Justice Of God Research Articles

La teología de la reconciliación en las cartas de san Pablo by Juan Manuel Granados Rojas

Reviewed by: La teología de la reconciliación en las cartas de san Pablo by Juan Manuel Granados Rojas Thomas E. Phillips juan manuel granados rojas, La teología de la reconciliación en las cartas de san Pablo (EstBib 57; Estella: Verbo Divino, 2016). Pp. 174. Paper €16. Granados Rojas, Professor of Sacred Scripture at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, has given us a very good book on an important topic. The volume's well-conceived and well-written introduction and five chapters argue for the centrality of reconciliation to Pauline thought and analyze four key reconciliation texts in the Pauline corpus before offering broader theological reflections on the implications of this study for understanding Pauline soteriology, christology, and ecclesiology. In the introduction, G.R. asserts that Paul took the essentially secular Greco-Roman principle of reconciliation (between two warring parties) and blended it with the concept of expiation from the LXX to create a new and unprecedented theological construction that centered on Christ and his death as the reconciler of all things. G.R. seeks to demonstrate the validity of this thesis by detailed examinations of two authentic Pauline texts (Rom 5:1-11; 2 Cor 5:18-21) and two disputed Pauline texts (Eph 2:14-16; Col 1:20-23). In the first chapter, G.R. interprets Romans 5 as the introduction to Romans 6–8. According to G.R., Romans 1–4 discusses the how and when of justification, Romans 6–8 discusses the consequences of justification, and Romans 5 provides the christological link that demonstrates how the universal justice of God is distributed to all persons—through the death of Christ, the universal meditator between God and humanity. All persons, Jew and gentile, are reconciled to God in Christ. Chapter 2 opens its examination of 2 Corinthians 5 by noting that Paul's use of reconciliation terminology has significantly altered the Greco-Roman usage by inserting a [End Page 334] divine meditator, Christ. Hostilities are brought to an end as the hostile parties are brought together in Christ. Paul's discourse in 2 Corinthians 5 demonstrates the divine initiative to reconcile persons together in Christ. In chap. 3, G.R. interprets the theme of reconciliation in Ephesians 5 as a sophisticated development of the thought in Paul's authentic letters. He argues that the reconciliation themes in Ephesians must be understood in light of the embodied language in Ephesians. In Ephesians, God has taken the initiative to create a new body with Christ as its head. All those who participate in the body are reconciled with God and with one another by being part of one body with one head, Christ. Enmities, but not enemies, are overcome through the creation of a body. In chap. 4, G.R.'s reading of Colossians 1, he argues that the development of Pauline thought in Ephesians is extended further to make the creation of the new body a present reality that incorporates all of the existing creation into a new creation. This new creation, brought forth by Christ's death and resurrection, experiences complete reconciliation with God as a new creation. In the final chapter, G.R. draws together the threads of his previous analyses and explains that Pauline thought regarding reconciliation shares one unifying principle: "Reconciliation in the Pauline letters is understood as transformation" (p. 129; my translation). In Paul's authentic letters, this transformation results from divine action that is accomplished through Christ. The language of justification is adopted as a subservient metaphor to describe this transformation from enemies into offspring, ambassadors, and ministers. In Ephesians and Colossians, the language of creation is adopted to image this transformation as the creation of one new body with one head (Christ). In these later letters, the means of God's reconciliation (transformation) is made clear. This divine transformation occurs through a new creation, the body of Christ, which—in its inherent unity under one head—eliminates all need for imposed unity. Reconciliation in these later letters, therefore, is not the blending of two separate groups—Jews and gentiles, or some conflicting parties—but rather the creation of a new entity that incorporates all creation under...

Moving in the Spirit: Called to Transforming Discipleship: Reflections from the Vantage Points of the Marginalized People

Abstract“Mission from the margins” is neither a mere perspectival approach nor an option but an inevitable way of being church in God's mission. Likewise, the marginalized people are neither a broad category of people on the fringes of the society nor mere objects of charity and victims of circumstances. They are prophets and pathfinders indicting the world for its injustice through their lives of suffering and striving for its transformation through their struggles. As signs of hope testifying to the movement of the Spirit amidst despair and death, they help us to see God's mission not as a mere religious activity but as a spirituality of resistance and transformation for the sake of life and God's world. Reclaiming discipleship from the vantage of the marginalized, therefore, offers an opportunity for the churches to rediscover themselves afresh from being mere communities of believers and power structures to networks of partners for God's justice, participating in the larger struggles for the transformation of the world. As the gospels tell us, Jesus did not commission his disciples to call people to a belief system but to a covenantal relationship through a vocation of striving for the realization of God's reign. Such a sense of vocation is possible only when there is a radical change in Christian self‐understanding. It involves, first, interrogating and reimagining the ways in which churches affirm and practise their faith; second, leaving aside their captivity to certain belief systems and turning toward Jesus of Nazareth to teach the way – to be active partners with God rather than being passive believers; third, appropriating discipleship beyond the language and sphere of transformation of persons; and fourth, learning from and being enriched by the visions and resources of the marginalized in living out the call to be one in God's mission of transformation of the world.

Justice and Freedom: The Continuing Promise of the Reformation

SummaryAgainst the backdrop of the debates on the appropriate understanding of the Reformation in the context of the 500 year anniversary of the Reformation the attempt is made to elaborate the continuing promise of the Reformation with regard to the understanding of justice and freedom. The view of justice as a creative gift and the understanding of freedom as promise presuppose that the character of the Reformation can be understood as the reconfiguration of the traditional theological authorities. The understanding of reality as rooted in the creative justice of God who alone is free because God is his own future is applied in the Lutheran art of making distinctions which relate God’s creative being and action to the created being and action of humans. The continuing promise of the Reformation is the discovery of this unconditional promise and of the way it is witnessed in the Church. As the creature of God’s justifying word the life of the church has the character of an embodied promise.

„Obrzezany” Grek i „prawdziwy” Żyd w świetle Rz 1,18-3,20

The essential Christological and soteriological message of the Letterof St. Paul to the Romans precedes with the reflection on the biblical ideaof the retributive justice of God. He does not do it to humiliate Jews andGentiles because of the sin in which they lapsed, or to make them aware oftheir equally hopeless situation before God, or even to force them to humiliatethemselves in grief and repentance before God the Judge. He wants toexplain to the addressees of the letter why God intended to justify them alltogether in the same way, without taking into account the primacy of theprivilege of the Jews, nor the permanent godlessness of the Gentiles. Bothwere simply sinners, which caused them to find themselves in the samesituation with respect to the righteousness of God’s judgment and punishment.Therefore, all without exception, as sinners both Jewish and pagan,will attain justification in the same way, namely by faith in Jesus Christ.

PEMIKIRAN MURTADHA MUTHAHHARI TENTANG KEADILAN ILAHI

God Justice in the Perspective of Murtadha Muthahhari: In the modern century, Islamic thinkers attempt to explain what God justice is and how it is. One of them is Murtadha Muthahhari, an Islamic intellectual from Iran. He discusses God justice in a book entitled ’al-‘Adl al-Ilahi. From the analysis it is found out that the meaning of justice according to Murtadha Muthahhari is the retention of rights, in the sense that something that exists (maujud) has its own existence and perfection that have become its rights to some degree and in line with the possibility it can fulfill. This is a social justice, and at the same time, it is as the mercy and reward from God that should be gained by His creatures through their capabilities on the basis of the cause and effect rule or Sunnatullah.

Elementos da Nova Perspectiva sobre Paulo a partir de representantes clássicos

As cartas do apóstolo Paulo constituem um desafio. Sua recepção não foi consensual. Porém, a ocupação com elas cativou e impactou pessoas a ponto de se tornarem personagens cuja interpretação de Paulo se impôs e marcou decisivamente a história da teologia e igreja. Martim Lutero foi um exemplo clássico disso. Ocupando-se intensivamente com as cartas de Paulo aos Gálatas e Romanos, Lutero achou a chave hermenêutica para compreender a justiça de Deus como justifi cação do pecador somente pela fé em oposição às obras. Exceções e variações à parte, essa compreensão de justiça de Deus foi determinante para a exegese protestante posterior, e no “ocidente cristão” influenciou fortemente a compreensão do judaísmo como religião meramente legalista, à qual Paulo se opôs com veemência em suas cartas. Dos anos de 1960 em diante, surgiu uma nova leitura de Paulo e do judaísmo de seu tempo. Ela tornou-se conhecida como nova perspectiva sobre Paulo. Nela, questiona-se principalmente a exegese alemã. Isso causou reações materializadas em rica produção literária que não pode mais ser ignorada na pesquisa acadêmica sobre Paulo e o judaísmo. O presente artigo destaca, sobretudo, aspectos do debate da nova perspectiva sobre Paulo no contexto da exegese alemã. Para tal, os nomes de Stendahl, Sanders e Dunn são referência básica.

세계화와 빈곤, 그리고 선교: AGAPE문서를 중심으로

Due to the enlargement of international trade, free movement of ‘capital,’ foreign direct investment, etc., economic globalization turned the world into a one single market. In addition to that, globalization made ‘labor’ movement, and it bound countries of the world to each other. Many people have been moving from their country to other countries around the world to earn money as so-called ‘new nomad.’ Though many scholars say that the world poverty rate has dropped because of the worldwide movement of capital and the neoliberal policy of an open economy, there are still many countries and continents which are suffering from poverty as a result of the world policy of globalization. Countries of southwestern Asia, of Africa and of Latin America are still suffering much due to severe poverty in spite of the reduction of poverty rates in China, India, and southeastern Asian countries, which have been rapidly growing during the recent years or decades. The reality is that many of the poor are those among women, children, elderly, and the disabled. Christian churches have to do their best to resolve and overcome these problems, and warn governments about the dangers these problems pose. In the contemporary global economic systems, the top one percent are enjoying their excessively luxurious lives at the expense of many poor people around the world, and, in that sense, the economic system of globalization is unjust. As many as three billion people are affected and their lives threatened by the devastating results of poverty and wars, and 24,000 people are dying every day from poverty and malnutrition. That is the very reason why the contemporary world of globalization is an unjust system. Christian churches, therefore, have to recognize present situations of the welfare of the poor, work for their human rights, and endeavor to assist them in overcoming their poverty. This includes the need for Christian churches to protect them and create solidarities with others to achieve these purposes, both in regional and global spheres as well. Churches also need to do their best to be influential with international institutions, wealthy states, and multinational corporations to receive assistance in resolving and improving the difficult issues of the poor and global immigrants, so that they can actively take part in the expansion of the kingdom and justice of God. The meanings of AGAPE seem to be radical in some sense, but we can agree with it because the kingdom of God is far away from its original form and because contemporary globalization is designed to favor the wealthy. Therefore, churches around the world have to have solidarities, and do their best to accomplish the goals that AGAPE suggests.

Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God. By Kelly Brown Douglas.

<i>Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God.</i> By Kelly Brown Douglas.

"Tolle me et redime te": Anselm on the Justice and Mercy of God

"Tolle me et redime te":Anselm on the Justice and Mercy of God Bruce D. Marshall I JUSTICE AND MERCY we are apt to think of as opposites. Our inclination in thought and speech to play the two off against one another can take many forms. Of these perhaps the most obvious is the thought that mercy begins where justice ends, in the sense that mercy by its very nature not only goes beyond justice, but sets aside the demands of justice. Mercy, moreover, is closely tied to forgiveness. We are likely to think of the person who shows mercy as the one who forgives a wrong rather than demanding justice. Mercy so understood is the readiness to overlook or let go of what justice rightly requires, in particular to forgo the recompense or penalty to which one could, in strict justice, lay claim. It is not hard to think of cases in everyday life where this way of disjoining mercy and justice seems entirely in order. A teenager rear-ends my new car in traffic, apologizes in tears, and begs me not to report the accident to her insurance company or call the police. I am entitled to do both, and if I decide to do neither, it seems like an act of mercy precisely because I did not seek the justice that was mine by right. One might think it unwise of me to show mercy in such a situation, but that is beside the point. The logic of the matter is the same either way: to have mercy is to forgo just recompense or penalty, and to seek justice is to forsake the path of mercy. [End Page 161] Not only in everyday life do we think of justice and mercy in this disjunctive way. We do so in religion, in fact especially there, and surely, we might suppose, with good reason. Consider Jesus' parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18, or as it is also called, the parable of the pitiless debtor (in the Jerusalem Bible, for example). A king's servant, owing vastly more than he could ever hope to repay, faces the inexorable consequences of justice: the loss of his goods, his home, and even his wife and family. He begs the king for mercy and receives the forgiveness of his whole debt. The forgiven servant, though, begins rounding up his fellow servants, and mercilessly demanding the full repayment of the relatively minute sums they owe him. Now at the king's command the full force of justice descends, without mercy, on the unforgiving servant. The king hands him over to "the torturers" (Matt 18:34) until the whole debt is repaid—which is to say, forever. Jesus makes quite explicit the already unmistakable lesson: "So will my heavenly Father do to you, if each one of you does not forgive his brother from your hearts" (Matt 18:35). The point is not simply to warn us against hard-hearted and "pharisaical" dealings with our neighbors, when we fail to allow mercy to hold sway over the requirements of justice. The parable warns just by teaching how God deals with us: in sheer undeserved mercy, forgiving what his justice could rightly demand and what we could never hope to pay. He expects us to do the same. It may seem surprising, then, that the New Testament can also speak of the forgiveness of sins as an unqualified work of divine justice. This comes through with particular clarity in the Epistle to the Romans. According to Paul, the gospel reveals "the justice of God" (Rom 1:17). The tradition of rendering dikaiosune in English as "righteousness" may somewhat obscure the connection between God's justice and his forgiveness here, but to medieval Western Christians it could not have been more obvious that Paul was talking about justice, since the Vulgate consistently translates dikaiosune simply as "justice," iustitia. In Jesus Christ the iustitia Dei is manifested apart from the law (Rom 3:21). God "proposed" Jesus Christ as a propitiation, precisely "in order to show his justice, by overlooking the sins [End Page 162] of the past" (ad ostensionem iustitiae suae, cum praetermisisset praecedentia delicta...

Aequitas — Abbild der unendlichen Gerechtigkeit im Recht

Enquiring the sources and the legitimacy of Derrida’s statement “Law {droit) is not justice” from his essay “Force of Law: The ‘Mystical Foundation of Authority’ ” (1990), the paper analyses the three notions of “justice”, “equity” and “concordantia” (in Cusanus). Part I explains historically how the difference between the limited and changing human laws and the eternal justice of God was gradually being perceived and acknowledged in Antiquity. Part II illustrates how the virtue of equity was called upon to compensate for the insufficiencies and contradictions of human laws, mainly by Aristotle. Part III explores the conditions how and argues for the possibility that the notion of “concordantia” as developed by Nicolaus Cusanus for the Council of Basle could work as a mediating principle of legislation among conflicting interests and thus provide for temporary justice by means of an equitable procedure of legislation.

Sister Thea Bowman: Liturgical Justice Through Black Sacred Song

Sister Thea Bowman, a member of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration of La Crosse, Wisconsin, believed that the justice of God includes racial justice for her people—African-Americans in the United States and persons of African descent around the world. She advocated for racial justice both within and beyond U.S. Black Catholic communities. This advocacy extended to the inclusion of Black historical and cultural traditions within liturgical gatherings. One aspect of Black Catholic liturgical-cultural inculturation, as researched, taught, and championed by Bowman, was the liturgical use of historic Black sacred song—the spirituals. The challenge and gifts Bowman presented to the Catholic Church of her time included her work on the first edition of the groundbreaking Black Catholic hymnal, Lead Me, Guide Me (1987). Her efforts for racial justice reverberate to the present in the liturgical and musical scholarship, compositions, and practices of Catholic scholars, musicians, composers, and communities.

Boh spravodlivosti - Boh milosrdenstva: ordál ako skúška božej vôle

Božie súdy, resp. ordálie, patria medzi výrazne špecifické praktiky stredovekej spoločnosti, ktorých výnimočnosť vždy predstavovala interpretačný problém. So zohľadnením náboženského, sociálneho a právne-historického pozadia sa sformovalo veľa odlišných prístupov k otázke, čo viedlo ľudí, aby sa v snahe dokázať svoju pravdu vystavili veľkej fyzickej bolesti. Spoločnou črtou týchto interpretácií bol však súhlas s prítomnosťou viery na imanentnú spravodlivosť, ktorej pôvodcom v stredovekej Európe bol jedine Boh. On stál v centre celého diania a zúčastnené strany, prisluhujúci a predstavitelia svetskej spravodlivosti očakávali jeho nespochybniteľný rozsudok. Preto sa príspevok vo svojom obsahu zaoberá videním Boha v ordále ako aktívneho sudcu a prezentuje výsledok skúšky ako odraz jeho dvoch hlavných vlastností - spravodlivosti a milosrdenstva. Tento zámer sa momentálne prezentuje na príklade prameňov stredovekého Uhorska a pokúša sa priblížiť myšlienkové ponímanie božích súdov aj v týchto odľahlejších častiach stredovekej kresťanskej Európy. Hlavnou postavou v článku je Boh. Jeho vnímanie je popisované tak, ako o tom informujú pramene. Najčastejšie teda ako vševediaceho sudcu, ktorý napravuje chybný ľudský súd, a ktorého rozsudku sa sporné strany plne odovzdávali. Jeho zásah však nesmel byť ničím narušený, žiadnou mágiou, ochrannými bylinami, liečením popálenín, či dokonca predchádzajúcimi skúsenosťami bojovníkov v súboji. Druhá časť príspevku sa zamýšľa nad možnými vysvetleniami výsledkov ordálií, ktoré šli proti najzreteľnejším príkazom všeobecného zmýšľania. Z obsahu prameňov je zrejmé, že rovnako, ako bolo vzhliadané k neomylnej Božej spravodlivosti, tak sa zo zreteľa nevytrácala ani myšlienka na jeho milosrdenstvo. To bolo vzývané ešte pred začiatkom božieho súdu a taktiež aj výsledok bol vysvetľovaný ako dôsledok jeho prejavu. Stále viac prevládajúcou odpoveďou na diskutabilný výsledok ordálu bolo presvedčenie o vôli Boha dať previnilcovi druhú šancu, a opačne, nevinný z konkrétneho prečinu bol odsúdený z úplne iného dôvodu. Boží súd preto nemusel byť nutne vnímaný ako rozhodnutie v konkrétnej veci, ale aj ako súd nad celým bytím zainteresovaných. Zámerom tohto krátkeho príspevku je skôr diskutovať na túto tému a prezentovať ju ako možný pohľad na problematiku stredovekých ordálií. Z tohto dôvodu ďalšia diskusia ohľadne interpretácie božích súdov nemôže pokračovať bez zohľadnenia náboženského života stredovekej spoločnosti.

So that We Might Become the Righteousness and Justice of God: Re-examining the Gospel in 2 Cor 5:21 for the Church's Contribution to a Better World

This article interprets Paul's summary of the gospel in 2 Cor 5:21 as saying that Christ died so that believers might be transformed into God's righteousness (not only deemed as righteous by God). The article explains the powerfully generative nature of God's righteousness and then demonstrates that dikaiosunē also means justice. The interpretation of 2 Cor 5:21 clarifies that the gospel Christians believe for salvation is also a basis of holistic transformation to embody God's righteousness and justice. This enlarged perspective on the gospel supports seamless invitations to put faith in Jesus Christ and to become a force for justice in the world.

Concepts of God in Islam

AbstractThis article explores the various ways in which Muslims, in the past and the present, think about God. The article canvasses a range of views on questions and puzzles pertaining to the essence and attributes of God, the basis of God's Justice, the transcendence of God, and our ability to know and understand God. We encounter a diverse, and at times radically divergent range of views on how best to understand divinity within the tradition of Islam. Given the various conceptions of divinity, available within the tradition, I develop an argument for the view that God is best understood as love. The view that God is love, I contend, emerges directly from the Quran, which is a document that sits at the very heart of the Islamic tradition.

Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God. By Kelly Brown Douglas . Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2015. xv + 240 pages. $24.00 (paper).

Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God. By Kelly Brown Douglas . Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2015. xv + 240 pages. $24.00 (paper).

Interpreting Anselm's thought about divine justice: dealing with loose ends

AbstractOver the last fifty years studies of Anselm of Canterbury's concept of divine justice have delivered different results. The aim of this article is to present the results of a new comprehensive inquiry, based on the interpretation of key passages about justice in Anselm's theological works. The article argues that Anselm works with three definitions of God's justice. The first is the most traditional: God's justice is his right dealing with good and bad. The second definition follows the Anselmian concept of God: God's justice is his acting according to his being that than which nothing greater can be conceived. The third definition is God's rightness of will, preserved for its own sake. The article concludes that the attempt to show how these three definitions are related to each other brings to light tensions and loose ends in Anselm's works.

Eckhart and the Justice of God

Eckhart's teaching on the Justice of God, human justice, and the relationships between them, are primarily found in a cluster of sermons and writings from what is arguably the mid-period of his career. Although grounded in the received tradition begun by Plato and most lately found in the theology of Thomas Aquinas, Eckhart developed a distinctive doctrine that emphasizes the total and absolute nature of justice in which human persons participate as an aspect of the spiritual union of God and the soul. Finally, equality and mercy, as mutually entailed aspects of both the justice of God and human justice, have important practical consequences in ethics and spirituality.

Rancang Bangun Akuntansi Syari’ah (Perspektif Filosofis dan Historis Tafsir Al Qur’an)

Accounting basic weakness of capitalism can not be separated from the underlying knowledge base of the building is full of contradictions logic, thus constructing a reality that is full ofcontradictions. The fragility of the philosophical foundation of knowledge enough context to create a paradigm counter rival as a consequence of the revolution of science in the form of an alternative paradigm shift due to the failure of the old paradigm answered whole heap of problems. Modern accountingthat is value-free as part of the economic system during this time also felt only in favor of a small part of economic actors alone. Accounting Shari'ah demands is the ultimate truth (al-Haq) or moral truths that must be accounted for before God, although on the one hand Shari'ah accounting should also refer to the standard, but the standard is not intended as a justification, meaning that statements are made in accordance with the standards do not always true according to the shari'ah, if the reports are substantially deviated from the principles of Shari'ah. The content of the substance of Islam is essentially a liberation, making accounting is perceived as a treatise. Given the role of accountants as carrierstreatise God in the context of the profession. Translating the meaning of God's justice in the accounting structure, as a manifestation of God's involvement as an accounting center. Islam has outlined the meaning of justice is the basis of accounting in terms of valuation, recognition and presentation of accounting.

Review of Quiring, Bjôrn. 2014. Shakespeare’s Curse. The Aporias of Ritual Exclusion in Early Modern Royal Drama. London / New York, NY: Routledge. 266 pages. ISBN: 978–0– 415–51756–0

Review of Quiring, Bjorn. 2014. Shakespeare's Curse. The Aporias of Ritual Exclusion in Early Modern Royal Drama. London / New York, NY: Routledge. 266 pages. ISBN: 978-0- 415-51756-0.The book by Bjorn Quiring, Shakespeare's Curse. The Aporias of Ritual Exclusion in Early Modern Royal Drama, sets itself within the by-now flourishing critical production on Shakespeare and the law. It starts by trying to define and circumscribe the several meanings of 'curse', a term that basically indicates a reaction to a transgression. Dating back to the Bible, the curse indicated either an act of punishment by God or an appeal to God's justice. It implies a juridical order which has in some way been violated and which must be restored through the curse. In this perspective, the curse has a transcendental value: it is established as strictly connected to law, which it presupposes and determines at the same time.As the avenger, the curser appears to act in God's name: he acts as God's mouthpiece to reaffirm the law but, at the same time, he becomes blemished by the utterance. The curser shows his power in the utterance but is endangered by it: power and impotence are mixed in the act of cursing because the curse follows a ritual, but it also marks a of exception. Therefore, the curse is an ambiguous act that is an on the one hand, but is ritualized on the other hand, thus becoming a political act. Correctly, Quiring asserts that the curse can be set as a borderline: it is an individual act that operates onto a body politic.I agree with Quiring's connecting the curse to Schmitt's idea of the state of exception (1985; see also Agamben 2008) because it stems from a disruption of the law and aims at reinstituting the law itself. If equity acts as a supplement of the law, in the same way the curse represents the inside/outside of the law, because it codifies a transgression as a transgression, thus re-inscribing it into the legal system.These remarks can be connected to the theories concerning 'revenge' that come to the forefront in Elizabethan revenge plays. The revenger acts as God's arm, as he recreates the law that has somehow been violated by a murder, so the revenger must be considered as part of the juridical system. Microcosm and macrocosm can be reunited by the restoration of cosmic harmony through the punishment of the culprit. However, the revenger falls back into the sin of murder: he once again commits a crime, which blemishes his conscience. This is one of Hamlet's many doubts that prevent him from acting out the ghost's requests till the very last moment. This marks the liminal situation of the Elizabethan age, stressed by Quiring himself in the course of the volume. The age sets itself between two historical epochs and two juridical systems: the medieval one, which accepts private revenge, the revenge that marks the protection of one's family or clan; and the modern one, where justice is left in the hands of political authority. A patent example is Romeo and Juliet, where Romeo does not want to revenge Mercutio so as not to trigger a family feud, while Mercutio expects Romeo to revenge the insult to his family. The Prince in the text feels his authority baffled by this juridical 'mutiny' that is committed by his citizens, who do not respect political authority.The curse falls into a similar paradigm: the person who curses violates the Christological commandment to pardon offences or crimes, and to leave punishment in the hands of God (the supreme authority who should punish the culprit). Hence, from a transcendental perspective, the curser is blemished; but from a worldly perspective the curser helps carry out punishment, thus contributing to worldly justice. Quiring speaks of the paradoxical nature of the curse.What is particularly interesting is Quiring's connection of the curse to Schmitt's (1985) and Agamben's (2008) of exception, but the curse can also be an instrument of power in the hands of authority. …

Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God by Kelly Brown Douglas

Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God <i>by Kelly Brown Douglas</i>