What is Justice?

Treating the neighbour justly is a classic case of loving the neighbour. The third century Roman jurist defines justice as steady and enduring will to render to each his or her ius. Society is just insofar as its members are rendered the ius that they possess, the ius that is theirs. One may possess some ius without enjoying that ius; so it is important to note that justice is rendering to each his or her right or deserts (what he or she deserves).

Example: When you are deprived of your ius, your right, to a seat in a train, you are not enjoying your right; here justice is not rendered to you. One may call this ius as primary justice. When a murderer is let scot free without any punishment, we don't speak of punishment as something the murderer has a right to but as something he deserves. Here punishment is the murderer's just deserts, the ius. One may call this ius as corrective justice. Thus justice is rendering each one his or her right or deserts, ius.

Right-talk is to be located only in a social context, not in a vacuum. I have a right to be treated in a certain way by you or vice versa. This social bonds of rights are foundational to human community and human flourishing. To fail to treat a person as she has a right to my treating her is to wrong her. To fail to treat a society as it has a right to my treating her is to wrong it. Conversely, to fail to treat me as I have a right to be treated is to wrong me.

Was it Resurrection or Resuscitation?

Did Jesus really die on the cross or was he just fainted? What happened to his body after it was buried in a tomb? Did the disciples steal the body or did he recover from the unconscious state and walked out of the tomb? Is there plausible reason to trust the testimony of the earliest followers of Jesus Christ who said he is risen?

Crucifixion under the Roman authority was not unusual. The criminals were usually scourged first so much so that there could be so much of blood loss due to cut from the leather whip that has pieces of balls or bones attached. The Roman soldiers were expert in executing criminals; and escape of any crucified criminal is a death penalty for the soldiers. Expertise plus the penalty for the escape made crucifixion a very certain form of execution.

We read that Jesus was arrested at night. He was then led to the courtyard of the high priest where there was an attempt to charge him of various crimes, after which “the guards received him with blows” ( Mark 14.65). In the morning Jesus was delivered to the Governor Pontius Pilate. At the order of Pilate, Jesus was scourged and then delivered to be crucified ( Mark 15.15. The soldiers also plaited a crown of thorn and put it on his head, and there on the head they would strike. Jesus was then led out of the city and put up on the cross, with his hands and feet nailed to the wooden cross. Later on to check whether he was really death, a soldier pierced the side of Jesus with his spear and “at once there came out blood and water”.

After he was certified death, Joseph and Nicodemus were granted the body of Jesus to be buried. The body was then laid in a guarded tomb, which was then sealed so that none might roll away the stone without prior permission. This was Friday evening probably around 4- 5 pm. Sunday early morning, the tomb was found empty. What happened to Jesus' body: resurrected or resuscitated and gone?

( 'Resurrection' was a term employed only for those who came back to life with special physical properties. Till then 'resurrection' exists only in word; no one has really seen it nor did they expect it to happen then. The ancient people were clear about the difference between resuscitation and resurrection. They were not so foolish to confuse the two. They knew as much as we now know that dead people don't come to back life.)

How plausible it is for scourged and bleeding Jesus to survive the cross for 3-6 hours? And how plausible it is to suppose that the Roman soldiers mistook Jesus to be dead for having fainted when such mistake would invite death sentence for the soldiers? And how plausible it is to suggest that scourged and speared Jesus on his own would be able to roll away the stone that sealed the tomb? And how plausible it is for wounded and frail Jesus to claim that he has conquered death and his disciples are now to tell the whole world including the Roman soldiers and religious leaders who crucified him that he is now the king of kings and lord of lords?

The disciples did indeed preach to the Roman world that Jesus is risen and every knee, including the emperor's, is summoned to bow before Jesus. For preaching this “Gospel”, they were jailed, beaten, thrown to the lions, burnt to death and so on for approximately 300 years. Only in 313 AD through the Edict of Milan did Christianity become one of the religions that could be practised without inviting persecution. Why did the disciples who run away when Jesus was arrested began to worship and adore him in spite of death haunting them? What gain would they receive for telling a lie that Jesus is resurrected when what they actually was witnessed was only the resuscitated Jesus and who now have fled to Kashmir? In the face of hunger, imprisonment, head being chopped or being thrown into lion's den which is more plausible: To say that the disciples had such boldness to proclaim to the Roman world that Jesus is resurrected and he is Lord because they actually witnessed the crucified and risen Jesus or to suppose that they they witnessed the battered Jesus surviving the tomb and later escaped to India. Well, I choose the former explanation: that Jesus was truly resurrected from the dead and he is who he claimed to be.

Arguments for God's Existence

I am putting forth the argument for God's existence here syllogistically.

A.
1. Every entity that begins to exist has a  cause.

2. The universe began to exist.

3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

4. The universe that contains energy and mind is best explained to have caused by God who is powerful and has  mind.

B.
1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity or design.

2. It is not due to physical necessity.

3. Therefore, it is due to design.

4. Being designed implies a Designer

C.
1. If God did not exist, categorical moral laws would not exist.

2. Categorical moral laws exist.

3. Therefore, God exists.

Was Jesus of Nazareth Married to Mary Magdalene?

There is this idea that Jesus of Nazareth was actually married to Mary Magdalene and yet because the idea was blasphemous, since that would amount to portraying Jesus as a mere man, Christians hid this piece of truth. The story that Jesus was unmarried and he is divine was then proclaimed to the world by the Christians. But how plausible is this theory? Is it more plausible than the traditional story?

Jesus was a Jew, and he was raised according to the Jewish tradition. He knew his 'Book' well. Even at a young age of twelve, he showed deep understanding ( Luke 2. 47). According to Jewish belief, marriage was God's design. Procreation through sexual union was ordained by God himself. And, therefore, marriage was a way of life for both godly and ungodly individuals. Work, marriage, friendship etc were all godly activities. They became bad only when cheating, hatred, jealousy etc. would get entangled.

Being a member of a society that believed likewise, would Jesus marriage be considered an evil act by other members of his society? Of course not. Jesus had friends; he used to work and if he did get married that would be considered normal. Whether Jesus was divine or not had nothing to do with his marriage or lack thereof. And therefore there was absolutely no reason why the disciples who penned his 'biography' would hide such fact for fear of his divinity being compromised. If Jesus was divine, he would be divine even if he was married. So why were Jesus' 'biographers' silent about his marriage? Well, for the simple reason that he did not marry.

Writing to the Corinthians in around 55 A.D. Paul said “don't we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord's brother and Peter?” Paul did not say “don't we have the right to take with us a believing wife as our Lord Jesus had done?” Paul appealed to the apostles for examples, not to Jesus himself, because Jesus was not married. Had Jesus been married, he would definitely have appealed to the example set by Jesus himself. After all Paul or Peter or Jesus alike all considered marriage to be godly act. The fact is that Jesus simply was not married.

Those who think that if Jesus had married, then that would portray Jesus as a mere man, and not divine, are mistaken about the idea of marriage given in the Bible. The idea of Jesus' marriage was not at all blasphemous. It is just that Jesus actually never got married.

Can Religion & Science Be Friends?

The recently retired Oxford Professor and a biologist-atheist Richard Dawkins, in his book God Delusion, writes that the biblical God is “a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully”. The book has sold over 2 million copies since it was published in 2006. Such words coming from an Oxford professor are unsettling; and even more unsettling are the number of people who bought such a book. This indeed showed that Dawkins has a huge following! When Prof. Alister McGrath, who is a biochemist-Christian theologian asked why there was such an anger, Dawkins replied that religion stopped people from raising intellectual questions and also that religion can and has been used as a lethal weapon, eg. 9/11.

Dawkins was illogical in explaining away religion in general for what Muslims did on 9/11 or for that matter members of a particular religion do. Dawkins should have posed that critique only to Muslims or to members of that particular religion that were espousing unjust and inhuman violence. However, for the other point that he raised, let us examine if it is in the nature of religion to stop people from raising questions critically.

“Different levels of explanation”

Take a question: Why is the water in the kettle boiling? One answer which is used at home is to say it is boiling because Thole wants to make tea. Another answer which is used in physics textbooks is to say that it is boiling because the vapour pressure of the liquid is equal to the pressure exerted on the liquid by the surrounding atmospheric pressure. Though the two answers are different they are not contradictory. The answers are valid depending on the level it was asked. Take another case: A Christian will say God healed her of cancer. And this is as valid as saying that through surgery the cancerous growth was removed. Different answers, but at different level. Religious answers do not attempt to subvert and undermine scientific explanation. If a Christian wishes to counter an explanation given by science, she does that by going into scientific methodology. Otherwise, Christians take the explanation given by science and go on to add another level of explanation to the event which is theological/religious. The relationship between science and religion is more of mutual enrichment than that of warfare.

Given this nature of religious enterprise in adding another 'higher' dimension to the level of explanation offered, science and religion are not enemies but mutual friends; making the explanation of reality richer. Scientists, philosophers and theologians in the 18^th - 19^th centuries have made the mistake of importing “God” to explain an event when science failed to explain it. Twenty years later when science made the breakthrough, they removed “God” from the picture. This kind of approach of using “God” to fill the knowledge gap led to what is called 'god of the gap'. But this kind of “God” is not the God the Bible talks about. And Dawkins rightly said that such a “God” stopped people from raising critical questions. However, the God of the Bible is one who works through scientific laws, not one who works in shifts between him and scientific laws.

Christians have all the more meaningful reason to study science, for exploring the world is about knowing and enjoying God's creativity. New scientific discovery that leads to enhancing human flourishing is about undoing the effect of sin that Christ himself has been spearheading when he came to this earth on that first Christmas Day. It is for such reason that Cavendish laboratory in Cambridge, England, where many of the pioneering breakthough in nuclear physics have been made, has inscribed on its entrance Ps 111.2 – “Great are the works of the LORD, studied by all who take pleasure in them”. History witnessed that Christian religion in particular did not stop people from raising questions and deeper investigation of reality; it rather spurs them on.

Science Alone?

It is science that gave rise to the nuclear holocaust in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A deadly bomb like Napalm used in theVietnam War by the US was invented by a brilliant scientific mind. It was a scientist like Joseph Mengele who performed horrifying medical experiments using his scientific skill on innocent people in the Concentration Camp. Science and scientists devoid of moral conscience can commit heinous crime on humanity. But this moral conscience has to come from a source outside of science. The crime mentioned however, does not mean that we negate all the good fruit of scientific enterprise.

Limit of Science

Scientific enterprise is a modest discipline. It does not try to answer questions about morality, nature of state, end purpose of human individual/society, beauty, art and so on. Yet these enterprises are extremely important for meaningful human existence. Therefore, it is rather naïve or arrogant when someone puts it up as science vs religion or that in this modern scientific age we don't do religion etc. For the world to be enthralling and livable we need religion, science and many more.

Conclusion

Is the God of the Bible really who he is as described by Richard Dawkins? Selective reading of the events of the Old Testament or the Bible is an incomplete way to understand the Bible. To get the fuller picture of what Christians understand of their God, look at Jesus Christ who is the image of the invisible God ( Col 1.15). This crucified and risen Jesus Christ, in whose being is rooted justice and love, embodied the totality of God. And it is at this man, Dawkins and his fans need a closer look to know the God of the Bible.