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Love perfects justice
2007-12-18 09:31:53
By Correspondent Fredrick Wanzala
The notions of justice and charity are different,though they are not opposed to each other. Justice is the virtue that inclines one to give another his due.
Love instead is the virtue supernaturally infused by God by which one loves God above all things and ones neighbour as oneself. Both justice and charity regard another person.
Distinctively, justice is founded on the distinction of one person from another in as much as each one has his/her own proper rights and obligations.
Charity instead is founded on the union of persons among themselves based on the same nature, on the same destiny and on the same membership.
Justice considers human person in his/her individuality, while charity considers human person as united already or to be united with one another. All people must be treated with justice and humanity.
The demands of justice should first be satisfied, lest the giving of what is due in justice be represented as the offering of a charitable gift. Justice, however, attains its inner fullness only in love. Charity does not dispense one from the demands of justice.
Charity is not satisfied with the minimum requirements of the demands of justice, but looks to the loftiest ideals as its ultimate goal. Love surpasses justice, but at the same time finds its verification in justice.
If justice is uncertain, love too runs a risk. Justice without love is cruelty. This shows how love is the most comprehensive virtue on which all other virtues and values build on.
In most of our societies and organizations the measure of justice is law, but how just are the laws themselves? The rigorous application of the law can sometimes be the height of injustice, for instance, the death penalty.
How just is the killing of one killer? If the killing of the killer is justified, then contradiction looms. How can the same act be good and bad at the same time?
One may ask another question, are the requirements of a punishment achieved in capital punishment? Justice without love may deteriorate into mere duty, casuistry or legalism.
It quickly becomes arid and cold without a soul. It is possible to be rigorously just with bitterness, almost with rage. How poor and weak justice can be, if it is not filled through and through with love.
Love presupposes justice and demands it, because true love, true charity does not exist without justice.
Love outside justice will foster favoritism prejudice and partisanship. Love that does not start by respecting the rights of others is a fraud. Charity that does not begin by giving others their due is fake.
Unless the love of law is replaced by the law of love, wrangles among people and nations may not be uprooted from our societies and in our world.
Any appeal to charity used as a pretext for evading fulfillment of ones own duties and respect for the rights of others is nothing more than sophistry.
At times is very disheartening to find charitable organizations that are filled with egoistic tendencies of reducing human beings to mere means of their achievement.
Through such an attitude they reduce the people they are supposed to serve to professional beggars; the word empowerment is so alien to them.
Some organizations write projects of huge sum of money, but the destination of some of this money remain a mystery. Some go as far as squandering money destined to help AIDS patients.
For me, such types of organizations are more dangerous than AIDS itself, because they cause double tragedy.
Such inhuman acts close the door to love which is the mother and essence of all other virtues. In such organizations how can we justify their justice when it is devoid of love?
Unless justice and love are welded together, neither justice nor love can be realized. Love tends to be idealistic, illusory and insincere when it is separated from justice, and justice tends to be cruel when it is separated from love.
Respect for law of love and justice is the foundation and condition of an orderly, tranquil, collective life within the nations and among people. Love and justice are the support of the edifice of people living together.
The best way to fulfill one obligations of justice and love is to contribute to the common good.
The social order must be founded on truth, built on justice and enlivened by love. Without love all virtues, and all our cravings are imperfect.
Love is greater than justice. Social love is greater than social justice. Only love can guarantee the fullness of justice.
It is necessary then that a person is truly loved, if his/her rights are to be fully guaranteed.
This is the first and fundamental dimension of social order.
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