Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: crturner@udenva.cair.du.edu (CYNTHIA TURNER ) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Is There Biblical Justification For Capital Punishment? Message-ID: Date: 5 Feb 90 09:06:07 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: U of Denver Lines: 143 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu Moral controversies are ever-present in all societies, and, if anything, the more advanced a society becomes, the more perplexing appear the controversies. For example, the development of medical science within our own society has opened a Pandora's box of issues. But that's not the kind of ethical question I want to address here. Rather, I want to address a moral issue that has been with America since its inception as a nation; capital punishment. The story has been told of a shipwrecked sailor who, after adrift at sea for several days, finally spots land. Swimming cautiously to shore, he wonders if he is about to land on a civilized shore, or if he will encounter savages. He sighs with relief whe he spots a gallows, knowing that the land is civilized. Of course the story is told to create a paradox. How can a society which is perceived as civilized permit capital punishment? For some people it is equally that America, of all countries perhaps the most vociferous proponent of human rights throughout the world, could still engage itself in what is felt to be the most barbaric and inhumane of all punishments. With our 200 years of progress and intellectual advancement, how is it that we still, as a nation, see fit to terminate the lives of some criminals (humans, mind you) against their will? This is certainly a perplexing question, one that grows in perplexity if it is admitted that well over one-half of the adult population not only endorse its permissibility, but would like to see it carried out with greater frequency and a significantly shortened appeal process. This moral controversy has never been resolved in the history of this country. It should be noted too that if capital punishment were abolished this would not mean that the controversy is finally resolved. The question of its legality is often times quite separate from that of morality. Capital punishment is a paradigm case in point. One argument found among proponents for the abolishment is the religious argument based on the supposition that God is opposed to the willful taking of another human life. As human beings, we are possessed of certain inalienable rights. The right to life in this is seen in the context as inalienable. In the Christian context of this argument, we see it expressed in the phrase, "God hates the sin, but loves the sinner." This alleges that God disapproves of the capital offender's acts, but he is still a human being and is to be reguarded the rights of other human beings (forget for the moment the counter- claim that the offender did not entertain this consideration when he perpetrated his inhumanity upon his victim). The idea behind this argument is that if the religious person is consistent to his principles of spirituality he must oppose capital punishment. Is this valid? Must one take the view that capital punishment is wrong? It would seem if this were so that one would expect to find biblical support for such a position. Strangely, the Bible is directly silent on this issue. That is, if one seeks biblical support, they are going to have to interpret a passage as having something relevant to apply to capital punishment. If this is the case, might we not be able to do the same thing in advocacy of capital punishment? Is it possible to interpret a passage from the Bible as giving support for it? Or, if not directly giving support, then at least showing that, as a Christian, we ought not to oppose it? I think we can. We are all familiar with the story of Jesus' crucifixion. He was crucified between two criminals. Matthew 27:38, Mark 15:27, and John 19:18 tell us this much. What is interesting , however, is Luke 23:39-43, where we read of one criminal taunting Jesus, and the other rebuking the tauntor, saying, "Have you no fear of God? You are under the same sentence as he. For us it is plain justice; we are paying the price for our misdeeds; but this man (Jesus) has done nothing wrong." The criminal asked Jesus to remember him and Jesus replied, "I tell you this: Today you shall be with me in paradise." (New English Bible) There are several interesting points in this story. First, we are presented with all possibilities of individuals under a death sentence. We have the truly innocent, the unrepentant guilty and the repentant guilty. All persons ever executed fall into one of these three categories. A famous predecessor to Jesus in the innocent category was Socrates. In the Crito, we find Socrates declining the opportunity to escape, citing what we may call the tacit consent argument. Socrates, by virtue of living as a citizen of Athens, thereby gave consent to Athens' system of legal justice, which found him guilty of corrupting the youth and believing in different gods. Therefore, Socrates was morally bound to accept the decree of those laws. viz., his own death. Jesus appears similarly bound. At least, if he weren't, then we could expect the gospels to have recorded him stating the opposite. Since the gospels do not reveal such a statement, we can conclude that Jesus had nothing important to say reguarding our obligation to oppose capital punishment on the grounds that it sometimes victimizes the innocent. Let us direct our attention to the guilty. We find Jesus silent reguarding the unrepentant guilty. If capital punishment is morally wrong, why didn't Jesus speak out on this issue? He certainly did not hesitate to speak out on moral issues, as the gospels account many instances where Jesus said something important concerning moral obligations. Why, then, did he not speak from the cross about capital punishment? Perhaps because we, as Christians, are not obligated to do so. In fact, Romans 13:1 calls for us to submit to our legal authorities. We are in conflict with that if we oppose the issue of capital punishment because of some nebulous Christian obligation. It's just not there. I'm suggesting that Luke 23:39-43 indicates that Jesus did not intend for us to carry such a moral obligation. The repentant criminal in interesting. We find him admitting his crime _and_ admitting that he deserves the punishment he is receiving. Remembering Ted Bundy's last interview before his execution, he said he deserves to be locked up but not to be executed. Might he have not been truly repentant? If he was, we should have heard him say, as in Luke, "I am guilty and I am paying the price for my misdeeds. It is plain justice." But Bundy did not say that. Instead, he says he deserves the worst possible punishment short of taking his life. Now, if this were right, the repentant guilty in Luke was wrong in saying he deserves the death penalty, and we could have expected Jesus to correct him of such. But Jesus did not correct him. Instead, he promised to be with him. Intersting. If we carefully look at the story of Jesus on the cross, we cannot conclude a Christian obligation to oppose the death penalty. If we are forced to conclude anything, it might be that as Christians we ought not to say it is wrong. Jesus had the opportunity to say it was wrong, and he didn't. What might we conclude reguarding capital punishment? One this is that we ought not to rally from the point Christianity for our answer. If we do, we might be sursprised to find ourselves, following Jesus, to rule in favor of capital punishment. The issue should be decided on other grounds. That's the beauty of this country. Let the people decide. If the majority favor it, let it be and don't moralize it is wrong. I agree that because something is legal doe not make it moral. Slavery was once legal, and so very few would today say it was moral. But that's my point. So very few today would say that capital punishment is not morally justifiable; 99 out of 100 will say no. The other one is confused. We have developed morally as a nation in the past 200 years. Don't let someone point to the legality of capital punishment and tell you differently.