In American culture, there is a high value placed on fairness and egalitarianism. Anyone with at least two kids has experienced the protests of, "That isn't fair!" Or, "he got more than I did!" The standard parental response is, "Well, life isn't fair."
I am not saying that there is necessarily anything wrong with either fairness or equality. However, I do object to their being turned into overriding considerations. That is how we get socialism, the assumption that fairness requires, not equal rights, but equal outcomes. If two people, one hard-working and the other lazy, are paid the same, is that fair and equal? Certainly. However, is it just? I would say "no." If a rich man dies, and leaves his children well-provided, while another man, a poor one, dies and leaves his children destitute, is that fair and equal? Obviously not. Is it just? In this case, I would say "yes." Would it be fair and equal to deprive the rich man's children of their inheritance, in order to make to everyone's outcome the same? Ah, there is the crux of the matter!
The question is this: If one person benefits from a thing that another person does not have, is that fair and equal? Think about Christmas. If your parents could afford to give you a ten-speed bike, but the parents down the street can only afford to give their kids a new pair of gloves, what do we do? Take away your bike?
This is the difference between justice and fairness in the examples I have described: the ability of some parents to give more is nowhere by depriving other parents of the same ability (I am not talking about criminals, of course). That is, the children who have received less in my examples would have received what they did, no matter what had happened to the richer children.
The same principle applies to the purposes of God. When the Scriptures are read that tell us that God has determined His use for every person who has existed or ever will, is it fair that the purpose is positive for some, but negative for others? "Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?" (Romans 9:21). But asking that question is to ignore that we exist only because He has given us existence. And, as Paul implies, it is the right of the creator to create things according to his own purposes, not according to the desires of those things.
People, including professing Christians, hate that truth! they snarl and proclaim their devotion to fairness and equality, while sweeping aside the proper issue of justice. If we had not been created to serve the purposes of God, then we would have had no existence at all! therefore, the purposes of God do not deprive us of anything that we would otherwise have had. Therefore, "Who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, 'Why have You made me like this?'" (Romans 9:20).
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