Social injustices committed against the less fortunate, oppressed and

marginalized in the society commonly cause many, if not all, social problems existing

nowadays making social justice a very important and urgent call today. Social justice is

a concept of fair and just relations between an individual and the society he/she belongs

to which is commonly measured by the explicit terms for the equal distribution of wealth,

opportunities for personal activity, and social privileges. Modernization and globalization

have somehow worsened the status of the lowest class in the modern society since

current social issues have caused the less fortunate to be more oppressed and more

marginalized. The underlying cause of this injustice among the poor is the old and

corrupt system governing the society constantly depriving and robbing the poor of their

rights and privileges as members of the society. The ugly truth behind the society we

live in gives all the more reason to encourage promoting social justice by synchronizing

our individual efforts to stand up against the unjust system in order to achieve proper

allocation of resources to the individual members of the society in a way that gives what

is due to those who have been robbed of their rights.

Generally, the sense of social justice is a call not only to those who perform

charity works but to every human being. Personally, I could not help but agree more

with the statements presented to justify the topic. Truly, every human being is called to

give something to those in need. However, what we give must be something that

genuinely comes from deep inside our hearts thus we should not give something to the

poor just because it is an excess of our actual needs. The common misconception of

this statement is that we tend to think that we are promoting social justice by sharing our

resources with the less fortunate. They have been deprived and robbed of their fair
share of resources, wealth and opportunities that is why sharing our resources will not

give them back what they have lost in the first place. In the same sense, social justice is

present when an individual’s share of resources does not reach at a surplus nor a

shortage but at an equilibrium point.

Honestly speaking, I agree that the call to social justice is not just making the

poor an object of our kindness. At some points of our lives, we tend to be kind to the

poor since we know about their struggling conditions in life. However, social justice does

not primarily focus only on the poor but on every member of the society. It may be true

that the poor need most of our help but we tend to forget that there are also people who

need our kindness. This is the reason why kindness sometimes is subjective since we

are personally aware of our biases – the poor. It is not completely right to help them for

the fact that we know that they are at the lowest level of the social class but because

they are also humans. Showing all our kindness only to the poor will invalidate other

people’s right to receive kindness for the reason that they are not poor. Kindness must

be shown to every human being in order for social justice to be observed and achieved.

An act of kindness would not be possible if a single inch of love is not present.

Therefore, social justice is rooted on love. It is true that God will only ask us how much

we have loved on the Day of Judgment. God has shown us His great love which, in

return, taught us how to love one another. If we have to be kind to other people just

because it is what we think is right, then it is still socially unjust because of the absence

of love. I strongly agree with the statement from 1 Corinthians 13:1, “Love without

justice is just a word, it is like a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.” Loving without

justification of it through one’s courses of actions is still not love for the fact that it is only
said yet not felt, seen nor shared. Justifying love is important in order to determine the

quality of love we have been giving, showing or sharing not just to ourselves but to other

people as it will be the basis of the quality of our moral life. Going back to the basic

definition of social justice, it is often referred to as the process of ensuring that

individuals are able to fulfil their societal roles and receive what was due from society.

Morality has something to do with social justice in a way that knowing what is right and

wrong will somehow guarantee the sense of fulfilling an individual’s role in a society and

the constant drive to promote the equal distribution of resources and privileges to every

individual member of the society. Through this and with this, the goal and emphasis of

the current concept of social justice has been on breaking the barriers for social mobility

to achieve economic justice.

It is embedded in our knowledge that we will be judged according to how much

we have responded to the basic human needs of our neighbour and I strongly agree

with this. Human beings were commanded by God to love one another as they have

loved Him. In this case, we could not say that we love God if we cannot find ourselves in

love and compassion with other people for the fact that this love does not have

justification through our moral courses of action. Love, morality and social justice are

intangible elements that cannot be separated from one another in a way that without

love, social justice is impossible to achieve in the same way that the principle morality is

violated without the existence of social justice. The poor and marginalized have been

struggling in darkness for quite a long time now and giving them empty promises will not

uplift their present conditions in life. Knowing what is due to them and rightfully giving it
to them will enhance our moral life in the same way that they will have the opportunity to

enhance their quality of life therefore finding ourselves in love with them and with God.