Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Capital punishment from the perspective of a confused Christian
This is meant as a riff off of Dr. Ben Witherington's post, which can be found here . It began as a comment, but was obviously too long, so I moved it here and expanded it so as not to sound too incoherent. I have been struggling with the issue of a Christian's involvement in politics, rethinking previously held assumptions, so I am looking more at what a Christian who is in political office should do, rather than only whether something is right or wrong in the abstract. Indeed, the flaw in many Christian debates over capital punishment (CP) is that there is much talk about whether CP is morally justified, but not much about whether it can be justly administered as well. (Dr. Witherington does address this, see below.) We could see CP as morally justified, but never carry it out because we are unable to carry it out justly. These are actually TWO separate arguments, not one. (Much of this was influenced years ago in college by Norman Geisler's book on Christian Ethics.)
Comman Christian arguments for capital punishment:
1) The Bible commands it in Genesis 9:6, predating the Old Testament law.
2) The Old Testament Mosaic law commands it.
3) CP. should be carried out in order to keep the person from murdering again.
4) CP. should be carried out as a deterrence, ie. it keeps others from murdering because of a fear of punishment.
It should be noted that number 1 is a strictly theological reason. While it is definitely true that murder is "killing God in effigy" (for the one killed was made in the image of God), that is not a valid reason for someone in a political office in a pluralistic country. To be logically consistent, we would also have to ban ALL non-Christian religions, as well as atheism, and then explicitly set up a Christian theocracy. (Which leads to point number 2...)
It seems to me that the entire OT law (number 2) is designed to bring about a theocracy, "the Kingdom of God on earth," so to speak. That's why its ethic is absolute and uncompromising. Unless there is an absolutely perfect people, then God will not "dwell among them." The people were to show that they could (on their own) meet the demands of the covenant. If they did, then all of the promised ("eschatological") blessings of Deut. 28 will acrue. If not, then the promised curses would instead appear. That's why every every adulterer must be immediately stoned- otherwise God would not continue to dwell in the community, but would reject the people, as He ultimately did anyway.
(Note to biblical theologians: Of course "eschatalogical" is an anachronism here, for we are not dealing with true eschatology in Deut., but this is the stuff that later biblical themes of promise/fulfillment will come out of.)
What this means for the Christian is that he or she should not use an appeal to the OT to justify capital punishment, for it would be ripping the idea out of its explicitly theological context. We are not to "purge the evil from among you" in the way it is meant in Deut. 13:5! (Lest we become Christian Crusaders or Jihadis!)
But we also should not use an utilitarian argument (no. 3 and 4), such as saying that we should employ capital punishment in order to "keep others from being killed." The end does not justify the means. This would be faulty logic, not to mention destructive if applied to other areas of life as well. (Yes, the "end" of using an "end justifies the means" argument does not justify the means of using it. Got that? I have no clue what I just wrote!) I cannot accept strictly utilitarian arguments.
So, what does a Christian in government do, who is charged with overseeing the safety and security of the people who he or she represents??? If one wishes to support capital punishment, you can't resort to relativism. You can't appeal to Genesis 9:6 ("murder is killing God in effigy"), nor to the OT covenant, which are guidelines for setting up a theocracy, as decribed above.
Common Christian arguments against capital punishment
:1) Christ calls us to non-retaliation in the sermon on the mount.
2) CP is premeditated murder itself.
3) Human life is infintely sacred and valuable.
4) The application of CP is unjust.
5) The culprit may accept Christ later in life.
If one wishes to oppose capital punishment, your choices also seem to be lacking. Christ calls us to personal non-retaliation, but Matt 5 is not addressing the proper actions of government. His ethical admonitions all flow from the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God (see here), which when it comes in fullness, will almost by definition supercede all other governments. While there are different interpretations of speculative eschatology, surely none of them have a direct one-one application to our modern political systems! Number 1 falls.
Not being an expert in Hebrew, I'm told that the word used for murder in Ex 20:13 refers to an action with malicious intent. It does not refer to the dispassionate exercise of punishment carried out by the state. Nix on number 2.
Number 3 is NOT a biblical argument. There are things more valuable than human life, such as serving God. If not, then it would be wrong of me to ever die for my faith. (And it would have been morally wrong for Christ to die on the cross for our sins, because his human life would have been more sacred and valuable than our salvation.)
Number 5 is another utilitarian argument ("the end of this person getting saved years from now justifies the means of his NOT experiencing full punishment for his crime now"). This is also another theological argument which seems to say that an unsaved life is more valuable than anything else. (This avoids the problem of Christian martyrdom: A Christian's service to God is more important than their life, but an unsaved person's continuing on in this world is more important than anything because they may yet become Christian.) A problem with this argument is its inherent uncertainty. The person MAY become Christian, but they may not; and IF it is morally justifiable to exercise CP for other reasons, then to refrain here may actually be a morally wrong action, ie. a "sin of ommission."
Also, as a theological argument, it begs the question of what other theological agendas we should pursue in politics. If we campaign for transmuting death sentences because of the importance of conversion, should we also campaign for the lawful establishment of Christianity, and for the removal of all reference to other religions or at least to overtly secular ideas in media? If our children were not exposed to other religions, or even modern pop music, won't they be more receptive to Christianity?
Also, it is possible to employ utilitarian arguments regarding the application of CP (number 4), as Dr. Witherington does in his post:
"In the first place a good case can be made that many innocent persons have been put on death row and executed. Can the executing of even one genuine killer justify the repeated taking of innocent life (since we are not all-knowing and make mistakes in our judgments of others)?"
While being very true, this is stated as an utilitarian argument, and is therefore logically suspect in my opinion. What if we have proven conclusively that we have caught the guilty person? Perhaps we should say that CP should never be caried out unless it has been proven beyond a doubt that we have the guily person? (And a high threshhold of guit would have to be determined!) Yet, this means that we might sometime actually exercise CP in rare cases, so it does not address the issue of CP being morally right or wrong in itself.
AN ANSWER????????
At this point I throw up my hands and confess that I really don't know what the answer is.Is CP right? Is CP wrong? Is CP right in itself, but wrong in its application? Should our agnosticism (both in the rightness of CP, as well as the guilt or innocence of culprits) make us reject CP as too final a solution?
Perhaps one solution is to ask what it would mean in this situation to "go the extra mile?" I'm not referring to going the extra mile with culprits, but with the culture. Jesus and Paul spoke of Christians "choosing to be cheated," so to speak. Choosing to endure injustice, so that the gospel would gain a hearing. (see here for an explanation of this principle, as applied to the debate over same-sex marriage). Earlier I said that IF CP was actually morally justified, then it might be a "sin of ommission" to seek not to carry it out appropriately. But what if that is the price of the cross? What if not seeing justice done "completely" in this life is the extra burden we place on ourselves, in order that the wider culture may see the gospel in a different light?
In other words, if we are in a culture that is more liberal, we should forego seeing it carried out, so that we will not bring reproach on the gospel. If we are in a more conservative culture, then we should emphasize that CP is always wrong unless we have ruled out completely that the person may be innocent. How this would work out in modern America, which is so polarized politically, I have absolutely no idea...
This is meant as a riff off of Dr. Ben Witherington's post, which can be found here . It began as a comment, but was obviously too long, so I moved it here and expanded it so as not to sound too incoherent. I have been struggling with the issue of a Christian's involvement in politics, rethinking previously held assumptions, so I am looking more at what a Christian who is in political office should do, rather than only whether something is right or wrong in the abstract. Indeed, the flaw in many Christian debates over capital punishment (CP) is that there is much talk about whether CP is morally justified, but not much about whether it can be justly administered as well. (Dr. Witherington does address this, see below.) We could see CP as morally justified, but never carry it out because we are unable to carry it out justly. These are actually TWO separate arguments, not one. (Much of this was influenced years ago in college by Norman Geisler's book on Christian Ethics.)
Comman Christian arguments for capital punishment:
1) The Bible commands it in Genesis 9:6, predating the Old Testament law.
2) The Old Testament Mosaic law commands it.
3) CP. should be carried out in order to keep the person from murdering again.
4) CP. should be carried out as a deterrence, ie. it keeps others from murdering because of a fear of punishment.
It should be noted that number 1 is a strictly theological reason. While it is definitely true that murder is "killing God in effigy" (for the one killed was made in the image of God), that is not a valid reason for someone in a political office in a pluralistic country. To be logically consistent, we would also have to ban ALL non-Christian religions, as well as atheism, and then explicitly set up a Christian theocracy. (Which leads to point number 2...)
It seems to me that the entire OT law (number 2) is designed to bring about a theocracy, "the Kingdom of God on earth," so to speak. That's why its ethic is absolute and uncompromising. Unless there is an absolutely perfect people, then God will not "dwell among them." The people were to show that they could (on their own) meet the demands of the covenant. If they did, then all of the promised ("eschatological") blessings of Deut. 28 will acrue. If not, then the promised curses would instead appear. That's why every every adulterer must be immediately stoned- otherwise God would not continue to dwell in the community, but would reject the people, as He ultimately did anyway.
(Note to biblical theologians: Of course "eschatalogical" is an anachronism here, for we are not dealing with true eschatology in Deut., but this is the stuff that later biblical themes of promise/fulfillment will come out of.)
What this means for the Christian is that he or she should not use an appeal to the OT to justify capital punishment, for it would be ripping the idea out of its explicitly theological context. We are not to "purge the evil from among you" in the way it is meant in Deut. 13:5! (Lest we become Christian Crusaders or Jihadis!)
But we also should not use an utilitarian argument (no. 3 and 4), such as saying that we should employ capital punishment in order to "keep others from being killed." The end does not justify the means. This would be faulty logic, not to mention destructive if applied to other areas of life as well. (Yes, the "end" of using an "end justifies the means" argument does not justify the means of using it. Got that? I have no clue what I just wrote!) I cannot accept strictly utilitarian arguments.
So, what does a Christian in government do, who is charged with overseeing the safety and security of the people who he or she represents??? If one wishes to support capital punishment, you can't resort to relativism. You can't appeal to Genesis 9:6 ("murder is killing God in effigy"), nor to the OT covenant, which are guidelines for setting up a theocracy, as decribed above.
Common Christian arguments against capital punishment
:1) Christ calls us to non-retaliation in the sermon on the mount.
2) CP is premeditated murder itself.
3) Human life is infintely sacred and valuable.
4) The application of CP is unjust.
5) The culprit may accept Christ later in life.
If one wishes to oppose capital punishment, your choices also seem to be lacking. Christ calls us to personal non-retaliation, but Matt 5 is not addressing the proper actions of government. His ethical admonitions all flow from the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God (see here), which when it comes in fullness, will almost by definition supercede all other governments. While there are different interpretations of speculative eschatology, surely none of them have a direct one-one application to our modern political systems! Number 1 falls.
Not being an expert in Hebrew, I'm told that the word used for murder in Ex 20:13 refers to an action with malicious intent. It does not refer to the dispassionate exercise of punishment carried out by the state. Nix on number 2.
Number 3 is NOT a biblical argument. There are things more valuable than human life, such as serving God. If not, then it would be wrong of me to ever die for my faith. (And it would have been morally wrong for Christ to die on the cross for our sins, because his human life would have been more sacred and valuable than our salvation.)
Number 5 is another utilitarian argument ("the end of this person getting saved years from now justifies the means of his NOT experiencing full punishment for his crime now"). This is also another theological argument which seems to say that an unsaved life is more valuable than anything else. (This avoids the problem of Christian martyrdom: A Christian's service to God is more important than their life, but an unsaved person's continuing on in this world is more important than anything because they may yet become Christian.) A problem with this argument is its inherent uncertainty. The person MAY become Christian, but they may not; and IF it is morally justifiable to exercise CP for other reasons, then to refrain here may actually be a morally wrong action, ie. a "sin of ommission."
Also, as a theological argument, it begs the question of what other theological agendas we should pursue in politics. If we campaign for transmuting death sentences because of the importance of conversion, should we also campaign for the lawful establishment of Christianity, and for the removal of all reference to other religions or at least to overtly secular ideas in media? If our children were not exposed to other religions, or even modern pop music, won't they be more receptive to Christianity?
Also, it is possible to employ utilitarian arguments regarding the application of CP (number 4), as Dr. Witherington does in his post:
"In the first place a good case can be made that many innocent persons have been put on death row and executed. Can the executing of even one genuine killer justify the repeated taking of innocent life (since we are not all-knowing and make mistakes in our judgments of others)?"
While being very true, this is stated as an utilitarian argument, and is therefore logically suspect in my opinion. What if we have proven conclusively that we have caught the guilty person? Perhaps we should say that CP should never be caried out unless it has been proven beyond a doubt that we have the guily person? (And a high threshhold of guit would have to be determined!) Yet, this means that we might sometime actually exercise CP in rare cases, so it does not address the issue of CP being morally right or wrong in itself.
AN ANSWER????????
At this point I throw up my hands and confess that I really don't know what the answer is.Is CP right? Is CP wrong? Is CP right in itself, but wrong in its application? Should our agnosticism (both in the rightness of CP, as well as the guilt or innocence of culprits) make us reject CP as too final a solution?
Perhaps one solution is to ask what it would mean in this situation to "go the extra mile?" I'm not referring to going the extra mile with culprits, but with the culture. Jesus and Paul spoke of Christians "choosing to be cheated," so to speak. Choosing to endure injustice, so that the gospel would gain a hearing. (see here for an explanation of this principle, as applied to the debate over same-sex marriage). Earlier I said that IF CP was actually morally justified, then it might be a "sin of ommission" to seek not to carry it out appropriately. But what if that is the price of the cross? What if not seeing justice done "completely" in this life is the extra burden we place on ourselves, in order that the wider culture may see the gospel in a different light?
In other words, if we are in a culture that is more liberal, we should forego seeing it carried out, so that we will not bring reproach on the gospel. If we are in a more conservative culture, then we should emphasize that CP is always wrong unless we have ruled out completely that the person may be innocent. How this would work out in modern America, which is so polarized politically, I have absolutely no idea...
