Determinism and the Death of Justice

We cry out for justice.  When we see the murder of an innocent we demand that the perpetrator should should be held accountable.  We long to see wickedness punished. But how does this desire for justice fit into a world without God?

In order to be held accountable for an action a person must have been free to do otherwise.  Whatever the pressures on the person when they committed an act, to be accountable they still must have had an alternative option, even if it was an unattractive one. But if naturalism is true, i.e. all there is is the physical universe and the laws that govern it, then no one can be held accountable.   If materialism is true then we are simply complicated biological machines responding to various stimuli. The brain processes the information it receives, following the laws of chemistry and physics, and the person reacts.  They may have the illusion of choice but in fact the wiring of the brain and the physical processes dictate the reaction.  They have as much freedom as a computer.

When I rant and rave at my computer for its latest malfunction I am being irrational.  The computer was just following its programming.  When Basil Fawlty chastises his car we know he's gone over the edge.  You cannot hold a machine accountable.

Yet we hold humans accountable.  We lock people up or execute them for murder.  We act as if people have a choice.  If atheism is true murders, rapists, and terrorists have no choice.  The best we can say is that they are sick: their brains have their wires crossed.  They should receive our sympathy and not the due penalty. We shouldn't lock them up.  But can we live with this reality?  Do we really believe that we have no choice?  That when our consciences scream at us but we ignore them that we really couldn't have listened?

If atheism is true then justice is dead.  And my desire for it is just the symptom of a malfunctioning brain.

But this is not the view of the Bible.  God holds us accountable for our actions; that we should turn from our wickedness to Him and live.  How can this be?  The answer is that we are not just physical beings but spiritual. We are not constrained by the physical laws of cause and effect but, as spiritual beings, we transcend them.  We have genuine moral choices.  We are accountable. God has given us all a conscience that tells us when we are wrong, even when it's not in our interest to listen to it.