The Bible’s Viewpoint
Why Is Life So Unfair?
BARRELING down the road comes an unregistered car, driven by an unlicensed 17-year-old drunk. Without warning, the speeding vehicle plows into the rear of a slower-moving car, pushing it 230 feet (70 m) along the road, where it bursts into flames. In the back seat of the slower-moving car, a father and his sleeping 13-year-old daughter are incinerated almost immediately. The mother is dragged by her son from the front seat of the burning wreck, with the flesh of both her legs burned off to the bone. She dies a few hours later. Their 21-year-old son, who was driving, is the family’s sole survivor.
The punishment meted out to the culpable driver? Three hundred hours of community service, a fine of $3,000, and a good behavior bond for three years!
When hearing of the verdict, the son Douglas lamented: “It seems so wrong to me that the Government is prepared to go out and spend millions of dollars on a campaign to stop drunk-driving, yet when someone is killed they are not prepared to follow it up with the appropriate sentence.” This is but one of the many vehicle-related miscarriages of justice reported regularly in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper under the sardonic heading: “Justice on the Roads.”
Perhaps you, too, have been a victim of unfairness—whether in law courts, or when looking for housing, or on the job.
Unfairness Is a World Problem
No matter where you look, social disparities are there. For instance, why do those living in some countries have so much food that waste and overeating are common, while in other lands millions are undernourished or even starve to death? In July 1983, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization painted a gloomy picture of the urgent need to supply millions with grain if actual starvation was to be averted. Starvation came, as events in Ethiopia during 1985 bore out.
Consider another example of unfairness: Some people can afford to live in mansions, while millions of fellow humans, because of utter poverty, must live in substandard dwellings, many in little more than a lean-to or a shanty dwelling. According to The New Book of World Rankings for 1984, “one-fourth of the planet’s population—some one billion human beings—live in poverty so stark and dehumanizing that [it] is inconceivable for most people living in Western societies.”
But even where houses do exist, in many lands the main chore of womenfolk is to bring water from a well or a river, sometimes miles away from the house. In one country 99.7 percent of all dwellings are without piped water. Another 5 countries have more than 95 percent without water, and 50 more countries range from 50.6 percent to 88.9 percent without piped water.
These are some of the inequalities plaguing mankind today. But why is there so much of it? Why does God permit it and for so long? Will he ever do anything about it?
God Hates Partiality
Happily, the Almighty God, Jehovah, is described as one who “is not partial,” as “a God of faithfulness, with whom there is no injustice.” (Acts 10:34, 35; Deuteronomy 32:4) Thousands of years ago God revealed that he detests partiality and injustice. How so? By having instructions written in divine law forbidding any type of discrimination or unfairness. It was a violation of God’s standards to show favoritism toward the rich and influential or to the lowly and disadvantaged. The Law given to his ancient chosen nation states: “You people must not do injustice in the judgment. You must not treat the lowly with partiality, and you must not prefer the person of a great one. With justice you should judge your associate.” (Leviticus 19:15) Even maltreatment of animals was condemned.—Exodus 23:3-5; Deuteronomy 22:10; 25:4; Proverbs 12:10.
Now, if Almighty God is so insistent on man’s rooting out unfairness in dealings with his fellowman as well as lack of consideration in the treatment of the animal creation, would we not expect God himself to do something about the rampant unfairness seen today?
The Root of Unfairness
The Bible identifies Satan the Devil, God’s arch-opposer, as the root of unfairness and inequality. He was the first cause of inequity early in man’s existence. Satan has fanned the flames of unfairness ever since, thus hoping to heap further reproach on Jehovah and His just ways of dealing with His creatures.—Genesis 3:4, 5; John 8:44; Revelation 12:9.
During what the Bible calls the last days of this unjust civilization, increasing woes were foretold to be brought by Satan upon people in all parts of the earth. Why? Because he knows that he has only a short time of existence left. So do not be unduly alarmed at the increase of unfairness and other forms of oppression. Rather, see in such happenings part of the composite sign that a complete change of system is at hand.—Revelation 12:12; Daniel 12:4; 2 Timothy 3:1.
Removal of Unfairness
Unfairness gone forever may seem to be a vain hope—even wishful thinking. It would be if man himself were left to continue administering law and order. But the permanent end of unfairness is in sight! Jehovah God can and will do away with its main cause, the Devil, along with the corrupt system of things now existing under Satan’s control.—Romans 16:20; 1 John 2:15-17.
In addition, Jesus indicated that “the last days”—which include global injustice—would only span one human generation. (Matthew 24:3, 34) This means that within the lifetime of some of those alive in 1914, God will see to it that justice prevails throughout the earth and that unfairness is removed forever. His just King Jesus Christ “will not judge by any mere appearance to his eyes, nor reprove simply according to the thing heard by his ears. And with righteousness he must judge the lowly ones.” “Justice to the nations is what he will bring forth.”—Isaiah 11:3, 4; 42:1.