Nicholas Wolterstorff on Justice

In 2008, Nicholas Wolterstorff, esteemed Reformed philosopher/theologian, wrote Justice: rights and wrongs.  The following is my review and interpretation of his three chapters on the Bible and justice.  Wolterstorff distinguishes between what he calls primary justice and rectifying justice.  I understand primary justice to be an ideal, a standard, an unchanging substance, anchored in the character of God.  God is just and he loves justice.  Rectifying justice judges and correct the oppression of the vulnerable such as the widows, orphans, resident aliens and the poor.  Love and justice are inseparably intertwined.  Justice lifts the downtrodden.

Wolterstorff is basic and solid in his chapter on justice in the Old Testament, but he breaks extremely important new ground as he discusses the equally important teaching on justice in the New Testament.  He strongly contradicts the common theological interpretation that justice fades in the NT and is largely replaced by personal salvation and love.

Wolterstorff devotes a chapter to the "de-justicizing" of the NT.  According to Wolterstorff, one important reason for the de-justicizing of the NT in the English speaking world is the deeply flawed English translation of dikaios and dikaiosune, the Greek words usually translated as righteous and righteousness.  The dik-stem occurs around 300 times in the NT so justice should be seen all over the NT or at least justice/righteousness.

But in the KJV, the dominant English translation for centuries, justice is found zero times in the NT.  In the NIV, justice is found only 16 times, the whole Bible, 134 times.  In the Spanish NVI, justice occurs an astounding 426 times; in the Latin Vulgate, around 400 times; in the French NVS, 380 times; in the German Revised Martin Luther text, 306 times.  I interpret the above data and Wolterstorff's comments to reflect a catastrophic English translation failure of the biblical concept of justice, especially in the NT.  In the Romance languages---Spanish, French, Latin---, justice occurs around 100 times in the NT.

When dikaiosune is translated justice in the Sermon on the Mount, these verses read: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after justice" "persecuted for the sake of justice"  "Seek first God's kingdom and his justice." I interpret Wolterstorff to believe that the dejusticizing of the NT, the separation of love and justice, the near removal of the word justice in the NT in favor of righteousness, to be one of the great heresies in the history of the church though Wolterstorff is much too judicious to actually say this.

Wolterstorff on Romans:  "For while Romans, as I interpret it, says more about justice than any other of the New Testament letters, it has also, ironically, served as the locus classicus for those who wish to de-justicize the New Testament."

To conclude, I would like to present a couple of quotations from Wolterstorff to indicate the quality of his insights:  "Those at the bottom are usually not there because it is their fault.  They are there because they are downtrodden.  Those at the top "trample the heads of the poor into the dust of the earth." (Amos 2:7)
When center and circumference are one's basic metaphors, the undoing of justice will be described as including the outsiders.  When up and down are one's basic metaphors, the undoing of injustice will be described as lifting up those at tyhe bottom. . . . The rectification of injustice requires not only lifting the low ones but casting down the high ones."

"The coming of justice requires the humbling of those who exalt themselves.  The arrogant must be cured of their arrogance; the rich and powerful must be cured of their attraction to wealth and power.  Only then is justice for all possible.