Righteous indignation, also called righteous anger, is anger that is primarily motivated by a perception of injustice or other profound moral lapse. It is distinguished from anger that is prompted by something more personal, like an insult.
In some Christian doctrines, it is considered the only form of anger which is not sinful. According to these doctrines, an example of righteous anger would be when Jesus drove the money lenders out of the temple (Matthew 21:12–13).
 | This section's factual accuracy is disputed .(August 2014) |
"Righteous" means acting in accord with divine or moral law. "Indignation" is a revolted sense of disapproval. The Standard Dictionary describes indignation as a "feeling involving anger mingled with contempt or disgust".[ citation needed ]
Aristotle considered righteous indignation [nemesis] as one of the virtues of the mean: "Righteous Indignation hits the mean between Envy and Schadenfreude... someone is righteously indignant when they are distressed at the sight of undeserved good fortune". [1]
Juvenal claimed that moral indignation drove him to write satire. [2]
In Scott's comment on Ephesians 4:26, "Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger", he notes that "...on many occasions, in the management of families, in reproving sin, and even in ordering their temporal concerns", anger is permitted of Christians. Nevertheless, Scott cautions that Christians should aim to "....be very circumspect and vigilant to restrain that dangerous passion within the bounds of reason, meekness, piety, and charity; not being angry without cause, or above cause, or in a proud, selfish, and peevish manner." Scott argues that Christians should not express anger in the "language of vehement indignation".[ citation needed ]
The Forerunner Commentary on Psalms 137:2–6 argues that these psalms are about the "bitterness of exile into which God forced Judah", purportedly with the goal of turning grief into zeal, so that the "anger can be used to scour away sin" by becoming "righteously indignant". [3] In John W. Ritenbaugh's comments on Proverbs 15:18 in How to Survive Exile, he argues that it "is alright for us to be righteously indignant as long as we do not sin." [3]
In James McCosh's book Motive Powers, he notes that "We may be angry and sin not; but this disposition may become sinful, and this in the highest degree. It is so when it is excessive, when it is rage, and makes us lose control of ourselves. It is so, and may become a vice, when it leads us to wish evil to those who have offended us. It is resentment when it prompts us to meet and repay evil by evil. It is vengeance when it impels us to crush those who have injured us. It is vindictiveness when it is seeking out ingeniously and laboriously means and instruments to give pain to those who have thwarted us. Already sin has entered."[ This quote needs a citation ]
In Exodus 4:14, God was indignant at Moses' work. Moses betrayed the faith of God and he disobeyed God's will. He ordered the people of God to go to fight the Pharaoh of Egypt. The people of God obeyed His commands, and they were gone forever. In Exodus 22:21–24, helpless people, strangers, widows, and orphans suffered persecution. God was indignant when he witnessed such cruel acts. In Exodus 32:10, God was indignant when he learned that his people no longer believed and worshiped him, but turned to idolatry
Daniel Whitby argues that "anger is not always sinful", in that it is found among non-sinners. For example, Jesus was "angry with the Pharisees for the hardness of their hearts; yet He had no desire to revenge this sin upon them, but had a great compassion for them". [4]
St. Thomas Aquinas, in the question on anger of his Summa Theologiae, quotes the Opus Imperfectum in Matthaeum, "he that is angry without cause, shall be in danger; but he that is angry with cause, shall not be in danger: for without anger, teaching will be useless, judgments unstable, crimes unchecked," and concludes saying that "to be angry is therefore not always an evil."[ This quote needs a citation ]
The anthropomorphic, fictional, animated/drawn character Bucky O'Hare is the captain of a space-faring frigate named The Righteous Indignation.[ citation needed ]
Original sin is the Christian doctrine that holds that humans, through the fact of birth, inherit a tainted nature with a proclivity to sinful conduct in need of regeneration. The biblical basis for the belief is generally found in Genesis 3, in a line in Psalm 51:5, and in Paul's Epistle to the Romans, 5:12-21.
In a religious context, sin is a transgression against divine law or a law of God. Each culture has its own interpretation of what it means to commit a sin. While sins are generally considered actions, any thought, word, or act considered immoral, selfish, shameful, harmful, or alienating might be termed "sinful".
In the philosophy of religion, a theodicy is an argument that attempts to resolve the problem of evil that arises when omnipotence, omnibenevolence, and omniscience are all simultaneously ascribed to God. Unlike a defence, which merely tries to demonstrate that the coexistence of God and evil is logically possible, a theodicy additionally provides a framework wherein God's existence is considered plausible. The German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Leibniz coined the term "theodicy" in 1710 in his work Théodicée, though numerous attempts to resolve the problem of evil had previously been proposed. The British philosopher John Hick traced the history of moral theodicy in his 1966 work Evil and the God of Love, identifying three major traditions:
Propitiation is the act of appeasing or making well-disposed a deity, thus incurring divine favor or avoiding divine retribution. While some use the term interchangeably with expiation, others draw a sharp distinction between the two. The discussion here encompasses usage only in the Christian tradition.
The seven deadly sins, also known as the capital vices or cardinal sins, is a grouping and classification of vices within Christian teachings. According to the standard list, they are pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony and sloth, which are contrary to the seven heavenly virtues. These sins are often thought to be abuses or excessive versions of one's natural faculties or passions.
Anger, also known as wrath or rage, is an intense emotional state involving a strong uncomfortable and non-cooperative response to a perceived provocation, hurt or threat.
Righteousness is the quality or state of being morally correct and justifiable. It can be considered synonymous with "rightness" or being "upright" or to-the-light and visible. It can be found in Indian, Chinese and Abrahamic religions and traditions, among others, as a theological concept. For example, from various perspectives in Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Confucianism, Taoism, and Judaism it is considered an attribute that implies that a person's actions are justified, and can have the connotation that the person has been "judged" or "reckoned" as leading a life that is pleasing to God.
In Christianity, salvation is the saving of human beings from sin and its consequences—which include death and separation from God—by Christ's death and resurrection, and the justification entailed by this salvation.
Matthew 5:22 is the twenty-second verse of the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament and is part of the Sermon on the Mount. It is the first of what have traditionally been known as the 6 Antitheses. In this one, Jesus compares the current interpretation of "You shall not murder" from the Ten Commandments with his own interpretation.
Human nature comprises the fundamental dispositions and characteristics—including ways of thinking, feeling, and acting—that humans are said to have naturally. The term is often used to denote the essence of humankind, or what it 'means' to be human. This usage has proven to be controversial in that there is dispute as to whether or not such an essence actually exists.
Psalm 14 is the 14th psalm of the Book of Psalms, beginning in English in the King James Version: "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." In the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate, it is psalm 13 in a slightly different numbering, "Dixit insipiens in corde suo". Its authorship is traditionally assigned to King David. With minor differences, it is nearly identical in content with Psalm 53. Hermann Gunkel dates the psalm to the exile period.
Free will in theology is an important part of the debate on free will in general. Religions vary greatly in their response to the standard argument against free will and thus might appeal to any number of responses to the paradox of free will, the claim that omniscience and free will are incompatible.
Indignation is a complex and discrete emotion that is triggered by social emotions and social environments. Feelings of anger and disgust are some emotions that make up indignation.
Answer to Job is a 1952 book by Carl Jung that addresses the significance of the Book of Job to the "divine drama" of Christianity. It argues that while he submitted to Yahweh's omnipotence, Job nevertheless proved to be more moral and conscious than God, who tormented him without justification under the influence of Satan. This scandal made it necessary for God to become united with man. Satan was banished from heaven and God incarnated as purely good, through a virgin birth, into the sinless redeemer Jesus Christ. Eventually, however, God will incarnate his evil side as well. For this to happen, the Holy Ghost left by Christ on earth has to enter "empirical", sinful human beings in whom the divine can be realized completely. Jung turns to the Book of Ezekiel, the Book of Enoch, and especially the Book of Revelation to consider how this may unfold. He suggests that the contemporary modern era, in which humanity possesses immense technological power, is significant to this second divine birth. He interprets the 1950 papal dogma of the Assumption of Mary as easing this transition towards completeness by re-emphasizing the feminine dimension of God.
Thou shalt not kill, You shall not murder or You shall not murder (NIV), is a moral imperative included as one of the Ten Commandments in the Torah.
"Thou shalt not covet" is the most common translation of one of the Ten Commandments or Decalogue, which are widely understood as moral imperatives by legal scholars, Jewish scholars, Catholic scholars, and Protestant scholars. The Book of Exodus and the Book of Deuteronomy both describe the Ten Commandments as having been spoken by God, inscribed on two stone tablets by the finger of God, and, after Moses broke the original tablets, rewritten by God on replacements. On rewriting, the word covet changed to ‘desire’ (תתאוה).
Psalm 78 is the 78th psalm of the Book of Psalms, beginning in English in the King James Version: "Give ear, O my people, to my law". In the slightly different numbering system used in the Greek Septuagint and Latin Vulgate translations of the Bible, this psalm is Psalm 77. In Latin, it is known as "Adtendite populus meus legem meam". It is one of the 12 Psalms of Asaph and is described as a "maskil" or "contemplation". It is the second-longest Psalm, with 72 verses, and the first of the three great history psalms. The New American Bible, Revised Edition entitles it "a new beginning in Zion and David".
Psalm 85 is the 85th psalm of the Book of Psalms, one of a series of psalms attributed to the sons of Korah. In the English of the King James Version, this psalm begins: "LORD, thou hast been favourable unto thy land". In the slightly different numbering system used in the Greek Septuagint and Latin Vulgate translations of the Bible, this psalm is Psalm 84. In Latin, it is known as "Benedixisti Domine terram tuam". In Judaism, it is called "a psalm of returned exiles". The Jerusalem Bible describes it as a "prayer for peace".
The Augustinian theodicy, named for the 4th- and 5th-century theologian and philosopher Augustine of Hippo, is a type of Christian theodicy that developed in response to the evidential problem of evil. As such, it attempts to explain the probability of an omnipotent (all-powerful) and omnibenevolent (all-loving) God amid evidence of evil in the world. A number of variations of this kind of theodicy have been proposed throughout history; their similarities were first described by the 20th-century philosopher John Hick, who classified them as "Augustinian". They typically assert that God is perfectly (ideally) good, that he created the world out of nothing, and that evil is the result of humanity's original sin. The entry of evil into the world is generally explained as consequence of original sin and its continued presence due to humans' misuse of free will and concupiscence. God's goodness and benevolence, according to the Augustinian theodicy, remain perfect and without responsibility for evil or suffering.
Relating theodicy and the Bible is crucial to understanding Abrahamic theodicy because the Bible "has been, both in theory and in fact, the dominant influence upon ideas about God and evil in the Western world". Theodicy, in its most common form, is the attempt to answer the question of why a good God permits the manifestation of evil. Theodicy attempts to resolve the evidential problem of evil by reconciling the traditional divine characteristics of omnibenevolence and omnipotence, in either their absolute or relative form, with the occurrence of evil or suffering in the world.
