Why Social Justice Is Not The Goal

I've been reading Donald Bloesch's God the Almighty and have found his distinctions between divine righteousness and social justice helpful. The reason Christians need to understand and make this distinction is that often times temporal social justice is thought of as a part of God's gradual redemption of the cosmos - a step in the right direction. And in some way it is. As Christians work with each other and non-believers for a just society, the poor, the cynical, and the sinner all have more reason to taste and see that God is good and to enjoy some of that goodness, regardless of their posture toward God. However, there are a couple of problems with human social justice: One, it is fickle and prone to confuse its targets. The other problem is that it is impossible.

Bloesch points out some other, severe qualitative difference between the righteousness of God's kingdom and the righeousness of those human structures to which we look for justice. Here's Bloesch:

Human righteousness is conformity to the universal dictates of conscience. It means giving each person his or her due or deepening respect for human dignity and freedom. Divine righteousness is bringing people into right relationship with one another and with God. Social justice is guaranteeing that the rights and just claims of people are duly satisfied. Divine righteousness is making people willing to forego their rights and claims for the sake of another. Social justice is preventing the wounds that estrange people from each other from festering by the resort of law and force. Divine righteousness is bringing healing to those wounds. (1)(emphasis mine)

Bloesch believes that social justice anticipates the righteousness of the kingdom of God. I think he means this: In noticing the plight of an oppressed and helpless person and in seeing to it that she gets justice, you are doing a deed of human righteousness. Your actions reflect the ethical dimension of God's holiness and foreshadow the overwhelming righteousness that comes with his kingdom. But your actions are just the first class in Righteousness 101. Eventually, she needs to be introduced to Jesus, whose paradoxical, divine righteousness welcomed and forgave opressors like Zacheus and the Roman soldiers who crucified him. And in seeing Jesus, she will see the vast disparity between human justice and divine righteousness. Bloesch continues:

Human justice is a worthy goal, for it means a society in which the rights of the marginalized are respected and the weak are protected from the strong. Yet social justice as a viable possibility in a fallen world is not to be confounded with divine holiness - the impossible possibility realized only through grace.(2)

Bloesch goes on, making the distinction between the elavating ethos of humanitarianism (which seeks to elevate the entire class of unfortunate people to a higher level) and the Agape love that plunges down into the wretchedness and squalor of the fall in order to rescue one individual. This divergence between human love and divine Agape must be appreciated by Christians who are passionate about social justice. At this point in God's Story, universal social justice is not the end goal because it's not possible. Eventually, God's justice will make everything right, but for now God is calling a people to himself who see social justice as a mere step in the right direction - but who know that the goal here on earth is to completely die to oneself and to know Christ and to share in the fellowship of his sufferings and to stubbornly offer grace in the face of oppression, even if that oppression brings with it death. Philippians 3.

So, it may be that a Christian working for justice and divine righteousness may find himself increasingly debased, ridiculed, and oppressed. The very people who he has helped may turn on him and persecute him (see Jerusalem, circa AD 33). In that moment he should not despair that social justice is not happening, though he may feel sadness in his suffering; but he should also rejoice and pray that God would reveal His divine mercy and righteousness in the injustice suffered by the Christian. And maybe he will have the strength to forgive and therein "do justice and love mercy," albeit in a way utterly unfamiliar to his opressors. Thus the distinction between social justice and divine righteousness will begin to be made. This distinction marks the departing point for Christianity from all other religions and all other humanistic ethics, and it gives us courage and endurance when social justice is neither just nor possible.

Agree? Deplore? Critique? Please offer some abrasion. This post is only a part of what I hope to write about. It may seem crude and devoid of nuance, but there is more forthcoming.
Slings, arrows, outrageous misfortune - all welcome.


1. Donald Bloesch, God the Almighty. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 1995. (P. 153)
2. Ibid.