Wolterstorff's Justice: Chapter 4

This is chapter 4 and it is titled 'On De-justicizing the New Testament'. Chapter 3 is here. This chapter is more of a polemic, in that Nick challenges what he understood as an attempt by certain thinkers to undermine the idea of justice in the Bible. Nick is not yet advancing the idea that justice is a key theme in the New Testament. Nick is kind to those thinkers he disagrees with. But still he will argue for the point that justice is a central idea in the Bible in the next chapter.

Stanley Haurwas says that justice is a bad idea for Christians. What Nick understood Stanley as saying is that justice has been misused and abused by the larger society and it is beyond redemption. So even if Christians care for the oppressed, the language of justice should not be employed; let it be something else. Nick disagrees!

Another challenge comes from Anders Nygren. Nygren argues that the central idea of the Bible is love; not justice. It is this love of God that results in sending his son Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of human sinfulness. This love, however, is not any other kind of love but gratuitous benevolence or rather agape. Agape is different from other kind of love like eros. Eros kind of love is to enhance one's own well-being; whereas agape kind of love is to enhance the well-being of the other. And this agape is the kind of love found in the Bible. God's forgiveness of human sin is not because he has to demonstrate justice, but because he loves human being. Where love abounds, justice is obsolete. Is Nygren correct in his understanding of the Bible?

Nick answers this question in the next chapter. But in this chapter he takes Nygren's own idea to argue that the idea is not coherent. Nick argues that forgiveness can come about 'only if you have wronged me, and only for the wrong you have done me'. I cannot forgive Godse for what he did to Gandhi. I can forgive for the wrong done to me only. The idea of forgiveness emerges only when one is wronged – when justice is violated. If the concept of justice is not there at all, there can't be anyone who is wronged and there can't be forgiveness. When God forgives me, it is because I have sinned against him; or rather because I have wronged against him, say, by breaking the covenant between he and me. And because I broke the covenant, I need his forgiveness to restore the covenant. Thus, Nygren cannot really speak of love and forgiveness by abolishing the idea of justice. Justice comes as a part and partial of love and forgiveness. The attempt to erase justice from Christian theological enterprise will fail.That's the central idea of Nick in this chapter.