Most of us are quick to complain when something is unfair - maybe we’ve been cut off in traffic or someone hasn’t carried out their end of a bargain. Or maybe we’re standing up for someone else who has been discriminated against based on their race or gender.

But where does this sense of justice come from? Why is it that as humans we all have this natural intuition that things should be fair - that equals should be treated equally and if they aren’t there’s something wrong. 

What most people don’t realise is that the concept of justice doesn’t make any sense if there is no objective standard of right and wrong. Today it’s common to think that the individual chooses what is right and wrong for them and them alone. What’s right for me might not be right for you. However, if this is the case, then we actually have no grounds to fight for justice on - if someone treats you unfairly then that is their own decision and you can’t impose your standards of right and wrong onto them. Or if a teacher gives two students with identical answers on their tests different marks then we also can’t complain because that’s the choice the teacher wants to make. 

Of course we all know that there is something clearly wrong in these examples - there is a sense of justice deeply embedded into our human nature. This is just one of the many reasons why there must be objective morality, a standard of right and wrong which applies to everyone. And once we realise this reality, we have to ask ourselves - where does that standard come from? Without God, there is no foundation for right and wrong, for justice and injustice. God is the only one who can give us this moral law which he has written into our hearts. 

I’m Becky Gillespie from Thinking Matters and this has been your Thought for Today. For more reasons to believe visit thinkingmatters.org.nz