Reconciling Injustice with God's Perfection

One of the fundamental premises of Christianity is that God is good and just.  In order to reconcile that with the obvious injustices we see here on earth, it is believed that all of those will be balanced out in heaven. (The first shall be last and the last shall be first, etc.)  All hope for justice is placed in the future, which is the only way that we can defend the idea that God is good and just.  And that idea should be comforting when someone is going through an "unfair" difficulty, that they will be rewarded in the future.

Clearly life is not inherently fair or just, even at the most basic levels of life and death.  Some people are born in the USA, and others in Somalia, with no apparent basis for that distinction.  On the flip side, death can happen at any time, regardless of all other factors in someone's life.

That idea doesn't resonate well with those in our culture who desire instant gratification.  A popular criticism of the idea of future justice, from that perspective, is that it is just a wishful hope that all of our current problems have meaning in a larger context.  That supports the concept that the idea of future justice is something that people conjured up in search of relief for their pain and suffering.  There is obviously no system of perfect justice on earth, begging the question: what would lead someone to believe that it would be any different in the next stage of life?

On the other hand, we could view it as a theory based on delayed gratification.  What else in life operates on a similar principle?  Are there any other times in life where putting off something in the immediate leads to greater benefits in the future?  Of course, so it is not like the Christian view of justice in the spiritual world is out of line with the principles we observe at work in the physical world.

Those who work hard in school and at their jobs are usually more successful in the long run.  Putting in that effort is not as enjoyable as partying your way through school and/or life, but that eventually catches up with you.  As a general rule we find this to be the case, but there are always exceptions, and that is the injustice that we have to find a way to reconcile in the first place.