Justice Means Fairness to All, not Payback for Sin

As parents we get frustrated when our young children do irritating or harmful things. We don’t punish them because we are angry even if we are. We punish them so they will learn not to do that. And we get scared when they do something dangerous. So, we try to come up with a punishment to keep them from harm. Punishment is not about payback. It’s about teaching and learning. Unfortunately, many times it takes consequences to teach us enough to change our pattern of behavior. As we age, if we have learned enough times from consequences, then it may just take a verbal warning. 

A lot of us, perhaps even most of us, must learn some things through consequences.  

When we talk about hell as consequences for sin, sometimes that experience of hell happens in this life until we get the message.

The point is the word justice is about fairness.  It’s not payback. As an imperfect human being in the heat of hurt or anger, I may want payback.  I don’t think God needs justice in the sense of payback or evening up a score.  Humanity projects our own human anger and desire for payback onto God.

If you believe in evolution and God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit you see humanity as unfinished and ourself as unfinished. We are in a personal spiritual journey of evolving that falls way short of perfect, but hopefully inches us forward enough to be at least perceptible to God and doesn’t set humanity back.

I recognize that some people can see the light, but most of us need to feel the heat. So, the idea of a Hell may have a use, since many, if not most people, experience a taste of it here. But the idea of a vindictive God wanting the satisfaction of seeing us getting a payback of suffering doesn’t mesh with a Jesus who fleshed out the Love of God and died forgiving not only his own people who got him tortured and killed, but even forgiving God for letting him feel abandoned on the cross.