Youth & Young Adult Catechesis: Unfair Advantage

God is not fair. Did that get your attention? As children, we are often taught that ‘fairness’ is the centerpiece of morality. ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ gets watered down to ‘be fair to each other’. If one person gets to do something, then everyone else should as well. Isn’t the argument over homosexual marriage rooted in the question of this principle of fairness? We confuse the virtue of justice, ‘the constant and firm will to give their due to God and neighbor’[i] with fairness, ‘free from favor toward either or any side’[ii]. Justice is moral action based on truth; fairness is a secular notion based on equality and impartiality. Since we live in a post-modern culture that denies ‘truth’, we are taught to go to the lowest common denominator of ‘being fair’. So it can be a shock to us when we realize that God is not fair.