There are many who say, “Who will show us some good?” (Psalm 4v6)

We are all familiar with the countless stories of killers getting away scott-free because there was insufficient evidence to convict them. Here is an interesting take on this theme from our favourite tv series. Consider the quote below:

House: The universe always settles the score.
Dr. Cuddy: Does it?
House: No, but it should.

The idea of justice, the righting of wrongs and balancing of misdeeds – portrayed here as karma – is present in every major worldview and belief system.

Yet it is also a concept that has failed us in spectacular fashion. House puts it best here. Justice should exist. It is ‘supposed’ to exist and work to settle the score… but this is not what we see happening.

Enter Dexter, the tv show about an amoral serial killer, Dexter, who has been trained by his foster father to channel his sociopathic serial killer urges using a special ‘code’. According to “Harry’s Code”, only people who deserve to die are killed. So if you haven’t killed anyone in a premeditative way then you are safe from Dexter’s blade.

The series has been a runaway success. And I don’t think that it is just the tongue-in-cheek humour that creates this affection for Dexter. There is something disturbingly reassuring about the existence of such a character (even in the fantasy world of the small screen).

Take the average left-of-centre agnostic/atheist for instance (basically most educated people in London/Athens under 40):

1. Since they either don’t believe or struggle to believe in the existence of God, they cannot hope for a final calling in of accounts where perfect justice will one day be meted.

2. If they are left of centre, they are also against the death penalty as a solution, so they can’t rely on the state.

3. Taking matters into one’s own hands is not condoned and vigilantes are a unsavoury and misguided solution at best.

So Dexter is the perfect solution to the problem faced by the atheist. Dexter settles the score on behalf of the universe without obliging the viewer to condone what he is doing, as it is already established that what he is doing is wrong. Yet our delight in such a ‘neat’ solution is always a secret delight that we dare not admit. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth and still fails miserably at providing an ultimate answer as well anyway.

Even traditional religion cannot provide a solution to House’s problem. For it simply claims that one day all those nasty people will get their comeuppance. House’s words resonate with us because we too need to witness this principle of justice in action, to give us a hope that evil will not always be the status quo, that wrong will not win the day simply by its continued existence, let alone its escaping justice.

The only place this is even claimed by anyone to have happened is on the cross of Jesus Christ. A faultless man taking the place of guilty and evil men and satisfying the full demands of justice… This is what happened on the cross. Justice once and for all, for every deed. This might sound barbaric, but my hunch is that it only sounds barbaric to us because we have sanitised sin so much as to have effectively banished its ugliness from the vista of our lives. But this does not remove it… and nor it does make us any less liable to face justice for our own deeds.

For a world(view) without Christ, Dexter is not just a guilty pleasure, he is the final hope for any kind of justice. He is the disturbing solution to House’s question for those who reject God. No wonder House’s mouse is gagged – he asks all the most inconvenient questions.