Occasionally, I like to lay off the heavy stuff for a few days and read books about contemporary saints. Being in a period of frolic and gambol — my final exam having winged its way north — this seems like a good time for that. So I have picked up Elder Paisios of the Holy Mountain to re-read. This is one of those books I like to go back to from time to time, and I have written a bit about it in the past. Like almost all books translated from Greek into English, it is a little awkward in places, but I am always amazed by the wisdom shown by these “simple” monks.
One section that caught my interest was on justice, and specifically on human justice as opposed to divine justice. We like to think that justice is a constant, but the Elder is clear that one is better than the other. He gives an illustration:
Suppose two men are sitting at the table to eat. In front of them, there is a plate with ten peaches. If one of them greedily eats seven peaches, leaving three for his friend, he is being unfair to him. That is injustice.
Instead, if he says: “well, we are two and the peaches are ten. So each of us is entitled to eat five peaches.” If he eats the five peaches and leaves the other five for his friend, then he applied human justice.
However, if he understands that his friend likes peaches very much, he can pretend that he is not fond of them and eat only one, and then says to him: “Please eat the rest of the peaches, as I really don’t like them; besides, my stomach aches and I should not eat anymore.” That person has divine justice; he prefers to be unfair to himself by human standards and will be rewarded for his sacrifice by God’s grace, which he will abundantly receive.
This is a hard lesson to learn, yet if we take the bold step of sacrifice, we immediately learn that it is right. Still, clearly I at least often fail to take the lesson to heart. Yet consider — what would our society look like if we followed the attributes of divine justice?
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Wow… that really is a hard lesson to learn. I mean, who am I kidding?? I’d be doing good to get to the human justice part… or to simply not pat myself on the back for sharing 3 when I could have just taken them all for myself.
Hmmm… good mirror in which to see myself. Bad reflection
In reality, as most people practice it, it would be, “Oh, please, I hate peaches. Eat them all,” and then later, “What a pig. He ate all the peaches. He should have known how much I love them.” In such a case, human justice would be kinder and more honest.
The other thing that happens in real life: “Oh, A doesn’t like/need/want peaches as much as B does, so A should give all the peaches to B. And I’ll just keep my own.”
Sorry to drop a bag of cynicism on your blog. I should probably keep it to myself.
Jan, I think your cynicism stems from the common experience of finding oneself seemingly the beneficiary of largesse only to learn that it was a set-up. This happens so often that I find myself not trusting someone who seems to be too kind.
One can accomplish the divine justice scenario without saying anything, simply eating a peach and leaving the rest. Unless skillfully done, words can actually convey the impression that one has the power to give or withhold peaches which are actually a shared commodity.
Two similarly inclined individuals would perhaps eat one peach apiece (say that three times fast!) everyday so that a peach is consumed by each for five days. That is not only just, it is comradely.
Re: what Jan said - this principle is illustrated quite poignantly in Lewis’ “Screwtape Letters” by the mother of the patient who prides herself on not being a glutton while all the while saying she only wants a “good cup of tea”….
Also re: what Paula said - silence is far better than words. If to acheive divine justice one must lie (”I don’t like peaches very much…”) there is something amiss. Far better to simply divy them up 50/50 than to delude one’s neighbor.
Oh, I’ve come to the conclusion that the whole concept of “fairness” is an illusion.
Not that it doesn’t exist, but that humans do not have the ability to actually understand the concept or to apply it.
The idea of “fair” has been used to enslave whole societies to a notion of redistribution that creates the elevation of mediocrity to a virtue.
As I told my daughters growing up, there is no such thing as “fair,” only kindness and mercy. Seek “fairness and you will be condenmed to perpetual bitterness and disappointment.
Jesus illustrated this best with the parable of the rich man and his workers. The workers who started working in the vinyard late received the same wage as those who had started at the beginning of the day. and those workers were angry that they hadn’t received more.
Yep, no such thing as “fair.”
I like what Barnabas said… I’ll go with that.
One thing concerns me about the monk’s scenario of divine justice: it involves lying. To give up having more peaches, and then say that you don’t like them when you do, isn’t honest or true. I can see, though, simply eating one peach and saying you don’t want another one, since there is a level of wanting where you want your friend to eat and enjoy as much as possible.