Objective Morality and Murder

[goout]

So the commandments to kill disobedient children or gay people or people who worshipped other gods were not given by God? The biblical authors were in error in saying so?

I don’t know what your background is, so not sure how to respond. If you come from fundamentalism, the Catholic Church reads the bible in a different light. Did you read the reference above?

Jesus Christ i s God’s full and final revelation. Christ is the “ultimate hermeneutical key” to understanding scripture. If a passage runs afoul of God’s revealed nature i n Christ, then you should interpret it accordingly.
The very simplest example of this principle is: we do not believe that a dome covers the sky as portrayed in Genesis. Revealed nature tells us otherwise. So we read that passage in a more spiritual sense.

It is not in God’s nature to command one human being to slaughter another innocent human being.

 

[1ke]

Got it from a dictionary.

Which means absolutely nothing.

So, go read the Catechism. You have an erroneous understanding of the fifth commandment.

 

[Bradskii]

You can see that these scenarios can be extremely murky and difficult.

And the answer, or rather answers (plural - as there will be many opinions on the right course of action) is, by definition, relative.

As with any act, one has to unpack it to see what is being proposed. Is the taking of life immoral? Well, under what cicrumstances is it being done? Is it being done with forethought? With malice? With intent? Is it lawful? If those aspects of the act are being fullfilled, if the act is conditional to those aspects, then it is murder.

But if an act is conditional to certain aspects, then it is not objective.

 

[goout]

goout:

You can see that these scenarios can be extremely murky and difficult.

And the answer, or rather answers (plural - as there will be many opinions on the right course of action) is, by definition, relative.

As with any act, one has to unpack it to see what is being proposed. Is the taking of life immoral? Well, under what cicrumstances is it being done? Is it being done with forethought? With malice? With intent? Is it lawful? If those aspects of the act are being fullfilled, if the act is conditional to those aspects, then it is murder.

But if an act is conditional to certain aspects, then it is not objective.

We don’t speak about “objective acts”. Not sure what you mean there.
You completely missed the point that we hold human life to be sacred. That is an objective good that forms the basis for the moral evaluation in question.

 

[Atreju]

Thanks for pointing me to the catechism, I had these thoughts after hearing an argument for objective morality on the basis of the logic that “everyone agrees murder is objectively wrong and independent of society”, and saw a contradiction in there with the common definition of murder as “intentional unlawful killing”. After reading the catechism, I see that there is no contradiction in catholic teaching in this matter, as the catechism strictly limits the authority of the state to sanction killing.

The efforts of the state to curb the spread of behavior harmful to people’s rights and to the basic rules of civil society correspond to the requirement of safeguarding the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense. Punishment has the primary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense. When it is willingly accepted by the guilty party, it assumes the value of expiation. Punishment then, in addition to defending public order and protecting people’s safety, has a medicinal purpose: as far as possible, it must contribute to the correction of the guilty party.67

Assuming that the guilty party’s identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.

Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically nonexistent."68

 

[Atreju]

Your reference seemed to be talking more about the atrocious acts of people in the bible, not the commandments by God.

 

[goout]

Your reference seemed to be talking more about the atrocious acts of people in the bible, not the commandments by God.

No not at all.
Again, start with Genesis, which portrays God as fixing a metal dome in the sky.
Do you read that in literalist fashion?
If not, why should you read any of the bible as a literalist?

 

[goout]

Anticipating:
there is a difference between the literal sense of scripture and literalism.

 

[goout]

Google Bp Barron “violence in the bible”. He has some good thoughts on this subject.

 

[Atreju]

I agree literalism is silly but I dont think we can just dismiss inconvenient things. In any case, I think @1ke and the catechism definitively answer my main question, this question of the meaning of the more objectionable OT commandments is kind of a different question.

 

[goout]

The “dark” passages of the Bible

1. In discussing the relationship between the Old and the New Testaments, the Synod also considered those passages in the Bible which, due to the violence and immorality they occasionally contain, prove obscure and difficult. Here it must be remembered first and foremost that biblical revelation is deeply rooted in history . God’s plan is manifested progressively and it is accomplished slowly, in successive stages and despite human resistance. God chose a people and patiently worked to guide and educate them. Revelation is suited to the cultural and moral level of distant times and thus describes facts and customs, such as cheating and trickery, and acts of violence and massacre, without explicitly denouncing the immorality of such things. This can be explained by the historical context, yet it can cause the modern reader to be taken aback, especially if he or she fails to take account of the many “dark” deeds carried out down the centuries, and also in our own day. In the Old Testament, the preaching of the prophets vigorously challenged every kind of injustice and violence, whether collective or individual, and thus became God’s way of training his people in preparation for the Gospel. So it would be a mistake to neglect those passages of Scripture that strike us as problematic. Rather, we should be aware that the correct interpretation of these passages requires a degree of expertise, acquired through a training that interprets the texts in their historical-literary context and within the Christian perspective which has as its ultimate hermeneutical key “the Gospel and the new commandment of Jesus Christ brought about in the paschal mystery”.[140] I encourage scholars and pastors to help all the faithful to approach these passages through an interpretation which enables their meaning to emerge in the light of the mystery of Christ.

 

[Canvas]

an unjust law is no law at all — St. Augustine.