제국의 시대에서의 정의 사상의 모색 - 예수와 최제우의 정의관을 중심으로

Abstract

This essay is a comparative study on the understandings of justice of the two religious founders: Jesus and Choi Jea Woo. Jesus is the founder of the Christianity and Soowoon Choi Jea Woo (hereafter, Soowoon, a pen name) is the founder of Donghak (Eastern Learning). These two historic figures have many common features. For example, both lived their public life only for three or four years in their own imperialistic times and died for political reasons at their early ages. Both tried to protect the integrity and independence of ordinary people (minjung) from the oppression of the imperialists and their proxies. The author employs the method of establishing four categorial elements by which to explore the conceptions of justice supposedly held by both religious founders. They are subject, freedom, equality, and power. The author employs the four categorial elements of justice for the analysis of the thoughts of Jesus and Soowoon on justice. The author affirms that justice is a historical truth that has to be carried out and realized in history by a certain type of the subject: the faithful subject as opposed to reactive or obscure subjects, adopting the French contemporary philosopher Alain Badiou’s three-fold typology of the subject. There are some differences in the two founders with regard to their conceptions of justice. Soowoon has the Confucianist cyclical or circular idea of times and history, and tend to view history apocalyptically and pre- deterministically, while Jesus has the view of history in terms of the coming of the Kingdom of God at the present time, that is, eschatology. Soowoon tends to think that justice will be realized in due time when the opportune time of the universe comes, rather than by the humans’ subjective and collective efforts. Soowoon’s idea of Shichonjoo (侍天主) and belief in a personal God, however, made him to regard the historical justice and truth as the mandate of the personal God. Finally, the author estimates that the dialogue of the two religious founders’ thoughts on justice in this essay is a meaningful starting point in our efforts at constructing a wholistic political ethic of religions in our contemporary pluralistic era.