A Fairness Observed

I've been reading a lot of naturalist and atheist stuff in the last couple of days and the one thing that keeps coming up is "Why would a loving God do/allow something to something else. That doesn't seem fair". A god who allows things that are un-fair either is (a) evil, so don't have anything to do with him or (b) doesn't exist, so don't worry about it. I'll admit, it is a good question until you really look at what you're asking.


Take the question a little further and ask "Why should I have a standard of fairness?" I think it's appropriate to ask this simply because the person asking of God why something happens that they have deemed "unfair" is applying the standards of fairness that they have gotten themselves. Like when someone thinks it's not fair for you to take his bicycle, or someone thinks it's wrong that you don't give to charity. But if we ask where these standards came from or why we even apply these standards, then it becomes more complicated.

After all, why should that person stop taking your bicycle? Why should I give to a charity? What makes one decision better than other? Why do we look down on murders, rapists, thieves, and liars? What makes someone who helps someone else a noble person? Why do we have a sense of right and wrong and what is fair?

There are a few explanations that we could consider. First, it's behaviorism at work. Because you have been shaped the way you are and conditioned by others to think/feel certain ways about certain things, your behaviors and the things you think dictate why you think the way you do towards issues. If the people around you always walked backwards, then you would learn and be encouraged to walk backwards yourself. The problem with this is that it doesn't answer the question at all. We still don't know why our standards of fairness should be applied to everything or why we think certain things are "wrong". It doesn't explain why I'm walking backwards.

Second, fairness has naturally come about through human evolution. When I say "human evolution" I don't mean that because we're made differently than other animals we're better (although that does play into it), but what I mean is that humans in general have become more advanced over time and have developed a sense of what is right and wrong. The people before you found it was easier to walk backwards and benefited everyone, so you are now expected as the people before you to walk backwards because of it's greater good. But this still doesn't answer why I have the standard in the first place. Sure, over time our sense of fairness has gotten better through technology, connectivity, and an overall better sense of the world. But does that mean that we have any right apply the standards now? Just because walking backwards is easier for everyone else and for you doesn't make it ok. At what point did someone say "I shouldn't kill this person"? Why did they say it? It may of benefited everyone from not being killed, but it in no way answers why it's wrong or why it's bad for me to do?

Another thing to consider is properties. Why is it better for me to not take your bicycle than for you to have it? Who decided it was yours? What makes it yours? Sure, we could answer those immediate questions, but when you ask of a higher level, where's the answer? Who told the store the bicycle was theirs before you bought it? Why do you think you can have stuff because you paid for it? Why is it wrong of me to take your bicycle?

A third option is that someone gave us the standards in the first place. Someone told us that we shouldn't do certain things and that it's ok to do other things. Someone came in the town and told the townspeople that walking backwards is better for them, so they did it and saw its benefits. But it can't be just be some random person, otherwise it we start back at why this person thought it was better to walk backwards in the first place. It has to be someone outside the influence of not only the townspeople, but outside of walking. They don't need to walk because they know everything there is to know about walking ever. They've mastered walking. So as an authoritative walker, they can come in and show the people who are bad at walking what they're doing "wrong" and supply another way to walk "right". Then the people know how to walk correctly, and when something happens that causes that person to walk the "wrong" way, they can hold that person to a standard which was given to them from someone who knows what it means to be "right".

I realize that's a really stupid example, but the fact is, if there's no way for us to get our morals that we apply to each other and life in general on our own, then someone had to give it to us that is completely moral themselves. If we truly expect people not to kill each other and we mandate that we must be treated fairly, then there must be something that tells us you shouldn't do it in the first place. Where then is guilt? Where then is truth? Where then is right and wrong?

Maybe this is what being "made in the image of God" is: having an innate set of standards that we have because the standard itself instilled it in us. Sure, there are things that still happen that aren't "fair" by my standards, but God loving me despite not living to the standards of right and wrong isn't "fair" either. "You are not your own; you were bought at a price" (1 Cor 6:19-20). If we truly hold that we must be fair and that there is right and wrong, then I can't see a good option for why it exists outside of God.