Steve Ray-Amalekites 1-26-15

[PRmerger]

Would it be permissible under those circumstances to kill 200 innocent people in order to save 2000?

Yes, it would be moral, under the principle of double effect.

The intention is not to kill the 200 innocent people, but rather to stop the plane.

Similar to the dilemma of an ectopic pregnancy. The intention is not to kill the baby, but rather to remove the damaged fallopian tube.

 

[clem456]

w2.vatican.va/content/benedic…egensburg.html

As far as understanding of God and thus the concrete practice of religion is concerned, we find ourselves faced with a dilemma which nowadays challenges us directly. Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God’s nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true? I believe that here we can see the profound harmony between what is Greek in the best sense of the word and the biblical understanding of faith in God. Modifying the first verse of the Book of Genesis, John began the prologue of his Gospel with the words: **In the beginning **was the logos. This is the very word used by the emperor: God acts with logos.

Logos means both reason and word-- a reason which is creative and capable of self-communication, precisely as reason. John thus spoke the final word on the biblical concept of God, and **in this word all the often toilsome and tortuous threads of biblical faith find their culmination and synthesis. In the beginning was the logos, and the logos is God, says the Evangelist. **

3Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him and asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?” 4And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5and said, ‘for this reason a man shall
…
7They said to Him, “**Why then did Moses command **
…
8He said to them, “Because of **your **hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way. 9 And I (THE Logos) say to you,
…

58Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I (THE Logos) am.”

 

[clem456]

His actual spoken address, which differs slightly from the prepared text:
zenit.org/en/articles/papal-address-at-university-of-regensburg

In the seventh conversation (διάλεξις - controversy) edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: “There is no compulsion in religion”. According to some of the experts, this is probably one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur’an, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the “Book” and the “infidels”, he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness, a brusqueness that we find unacceptable, on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”[3] The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. “God”, he says, “is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably (σὺν λόγω) is contrary to God’s nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats… To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death…”.[4]

The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s nature.[5] The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, ****God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality.[6] Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazm went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. .[7]

At this point, as far as understanding of God and thus the concrete practice of religion is concerned, we are faced with an unavoidable dilemma. Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God’s nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true? **I believe that here we can see the profound harmony between what is Greek in the best sense of the word and the biblical understanding of faith in God. **Modifying the first verse of the Book of Genesis, the first verse of the whole Bible, John began the prologue of his Gospel with the words: “**In the beginning **was the λόγος”. This is the very word used by the emperor: God acts, σὺν λόγω, with logos. Logos means both reason and word - a reason which is creative and capable of self-communication, precisely as reason. John thus spoke the final word on the biblical concept of God, and in this word all the often toilsome and tortuous threads of biblical faith find their culmination and synthesis.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Yes, it would be moral, under the principle of double effect.

The intention is not to kill the 200 innocent people, but rather to stop the plane.

Similar to the dilemma of an ectopic pregnancy. The intention is not to kill the baby, but rather to remove the damaged fallopian tube.

So it is possible that killing an innocent human being can be a morally licit act, correct?

Think about this. If you were one of the passengers on the airplane and of good moral conscience, you would give your consent to being killed, even though you were innocent, in order to save the lives of the 2000 who were in jeopardy.

Strictly from the point of view of justice, killing innocent human beings is sometimes warranted. This would be true especially because, if those innocent human beings were good moral agents, they would, in fact, implicitly consent to their own fate for the sake of the good end. In other words, they would consent to being killed to save others. (No greater love and all that.) That would be at least an aspect of what makes their killing justified. Any moral agent on either side - victim or agent – would or could consent to the act and still be good moral agents.

Think about rape. Rape can only be rape if there is NO consent involved. If a woman is in a position to be raped for some legitimately good end, then as a well-formed moral agent, that legitimately good end, if it legitimated the act should also compel her consent. Ergo, the act would not actually be rape, then, because it would, or at least should, be consented to by any good moral agent.

Suppose, for example, that one woman was the last surviving female on earth. The future of the human race would depend upon her willingness to consent to be impregnated. Would it be her right to decline? A moral right? If she refused her consent, and that meant the end of the human race, would rape be morally permitted? Would you say unequivocally that it would be morally wrong to rape her even if the fate of humanity depended upon her arbitrary consent?

Wouldn’t justice demand that her consent simply be a presumed aspect of her moral duty as a good moral agent, thereby making the act not a rape, morally speaking, even if her consent was absent?

Comments?

Now at this point, the issue of divine command arises.

In the case of the airplane, it would seem that God could command by some sign or other in the absence of human moral courage that the airplane be shot down. We wouldn’t, I don’t think, hesitate to agree that such a command would be appropriate coming from God, given that even humans – even you – would say it was the correct thing to do.

On the other hand, it just would seem odd for God to command that the woman be raped if she refused to give consent. What makes it odd is that we might see no moral problem with her being raped by the determination of the men in the company even if she did not consent, but such a command coming from God would still seem to be problematic. The question is why?

Thoughts?

 

[PRmerger]

So it is possible that killing an innocent human being can be a morally licit act, correct?

One should never have the intention of killing an innocent human being. Never.

One can intend to stop cancer, stop an airplane, stop a grenade, with the unintended effect of killing an innocent.

But one can never target the innocent.

 

[Gorgias]

One should never have the intention of killing an innocent human being. Never.

One can intend to stop cancer, stop an airplane, stop a grenade, with the unintended effect of killing an innocent.

But one can never target the innocent.

Where, in Peter’s post, is there the assertion that the “intention of killing an innocent human being” was in play? It’s just not there – rather, there’s the intention of saving 2000 innocent human beings.

Likewise, where, in the narrative of the Amalekites, is there the assertion that God’s intention is the “killing of innocent human beings”? It’s just not there – rather, the whole notion of being “under the ban” is that God’s chosen people, the Israelites, are being protected by God.

Same example. Same ‘intent’ to save. Same lack of intent “to kill innocents”.

 

[Peter_Plato]

One should never have the intention of killing an innocent human being. Never.

One can intend to stop cancer, stop an airplane, stop a grenade, with the unintended effect of killing an innocent.

But one can never target the innocent.

So the same intent arises with regard to rape if the woman were the last female on earth, correct? Rape is not the intention, the intended effect is the survival of the human race, but the woman by not giving consent is actually an impediment to the intended and good moral end of human survival. In a sense, this rape would not be a rape because the whole issue of consent becomes overruled by the significance of the outcome.

Similarly, in the case of the airplane being shot down, the innocent passengers on board ought to give their consent, but their consent is not required for the shooting down of the plane to be permitted.

You still haven’t addressed the question of why…

1. it WOULD NOT seem right for God to command that the last woman on earth be raped even though
2. it WOULD seem right for the men to actually do so;

while – on the other hand –

1. it would seem right for BOTH God to command shooting down the airplane and
2. be right for the humans in charge to unilaterally make that determination.

 

[clem456]

Well, no. The reason it doesn’t follow is because we are not talking about human free will, but rather on the nature of the will of God. God is not merely free to choose the good, it is his will that determines the nature of the good.

Taking Clem’s last post into mind, God’s will is not capricious, but neither is it constrained by some higher principle. God’s will is the highest principle. God’s will is God’s nature. They are not separable, not distinct.

And we can reason God’s nature in and through THE Logos, Jesus Christ. As John Paul calls it, we are “Imago Dei”. His will regarding us cannot contradict his nature.

w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_06081993_veritatis-splendor.html

the decisive answer to every one of man’s questions, his religious and moral questions in particular, is given by Jesus Christ, or rather is (I AM) Jesus Christ himself,

w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_15101998_fides-et-ratio.html

1. Underlying all the Church’s thinking is the awareness that she is the bearer of a message which **has its origin in God himself **(cf. 2 Cor 4:1-2). The knowledge which the Church offers to man has its origin not in any speculation of her own, however sublime, but **in the word of God **which she has received in faith
   …
   “In his goodness and wisdom, God chose to reveal himself and to make known to us the hidden purpose of his will … through Christ, the Word made flesh,
   …
   By this Revelation, then, the deepest truth about God … is made clear to us in Christ,
   …
   The truth about himself and his life which God has entrusted to humanity is immersed therefore in time and history; and it was declared once and for all in the mystery of Jesus of Nazareth.
   …
   our vision of the face of God is always fragmentary and impaired by the limits of our understanding.
   …(but)
   The intimate essence of God and of the human being become intelligible: in the mystery of the Incarnate Word, human nature and divine nature are safeguarded in all their autonomy, and at the same time the unique bond which sets them together **in mutuality **without confusion of any kind is revealed

 

[PRmerger]

Strictly from the point of view of justice, killing innocent human beings is sometimes warranted. This would be true especially because, if those innocent human beings were good moral agents, they would, in fact, implicitly consent to their own fate for the sake of the good end. In other words, they would consent to being killed to save others. (No greater love and all that.) That would be at least an aspect of what makes their killing justified. Any moral agent on either side - victim or agent – would or could consent to the act and still be good moral agents.

Let’s bring this back, then, to the Amalekites.

How is it possible that the infants and children consented to this slaughter?

 

[PRmerger]

Strictly from the point of view of justice, killing innocent human beings is sometimes warranted.

No, Peter. It is NEVER warranted. Never.

What is sometimes warranted is an action which results in an unintended side effect–the killing of an innocent.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Let’s bring this back, then, to the Amalekites.

How is it possible that the infants and children consented to this slaughter?

The 200 on the airplane need not consent to their “slaughter” either, but the consent or lack of it is not what permits shooting down the airplane, correct?

 

[clem456]

And here we have demonstrated the horrifying moral equivocation that is possible when human beings do not understand who God is, as he reveals himself in Jesus Christ. (we are Christians right?)

 

[PRmerger]

Think about rape. Rape can only be rape if there is NO consent involved. If a woman is in a position to be raped for some legitimately good end, then as a well-formed moral agent, that legitimately good end, if it legitimated the act should also compel her consent. Ergo, the act would not actually be rape, then, because it would, or at least should, be consented to by any good moral agent.

Suppose, for example, that one woman was the last surviving female on earth. The future of the human race would depend upon her willingness to consent to be impregnated. Would it be her right to decline? A moral right? If she refused her consent, and that meant the end of the human race, would rape be morally permitted? Would you say unequivocally that it would be morally wrong to rape her even if the fate of humanity depended upon her arbitrary consent?

Rape so that a woman could be impregnated against her will?

Ummm…no, Peter. That would NEVER be moral.

http://www.sharegif.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/tumblr_mxhltfFuHg1t0d58ao1_.gif

While my GIFS typically have a playful nature to it…the above comment about rape being a moral option in order to impregnate a woman…well, the GIF is not presented in any playful manner at all. I am deadly serious about not being able to talk about that as a licit and moral option.

Entertaining that as a moral option is horrifying. Simply horrifying.

Imagine that this violence against that woman would, by necessity, have to be repeated over and over and over again, to achieve the putative desired end: (forced) pregnancy. One time would not necessarily ensure that she conceived. So the man would have to rape her multiple times.

And I think that one could consider this act as possibly moral, er,* limns* the necessary conclusions that must be reached when one believes that God would literally command people to commit genocide. Rape, then, becomes a viable option.

 

[PRmerger]

The 200 on the airplane need not consent to their “slaughter” either, but the consent or lack of it is not what permits shooting down the airplane, correct?

Indeed.

What permits it is that it is not the intention to slaughter. The intention is to stop the plane.

Can you offer some sort of explanation as to how God could command the slaughter of an entire nation as a principle of double effect?

 

[Gorgias]

So the same intent arises with regard to rape if the woman were the last female on earth, correct? Rape is not the intention, the intended effect is the survival of the human race, but the woman by not giving consent is actually an impediment to the intended and good moral end of human survival. In a sense, this rape would not be a rape because the whole issue of consent becomes overruled by the significance of the outcome.

I’m with PR on this one. You can’t use double-effect in this way.

The action committed can not, in itself, be morally illicit, even if a good is intended – after all, “the ends do not justify the means.” Therefore, shooting down the plane with the terrorists has the foreseeable but unintended side effect of killing other passengers, and so it’s ok (as long as it meets the other requirements of double-effect).

However, “raping a woman”, even in the service of attempting to propagate the human race, is itself a moral evil. It cannot be directly chosen as an action.

1. it WOULD NOT seem right for God to command that the last woman on earth be raped even though

Because all rape is a moral evil. (On the other hand, killing – which is the real topic we’re addressing – is not always a moral evil.)

1. it WOULD seem right for the men to actually do so;

Only if the ends justify the means, which they do not.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I’m with PR on this one. You can’t use double-effect in this way.

The action committed can not, in itself, be morally illicit, even if a good is intended – after all, “the ends do not justify the means.” Therefore, shooting down the plane with the terrorists has the foreseeable but unintended side effect of killing other passengers, and so it’s ok (as long as it meets the other requirements of double-effect).

However, “raping a woman”, even in the service of attempting to propagate the human race, is itself a moral evil. It cannot be directly chosen as an action.

So extinction of the human race would not be sufficient to permit rape?

Let’s presume that is correct.

Since that would be the most dire situation possible and rape would not, even then, be permitted, but to save 2000 people, killing 200 would be permitted then we go back to the essential difference that was brought up by PR in Post #223; there would be no necessary equal application to rape from the permissibility of innocents being killed, contrary to PR’s claim.

 

[Gorgias]

Can you offer some sort of explanation as to how God could command the slaughter of an entire nation as a principle of double effect?

I started working through this challenge – that is, the framing up of the command of God in 1 Samuel 15 as an example of double effect – and got up to the third bullet-point of double effect… and then stopped dead in my tracks.

Not because it’s impossible, mind you – but because it’s a red herring.

The morality of God’s acts is not judged by the same constraints as those that constrain human action. Humans are bound by double effect, in those difficult cases in which they seek to discern whether their actions are moral or not. God, on the other hand, is not similarly bound.

Peter’s appeal to double effect, then, isn’t an appeal that seeks to justify God’s actions through double effect. Rather, it’s simply an appeal to help PR see that her assertion – that the killing of innocents by God must (by definition) be unjust – is itself indefensible. Peter has demonstrated that the assertion “it’s always unjust to kill an innocent” is wrong, and therefore, implicitly, has shown that PR’s assertion is likewise indefensible. Therefore, it’s not the case that it’s necessary to frame up 1 Samuel 15 as an example of double effect in order to show that God’s actions there are not unjust.

 

[Gorgias]

So extinction of the human race would not be sufficient to permit rape?

Correct. Not on the grounds of the ‘good’ (that the human race would be saved), but on the grounds that the good effect (impregnation) cannot proceed directly from the bad effect (the rape).

Since that would be the most dire situation possible and rape would not, even then, be permitted, but to save 2000 people, killing 200 would be permitted then we go back to the essential difference that was brought up by PR in Post #223; there would be no necessary equal application to rape from the permissibility of innocents being killed, contrary to PR’s claim.

Correct. PR’s assertion that the appeal to God’s lack of injustice in the death of humans implies a lack of injustice in the rape of humans is in error.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I started working through this challenge – that is, the framing up of the command of God in 1 Samuel 15 as an example of double effect – and got up to the third bullet-point of double effect… and then stopped dead in my tracks.

Not because it’s impossible, mind you – but because it’s a red herring.

The morality of God’s acts is not judged by the same constraints as those that constrain human action. Humans are bound by double effect, in those difficult cases in which they seek to discern whether their actions are moral or not. God, on the other hand, is not similarly bound.

Peter’s appeal to double effect, then, isn’t an appeal that seeks to justify God’s actions through double effect. Rather, it’s simply an appeal to help PR see that her assertion – that the killing of innocents by God must (by definition) be unjust – is itself indefensible. Peter has demonstrated that the assertion “it’s always unjust to kill an innocent” is wrong, and therefore, implicitly, has shown that PR’s assertion is likewise indefensible. Therefore, it’s not the case that it’s necessary to frame up 1 Samuel 15 as an example of double effect in order to show that God’s actions there are not unjust.

The standard objection to the problematic passages is that the narrative cannot actually depict a command by a good God because it is ALWAYS immoral to kill an innocent human being, but that can’t be true since the principle of double effect permits the killing of innocents by direct action, where intention is not present – for example, shooting down an airplane with innocents on board.

If a merely human exception exists for killing innocents, there cannot be an “in principle” objection regarding God’s determination for doing so, even by instrumental means. He may have, given the scope of his dominion, entirely justifiable reasons for doing so, that are simply not available to human beings given our moral position.

We may have no clue what those justifiable reasons might be, but that does not preclude God from having them, because they do, in principle, exist. The principle of double effect is one such justification.

 

[Robyn_p]

I started working through this challenge – that is, the framing up of the command of God in 1 Samuel 15 as an example of double effect – and got up to the third bullet-point of double effect… and then stopped dead in my tracks.
**
Not because it’s impossible, mind you – but because it’s a red herring. **

The morality of God’s acts is not judged by the same constraints as those that constrain human action. Humans are bound by double effect, in those difficult cases in which they seek to discern whether their actions are moral or not. God, on the other hand, is not similarly bound.

Peter’s appeal to double effect, then, isn’t an appeal that seeks to justify God’s actions through double effect. Rather, it’s simply an appeal to help PR see that her assertion – that the killing of innocents by God must (by definition) be unjust – is itself indefensible. Peter has demonstrated that the assertion “it’s always unjust to kill an innocent” is wrong, and therefore, implicitly, has shown that PR’s assertion is likewise indefensible. Therefore, it’s not the case that it’s necessary to frame up 1 Samuel 15 as an example of double effect in order to show that God’s actions there are not unjust.

I’ve mostly been spectating this discussion but I wanted to jump in here really quick. I think you are misrepresenting her argument. If I understood PR correctly, she’s not talking about the morality of God’s actions. I haven’t seen her say anywhere on this thread that she believes that the killing of innocents by God is unjust. In fact, I’m pretty sure she said multiple times that God is perfectly just if He wishes to take an innocent life.

But that’s a separate question from whether or not God can command us human beings to intentionally kill innocents. (which I believe is what she is actually arguing against) In this case double effect is extremely relevant to the question of whether or not God really did command the Amalekites to be wiped out. Because if the command isn’t an example of double effect, then God couldn’t have possibly commanded it. Not because He’s constrained by some moral law above Him, but because it would be contrary to His nature as Goodness itself to command us to sin. He can’t do it for the same reason He can’t make a rock too heavy for Himself to lift. It’s logically impossible.

If we are really meant to take 1 Samuel 15 at face value and believe God did in fact command this, it seems our only options are a) to say directly intending and causing the death of an innocent person is NOT intrinsically immoral (which is a false and dangerous opinion to hold) or b) the intent of God’s command to the Israelites was to cleanse the land of idolatry and the death of innocents was an unintended side effect. That’s the only way I can accept that this command was literal and not meant as a metaphorical cleansing. Anything else leads to absurdities and risks making morality completely arbitrary.