This was the question I posed tonight at prayer meeting. It was an interesting and lively discussion. I took the position that God is not fair, even though he is just.
Everyone disagreed with me, even though they saw the distinction I was making. They all insisted that if God appeared to be unfair it was only because we couldn't "see the big picture." As we talked I began to suspect that they were trying to harmonize two competing commitments: God is good and being unfair is bad. Therefore God must be fair.
But there is so much evidence to the contrary and where in scripture are we told that God is not permitted to be unfair, that being unfair is, in fact, bad?
I'm not just saying this to be a provocateur. I really, really believe that God is not fair. He is something far better than fair. Praise the Lord!
5 comments:
Sorry Joel - I can't get behind you here. If fairness be good then God is fair. If fairness be not good then God is not fair. I don't think one can assert that God is not fair without asserting that fairness is a perversion and that's insupportable. Christ's death was ultimately a matter of fairness.
Fairness is bad. When Jesus, who had done nothing wrong, was on the verge of being crucified by people who deserved to die the fair thing would have been for God to exhonorate his Son and punish us. That would have been fair. What God did in allowing his Son to die for us was just but it definitely was not fair.
It's a better argument I suppose if you assert that fairness is bad - I just wanted you to have to do that. My point about Jesus' death is that if God was not fair then He needn't require Christ's blood and go through the grief of seeing His only begotten crucified. To call the crucifixion just and not fair is to be coming dangerously close to deconstructionism or rendering the definition of "fair" meaningless. Of course Christ did not deserve to die; but if God was not fair I would have no blood to wash away my sins with. Perhaps this is a matter requiring the likes of a Chesterton to tangle with:)
I think our concept of fairness or at least our elevation of it to an unquestioned and universal good is mostly a characteristic of the post-Enlightenment West. Jesus' parable of the vineyard owner and the workers of varying tenure, and Paul's argument in Romans 9 both aggressively oppose the efforts of humans to impose standards of fairness on the God who says "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy."
I don't think there's anything deconstructionist about making a distinction between justice and fairness.
Fairness is, like politeness and waiting in line, part of the social contract. It's one of the things that we rely on as a basis for successful human interaction.
My problem is with us thinking that God is obliged to participate in our social contract. He is no more obliged to be fair than he is obliged to be polite or to refrain from bringing up abortion with strangers.
His being free from the strictures of fairness is part of what makes him the wonderfully wild God of Scripture and my personal experience.
It is very fortunate for us indeed, that God is more than fair. He is merciful. Fairness would require that we all get exactly what we deserve- wrath and destruction. The very fact that we have a remedy for our status as objects of wrath speaks more to his mercy than his fairness, but still his righteous requirements were satisfied. Blood was shed for our sins. Meditating on the parable of the vineyard owner and Romans 9 should always fill us with an awesome sense of unworthiness. The indignant vineyard workers come off looking absurd and small just as those who would shoulder the burden of their own salvation look laughably inadequate. I think I agree with you, Joel. God is not fair. He is merciful, and although He would have remained perfectly good had he not sacrificed Himself for us, what He did was certainly good as well.
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