Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Religious Studies – Anthology
36means you will vote for Senator So-and-so.’ ‘No,’ said the driver, ‘there are times
when a man has to push his princ iples aside, and do the right thing!’ There are
times when principles become wrong – even when they are right.
The other is a story from Nash‘s play The Rainmaker. The Rainmaker makes
love t o a spinst er girl in a barn at midnight. He does not really love her, but he is
determined to save her from becoming spinsterised; he wants to give her back her
womanhood, and to rekindle her hopes of marriage and c hildren. Her morally
outraged brother threatens to shoot him. Her father, a wise old ranc her, says to his
son: ‘Noah, you’re so full of what’s right that you c an’t see what’s good.’ For the
situationist a thing that is labelled wrong c an be in c ertain c irc umstanc es the only
right thing.
T his leads us t o t he sec ond of Flet c her’s basic princ iples. Flet c her lays it down:
Love and justice are the same t hing, for just ic e is love dist ribut ed, not hing
else.
We can relate love and justice in different ways. Sometimes people think of
love versus justice, as if love and justice were against each other; or love or
justic e, as if you had to c hoose one or the other, but c ould not have both; or love
and justice as if the two things complemented each other. But for Fletcher love is
justic e; love and justic e are one and the same thing. This is a new idea. Niebuhr,
the great American teacher, used to say that the differenc e is t hat love is
t ransc endent and love is impossible; while just ic e is somet hing by whic h we c an
live in this present soc iety. Brunner held that the differenc e is that love must be
between two persons; whereas justice exists between groups. But Flet c her will
have it that love is the same thing as justic e. How does he make this out?
Accept the fact that the one absolute is love. Then love has to be worked out
in t he sit uat ions of life – and t he working of it out is just ic e, Just ic e, it is said,
consists of giving eac h man his due; but the one thing that is due to every man is
love; therefore love and justice are the same. Justice, says Fletcher, is love
distributed. When we are c onfronted with the c laims of more than one person, of
t hree or four people, we have to give them love, and it is justice which settles just
how love is t o be applied t o eac h of t hem. Just ic e is love working out it s problems.
So then unless love is to be a vague sentimental generalised feeling, there
must be justic e, bec ause just ic e is love applied t o part ic ular c ases. T his is prec isely
what is so often the matter with love, the fact that it never gets worked out and
never gets beyond being a feeling and an emotion. Some time ago – Fletcher cites
the c ase – S a mmy Da v is J r. th e great entertainer became a Jew, and thereby
repudiat ed Christ ianit y. ‘As I see it ,’ he said, ‘t he differenc e is t hat t he Christ ian
religion preac hes, Love thy neighbour, and the Jewish religion preac hes justic e, and
I think that justic e is the big thing we need.’ Sammy Davis is blac k, and he knew all
about so-c alled Christ ian love. As Fletcher says, there are many people who would
claim that they love black people, and who at the same time deny them simple
justice. Fletcher goes on: ‘To paraphrase the classic cry of protest, we can say: To
hell with your love; we want justic e.’ This is exac tly what happens when justic e and
love are not equated.
This means that love has always got to be thinking; love has always got to be
c alc ulat ing. Ot herwise love is like the bride who wanted to ignore all recipes and