Abstract:
In The Politics of God Kathryn Tanner mounts a broad critique of social oppression and posits her own vision of a society in which all people can flourish.1 Based on her account of the relation between God the Creator and God’s creatures, she aims to establish for every Christian the moral compass requisite for dismantling systems of social oppression such that all are able to flourish through recognizing their God-given potential. Expounding on three traditional Christian doctrines – the doctrine of creation, the doctrine of divine transcendence, the doctrine of universal providence – Tanner offers her own account of human rights indiscriminately due all creatures that will ground this society.
In this paper I argue that Tanner needs to modify her account of rights in order to attend to the unique scenarios in which one’s rights are justifiably withheld from them due to a crime they allegedly commit. I begin this critique by reconstructing Tanner’s argument for a Christian moral compass that promotes more positive social relations through societal reform. First, I explicate her appeals to the goodness of creation (which she predicates on her notion of Creator-creature relationships). I turn second to the specific concomitant rights owed all people that emerge from these foundational claims about all creatures’ relationship to God: “treatment that confirms [a person’s] value”; “the right to exist and be oneself”; and “self-development of capacities.”2 After the reconstruction I assess the strength of her account by applying it to the specific case of the treatment of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated Black men in America’s current penal system. How ought Christians in society reconcile the call for justice that, per America’s penal system, entails an abrogation of rights, with Tanner’s account of universal, undeniable rights?
The full paper is attached to this post.
