Unjust Justice for an Unbelieving World

I often note how movies in the seventies often had rather unsettling endings where the bad guy gets away. It throws a wrench in the internal narrative of humanity that the good guy should always get the bad guy, good should be the victor, and the bad guy should lose. That divinely constructed consciousness causes us to seek justice in the world, and we are disturbed when injustice, rather than justice, is the end result.

This makes me wonder if having an unbelieving worldview contributes to the felt necessity to believe an accuser who has no evidence at the possible cost of convicting the innocent. If one believes atheism, or any worldview for that matter, that denies that a horrific punishment awaits those who commit heinous crimes against God and others, then the only justice is here and now. That means that murderers get away. Pedophiles get away. Rapists get away. Since we cannot let them get away, we must risk all to make sure that whoever accuses one of such serious crimes, even if there is no evidence, is believed.

Otherwise, there is no justice for the crime. There is no answering the evil. It just wins and there is nothing anyone can do about it. So even if it may convict the innocent (particularly an innocent party that is viewed within the class of the privileged oppressor who is less important than a historical victim of that oppressor), then all testimony that sounds sincere and has no evidence against it, even if there is no evidence for it, must be given the benefit of the doubt and assumed true until proven false. This is justice for some, but not all. In fact, it is actually the practice of injustice in the hopes that justice may blindly find its mark.

In the Christian worldview, however, there is justice for all because of this believed truth: no one ever gets away. In fact, anyone who gets away with a heinous act in this life will actually wish they had paid for it in this life. A terror awaits them. So the Christian can advocate that justice in the here and now should be performed for all through a due process that may allow some criminals to slip through the system due to lack of evidence or whatnot, but exists also to protect the innocent from false claims. A Christian worldview allows for a more balanced method of seeking justice in this world. It is never a necessity to bring about justice through a prosecutorial means that increases the likelihood that the innocent will receive an unjust treatment.