I’m listening to the latest Season of Someone Knows Something and David Ridgen respectfully says that he is an athiest, but believes in the adage, “the truth will set you free.” I guess my theological question would be, if there is no God, can there be such a thing as justice?
And if God is what gives our lives meaning/value (which I do believe), how can one say that taking another’s life is unjust?
This is not a personal attack on David Ridgen, as I think he is great! He genuinely cares about individuals (as well as animals) and has a beautiful way of communicating with people.
If anyone would like to explain how justice matters in a world where God does not exist, I think this would make for a good discussion?
Fulton Sheen wrote a whole book more or less on this question :
A Declaration of Dependence
Here are some quotes from him from the book that answer this :
“You cannot measure boards with an elastic ruler and you cannot judge nations with an elastic morality. When there is a dispute among children in the third grade about the spelling of the word ‘pneumonia,’ the appeal must not be made to the students, but outside them, namely, a dictionary. In like manner, the justice which governs nations is not of their making but God’s.”
“Our modern world which now speaks of God as not being good, because He allows this war, forgets that God would not be good if He were not just. Is it not base arrogance for us who have exiled Him from the society of nations, from public affairs, to complain now that He lets society go to pieces?”
“A human will in the person of a dictator substitutes himself for the will of God, and through violence, cruelty, and propaganda makes his will the absolute which must be obeyed at all costs.”
You can read the whole book for free from the internet archive.
The pursuit of justice is fruitless without objective truth, and objective truth does not seem possible without a single inescapable unifying authority.
If you follow the logical proofs for the existence of God you have to arrive at the conclusion that this authority is God.
Years ago in Virginia I attended a course on the cardinal virtues, one of which is justice, and I learned that the virtue of justice involves returning other people’s rights to them. That’s a saintly thing to do. There are other aspects of justice, but justice as a virtue is Godly.