Saturday, August 29, 2020

Tim Keller's view of justice

Tim Keller has written an article that supposedly critiques secular views of justice and states that his view of justice is "none of those." This article seems to prove that Tim Keller is unaffected by critical theory and secular view of justice, and thus his "biblical justice" is indeed biblical. But is it?

Examining Keller's view of justice can be indeed helpful, and articles like this have done so. What irks me however is Keller's incessant desire to put forwards his view as transcending all other views ("mine is none of the above"). Whether it is saying that the Gospel is neither "religion" nor "irreligion," Keller's rhetoric is in my opinion unhelpful. The fact of the matter is that many Christians have thought about issues of the Gospel, or issues of justice (in this case) for centuries. Are those people trying to be unbiblical? Are they not proposing their views as what they believe (truly or falsely) to be biblical? Keller seems to think that he is the first one who is thinking about issues of justice with a desire to be only following Scripture and nothing else, as if no one before him has done so before.

In this light, I have prepared this chart. Keller's "spectrum of justice" is only a line, which strikes me as being simplistic. Thus, I have decided a coordinate system of two ideas about justice would do more justice (pun intended) to the spectrum of justice theories. When mapped this way, Keller's view can be placed onto the spectrum, instead of being "none of those."

Now that Keller's view of justice is mapped, it can be examined. It is not "none of those" - a term of false advertising that give the false impression that Keller is indeed above the fray.

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