Slavery and the death penalty

[AlNg]

When I said that usury was still wrong, I wasn’t referring to the modern definition, but rather the old one. I think that the old type of usury is always wrong.

I thought that the old definition was charging any interest. I didn’t know that putting your money in a bank (which is effectively loaning money to the bank) and receiving interest was morally wrong. Would that be a mortal or venial sin to sign up for an interest bearing bank account? Say for example, to sign up for a CD where you loan money to the bank and charge interest which you then receive at the end of the period.

 

[una_ecclesia]

I’m not disputing that, but that’s not relevant to my point.

More generally, any hierarchical relationship is such that one is vulnerable to the whims of the other. Wives were at the whims of their husbands and children were at the whims of their fathers as well. Today, in many ways, we are at the whims of our employers and bosses and politicians. But even then the Church exacted obligations of those in power, though she wasn’t in the business of immediately overturning institutions.

(Btw, I’m not arguing for slavery here… I’m against it completely. But I am making distinctions largely for historical reasons, since the original question was a historical one)

 

[AlNg]

If its good enough for Scripture (and Jesus) to express things this way its good enough for me

So you insist that God does change His mind? OK, but that will get you into hot water with many theologians who say that God is unchangeable.

 

[una_ecclesia]

I didn’t know that putting your money in a bank (which is effectively loaning money to the bank) and receiving interest was morally wrong.

You’re not necessarily doing wrong in putting your money in the bank. What the bank is likely to do is invest your money. And that’s how it generates “interest” (at least that’s part of the idea. There is bunch of crackpot stuff that you do today, unfortunately) . But investment isn’t the same as usury, since it simply is a share both in risk and in profit.

The other thing with putting money in the bank is that it’s still your money. In a mutuum loan, you give the money to someone else, so that it belongs to someone else. In return they give you a pledge first they will pay you the amount back. In such a loan, there is no risk to you. You also no longer own what you gave. When you charge interest on a loan like this, you are trying to extort money out of nothing. This is usury, as originally defined.

 

[una_ecclesia]

Yes? I’m not sure what you are getting at here. I still think it should be a major concern, and think it was really dumb of the Church to stop talking about its teaching on usury (which is not the same as excessive interest, though that is also ba problem for non mutuum loans)

Usury as originally defined personally affects me as well, as I currently owe interest on a mutuum loan myself, in the form of a student loan.

 

[AlNg]

The other thing with putting money in the bank is that it’s still your money.

That is not clear because the government can seize “your” money without a court order. This has occurred to many innocent people who deposited money in a bank account.

 

[una_ecclesia]

I’m pretty sure a sword is not for things like paper cuts.

(I’ll make a similar aside for the death penalty as well. While I think it should be in the books for the protection of the people. I am in agreement with the approach taken by John Paul II and even Pope Francis. The point is, You have to keep in mind the consistency of the teaching throughout the ages)

 

[AlNg]

“squaring the circle” is a saying with a meaning that may be different from the literal concatenation of the individual words.

Perhaps this tendancy to assume the literal is at the root of your religious difficulty here?

IOW, we should not take things literally here because we are talking about mythological poetic fairy tales? OK. I guess that my mistake was to believe we were having a serious conversation.

 

[una_ecclesia]

What are you referring to here? If they take your money, that’s just theft, right? Who said the government is right in this case?

 

[TheAmazingGrace]

I’m pretty sure a sword is not for things like paper cuts.

Intimidation. Defense.

My original point still stands. The passage you cited doesn’t explicitly refer to the death penalty, let alone prescribe it.

 

[una_ecclesia]

The context of that passage isn’t defense or intimidation. It’s retribution. The authority is acting as God’s servant executing his vengeance/ justice. By situating it as something granted by God rather than simply dealing with a cultural artifact (like slavery ), Paul is confirming the moral legitimacy of the act in a way that he does not for slavery.

The interpretation I’m giving is one that was used not just by the Church in the middle ages,
But also from the early church. What the Church drew was not that the state should kill, but that for particularly serious crimes, the state has the authority to do so. Of course, this is not the church’s whole teaching on the matter. The early Church agreed with its allowance in principle, but she also advocated for mercy and considered the effects an execution would have on the one committing the act. Hence why Christians should not be executioners in the first few centuries of the Church. The middle ages was less, merciful, shall we say. But this itself in large part because the church now has to think about what it actually took to run a state. It’s much easier to be a pacifist if you’re the one who is persecuted or a victim or to be against capital punishment because you’re being unjustly thrown into the Colosseum with the lions. But if you have societies dependent on you, you have to deal with how to use your authority effectively while remaining in the moral sphere. Hence just war theory and a teaching on the allowance of the death penalty which nonetheless was limited to a few crimes (unlike in the ancient world).

I think that JPII and the line are trying to bring back the emphases of the early Church. But keep in mind that one can’t ignore the doctrinal development of the middle ages and afterwards either. What needs to happen is a reconciliation of these two and their emphases.

 

[Cathoholic]

why is there so much divisiveness about the death penalty

Because faith and morals handed down to the Church from Christ and His Apostles cannot change. (This is sometimes called, “de fide doctrine”)

Therefore since Pope Francis talked about “inadmissable” in the context of “today” and NOT, “today, yesterday, and tomorrow” tells us this is a mere prudential decision of his.

Pope Francis took a section of the CCC that taught de fide doctrine and substituted a prudential teaching of his.

And he can do that.

But we need to understand the teaching of Pope Francis’ is just that.

This means this issue is always one “dubia” from a bishop away from either silence or clarification.

But you cannot have capital punishment be “admissible” last week and claim this came from Christ, and “inadmissible” this week and claim THAT came from Christ too.

It wouldn’t make sense.

Pope Francis must have forseen confusion arising from this, so he had a Cardinal from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith also issue a clarification simultaneously.

http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2018/08/02/180802b.html

Unfortunately judging by the debate going on around the world, a lot of questions still remain.

Pope Francis declares death penalty inadmissible in all cases World News

This is a prudential decision by Pope Francis. It is not de fide doctrine. “Inadmissable” is in the context of “today” prudentially. In this same prospective, Pope Francis has reaffirmed that “today capital punishment is unacceptable . . . . Why? Fortunately the Vatican gives us the reasons. . . . however serious the condemned’s crime may have been.”[8] The death penalty, regardless of the means of execution, “entails cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment.”[9] Furthermore, it is to b…

Hope this helps.

God bless.

Cathoholic

 

[Ghosty1981]

Therefore since Pope Francis talked about “inadmissable” in the context of “today” and NOT, “today, yesterday, and tomorrow” tells us this is a mere prudential decision of his.

While I agree with the thrust of your argument, at least as I understand it, I don’t believe the text of the CCC nor the “clarification” actually support this. While they do talk about modern circumstances, they do so in a manner that strongly suggests that it is the Church’s understanding that has changed, not merely society’s ability to incarcerate. When they say that the death penalty is inadmissible, they do so in the context of human dignity, with the modern ability to imprison indefinitely serving as a supportive element.

The documents certainly don’t say “the death penalty is inadmissible because we can contain criminals safely with modern technology”, they say “inadmissible because the Church has developed a better sense of human dignity”. If this wasn’t the intention then why say that this understanding “grew in light of the Gospel”, as if the understanding of the dignity of man developed and not just the means to incarcerate criminals?

Again, I agree with the substance of your point, and I will also say that this doesn’t contradict the fundamental teaching authority of the Church, but I think we have to be much more circumspect in claims that the Pope is maintaining Tradition with this change. I believe, based on what he has said and written, that he thinks that Doctrine has developed to the point that the death penalty must be understood as being fundamentally wrong, and that previous teaching was ignorant to some degree. This seems to be the plain reading of his words and the words of the CDF.

I don’t attribute malice to the Pope on this matter, but I can’t read what has been written and conclude that he is saying that the death penalty was ever objectively admissible. If he does mean that the death penalty is only circumstantially inadmissible then some clarification definitely seems in order.

Peace!

 

[AlNg]

That you seem to see things as ONLY literal OR fairly tales and not serious is concerning.

It is also concerning that you say God changes His mind, but Catholic theologians say that God does not change.

 

[Cathoholic]

Ghosty1981 . . .

When they say that the death penalty is inadmissible, they do so in the context of human dignity, with the modern ability to imprison indefinitely serving as a supportive element.

This portion of your statement . . .

with the modern ability to imprison indefinitely serving as a supportive element.

. . . .suggests the provisional nature of the teaching.

What if some societal conflagration broke out and there was no “ability to imprison indefinitely”?

And was there not a violation of human dignity last week before this teaching?

And are not those violations caused not by the defender (the state in this case), but it is a violation FROM the aggressor him/herself?

The death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and the dignity of the person.

But so is the necessity to mortally stop an agressor in self-defense at times.

War. Policing. Stopping a hostile home invader.

These are all possibilities of needing to definitively stop an aggressor.

When these occasions arise, dig ity is attacked.

They were last week.

And they are just as much this week too.

And when THAT occurs, it is the fault of the aggressor (not the defender).

. . . . “the fatal outcome is attributable to the aggressor whose action brought it about. . . . .” — Pope Saint John Paul II said in Evangelium Vitae (section 55).

The Catechism of the Council of Trent, composed under the supervision of St. Charles Borromeo, stated: “Far from being guilty of breaking this commandment [Thou shall not kill], such an execution of justice is precisely an act of obedience to it. For the purpose of the law is to protect and foster human life. This purpose is fulfilled when the legitimate authority of the State is exercised by taking the guilty lives of those who have taken innocent lives.”

https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2015/03/16/the-traditional-case-for-capital-punishment/ 1

 

[Ghosty1981]

This portion of your statement . . .

with the modern ability to imprison indefinitely serving as a supportive element.

No, it suggests that one part of the Pope’s argument is provisional, not the whole of it. If I say that “rape is inadmissible because it is a violation of human dignity, and it will land you in prison”, this is not a provisional teaching based on the current penal code. The current penal code is brought up, certainly, but the argument doesn’t rest on this provisional element alone.

Human dignity is unchanging, though our understanding of it might develop. The provisional element in these writings, insofar as human dignity is concerned, is that the Church’s understanding of human dignity was once more ignorant than it is now. This is explicitly stated in the CDF document when it says, “This development centers principally on the clearer awareness of the Church for the respect due to every human life.” This is the foundation of the teaching, that the Church has a clearer understanding of human dignity now than it once did.

And was there not a violation of human dignity last week before this teaching?

According to the Pope and the CDF, in their own explicit words, the Church has a clearer understanding this week than it did last week, so what was permitted before (in ignorance, presumably) can no longer be allowed. That is what the text literally says, regardless of whether or not such a teaching is correct or prudent.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Christian masters were commanded, on the other hand, to treat their slaves as brothers rather than slaves, since we are all slaves before God. So what you have is a condemnation of chattle slavery, though not the general relationship of servant and master.

Chattle slavery is not the same as slavery. The first involves back breaking labor and terrible conditions. you basically treat a human like an animal, and you strip him of all his rights. Not all slaves were treated like this though in antiquity. Many are just trained with certain household duties. Some accompanied their masters in their work. Some were tutors for the master’s children… many could own property of their own as well.

By commanding masters to treat their slaves as brothers, we have a condemnation of chattle slavery, but not of slavery more itself.

That is utter fiction. You can’t say Christian and Jewish slaveowners were commanded to treat slaves as brothers when God said that slaveowners could beat their slaves to death so long as they don’t die the same day. God said that those who own male Hebrew slaves that were to serve for six years could withhold the family of that slave to blackmail them to stay for life. God literally called slaves property which is the furthest from treating someone as a brother.

 

[AlNg]

Before you said it was philosophers that say God is unchanging. Now you have switched to theologians.

That is because it is both. Both Roman Catholic philosophers and Roman Catholic theologians say that God does not change. Sometimes they use the word “immutable” for that.

I am sure the above apparent contradiction can be resolved somehow (which is what squaring the circle means).

There is no way to square the circle. It has been proven to be impossible. This contradiction is not “apparent”. It is real and simply cannot be resolved ever.

 

[una_ecclesia]

Um… 1) I never said anything about Jewish slaveholders. Only what was expected of Christian ones. I am familiar with the permissions given to Jewish slave owners, particularly of gentile slaves. I am very careful, in these discussions, not to resort much to Old Testament verses precisely because of the relativization of some of the commands in light of the New Covenant.

1. some of the passages dealing with obligations of slaves to masters also have obligations of masters to slaves in the New Testament. See Ephesians 6:9 and Colossians 4:1. Now the verses are small, especially the latter, but when you consider the letter to Philemon, ( which was written at the same time as Ephesians and Christians while Paul was in prison), who was a leader of the Colossian Church, being told to receive Onesimus as a brother, then you can be sure that Paul was trying to make a general statement about the treatment of slaves, as people would have known about Onesimus.

 

[una_ecclesia]

God being immutable doesn’t mean that his explicit commands, as written in scripture, couldn’t change throughout. This is the point behind the idea of divine condenscension in the Old up to New Testaments.

There is no way to square the circle. It has been proven to be impossible. This contradiction is not “apparent”. It is real and simply cannot be resolved ever.

Indeed, you cannot square a circle using a compass and straight edge. However, it has also been mathematically proven that you can decompose a circle into finitely many Borel sets (think of these in this context as a countable combination of operations of countable intersection or countable unions of open or closed sets in the cartesian plane) and rearrange them into a square of the same area.

The key to squaring a circle is that you don’t limit yourself to a compass and straight edge and introduce the mathematics of infinity (set theory ). The key to understanding God’s immutability is that you don’t limit yourself to the human perspective of God merely in time, but consider how we can only understand him as time unfolds while still at best getting a partial view of his plans.