Divine proportions : The ontology of justice

The paradox of justice

As I begin to write on the theme of justice, I’m struck by how charged and persistently controversial it remains in the history of philosophy. Few concepts have provoked as many questions while offering so few definitive answers. Justice stands not just as an ethical category but as a gateway into the most existential dilemmas of human thought: the nature of good and evil, the problem of suffering, and the unsettling question of whether the presence of injustice in the world reflects back upon the nature of God Himself. It seems to me that much of philosophy begins with this tension, between what is and what ought to be and justice sits uneasily at that crossroads. To approach it, then, is to step into a tradition filled with both fallacy and brilliance, error and insight. I undertake this inquiry with full awareness of its weight, knowing well that what follows can only ever be a fragile attempt to speak into one of the oldest paradoxes of our condition.

I have come to believe that virtues like justice, goodness, and compassion cannot be captured by maxims, philosophical hypotheses, or abstract principles alone. They resist theorization because they are not merely ideas but they are modes of being. Justice cannot simply be thought; it must be lived. And for us to truly understand what justice is, there must exist a person who embodies it completely a human being who is, in his very essence, just. Not conceptually, but ontologically. I believe that abstract ideals demand embodiment. We cannot fully grasp justice until we see it walked, suffered, and enacted in the real world. Theories are limited by their distance from lived experience. But a person—an infallible model—can give these concepts form. Through such a person’s life, we can interpret what justice was meant to be. What goodness looks like when surrounded by temptation. What courage looks like in the face of power.

Many great thinkers have tried to approach it: Rawls’ famous thought experiment of the “original position” imagines individuals designing justice without knowing their place in society a compelling ideal, but one that feels deeply hypothetical when faced with the raw inequalities and embedded injustices of the real world. Others propose maxims and abstract principles but the very need to abstract justice so far from lived experience tells us something: this concept, which should be the most natural expression of order and fairness, often behaves like the most abstract puzzle of existence.

They resist final definition because they are not just concepts; they are realities that must be embodied. And for this, we have been gifted across traditions with living modules: the Buddha, the Christ, the Imams. Every religion offers not just ideas, but persons whose lives were the definitions of these virtues. It is through them not through hypotheticals or abstractions that we learn what justice truly is. Not in theory, but in fire and decision, in silence and sacrifice. Embodiment is not merely a representation of virtue—it is its very definition.

And for me, that embodiment is found most fully in the life of Imam Ali (ʿa)—not as a political leader or philosopher, but as the divine reflection of justice itself. He is not a man who theorized justice but he enacted it, even when it burned.

Justice is the placement of things in their rightful position according to their essence, purpose, and inherent worth.

Ontological justice in Shia theology

This echoes a definition often attributed to Imam Ali (ʿa):

“Justice is putting things in their rightful place “. and it’s in alignment with the  core definition which comes from the Institutes of Justinian, a codification of Roman Law from the sixth century AD, where justice is defined as ‘the constant and perpetual will to render to each his due’.

In Shia theology, ʿAdl (justice) is not merely an ethical principle, it is one of the five foundational roots of religion (Uṣūl al-Dīn), second only to the unity of God (Tawḥīd). No other divine attribute mercy, power, or knowledge is singled out as foundational in this way. Why? Because after affirming that there is one God, the next necessary truth is that this God is just.

Tawḥīd affirms God’s oneness; ʿAdl affirms His fairness, proportion, and truthfulness in all acts. It is a declaration that the universe is not arbitrary, that suffering is not senseless, and that every act of God is rooted in perfect placement not favouritism or randomness.

This is why, in the Shia tradition, the concept of justice is fundamental . It is ontological woven into the very act of creation. To affirm justice is to affirm the moral architecture of being itself.

This alignment between being and purpose extends even to the cosmic scale. The anthropic principle suggests that the universe’s physical laws and constants are so finely tuned that even the slightest deviation would render life impossible. It is cosmic justice a placement of things so exact that  a star  forms, water flows, and consciousness emerges.

In Shia philosophical psychology (especially within the works of scholars like Mulla Ṣadrā and al-ʿAllāmah al-Ḥillī), the human soul is understood to contain three foundational forces—each morally neutral in its raw state but oriented toward either vice or virtue depending on its refinement.

1.Quwwah al-Shahwiyyah (Appetitive/Sensual Force) : This is the source of bodily desires—hunger, sex, pleasure, comfort. When unregulated, it leads to lust, greed, and gluttony. When balanced, it manifests as ʿiffah (chastity/moderation). In the natural world, this force corresponds to the instinct to survive—but in the human realm, it becomes a test: to restrain, to channel, to refine.

2.Quwwah al-Ghaḍabiyyah (Irascible/Assertive Force) : This is the power of anger, defence, and assertion. In excess, it becomes tyranny, rage, and cruelty. When justly aligned, it becomes shajāʿah (moral courage). It allows one to defend the truth, protect the weak, and resist oppression. In nature, this corresponds to territorial or protective instincts, but in humans, it becomes the energy of ethical resistance.

3.Quwwah al-ʿAqliyyah (Rational/Intellectual Force) : This is the faculty of reason, discernment, and reflection. When corrupted, it gives rise to deceit, manipulation, or arrogance. When purified, it flowers into ḥikmah (wisdom).

Justice (ʿAdālah): The Harmony of Forces : Justice is not a fourth power but is the equilibrium, the orchestration of these three. When Shahwiyyah is tamed, Ghaḍabiyyah is guided, and ʿAqliyyah is illuminated, the human being becomes truly ʿādil—just. This alignment is the goal of tazkiyah (purification) and the very measure of nearness to God.

This triadic psychology underlies the Shia concept of moral accountability (taklīf). Because we are capable of balance, we are held accountable for imbalance. Justice is what emerges not merely in society or law, but in the soul itself.

Justice is not a human construct. It is not born of law, nor does it arise from consensus. Like truth, beauty, or reality, it belongs to the category of what Kant called noumenon, that which is, independent of our perception or language. In this sense, justice is anterior to speech, law, or society. It is a cosmic principle, inscribed in the order of existence itself. Even if no one ever utters the word “justice,” the earth would still carry it in its meaning.

Today, we stand in a world where even the most basic definitions are contested. “Man,” “woman,” “truth,” “right,” “wrong” all these terms have been hollowed out, But this linguistic confusion doesn’t erase reality. It only deepens the rift between what is and what is claimed.

Humans alone have the freedom to define. But with that freedom comes the temptation to rebel against definition itself. Modern society has not simply questioned norms, it has detached essence from form, and identity from truth. Justice is pre-linguistic and pre-human. “Accept me as I declare myself to be.” But the noumenal world is not altered by declarations. Essence is not authored by language.

Justice in nature : Biological Analogies

Let us turn to the animal kingdom because I feel  it is ontologically honest. Animals do not suffer from identity crises. A worker bee does not envy the queen. A lion does not declare itself a gazelle.

Each being performs its function, not out of social expectation, but because of an inward design that perfectly matches its outward form.

Justice in its deepest form is not a matter of law. It is a matter of being rightly. It is the perfect alignment between what a thing is and what it does—its form, function, and essence in harmony.

In the biological world, this harmony is justice. It manifests in both grand and minute phenomena, from molecular self-destruction to feathered elegance.

What we call beauty in birds, in symmetry, in patterns is not an accidental aesthetic. It is a consequence of justice. It radiates outward when something is in alignment with what it was made to be.

Still, a careful reader might wonder: if the animal world exhibits a kind of order, does that mean we should imitate it? After all, animals kill, dominate, and mate by force, behaviours we do not accept as morally upright. But the point is not to draw ethics from animal behaviour. The point is to observe that in nature, form and essence are honoured through functionality. A bee does not envy a butterfly; a lion does not pretend to be a lamb. Each being becomes what it was meant to be. There is no rebellion against form. That silent alignment between identity and function is what I mean by justice not imitation, but recognition. In the human realm, this same alignment becomes our task—not to live instinctively, but deliberately, in accordance with the truth of our own form. If this ontological justice is written into the cosmos and the cells, then its ultimate human expression must be found not in a text, but in a life.

Imam Ali : The lived embodiment of justice

Let me return to the original definition, where I argued that justice must be embodied rather than merely theorized. This human need for embodied ideals is why traditions offer living exemplars :The Buddhist look to the Buddha’s compassion, the Christians to Christ’s sacrifice, the Stoic to Marcus Aurelius’ equanimity.  Each provides a portrait of a virtue fully realized. For me, the compelling embodiment of justice is found in the life of  Imam Ali- First Shia imam, whose conduct offers a luminous example.

One day, Talha and Zubair (his cousins) approached Imam Ali seeking political privileges. At the time, he was reviewing state matters under the light of a state-owned candle. As the conversation shifted to personal interests, he extinguished the candle, stating:

“This candle was bought with the public treasury. When our conversation moves from public to private, the candle must go out.”

This moment is more than symbolism. It is procedural justice at its most ethical form: the absolute separation of public trust from private gain. The process matters—not just the decision, but the means through which decisions are made.

Another incident: Imam Ali’s brother, Aqeel, once requested financial help beyond his due share from the public treasury. To illustrate the gravity of injustice, Imam Ali heated a piece of iron and brought it near Aqeel, saying: “You cry from this small flame, and yet you ask me to endure the fire of hell for your sake?”

This was substantive justice, the refusal to let personal bonds interfere with universal moral order. The measure of fairness was not in Favor, but in equity, where everyone, even his own blood, stood equal before the moral law.

These two stories represent what modern justice systems often fail to combine: the fairness of the process (procedural justice) and the truth of the outcome (substantive justice). Imam Ali (ʿa) did not choose between the two, he embodied both, not as law, but as embodied gnosis.

Thus, my understanding of justice  which aligns with Platonic order, Aristotelian purpose, and Augustinian divinity yet it finds its fullest and most radiant expression in the life and teachings of Imam Ali (ʿa), who harmonized all these truths not in abstraction, but in embodied action.

Modern identity crisis : What is it to be Human.

In a world where even the definition of a woman is blurred, where feelings override forms, and where essence is replaced by identification, we stand at the brink of a metaphysical crisis. Yet, the animal world, the cellular world, and the divine order in Islamic theology all testify to one truth: justice is when each thing is what it was created to be. The bee does not wish to be a drone. The sperm cell does not envy the neuron. Nature flourishes in proportion, not in confusion.

Justice does not need to be spoken to exist, and it certainly does not bend under the whims of cultural chaos.

And yet, despite all our reason and refinement, what have we done with our supremacy? We have divided the earth by lines and creeds, separated people by caste and class, and turned difference into strategy. Nations rise against nations. Climate collapses under the weight of our ambition. We invent systems to control, borders to exclude, and weapons to destroy.

If we are truly the most advanced of species, why do we lead in destruction? Why do we forget the very balance that sustains us?

And what, then, does justice mean to us now? Have we done justice to our own form—our essence, our potential? If animals fulfil their purpose by living in alignment with their nature, what does it mean for us to be human? Can we still remember how to live justly—not only with others, but with ourselves? Have we shaped our understanding of justice from abstract theories, from the shifting language of modernity, or from the living examples of those who embodied it in its highest form? Have we taken Rawls or Rousseau, the courtroom or the marketplace, as our moral compass? Or have we allowed the lives of those divinely aligned those who suffered for truth, who refused comfort for the sake of right to shape our own moral imagination?

In reflecting on the chaos and moral confusion that define our current world, it becomes evident that much of this suffering arises from the distortion and misplacement of justice itself. We witness injustice not only in the policies of organizations and governments, but also in the spectacle of everyday life—where symbols of fairness are paraded, yet true justice remains elusive. This crisis is not, at its core, a question of whether God is just; rather, it is a reflection of humanity’s failure to honor the true proportions and purpose of justice. When justice is misunderstood and misapplied, suffering is inevitable—not because God’s order is flawed, but because we have refused to align ourselves with it. The remedy, then, is not to question the Divine, but to restore our understanding and practice of justice, so that our laws, institutions, and lives reflect its authentic embodiment.

Culture, Identity, Religion