Written by Thomas Hill
Recently, certain current events have begun to incite some serious internal strife. For example, the massacre of 12 people at Fort Hood by Major Nidal Malik Hasan, or the release from prison of the 100- year-old convicted pedophile Theodore Sypnier, who remains unrepentant of sexually abusing four children in Tonawanda, New York ten years ago.
Many of you, after considering such events, probably become subject to the same swells of emotion that I do. We feel confused, depressed, angry. Questions arise within us concerning good and evil, justice and injustice, mercy and forgiveness.
For me, the most prominent swell has manifested itself in the form of questioning the nature of justice. What do men such as Hasan and Sypnier deserve? Surely, their crimes against humanity warrant an equally destructive punishment.
This is at least the ethic we come away with after reading Leviticus 24:17-20. “If anyone takes the life of a human being, he must be put to death….whatever he has done must be done to him: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth.” Justice means that people get what they deserve. Or does it? If justice is simply administering deserved punishment, then what is vengeance?
The Dictionary defines vengeance in much the same way: “punishment inflicted in retaliation for an injury or offense.” If we ascribe this meaning to justice, then we are essentially using it as a glorified term for vengeance, which of course, validates vengeful actions.
Is this right? There must be some dichotomy between the two. In our postmodern, relativistic society, it is becoming increasingly easier for any one person to defend his own actions by claiming that his personal convictions and beliefs validate those actions.
If this person believes that there is no difference between justice and vengeance, then he gets to decide to what degree his transgressor should be punished (i.e. retribution he considers just). In other words, “an eye for an eye,” could easily become “an arm, a leg, and $1.5 million for an eye.”
How do we avoid the danger of relativism in the pursuit of justice? I believe the answer lies in altering our perception of justice. We should not equate justice with punishment. If we do, then in order to validate our actions, we must inevitably claim that the administering of such punishment is always just, which in fact it may not be.
Over the ages, philosophers have postulated why in many retributive scenarios, such as the sentencing of death, the actual carrying out of the punishment may not be just. Epictetus, for example, states that it would be wrong to “destroy” those who are “in error about the great matters.”
Marcus Aurelius advocated that real justice can be found in the “conversion” and correction of those who are in “error.” The ignorance (blindness) of the “unjust person” is his true vice, and true justice would be to rid the society of his ignorance.
What is the nature of justice that we see presented here? It is certainly not retributive or vengeful. We see the same concept in Matthew 5:38-39. Jesus quotes Leviticus 24:20 and then says, “But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” This certainly does not seem just. Why should the attacker not get what he deserves?
It seems that Jesus does not view the passage in Leviticus as an equation for determining punishment. It’s as if the passage is saying, “Your brother’s eye is worth just as much as your eye, his tooth is worth just as much as your tooth. Treat him as an equal.”
Yet, Jesus is taking it even further, saying that we are to humble ourselves by considering others not as our equals, but as our superiors.
The point is to incite change in our transgressors. Maybe our view of justice should be altered. Justice is not retaliation or retribution or punishment; it is correction and change brought about by love.
