LITTLE children have a strong sense of justice. A decision by a teacher or parent which seems to them to be unjust often provokes a howl of outraged protest.
A sense of justice is innate in many adults also. But in human experience protests against injustice are sometimes disregarded, and this indifference may lead to either belligerent recrimination or resentful submission. For centuries theologians have tried to remedy this state of affairs with the promise of a final judgment day, in which every detail of human behavior will be reviewed and rewards and penalties assessed. But at best this would leave many human protests unanswered for a very long time and many apparent injustices without any hope of speedy redress.
Christian Science presents a different conception of divine justice. By defining God as impersonal, divine Principle, this religion shows that justice is an attribute of God and is perpetually active, having infinite power behind it. Therefore justice cannot forever be evaded, defied, or manipulated with impunity. Every instance of justice expressed in human affairs is fresh evidence of the ever-presence of God operating as divine Principle.
Under the marginal heading "Day of judgment," Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health (p. 291): "No final judgment awaits mortals, for the judgment-day of wisdom comes hourly and continually, even the judgment by which mortal man is divested of all material error. As for spiritual error there is none."
An interesting illustration of such judgment is found in the Bible in the twenty fifth chapter of Matthew in which Christ Jesus speaks of the five foolish virgins who, through neglecting their supply of oil, lost the opportunity of going to the marriage feast; of the wicked and slothful servant who buried the talent entrusted to him; and of the righteous nations that were to be separated from the unrighteous as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.
Jesus was not consigning any individual to perpetual exclusion, limitation, or damnation. He was dealing with qualities of thought and was pointing out that people punish themselves when they neglect to exercise consecration, resourcefulness, and love in daily life.
The Master's remarks regarding the sheep and the goats have special significance for students of Christian Science. At a very early stage in her career Mrs. Eddy challenged the needed scholastic doctrine of eternal damnation. Christian Scientists realize that Jesus was simply showing the people what they had to do in order to earn their blessing. It was lack of love, and not unloving mortals, which was being condemned to the punishment it inevitably brings.
One morning some years ago a Christian Science Sunday School class of teen-age girls was discussing the parable of the judgment when the Bible Lesson in the Christian Science Quarterly for that week was "Everlasting Punishment." The teacher asked, "Where did the unrighteous go wrong?"
And the answer came quickly, "They were not loving."
The next question was, "What was their punishment?"
And one girl replied very spontaneously, "Not to be loved back."
Then the teacher went on to ask, "How long would their punishment last?"
And after a momentary pause the answer was, "Until they started to be loving."
If we want to be waiting and watching when the Christ comes to us, then we shall look to the amount of oil in our lamps. If we want our sense of substance to grow, we shall not bury our talents in the ground. And if we realize what a rewarding quality love is, then we shall not let opportunities to express it pass us by. But if we do express the qualities of consecration, resourcefulness, and love, then we can rely on divine justice to see that nothing robs us of the reward they bring.
Mrs. Eddy herself had a strong sense of justice. She was convinced that God does not punish the innocent and that the guilty punish themselves until they are divested of their own particular error.
In the chapter entitled "Christian Science Practice" in Science and Health, an illustration of Christian Science treatment appears in the form of a trial scene in which the patient is sentenced to death for having neglected health laws and overtaxed his strength while caring for a sick friend. When an appeal is made to divine justice, the sentence is immediately revoked.
It is interesting to notice that the type of patient which Mrs. Eddy chose for this illustration was not the sick friend himself, but the individual who was submitting to unjust punishment without protest. Justice is not often associated with health, but Christian Science explains that here too we can rely on divine Principle to redress injustice promptly.
Sometimes it is true that we seem to incur our own physical ills by erroneous and fearful thinking, and healing takes place as soon as we are divested of these errors. At other times we seem to suffer undeservedly, like the victim in the trial scene.
Formerly people used to believe that God sent sickness as an instrument of His inscrutable will. Nowadays they are more prone to believe that matter causes disease quite indiscriminately and that this has no moral significance at all. Both these beliefs have exactly the same effect of making men the helpless victims of injustice. Our Leader writes on page 150 of Science and Health, "The science (so-called) of physics would have one believe that both matter and mind are subject to disease, and that, too, in spite of the individual's protest and contrary to the law of divine Mind."
Man in God's likeness is not a helpless mortal either dreading injustice, fighting it, or submitting to it. Man is a spiritual idea, supremely confident of God's unerring justice. And in human experience an appeal to divine justice regenerates and heals by divesting men of error as well as exonerating them from all undeserved penalties.
Christian Science does not avert the consequences for inadequate or erring work. It shows us how to express rewarding spiritual qualities and to experience the satisfaction which they earn. When we understand the purpose of divine justice and appeal to it confidently, then nothing can even seem to separate goodness from its reward or cause from its effect.
We may always find comfort in the Psalmist's words (Ps. 89:1, 14, 15): "I will sing of the mercies of the Lord for ever: with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations. . . . Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face. Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound: they shall walk, O Lord, in the light of thy countenance."
