The justice of god and the formation of society
This theological study is a contribution to the search for a conception of justice which will form a just society. Its aim is to discover whether two leading modem secular theories of justice might be mediations of the justice of God, which I take to be a principle in Creation and the basis for the formation of society. My interdisciplinary approach advocates and employs critical theory to expose the pathologies of modernity, particularly domination (or the arbitrary use of power) as a major cause of injustice, and thus an impediment to the formation of a just society. This approach is undergirded by an Incarnational and Trinitarian theology which, through the use of a socio-political hermeneutic, transcends the biblical categories from which it origtuates. It recognises that the justice of God, understood throughout this thesis as right relationship or true sociality, is mediated through human agency and action which accord with God's nature and will. The theories of John Rawls and Jurgen Habermas which I choose to examine understand justice in terms of normative legitimacy, achieved through a publicly discursive and justificatory procedure, leading to a rational consensus about the social norms which form
Smit, Reynaud De La Bat
Political theology; Social justice
The justice of god and the formation of society. This theological study is a contribution to the search for a conception of justice which will form a just society. Its aim is to discover whether two leading modem secular theories of justice might be mediations of the justice of God, which I take to be a principle in Creation and the basis for the formation of society. My interdisciplinary approach advocates and employs critical theory to expose the pathologies of modernity, particularly domination (or the arbitrary use of power) as a major cause of injustice, and thus an impediment to the formation of a just society. This approach is undergirded by an Incarnational and Trinitarian theology which, through the use of a socio-political hermeneutic, transcends the biblical categories from which it origtuates. It recognises that the justice of God, understood throughout this thesis as right relationship or true sociality, is mediated through human agency and action which accord with God's nature and will. The theories of John Rawls and Jurgen Habermas which I choose to examine understand justice in terms of normative legitimacy, achieved through a publicly discursive and justificatory procedure, leading to a rational consensus about the social norms which form
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