It's his own power (like arcane magic is), but can only be expressed as long as he follows his own personal code/ideal. Psychology limiting it, rather than anything else.
Because the power is derived from your faith, whether that's in a god or a concept. It's internal.
In my game worlds, there are no gods; all clerics are 'clerics of a philosophy/ideal'. Some of them don't realize it, though; they need a psychological crutch, a Dumbo's Magic Feather. So they anthropomorphize their belief into 'being that gives me spells', despite the power truly being their own.
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That, or you could also go the route of mysticism, where faith-based magic is derived from deeper understanding of one's self, soul, and the secret truths of the universe and planes.
You could go with "the Force", where divine magic is a spiritual method of interacting with and manipulating a semi-sentient energy that is present in all things, with the various different churches and religions all having different takes on it, but at a very fundamental level all the same thing.
You could go more the Planescape method where the power of and the number of likeminded individuals all believing in something literally strengthens that concept, which likewise makes it more real and able to return some of it's power to it's faithful. The more one believes in justice, truly believes in it, the more real the concept of justice becomes, and the more justice begins to alter the world, the natural laws, and grant those that believe in it real power, like Clerical spells. Now, they can be LE or LG, both believing in order and justice, but with different views on the specifics and ways to get there.
Honestly, I think that these should be the standard for Divine characters, and leave patron gods (or lack of) completely up to all individual characters of all classes equally.
It's up to the player/DM to decide the how of the matter.
Other folks have given different possible answers. There's just no actual rule as to how it works. It can vary from "you fuel your powers yourself" to "a like-minded patron god fuels your powers unbeknownst to you because it suits them." Lots of options. Pick one that fits your campaign setting.
I my worlds, deities and religions come and go, they ascend, they die, and they spring from nothing. There are pantheons, spirits, and stray magic... Those who serve a purpose rather than a specific deity have their spells granted these other sources, who grant spells to those who serve their purpose. So the powers come from old gods of dead religions, the ancestral spirits of entire worlds, the lingering spellpower from billions of spells cast over the millenia grown into a semblance of purpose, from the stray belief in dead gods...
But I also make it a little harder for those who serve ideals(RP wise): ideals have no bigger picture, no endgame, no ends-justify-the-means. They require constant devotion.
Making it easier to fall and harder to seek forgiveness.
Their are all sorts of sources for power, "Gods" is just one and even they may get it from somwhere...
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the way i understand it a clerics power is granted to the cleric by thier diety as a reward for their piety... I dont see how "justice" itself can grant boons...
any thoughts?
All up to you for your game world.
In Golarion, you can get divine power, including every spell on the cleric list, without gods being involved, by playing an oracle (or a different list of divine spells by being a druid, ranger, paladin, inquisitor or adept). But if you want to be a cleric, you need a god.
In settings that are not Golarion, or the Forgotten Realms, or Dragonlance (or your home game version of such settings, since none of those settings designers are going to come to your home and smite you for having godless clerics), it might be possible to be a cleric of 'justice,' and it's up to you as GM to decide whether or not that cleric of justice is drawing upon some universal concept, being powered by free-floating divine energy (perhaps the exact same source of power that the gods allow their followers to tap into, or that they *themselves* tap into), or an actual god of justice is allowing that 'cleric of justice' to indirectly serve it's ends, despite not getting the name right.
Ideally, you should talk this over with your cleric players beforehand, and not spring on them later that they've been inadvertently furthering the agenda of some chaotic evil trickster god the entire time they thought they were praying to some nebulous lawful or good-ish concept like 'love' or 'the divinity of man' or 'objective reason' or whatever.
There is a God of Justice that reqires no recognition only for Justice to be spread though the world. He chose the person with the strongest belief in justice to be his champion.
Perhaps he has other followers and the character is just someone that caught his favor. The character doesn't have to know that it is a god that grants him his powers, they come from his faith and believe in the ideas that the god represents. Perhaps the god doesn't care if he is worshiped that mortal, or he thinks that the cause of justice is served best for it's own sake instead of for his.
A cleric who devotes himself to an ideal wants power without having to be tied down to a relationship or marriage with a god. So he has a number of casual relationships with gods; gods who favor his ideal give him power. Say your cleric devotes himself to 'justice'; there would have to be quite a few gods out there who would be willing to further that cause, so they all give him a little power. Simple as that.