Unlike materialism, Christianity insists humans and human society are not perfectible, even in principle. Christians believe that we are incapable of producing a truly just society and that the legal codes we create to foster morality will always fail. The dream of a perfectly just social order is, Christians believe, a dangerous lie that we tell ourselves. If human beings are capable of achieving perfect justice, Christianity is mistaken. But if we are not, it is materialism and other systems of