Religion Unit 4

Unit 4 

Restoring God’s Justice in the World 

God created in people a concern for justice 

• How do people demonstrate the potential to love justly? 

Justice is an important human concern. Widespread human existence shows that everyone likes to be treated fairly and justly. People get annoyed when they see injustices. A sign of maturity is the growing concern that others are being treated unfairly. Another sign is that the person feels guilty if they do something they know is unjust, especially if someone else finds out. This was created by God so that human nature could be just, otherwise people would have no regrets and wouldn't care. 

In many societies, people have been treated unfairly because of their colour, race, opinion, gender or religious beliefs. Mature people become concerned at this unfairness and try to make it just again. 

Human societies reflect degrees of concern for justice, they have a justice system and attempt to protect the rights of their people. 

• How is this potential to love justly part of human nature as God created it? 

Justice is a sign of true love as people commonly show concern for justice, as part of human nature. It is a basic human value and is the feature of truly human love, which is concerned for the good of others. If a person’s sense of justice matures as created by God, two other concerns will also develop. 

• Concern for the rights of the Creator. 

• The growing ability to love others as members of the human family. 

Respecting the rights of the creator. People understand that their daily existence depends upon the Creator who keeps all creation in existence. The creator has special rights. Religious people show respect for God’s rights through worship and prayer and trying to live as God desires. Religions of the world are proof that they respect the just rights of the Creator. 

Why is it important that all people are considered to be members of the human family? 

All people are members of the human family despite differences in personality, race, physical and cultural values, social position or financial status, all are human beings and share the same human nature. Part of developing maturity and love is to learn to recognise that all people belong to the same human family. Recognising this means that accepting each member of the human race as someone who is loved personally by God. 

To learn to love others in the human family justly, people need to begin with themselves. Human needs for love, respect, friends, encouragement especially when facing challenges and respect for other’s property. Families use the resources they have to provide for the needs of their members, they accept that each has a right to a share of things. Parents provide for their children and other families members by sharing things like food, shelter, clothing and money. They tend to stand up for each other. People show they have learnt that they belong to the human family when they do what they can to ensure that the needs of other members of the human family are met and try to stand by them when help is needed. 

People need to go beyond appearances and see what makes each a member of the human family. When people ignore appearances, they find that people experience similar hopes, disappointments and needs for food, shelter, medical care and protection. 

• How does it feel to love justly? 

Just love leads to peace, however, trying to be fair can be difficult. If one shows just love by being fair they find themselves happier because they have done the right thing. Their sense of justice gradually matures by recognising the rights of others. When people realise they have ignored others’ rights, they feel guilty. This prompts them to try and make up for what they have done and to become more just in the future. The human potential to love justly develops with practice. It develops as people seek opportunities to provide for other members of the human family. People realise that there cannot be true peace without justice. Feelings of injustice are not resolved until there is negotiation and reconciliation. Many people realise that there cannot be true peace without justice. Injustices lead individuals and nations into tense situations. 

• How can just love lead to peace? 

People know that peace is not simply the absence of war or conflict. It requires trust and good will between people. Each person must love and recognise the rights of others. Peace is ruined when people feel that they are being taken advantage of or their basic rights are being denied. Often, greed, jealousy, distrust, pride and other forms of selfishness which lead to people treating others unjustly. People who seek maturity can develop their inner potential to love justly by reflecting on their behaviour within their families, among friends, at school etc. People must ensure that they face and try to overcome personal feelings of selfishness. Respect the rights of all, beginning with those they know and see in everyday life. Do all that they can to correct injustices at personal, group and national levels. 

Questions of the human heart meant that people become concerned whenever they need injustices. “How can lasting justice be promoted in the world today?” 

Human injustice in the world 

• What are some examples of people behaving unjustly? 

Injustice within families, wider society, within nations and against God.  

Fights between families can have a long lasting effect on someone's life. This may be a cause of someone habitually pointing out their weaknesses and reminding them of their past mistakes. Injustice can also include failing to forgive or blaming others for wrong doing. 

Injustice in the wider society is caused when people fail to recognise that everyone has the potential to love and act justly. This can be caused by direct actions, stealing, or indirect actions, ignoring. People need to identify their unjust tendencies and change them 

Injustice between nations can happened economically, due to military, poverty and amount of wealth. These all trade back to greed and selfishness. 

Injustices against God. God has the right to receive thanks and praise from everyone, since, every person relies on him to live. People have an obligation to relate to God. However, many people fail to recognise this obligation and do not recognise the need to treat God justly. They take God for granted. This weakens their relationship with God and they do not draw on guidance, strengthening or other God-given blessings. 

• How does the failure to recognise disunity in the human family cause injustices in the world? 

Injustices are caused by people's failure to recognise others as people. They often make decisions without considering other people's lives. Questions of the human heart are asked as people develop social maturity and a personal sense of justice. They become concerned with how people treat each other and people's failure to recognise God's rights. Leading them to ask, "How can lasting justice be promoted in the world today?" 

Jesus – the realisation of God’s justice 

• What was the original state of justice? 

The sin of human beings disrupted God's plan for the world. Human sinfulness is the root cause of all injustices in the world today. God does not want people to suffer injustices so he sent his son to bring justice to the world, offering God's healing power of love and reconciliation. The power of the gospel offers to each person the opportunity to accept the justice of God into their daily lives. As people accept this power by praying, God's justice is gradually realised throughout the world. 

Parents of the human race Adam and Even were created in complete harmony with God. The four harmonious relationships were: 

• Harmony with God: 

People owe obedience to their Creator who is more powerful than any force on Earth or in the universe. Complete happiness will only come when people develop a personal relationship with God. Behaving in ways which are in accordance with God's will for them. 

First parents were originally creation to live in a harmonious relationship with God 

• Harmony within themselves 

Flowing from their peace with God the first parents enjoyed harmony within themselves. Drawing on God's guidance people experience inner peace and personal direction. Drawing on God's strength people are empowered to resist temptations. 

• Harmony with each other 

Flowing from their relationship and respect for God, the first parents respected each other. People with inner peace tend to be peaceful towards others. If they are angry or upset with themselves, they tend to be angry/upset with others. By seeing the goodness and likeness of God in each other they are able to see each other as totally as human persons and to love each other. 

• Harmony with the rest of creation 

The first parents were created in God's image and likeness. They appreciated creation for its goodness and continued as partners with God in the development of creation, as people are called to do today. 

• What is original sin? 

The foundation for the state of original justice was the human relationship with God. Other harmonies grew out of this relationship. First parents in disobeying God, destroyed their relationship with God.  

• How did original sin destroy the state of original justice? 

Original sin that people today experience personal confusion, emotion conflicts, guilt and inner struggles. Tensions and injustices that exist today between individuals within families and societies and between nations. Bullying, violence, war, hunger, class, addictions (reveal inner conflict within people)  

Pollution is the environmental degradation and decline in earth's resources are also consequences of the breakdown of the harmony between human beings and the rest of creation. 

To restore justice to the world, God needed to save people from their sinfulness and to restore the relationship of harmony with the human race, this is called justification – the destruction of the power of original sin over people and the restoration of each human being's relationship with God. God needs the personal consent of each individual.  

• What is the Catholic understanding of justification? 

Justification restores the relationship between the Creator and the human race. Two aspects of justification: 

• People are forgiven and saved from sin through the grace of the Holy Spirit 

• People are sanctified, that is, they receive a share in the very life of God. 

By offering his life to his father as a life lived in obedience, loving selflessness and submission to the father, Jesus justified the human race. The climax of self-offering was his suffering, death and resurrection.  

By instituting Baptism, Jesus made it possible for all who believe in him to accept forgiveness and to share in his relationship with God his father. 

Through Baptism, the Holy Spirit dwells within people and heals their relationship with God by: 

• empowering the baptised person to convert increasingly to God, that is, to relate more closely with God, and to turn from sin 

• gradually helping to overcome the human weaknesses that lead people to sin 

• giving the spiritual gifts a person needs to deepen in relationship with God 

  • faith (the spiritual power to believe in God and all that God has revealed) 

  • hope (the spiritual power to trust God’s promises) 

  • charity (the spiritual power to love God and other human beings) 

• increasingly freeing people from influences which can dominate the will or tempt them to ignore their conscience. 

Developing baptismal graces in essential in order to deepen one's relationship with God. 

• Praying daily, joining in community worship especially Sunday Mass, trying to live each day as Jesus taught. 

Many baptised people do not experience the effect of God's grace in their lives because they neglect their baptismal gifts, they: 

• fail to draw close to God 

• give in to human weaknesses that lead to sin 

• have doubts about God, and what God has taught through the teachings of Jesus 

• lack hope and experience a sense of hopelessness at times, and even despair 

• lack charity and remain selfish and self-centred weakening their love for God and others 

• allow influences to dominate the will. 

Justification is God's free gift. God is merciful. Mercy flows from God's unconditional love and tenderness. Justification is a free gift from God which humans have done nothing to deserve. God was under no obligation to restore the relationship with people. The gift for God's self-communication in relationship with people and the help God gives to grow in that relationship is called 'grace'. Every gift of God is a 'grace' freely given and without obligation: 

• Human capacity to make choices and to choose to accept God's invitation to relationship. 

• The capacity to convert to God. 

• The spiritual gift received through the Eucharist and other sacraments. 

State of grace means that a person has a living relationship with God. People lose the state of grace by committing moral sin. People need to die in the state of grace to enter heaven. 

• How can people be empowered by God to promote a just world? 

God empowered the parents of the human race to be in harmony with each other and with the rest of creation. Today, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, God empowers followers of Jesus to help restore the harmony between human beings and between human beings and the rest of creation. Followers of Jesus find the true answer to human heart question, "How can lasting justice be promoted in the world today?" 

10.4.5

Jesus calls Christians to promote social justice 

Every human person has basic developmental needs  

What are the basic human needs that a person requires for their development? 

God intended to provide the needs of people through others. However, due to the occurrence of original sin people became selfish and greedy, thus, God's plan would not work. God's original justice between people is necessary for the development of people. Not everyone has the same opportunities to develop as God wishes. People need to develop this potential to experience personal fulfilment. Everyone has: 

• Physical potential 

• Intellectual and emotional potential 

• Social potential 

• Spiritual potential 

• Potential to recognise goodness and beauty in creation 

• Religious potential 

As people develop each of the areas of their personal potential, they can develop the harmonies God intended them to experience. The human weaknesses and failings caused by original sin work against this. This conflict can be overcome only to the extent that people draw on the power of the Kingdom of God, which Christ promised to all who ‘Repent and believe’ his gospel  

How do people assist each other in developing as human beings? 

God intends that everyone should reach their full potential. God created everyone in the human will (freedom and responsibility for person development as they mature) to help them god created: 

• The resources of the Earth: 

God has provided for human needs through creation (food, water, air, materials etc). God provided beauty in nature to assist people to recognise their creator. God planned all resources of Earth to provide for human needs was frustrated by original sin. People who lack necessities of life: 

• Growing gap between rich and poor 

• 20% of nations using 86% of Earth's resources 

• Colonial powers depleting the natural resources of countries under their rule. 

• The human society 

   

The earth’s resources are intended to meet every person’s basic needs

What is the ‘Principle of the Universal Destination of Goods’? 

God intention that every human being draw on the resources of the Earth for their basic needs is called the Principle of the Universal Destination of Good. Meaning that when someone is starving for essential life, they are entitled to take whatever basic resource they need from the surplus of another person who has more than they need. Resource is theirs by God's authority. God intends human beings to behave from the Earth's resources what they need to live. Lifesaving food or medicine. 

Jesus taught about corporal works of mercy

What are the corporal works of mercy? 

Corporal works of mercy is feeding the hungry, giving drinks to the thirsty etc. Jesus focussed on giving money or alms to those in need. These teachings apply to where people have what exceeds their own life needs and need to provide for their families. People are not exempt from giving to the poor because of their financial or material ambitions. Responsibilities to the needy should be factored into plans for funding extra luxuries. 

How did Jesus teach his followers about the corporal works of mercy? 

Jesus emphasised God's intention for the resources of the Earth. In two parables he warned that those who fail to provide for the needy from any surplus that they have beyond their own needs will be condemned.

• Parable of the Rich Man and the Beggar 

• Parable of the Last Judgement 

The Eucharist nourishes commitment to the poor 

How does the Eucharist nourish Jesus’ Followers’ commitment to the poor? 

When people receive Jesus in Holy Communion, he draws them into a deeper relationship. The more they are influenced by his attitudes and ideas. God loves the poor that even Jesus was born poor and lived in a poor family. Jesus deepens love for the poor in those who receive him in Holy Communion. 

In Australia with the decline of religious practice, there has been a decline of people working in voluntary organisations that help the poor, also declines in 

• Individual donations for works for the poor 

• Australian national funding for overseas aid 

Jesus teaches that people have a moral responsibility to care for the poor by supporting non-government agencies that aid the poor and by encouraging elected officials to adopt policies that assist the poor in Australia and overseas