A new humanity?

[thinkandmull]

**I’ve been away and didn’t get to way in on my earlier thread, on which people went on and on about the same thing until it was closed. My concern is still about the eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. When the Church says that torture is against human dignity, doesn’t this mean that even God himself can’t tell us to inflict it, or is it the same as murder (which God died command in the Old Testament). Judaism seems like a dangerous nowadays, like Muslisms, not in practice mind you, but in theory, because the decrees of the Old Testament still apply for them. Now as some argued, the prophets and proverbs say that we should love our enemies. However, punishing someone does not exclude love. The questions is how far is too far. Aquinas says that the worst pain is that from fire (even though Jesus wasn’t tortured with fire? That’s another question). Now, Pope Leo X’s decree against Luther condemned: “33. That heretics be burned is against the will of the Spirit.” Now, this is not clearly infallible for certain reasons, but at the time weren’t people required to submit to it as the Magisteruim? Perhaps there will be disagreement here on when we can dissent from the Magisterium. Be that as it may, just let me point out that the worst torture (prolonged torture with extreme heat) was not mentioned in the Old Testament, so perhaps that would not have been applied to someone who inflicted it on someone else. Finally, with the new humanity of the New Testament (as Leo XIII, Benedict XIV, John Paul II, ect. have described it), the Church now teaches that even extreme psychological torture (perhaps simply that which causes insanity) is against redeemed nature. Maybe that solves the question for us, and shows how important it is for governments to see the truth of Christianity, as Leo XIII called for.

P.S. An extreme Catholic had a blog called WillingCatholicMartyr. He had a lot of quotes from Popes on there, which I checked out, and found were accurate. Pius XI DID say in an encyclical that Aquinas taught (materially) infallibly, although this clearly didn’t apply to his science (Immaculate Conception). However, Catholics don’t appear to be bound by everything Aquinas said. I had email discussions with him, and now the blog is inactive**

 

[John_Martin]

The works of Aquinas are not infallible, they are theological explanations of doctrine, not the doctrine itself. If someone, a great theologian in the Church, wrote a detailed explanation of the Council of Trent, his explanation would not have the authority of the Council’s Canons. It is simply one person in the Church helping others in the Church as they try to put the Canons into their lives. That being said, however, at Thomas’ time there was no statement by the Church about Mary’s immaculate conception. There had been no heresies related to this topic, and so no council or Pope took it into detailed consideration as something that needed a definitive ruling of what we must believe. And so it was also not a distinct Question in Thomas’ Summa, as it might be were he alive today.

Thomas himself understood this, and if he were here today, he himself would write the best explanation of the Immaculate Conception that you could ever find, because he believed in the Church above his own understanding, and he knew that even though revelation has to be believed, still it can be understood by one who believes it.

 

[John_Martin]

I think you are mixing up “murder” and “killing” - God never commanded murder of anyone. He did command killing, as his judgment against individuals and peoples. Each was a specific historical command, and not a general timeless command to be exercised at any person’s discretion. The Timeless Commands were all regarding Love - love of God and love of Neighbor (the ten commandments, among which is “Thou shalt not murder”). Now, perhaps I am mistaken, but I do not recall any description of a command to torture, either, in the Old Testament.
With Jews, the Timeless Commandments they have are to obey the Ten Commandments, to love, with their whole being and as they love themselves.

 

[Shike]

**I’ve been away and didn’t get to way in on my earlier thread, on which people went on and on about the same thing until it was closed. My concern is still about the eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. When the Church says that torture is against human dignity, doesn’t this mean that even God himself can’t tell us to inflict it, or is it the same as murder (which God died command in the Old Testament). Judaism seems like a dangerous nowadays, like Muslisms, not in practice mind you, but in theory, because the decrees of the Old Testament still apply for them. Now as some argued, the prophets and proverbs say that we should love our enemies. However, punishing someone does not exclude love. The questions is how far is too far. Aquinas says that the worst pain is that from fire (even though Jesus wasn’t tortured with fire? That’s another question). Now, Pope Leo X’s decree against Luther condemned: “33. That heretics be burned **is against the will of the Spirit.” Now, this is not clearly infallible for certain reasons, but at the time weren’t people required to submit to it as the Magisteruim? Perhaps there will be disagreement here on when we can dissent from the Magisterium. Be that as it may, just let me point out that the worst torture (prolonged torture with extreme heat) was not mentioned in the Old Testament, so perhaps that would not have been applied to someone who inflicted it on someone else. Finally, with the new humanity of the New Testament (as Leo XIII, Benedict XIV, John Paul II, ect. have described it), the Church now teaches that even extreme psychological torture (perhaps simply that which causes insanity) is against redeemed nature. Maybe that solves the question for us, and shows how important it is for governments to see the truth of Christianity, as Leo XIII called for.

P.S. An extreme Catholic had a blog called WillingCatholicMartyr. He had a lot of quotes from Popes on there, which I checked out, and found were accurate. Pius XI DID say in an encyclical that Aquinas taught (materially) infallibly, although this clearly didn’t apply to his science (Immaculate Conception). However, Catholics don’t appear to be bound by everything Aquinas said. I had email discussions with him, and now the blog is inactive

Are you equating “an eye for an eye” with torture? I tend to associate it with justice… something Christians are called to transcend.

 

[lmelahn]

Are you equating “an eye for an eye” with torture? I tend to associate it with justice… something Christians are called to transcend.

Even “an eye for an eye” is a bit lacking in justice, objectively speaking. Just because someone, say, takes out his neighbor’s eye doesn’t make it right to put out the perpetrator’s eye. That would be revenge, not justice.

I think what God is doing in the Old Testament is restraining the ancient Israelites from even greater revenge. In the pre-Israelite world, the punishment for taking out someone’s eye would probably have been taking out both eyes, or even death. God is saying, in effect, "If you must take revenge, at least don’t go beyond the “eye for an eye.”

 

[John_Martin]

Even “an eye for an eye” is a bit lacking in justice, objectively speaking. Just because someone, say, takes out his neighbor’s eye doesn’t make it right to put out the perpetrator’s eye. That would be revenge, not justice.

I think what God is doing in the Old Testament is restraining the ancient Israelites from even greater revenge. In the pre-Israelite world, the punishment for taking out someone’s eye would probably have been taking out both eyes, or even death. God is saying, in effect, "If you must take revenge, at least don’t go beyond the “eye for an eye.”

You are correct (restraint from greater vengeance - a kind of decreed revenge rather than the open-ended revenge of passion/emotion or hate, so that vigilantism is not allowed nor feuds)

 

[thinkandmull]

Exodus 21:22-24 (NIV)

22 “If people are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely[a] but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. 23 But if there is serious injury, you** are to take** life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,

Leviticus 24:19-20

19 And if a man cause a blemish in his neighbour; as he hath done, so shall it be done to him; 20 Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again.

The New Law does not necessarily call for such justice, but if human dignity is a true objective good, then God cannot do that which is against human dignity. Therefore the conclusion is in the old testament it wasn’t against human dignity of the sinner (not yet sentenced as a reprobate by God) to cut his leg off. That’s extreme torture.

 

[thinkandmull]

Proverbs 16:2 “All a man’s ways seem innocent to him, but motives are weighed by the Lord”

PASCENDI DOMINICI GREGIS, ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS X
3 "We number such men among the enemies of the Church, if, leaving out of consideration the internal disposition of soul, of which God alone is the judge"

My concern is, if it is true that we can’t judge the souls of Islamic extremists, how do we know they are not, as they claim, inspired by God to kill sinners. What intellectual refutation can be given to their claims? Or does it basically boil down to a dog fight, and we kill those who are not obviously doing a direct command by God, which is common sense it would seem. Or is there more to be said about this. By what right can a sinner even defend himself against an attacker, since as a sinner, the victim perhaps deserves to be punished. Is there any light that can be given to these questions, or is it all about self preservation? These questions troubled me the other day when I was watching the news.

God bless

 

[lmelahn]

Proverbs 16:2 “All a man’s ways seem innocent to him, but motives are weighed by the Lord”

PASCENDI DOMINICI GREGIS, ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS X
3 "We number such men among the enemies of the Church, if, leaving out of consideration the internal disposition of soul, of which God alone is the judge"

My concern is, if it is true that we can’t judge the souls of Islamic extremists, how do we know they are not, as they claim, inspired by God to kill sinners. What intellectual refutation can be given to their claims? Or does it basically boil down to a dog fight, and we kill those who are not obviously doing a direct command by God, which is common sense it would seem. Or is there more to be said about this. By what right can a sinner even defend himself against an attacker, since as a sinner, the victim perhaps deserves to be punished. Is there any light that can be given to these questions, or is it all about self preservation? These questions troubled me the other day when I was watching the news.

God bless

The key to the answer is in realizing that God does not arbitrarily choose what is good and evil. God is Infinite Goodness, certainly, but also Infinite Wisdom. Therefore, just as He cannot create a square circle, He cannot make evil good. (He can draw good out of evil, but He can’t make what is evil stop being evil as such.)

Why can’t God create a square circle? Because a square circle is a non-being. It suffers from an intrinsic contradiction. It is similar with good and evil. Evil does not have any consistency in itself; it is merely the privation of goodness. So God can’t transform something that intrinsically a non-entity (evil) into something real (good).

Let’s look at a grave sin: adultery, say. The act that is consummated is a real act, but it is seriously lacking in something (in particular, is seriously lacking in authentic marital love and instead is motivated by lust). As such, it is, as the moralists say, intrinsically disordered. Nothing—not even God’s command (although He is not of course so foolish as to issue such a command)—can order that seriously vitiated act to the good of man.

So the long and short of it is, through our reason, we can discern what is right and wrong, at least as regards the general principles. The judgments that our reason makes regarding those principles we call “natural law.” Whether or not we realize it, that natural law comes from God, so it is impossible for God to command us to do something contrary to that law.

As a matter of fact, Islam in general falls into the defect of the “divine command theory.” My understanding is that most Muslims would hold that God has absolute power even over the truth (He can make contradictory things true) and over good and evil (He can make evil acts good).

However, such a proposition can be shown to be false, even just philosophically (as I have attempted to do briefly here).

 

[thinkandmull]

Somebody said on Catholic Answers live that God could not command an abortion. Yet in Psalms I remember it saying “happy is the man who dashes their (evil men) little ones against the rocks”. Was this part of the Old Testament humanity only? Does the New Creation ushered in by the Resurrection mean that things are different now?

 

[davidv]

Somebody said on Catholic Answers live that God could not command an abortion. Yet in Psalms I remember it saying “happy is the man who dashes their (evil men) little ones against the rocks”. Was this part of the Old Testament humanity only? Does the New Creation ushered in by the Resurrection mean that things are different now?

This is a small snippet from psalm 137. No where in this psalm does it identify this as a command of God. It seems that this recall is a misinterpretation of scripture.

Since God did not do what you think, there is no difference as was being portrayed.

However there is a difference. The Resurrection means something is different - namely the gates of heaven are now open.

 

[StrawberryJam]

This is a small snippet from psalm 137. No where in this psalm does it identify this as a command of God. It seems that this recall is a misinterpretation of scripture.

Since God did not do what you think, there is no difference as was being portrayed.

However there is a difference. The Resurrection means something is different - namely the gates of heaven are now open.

A quick look at my resources and even an accessible link most can find easy to understand will show that you seem to be downplaying this whole thing IMHO.

biblehub.com/psalms/137-9.htm