Who is my neighbor? – part 2

So what are the various views on justice that have been developed? What intellectual and historical support do they have, and how does each align with or differ from a biblical view of justice? Remember that we have just walked through the biblical narrative asking the same question posed to Jesus by a Jewish lawyer: Who is my neighbor?

There are several secular and religious approaches to justice in circulation today. Each of them attempts, in its own way, to explain why justice is required and how it should be carried out. Yet every system must wrestle with several key questions, and how it answers them reveals both its strengths and its limitations.

• The character of God: On what basis is justice required? Biblical justice is rooted in the character of God. Because God is just and because human beings are made in His image, justice is not optional but essential, both personally and societally.
• The value of people: For whom is justice required? Biblical justice affirms the equal worth of all people, giving particular attention to the weak, the disadvantaged, and those without social or economic power. Justice is not reserved for the strong or the successful.
• The protection of name, person, property, and means: For what purpose is justice due? Scripture identifies concrete realities that must be protected for human flourishing: reputation, bodily safety, property, and the means of sustaining life. When these are unjustly taken or damaged, justice seeks restoration or proportionate restitution.
• The means or process of justice: How and when is justice to be enacted, and by whom? Biblical justice understands community as a network of relationships, family, church, and civil authority, each with defined responsibilities. Justice should be enacted promptly, impartially, and as close to the affected parties as possible, minimizing favoritism and abuse.
• The balancing of mercy with righteousness: To what degree is perfection required, and how is punishment tempered by motive, context, and the goal of restored relationships? Scripture acknowledges that strict punishment alone cannot heal what sin has broken. While wrongdoing must be addressed, justice is repeatedly tempered by mercy and oriented toward restoration wherever possible.

Alternative Approaches to Justice

Utilitarian justice seeks the greatest good for the greatest number. At its best, it aims at societal well-being; in practice, however, it often prioritizes majority preferences or the loudest voices. Historically, utilitarian approaches have struggled to protect minority groups or individuals whose dignity cannot be measured by social utility. As a result, the inherent worth of the individual is easily eclipsed.

Libertarian justice emphasizes individual freedom, property rights, and minimal external constraint. It rightly highlights personal responsibility and guards against excessive state control. However, it often underestimates the role of community in shaping moral behavior and correcting injustice. Without a shared moral framework and accountable institutions, justice can become fragile and unevenly applied.

Technocratic or statist justice relies heavily on systems, policies, and administrative mechanisms to preserve fairness. By distancing justice from personal judgment, it seeks neutrality and efficiency. Yet this approach often leaves little room for moral discernment, relational context, or motive. It also assumes that systems themselves can be impartial, overlooking the reality that all systems are designed and managed by morally fallible people.

Critical theory approaches to justice arise from philosophical or moralistic motivations to correct power dynamics and systemic inequality. They rightly draw attention to historical injustices and structural barriers to opportunity or individual agency. However, these frameworks frequently struggle to account for personal moral responsibility, forgiveness, or the possibility of redemption. By locating injustice almost exclusively in systems, they risk flattening moral agency and providing no stable, objective standard for justice itself.

Legalistic religious justice focuses on strict rule-keeping and formal compliance. While it values order and consistency, it often treats the law as an end in itself rather than a means to human flourishing. Such approaches can foster communities that prize correctness over compassion and overlook the deeper purposes of justice: restoration, repentance, and love of neighbor.

What is Missing?

When these systems are compared, it becomes clear that each omits at least one essential dimension of justice. The result is not merely imbalance, but a fundamental misunderstanding of what justice is and how it can be sustained. We need to consider at least 4 dimensions:

• A correct anthropology – one that recognizes humans as image-bearers of inherent worth, yet morally broken and in need of objective standards of right and wrong.
• A robust doctrine of sin – one that identifies the root of injustice not merely in structures or circumstances, but in the human heart’s tendency toward self-interest and domination, essentially our own selfishness and pride at the expense of others.
• A deep understanding of grace – one that makes forgiveness possible at real personal cost, seeks restoration even for offenders, and unifies communities around what is true, good, and beautiful.
• A balanced account of authority and responsibility – one that honors individual agency, community care, and limited but necessary state power.

This balance is difficult to maintain. Systems must be clear enough to define justice and enforce accountability, yet flexible enough to correct abuses, restrain overreach, and respond to changing realities.

Where Does This Leave Us?

Biblical justice offers a more coherent and durable vision for loving our neighbor, a vision rooted in God’s design for the world and an honest assessment of human nature.

• All people possess true dignity because they are made in the image of God.
• Sin is the fundamental cause of injustice and must be addressed honestly.
• Secular, and even some religious models of justice are ultimately insufficient on their own.

Yet this still leaves important questions unanswered. What does biblical justice positively build? How has the church failed to live up to its calling, essentially affirming the need for a true understanding of justice? How does redemption reshape our pursuit of justice? And how can authority be rightly ordered to protect the vulnerable without undermining responsibility and freedom? These questions point us toward our next discussion. We will explore how biblical justice has been misapplied, how it is made possible through redemption, how it can order society toward love and righteousness, and how principles such as subsidiarity help balance responsibility among individuals, communities, churches, and the state.