain our moral nature as purely material in nature.

And since Darwin’s theory of evolution suggests that what guides our evolvement is merely the

survival of the fittest… the social implications are hard to reconcile with our moral nature.

If biology says our development is inherently dependent the survival of superior over the

inferior… it doesn’t explain the cry of justice that cries for quite the contrary.

This has been a challenge for those who presume the position of the atheist… who try to

make sense of our existence as purely material. They know that the Darwinian theory of

evolution cannot be reconciled with our desire for justice… with our belief in equality…with

care and compassion for the suffering of others.

This has led some… to suggest that our moral nature….is simply a reflection of our social

development.

Richard Dawkins, one of the most strident atheists of our time, proposes that we are

indeed nothing more than chemicals…that human beings are just "gene machines”…

which have a selfish gene…but now that we have a social nature….we can fight this

selfish gene…by agreeing to ways we will treat one another that provides more communal

security. [2]

He suggests that the selfish gene is what guides our biological survival …but that having

become social creatures… we must now fight it…. we must overcome the biological force that

has formed us. As thoughtful as such explanations may be, I believe that they simply do not

explain our actual experience.

This view from atheism believes that nothing is actually inherently good or bad….right or

wrong… but rather…justice is whatever is agreed to at whatever common point it is decided.

They suggest that humanity has long agreed on basic values.

But history would suggest otherwise. The truth is that many have believed that one group had

a right to rule over others… and those beliefs are rising up afresh again.

It also doesn’t explain why feel inspired by goodness and sacrificial “love” rather than react

with rational assessments.

It doesn’t explain why we feel those we love should be valued beyond merely their

functional value.

Kai Nielsen, an atheist philosopher who attempts to defend the viability of ethics without God,

in the end admits [3]

We have not been able to show that reason requires the moral point of view. Pure

practical reason, even with a good knowledge of the facts, will not take you to morality.

The picture I have painted for you is not a pleasant one. Reflection on it depresses me . .

. . - Kai Nielsen

In a world without God, we cannot speak of anything as inherently right or wrong… such

words have no meaning, For in a random universe without God,… good and evil do not exist. [4]