Does the Moral Arc of the Universe Really Bend Toward Justice?

I like this quote:

What we must always be aware of are the deep ideological structures that bolster the myths by which we live, and to make sure that those myths exist for us, and not us for those myths.

It echoes the saying o Jesus about the sabbath being made for humans rather than vice versa, and Walter Wink's related observation that the Powers are similarly so made. I would say that, in a sense, this is also related since Myths are one of the existential underpinnings of many of the Powers. Corporisations are partly constituted by hopeful stories and mission statements which function mythologically. The thing is to learn to narrate myths which tell a truth which liberates and edifies.

One of the things that this underlines for me is that working to educate and to change minds towards peace and justice is important work. It can sometimes seem like learning and teaching are a bit weak compared with curing disease or building sewage systems. But there is value in helping people to think in ways that build and sustain human flourishing. There is value in challenging ideas that denigrate or diminish others.

The article itself is worth pondering, not least because it raises the question of how far this saying (picked up by Martin Luther King Jr) can be taken on without some kind of faith in providence. I guess that Marxist philosophy embeds the idea of providence in the dialectic of history and offers an interpretation of history which seems to found that view in a reading of the arc of history thus far. And Christian thought would tend to look to the working of God in and through human affairs. Both views have to be wary of inculcating a passivity which just waits for the process to work itself out. And in reality we need to remember that we are ourselves part of 'history' and caught up in providence. That if the arc of history does indeed bend towards justice, it is because 'we' make it so.

The real question, once the proposition is accepted (however tentatively), is why we think it might be so. In what some would argue is an indifferent universe, how come we think we can observe greater justice coming about? Is not 'justice' simply a human preference for arranging our affairs? Or is it something that ultimate reality 'cares' about? Why do we humans even have a sense that justice is better than cruelty and indifference? -which is a perfectly understandable reading of the way the universe appears to work, at least from some perspectives.

God has set eternity in the human heart (Eccl.3:11). Eternity is about love and justice. It is hard to make the statement about the arc of the universe veering towards justice without some kind of faith that there is an underlying reality which cares about such things and has embedded within the created order something that keeps pushing towards what is cared about. That underlying reality Christians name as 'God' and the something is the strange attractor of eschatological/ressurection life. This something is within the created order but points beyond; to a completion, to a wholeness, to a point of Rest; where hints and longings come to their fulness.

When we hope that it may be that the moral arc of the universe bends towards justice, we are hoping that 'God' really does care and that providence therefore will support our efforts in broad terms to make things more fair, loving and joyful -that indeed, our efforts to do so actually are eternally valuable, are worth something and work with the 'deep magic' of what is.

Does the Arc of the Moral Universe Really Bend Toward Justice? | Portside: