This article critically examines Howard Zehr’s theological justification of restorative justice in opposition to the modern criminal justice system. Drawing on biblical sources, Kuhn’s theory of paradigm shifts, and critiques of the state’s monopoly on punishment, Zehr presents restorative justice as a paradigmatic alternative to retributive justice. While sympathetic to restorative justice, the author reconstructs Zehr’s argument and subjects it to an internal critique. Three main problems are identified. First, Zehr’s biblical hermeneutics are selective and result-oriented, producing a Spinozist and historicist reading that weakens the normative coherence of scripture. Second, his framework contains a tension between Kuhnian paradigm relativism and the claim of transcendent biblical truth, generating inconsistency between epistemological contingency and theological absolutism. Third, the article highlights an overlooked existential condition: the practical belief in a transcendent God in modern societies, which—consistent with Pierre Bayle’s notion of practical atheism—is largely absent and undermines the feasibility of a scripturally grounded restorative model. The article concludes that although Zehr’s project offers a powerful critique of punitive rationality and highlights neglected restorative dimensions of justice, it cannot provide a coherent or fully viable alternative to modern criminal justice systems. ..