Objective Guilt and Justification

It is difficult to understand guilt correctly these days. When guilt became "subjectivized" into pyschological states, the ontological contour of guilt simply faded away. In former times, of course, one could make good sense of guilt as a transgression of the laws of God. One was "guilty" for not doing what one ought to do, even if one did not know one was so guilty. People are guilty coram deo (before God) even when they do not know of their transgression of divine boundaries.

In an age that understands guilt objectively, the prophetic voice is crucial. The prophet is one that reminds people of their guilt; he or she tells them what is the case and, by doing so, drives them into subjective apprehension of their guilt. A consonance between subjective and objective guilt is necessary if a person is ever to repent. The necessary condition for an experience of repentance is subjective apprehension of one's objective guilt.

Judaism, Christianity and Islam all look to the future for a "day of the Lord." Such a day will be one when the "lion and lamb lie down together" and the "child plays with the adder." This day will be a day when the mountains are leved out and the valleys raised up (Luke 3). In the day of the Lord there shall be no unsatisfied guilt. Objective guilt demands objective satisfaction. Retributive justice requires paying back "likes for likes" (Cicero). The scales of justice must balance in a just society. In the day of the Lord, there shall be proper justice; there shall be no "extra guilt" in the universe. Just as the sum total of all charges in the universe is zero (at least, that is what many physicists say), so too the sum total of all guilt in the universe is zero. In the day of the Lord, all guilt is cancelled by its proper satisfaction.

It is truly wonderful to think of the justice in this "last day." Judaism, Christianity, and Islam long for the just day in which there will be no uncancelled guilt. However, while Judaism and Islam continue to look to the future for the justice of the day of the Lord, Christians claim that this justice has already dawned in the person and work of Jesus the Christ. Unlike the other great monotheisms, God's day of justice is already here! Right now guilt and satisfaction are in proper balance. Right now the mountains have been lowered and the valleys raised. Right now the lion lies peacefully with the lamb.

But how can this be? It should be apparent to everyone that this is clearly not so; there is no objective justice here and now. The "not yet" of the eschaton might bear justice, but surely in the "yet" of time, justice is lacking.

Precisely this, however, is the paradox. Just as we are objectively guilty, though seldom realize it, so are we now living in a state of objective justice, though we cannot see it. The Christian claim is that the justice of the eschatological "not yet" is now "yet" present in the injustice of the world. Simply put, eternal justice is present in the injustice of time.

But how ought one understand this? What is the relation between temporal injustice and eternal justice? How can it be that this world is already just and still not just at the same time? What is the ontology of the justice the prevails now?

There are a number of options. One could, I suppose, simply deny that any justice holds now. We might claim that the world is groaning in travail and waiting for some future rectification. While this seems true empirically, it is inconsistent with the profound Christian claim that the logos (proper order) actually entered history in Jesus the Christ.

One could claim that justice is really present, and no matter how bad things appear, the reality is that God has entered time and that justice has been established. The problem with this view is that it devalues the current situation. Things are good, no matter how they look.

The proper claim is to hold in tension the "yet" and "not yet" by understanding the reality of present justice theo-ontologically. From the standpoing of the divine, justice has been established through the Cross of Christ. However, this is simply not true ontologically, from the human standpoint. Earthly eyes see that the day of the Lord shall someday come; divine eyes know it is already here. How can this be reconciled?

The truth is that no synthesis of the human and divine standpoints are possible. What humans can hope for is a "trickle down" from the justice already theo-ontologically established into the injustice of a world ontologically comprehended by sinful man and woman. The world, like human beings, is both just and unjust at the same time. It is not partially just and partially unjust (partim/partim), but it is wholly both just and unjust (totus/totus). This is the place where the paradox lives, and this paradoxical presence ought not be mistaken for conceptual confusion.