1. In what ways does justice achieved in the realm of human experience reflect the will of God?
If it is true that man is made in God's image, and if it is true that God is good, then it follows that it must be the will of God for mankind to experience how to be in accord with the good. It is self-evident that justice is a good, for by definition justice entails fairness, impartiality, and righteousnss as a fundamental principle of existence. Defining justice in terms of a principle or in terms of mere existence, however, is not sufficient.
That is because the will of God is a dynamic, not a static, state of being. The example of Christ's life and the extraordinary example of his death vividly reinforces what we know intuitively: that God is involved with human beings, not only in respect of their being as such but in respect of their experience. As Laborem Exercens comments in that regard: "by means of work man participates in the activity of God Himself, his Creator, was given particular prominence by Jesus Christ" (John Paul II 59). Work experience is part of the larger realm of the whole of human experience--inevitably social. Interaction between human beings is fundamental to human existence. Thus to the degree human experience, which is the working-out and unfolding of history, reflects a deliberate effort to incorporate justice, it celebrates the Creation, which perforce is also the will of God, since God is the very principle of creation.
2. If humility has a special place in Christian morality (Ashley 228), how can the Christian explain the need to fight for justice?
It is demonstrated in the beatitudes that Christian morality anticipates that the meek shall inherit the earth, and the Redemption is the supreme symbol of Christian morality because it demonstrates that God himself, through Jesus, acquiesced in the fullness of human experience by participating in human death. That exemplar would seem to suggest that ...