Sunday, January 26, 2014

Why Tim Keller's Social Justice Has Little To Do With Biblical Mercy, Charity, the Law, and Grace

The main focus of "justice" is basically giving people what they deserve. Someone breaks the law, they are punished for doing so. Especially in Christian theology, the notion of justice is tied in with notions of works and merit. God exercises His justice when He punishes sinners, because sinners sin and their sins deserved to be punished. Justice is purely an external of giving another his due.

Charity on the other hand as it is used is often linked with mercy. Mercy by definition must be unequal. A judge who acquits the innocent is NOT being merciful to the acquitted. Mercy is always to the undeserving, either in withholding punishment or in giving undeserved aid. To speak of "merited" mercy is an oxymoron. God in His grace in His mercy withholds the punishment due to sinners who turn in faith to Christ. Those sinners do not deserve the mercy; it is purely unmerited. Mercy and charity is thus antithetical to justice and law, the former pair being unmerited and the latter pair merited.

It is with this understanding that we see how terrible Keller's leftist socialist idea of "social justice" is. By calling charity and mercy "justice," Keller has turned something unmerited into something merited. In other words, whereas in the older understanding charity is something given by people out of their care and concern, charity in Keller's leftist system is an entitlement for the poor. The poor could demand charity, as is the case in socialist states. When charity is seen as an entitlement, then what we have as an example today are the socialist countries of Europe, where people give much to charity involuntarily through the State.

So, when Keller tried to equate "justice" and "righteousness," he commits many fallacies in his eisegesis of Job 29:12-17..... [Continue here.]

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