Justice

03 Apr 2023 - 21 Jul 2023

In MotTT a representation of the alignment of divine will and human freedom. Raises my atheist hackles – There ain't no justice, not for me, not Sam, not for old Job in the storybooks and Answer to Job. Modernism killed God, and hence Justice...not killed it exactly, but exposed it for a hollow sham. If the arc of history bends toward it, it does so too slowly for me, might as well not be happening.

MotT is the one book I've encountered that might make a Christian out of me. It just has that much real intellectual and spiritual power. It's a book that I feel somewhat unworthy of, and can't say I feel that way about much.

Actually, I have to read it and answer this question, how is the story of Jesus compatible with any sense of justice? I mean, it has a logic of sacrifice which seems kind of antithetical to justice.

Of course maybe I am confusing a mundane, human view of justice -- the kind of thing served up by lawsuits and perhaps the very long term view of history – with something higher, something that it makes no sense to be angry at.

"I am the guardian of equilibrium between the individual and the universal. I have the power to re-establish it each time that it is violated. I am order, health, harmony, justice."

balance signifies equilibrium, the sword the power to restore it. That's pretty obvious.

There's a bit on the diffeernce between the vital God and the wan idea of the Absolute. This is an exact echo of a passage in Heschel
To say that our search for God is a search for the idea of the absolute is to eliminate the problem which we are trying to explore. A first cause or an idea of the absolute—devoid of life, devoid of freedom—is an issue for science or metaphysics rather than a concern of the soul or the conscience. An Affirmation of such a cause or such an idea would be an answer unrelated to our question. The living soul is not concerned with a dead cause but a living God. Our goal is to ascertain the existence of a Being to whom we may confess our sins, of a God who loves, of a God who is not above concern with our inquiry and search for Him, a father, not an absolute. (p125)

Justice, judgement as something we all do everyday – judging this good, that bad, etc. But we should not condemn beings, just judge actions, to condemn beings is going too far, usurping a role (not sure I completely believe this – Nazis, as always, break the beautiful ideas)

Crowley's name "adjustment" is interesting – its not exactly justice, it is the process of achieving it. Putting things into balance from a disturbed state.