Opinion of this justification for the death penalty

[Statilius the Epicurean]

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Awful politically and morally and barely coherent theologically.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Guess Pontius Pilate was the good guy all along!

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

Awful politically and morally and barely coherent theologically.

[Mopsus]

Agree to the extent that those convicted of capital crimes, if they really want to prove that they are repentant, should be willing to follow Jesus’ example and give up their lives for the sake of reconciliation.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Agree to the extent that those convicted of capital crimes, if they really want to prove that they are repentant, should be willing to follow Jesus’ example and give up their lives for the sake of reconciliation.

It doesn't matter what they "should" do. The question is whether it's moral of an earthly judicial system to demand it of them.

[DINGO Joe]

Just think of all the wrong Jesuses they had to kill before they got the right one.

[Mopsus]

Agree to the extent that those convicted of capital crimes, if they really want to prove that they are repentant, should be willing to follow Jesus’ example and give up their lives for the sake of reconciliation.

It doesn't matter what they "should" do. The question is whether it's moral of an earthly judicial system to demand it of them.

Given Genesis 9:6 and Romans 13:4, I would say that the Bible implores the earthly judicial system to demand it of them.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Agree to the extent that those convicted of capital crimes, if they really want to prove that they are repentant, should be willing to follow Jesus’ example and give up their lives for the sake of reconciliation.

It doesn't matter what they "should" do. The question is whether it's moral of an earthly judicial system to demand it of them.

Given Genesis 9:6 and Romans 13:4, I would say that the Bible implores the earthly judicial system to demand it of them.

Oh, this tired talking point again. If we're going to pull gotcha prooftexts out of hats we'll both be here all day.

The literal sense of these passages prescribes an up-or-down lex talionis for murder (in the Genesis passage) or possibly even a Bloody Code mentality (in the Romans passage), conclusions so obviously contrary to both the teachings of Jesus and the practice of Rabbinic Judaism that a death penalty apologist bringing up these verses is almost as tell-tale a sign of crankishness as a conspiracy theorist bringing up the Knights Templar.

You'd think people with blue avatars would be hesitant to bring up Romans 13 in particular after Jeff Sessions's use of it last year to argue that no law is ever unjust, but we live in a cruel and degenerate age. C'est la vie.

[TDAS04]

It makes no sense.

[RFayette]

Agree to the extent that those convicted of capital crimes, if they really want to prove that they are repentant, should be willing to follow Jesus’ example and give up their lives for the sake of reconciliation.

It doesn't matter what they "should" do. The question is whether it's moral of an earthly judicial system to demand it of them.

Given Genesis 9:6 and Romans 13:4, I would say that the Bible implores the earthly judicial system to demand it of them.

Oh, this tired talking point again. If we're going to pull gotcha prooftexts out of hats we'll both be here all day.

The literal sense of these passages prescribes an up-or-down lex talionis for murder (in the Genesis passage) or possibly even a Bloody Code mentality (in the Romans passage), conclusions so obviously contrary to both the teachings of Jesus and the practice of Rabbinic Judaism that a death penalty apologist bringing up these verses is almost as tell-tale a sign of crankishness as a conspiracy theorist bringing up the Knights Templar.

Out of curiosity, how would you interpret Genesis 9 then?  I've heard arguments that it was a parable rather than a command, and I'd be curious how you would interpret verses 4-6.  I think one could argue that it has been superseded by the new covenant even in the event that it were a command, however.

[Mopsus]

Agree to the extent that those convicted of capital crimes, if they really want to prove that they are repentant, should be willing to follow Jesus’ example and give up their lives for the sake of reconciliation.

It doesn't matter what they "should" do. The question is whether it's moral of an earthly judicial system to demand it of them.

Given Genesis 9:6 and Romans 13:4, I would say that the Bible implores the earthly judicial system to demand it of them.

Oh, this tired talking point again. If we're going to pull gotcha prooftexts out of hats we'll both be here all day.

The literal sense of these passages prescribes an up-or-down lex talionis for murder (in the Genesis passage) or possibly even a Bloody Code mentality (in the Romans passage), conclusions so obviously contrary to both the teachings of Jesus and the practice of Rabbinic Judaism that a death penalty apologist bringing up these verses is almost as tell-tale a sign of crankishness as a conspiracy theorist bringing up the Knights Templar.

You'd think people with blue avatars would be hesitant to bring up Romans 13 in particular after Jeff Sessions's use of it last year to argue that no law is ever unjust, but we live in a cruel and degenerate age. C'est la vie.

If I can’t quote Bible verses to defend my position on the Bible, I don’t see where this conversation can go.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Agree to the extent that those convicted of capital crimes, if they really want to prove that they are repentant, should be willing to follow Jesus’ example and give up their lives for the sake of reconciliation.

It doesn't matter what they "should" do. The question is whether it's moral of an earthly judicial system to demand it of them.

Given Genesis 9:6 and Romans 13:4, I would say that the Bible implores the earthly judicial system to demand it of them.

Oh, this tired talking point again. If we're going to pull gotcha prooftexts out of hats we'll both be here all day.

The literal sense of these passages prescribes an up-or-down lex talionis for murder (in the Genesis passage) or possibly even a Bloody Code mentality (in the Romans passage), conclusions so obviously contrary to both the teachings of Jesus and the practice of Rabbinic Judaism that a death penalty apologist bringing up these verses is almost as tell-tale a sign of crankishness as a conspiracy theorist bringing up the Knights Templar.

You'd think people with blue avatars would be hesitant to bring up Romans 13 in particular after Jeff Sessions's use of it last year to argue that no law is ever unjust, but we live in a cruel and degenerate age. C'est la vie.

If I can’t quote Bible verses to defend my position on the Bible, I don’t see where this conversation can go.

Well, for starters, you could make an affirmative argument for why these (and only these) verses are of dispositive relevance to this issue. My instinct is to suspect someone who brings up these (and only these) verses in a discussion on this subject of being a tedious crank trotting out a shamelessly cherry-picked interpretation like a sideshow okapi, but nobody died and made me debate moderator.

RFayette, yeah, I tend to interpret it parabolically, although I'd be receptive to an argument otherwise from somebody who wasn't disingenuous about the fact that counterarguments existed. Later on there obviously are undeniable, indisputable impositions of capital punishment under the Sinaitic Covenant, but the intellectual and moral center of gravity even in Orthodox Judaism holds that those sanctions aren't applicable today and it would be a serious mistake to try to impose them outside the setting of "Bible times" Israel. This is what I was referring to by alluding to obvious incompatibility with the practice of Rabbinic Judaism; I wasn't trying to imply that Old Testament Israel itself had already repudiated the death penalty (which it very obviously had not).

[Mopsus]

Well, for starters, you could make an affirmative argument for why these (and only these) verses are of dispositive relevance to this issue.

Because they're excerpts from the Noahide and Christian covenants, one of which preceded the Mosaic covenant and one of which succeeded it, pertaining to the same message: that even if a criminal can be forgiven by God and man, it is not the place of the law to mete out forgiveness, but to disburse just recompense for crime. Condemning a man to die isn't akin to condemning him to Hell; a man can lose his body but keep his soul. You may have heard that once or twice before.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Well, for starters, you could make an affirmative argument for why these (and only these) verses are of dispositive relevance to this issue.

Because they're excerpts from the Noahide and Christian covenants, one of which preceded the Mosaic covenant and one of which succeeded it, pertaining to the same message: that even if a criminal can be forgiven by God and man, it is not the place of the law to mete out forgiveness, but to disburse just recompense for crime. Condemning a man to die isn't akin to condemning him to Hell; a man can lose his body but keep his soul. You may have heard that once or twice before.

Thank you. This is a coherent argument, although I disagree with it, partly because I think it's far from self-evident that the sideshow okapi verses are normative rather than descriptive and partly because (and it's not just me who says this; the magisterium of the Catholic Church has also developed in this direction) historical example after historical example after historical example shows that retributive punishment simply does not accomplish anything.

[RFayette]

Well, for starters, you could make an affirmative argument for why these (and only these) verses are of dispositive relevance to this issue.

Because they're excerpts from the Noahide and Christian covenants, one of which preceded the Mosaic covenant and one of which succeeded it, pertaining to the same message: that even if a criminal can be forgiven by God and man, it is not the place of the law to mete out forgiveness, but to disburse just recompense for crime. Condemning a man to die isn't akin to condemning him to Hell; a man can lose his body but keep his soul. You may have heard that once or twice before.

Thank you. This is a coherent argument, although I disagree with it, partly because I think it's far from self-evident that the sideshow okapi verses are normative rather than descriptive and partly because (and it's not just me who says this; the magisterium of the Catholic Church has also developed in this direction) historical example after historical example after historical example shows that retributive punishment simply does not accomplish anything.

This is a fair point, but what in the text itself would lend itself more to Genesis 9 being descriptive only?   God himself seems to be speaking in chapter 9.

[TJ in Oregon]

Well, for starters, you could make an affirmative argument for why these (and only these) verses are of dispositive relevance to this issue.

Because they're excerpts from the Noahide and Christian covenants, one of which preceded the Mosaic covenant and one of which succeeded it, pertaining to the same message: that even if a criminal can be forgiven by God and man, it is not the place of the law to mete out forgiveness, but to disburse just recompense for crime. Condemning a man to die isn't akin to condemning him to Hell; a man can lose his body but keep his soul. You may have heard that once or twice before.

Thank you. This is a coherent argument, although I disagree with it, partly because I think it's far from self-evident that the sideshow okapi verses are normative rather than descriptive and partly because (and it's not just me who says this; the magisterium of the Catholic Church has also developed in this direction) historical example after historical example after historical example shows that retributive punishment simply does not accomplish anything.

I would hesitate to say that the magisterium has decisively ruled on the death penalty. While recent popes have clearly opposed it, they have not authoritatively declared the argument over. And in the case of Pope Benedict, stated fairly directly that there could be a legitimate difference of opinions on the death penalty amongst Catholics. While Pope Francis has forcefully denounced it, he has only done so in a sort of backward way (e.g. changing the text of the catechism) that avoids making an authoritative declaration.

I think, to truly come out and authoritatively declare the death penalty to be wrong regardless of circumstances the Church would have to:
1. Deal with the problematic verses of Scripture.
2. Deal with the Church's own history on the topic that strongly suggests it can, under some circumstances be licit.
3. Deal with the problem that most of the arguments against the death penalty implicitly deny the importance of retributive justice (see mopolis's post) and jettisoning retributive justice would capsize our understanding of justice when applied consistently.

These are real problems, and my position on them is that the death penalty can be morally licit; however it is still inadvisable to carry out. That seems like a fairly weak conclusion IMO, but it's my best attempt at consistency of worldview. I am open to alternatives, but again, I expect consistency with a lot of things pulling different directions on this.

[Kingpoleon]

I have never met someone who supported the death penalty yet was willing to give the lethal injection. The state kills in your name, and you support it? Christians ought to know that if even one person is killed in our name, and we are silent, then their blood shall testify against us - Deuteronomy 19, Psalm 94, Lamentations 4, and Proverbs 6. Vengeance is not for us, as Romans 12:19 and Deuteronomy 32:35 tell us, but for God.

The traditional Wesleyan interpretation of Romans 13 is as wrong now as ever. I am proud that the current Methodist church (UMC, at least) recognizes that the death penalty is as God tells His prophet Ezekiel: “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.” Is this not clear? I challenge the Christian who is without sin to shoot the first bullet and to initiate the first infection. We have been granted the means and the right to medically extend life and health to the fullest extent, but we may never, ever take life.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Well, for starters, you could make an affirmative argument for why these (and only these) verses are of dispositive relevance to this issue.

Because they're excerpts from the Noahide and Christian covenants, one of which preceded the Mosaic covenant and one of which succeeded it, pertaining to the same message: that even if a criminal can be forgiven by God and man, it is not the place of the law to mete out forgiveness, but to disburse just recompense for crime. Condemning a man to die isn't akin to condemning him to Hell; a man can lose his body but keep his soul. You may have heard that once or twice before.

Thank you. This is a coherent argument, although I disagree with it, partly because I think it's far from self-evident that the sideshow okapi verses are normative rather than descriptive and partly because (and it's not just me who says this; the magisterium of the Catholic Church has also developed in this direction) historical example after historical example after historical example shows that retributive punishment simply does not accomplish anything.

I would hesitate to say that the magisterium has decisively ruled on the death penalty. While recent popes have clearly opposed it, they have not authoritatively declared the argument over. And in the case of Pope Benedict, stated fairly directly that there could be a legitimate difference of opinions on the death penalty amongst Catholics. While Pope Francis has forcefully denounced it, he has only done so in a sort of backward way (e.g. changing the text of the catechism) that avoids making an authoritative declaration.

I think, to truly come out and authoritatively declare the death penalty to be wrong regardless of circumstances the Church would have to:
1. Deal with the problematic verses of Scripture.
2. Deal with the Church's own history on the topic that strongly suggests it can, under some circumstances be licit.
3. Deal with the problem that most of the arguments against the death penalty implicitly deny the importance of retributive justice (see mopolis's post) and jettisoning retributive justice would capsize our understanding of justice when applied consistently.

These are real problems, and my position on them is that the death penalty can be morally licit; however it is still inadvisable to carry out. That seems like a fairly weak conclusion IMO, but it's my best attempt at consistency of worldview. I am open to alternatives, but again, I expect consistency with a lot of things pulling different directions on this.

Yeah, my use of "has developed" was intended to soft-pedal what I was saying a little bit, since I'm aware that the Catechism (which is where most of the Catholic kabuki theater regarding the death penalty has played out in recent years) isn't actually as authoritative as most people assume. Sorry if that didn't come across. "Is developing" would have perhaps been better.

I'm not nearly as convinced that 2. is a problem as a lot of conservative Catholic thinkers are, because I think there's a difference between traditional views that over the course of Christian history have been assumed or adhered to but not set forth in an authoritative way and traditional views that have been set forth authoritatively and can't (or, at least, shouldn't) be countermanded. (For example, as I'm sure you're aware, it's pretty clear even to otherwise liberal Catholic theologians that the traditional condemnation of abortion and euthanasia is final.) Traditional Catholic acceptance of institutions like slavery and torture has been jettisoned through much the same processes through which Catholic acceptance of the death penalty is currently being chipped away at. There's a bull from the 1830s condemning the slave trade that uses language ("the manners of barbarous peoples having been softened"; focusing on concepts like "the light of the Gospel" and the theological virtues of faith and charity rather than the "intrinsic evil" language used for practices that Catholicism has rejected all along anyway) that could have come straight from the framing used in the recent Catechism change.

1. and 3. I'll grant you, and I'll admit that I might have granted them to mopolis too if I hadn't read his bizarre, borderline-scandalous exchange with afleitch about anal sex immediately before responding to him. I still think focusing too much on those two specific verses constitutes prooftexting, though (and, as Kingpoleon just demonstrated, my own side of this issue is more than able to do that too), and I really don't think rejecting retributive justice as implemented by human political structures at all necessitates rejecting it as imposed by God (see also my post in the Dietrich Bonhoeffer thread that brought up Bonhoeffer's rejection of the "two kingdoms" model of Christian political theology).

[Antonio the Sixth]

Is it actually Catholic doctrine that God's Justice (or any earthly justice that pleases God) ought to be retributive in nature? Because if not, I have no idea why what TJ says in 3. would be a "problem". Maybe the "problem" is the very notion of retributive justice, and maybe it's not just the death penalty itself but this very notion that reflects "the manners of barbarous peoples" which it is high times for us to start softening.

There are many, perfectly cogent understandings of justice that don't require retribution. In fact, I would argue that any sound understanding of justice explicitly rejects retribution, and any system based on retribution has but the name of justice.

[TJ in Oregon]

Is it actually Catholic doctrine that God's Justice (or any earthly justice that pleases God) ought to be retributive in nature? Because if not, I have no idea why what TJ says in 3. would be a "problem". Maybe the "problem" is the very notion of retributive justice, and maybe it's not just the death penalty itself but this very notion that reflects "the manners of barbarous peoples" which it is high times for us to start softening.

There are many, perfectly cogent understandings of justice that don't require retribution. In fact, I would argue that any sound understanding of justice explicitly rejects retribution, and any system based on retribution has but the name of justice.

I think it is hard to definitive state that retributive justice (understood first of all as a part of metaphysical justice... we'll get to the government later) is necessarily a part of Catholic doctrine per se, but it is at the very least, extremely difficult to understand Christianity without it. Retributive justice is, at its basis, that an offense merits punishment. This does not necessarily mean that retribution is the only aspect to justice, nor does it mean that punishment can be arbitrarily inflicted without consideration for anything else, nor does it mean that punishment can morally be inflicted out of malice. Retributive justice is is not vengeance and should never be mistaken as such.

I say it is hard to make sense of Christianity without retributive justice because retributive justice underlies most of the explanations for Christ's sacrifice on the cross. If his blood were unnecessary for the expiation of our sins, then there would seem to be no point in Christianity. The very notion of him as having ransomed us implies there was a need to be ransomed in the first place, that our sins have a debt at all. And this notion comes from a sense of retributive justice: an offense merits a penalty. The wages of sin is death. In the case of the spiritual price of our sins, that penalty is paid by God himself.

The above description describes the ultimate spiritual effects of sin; however, of course, there are other considerations involved in the effects that sins have on us, both as a means of our sanctification and in a society. I think it is hard, and I'm certainly willing to entertain alternative explanations, to discount retributive justice entirely since it is the only type of justice (at least IMO) that will definitively lead us to conclude that it necessarily matters whether or not someone is guilty or innocent. If guilt of a crime itself bears no debt of punishment, then all we are left with is a utilitarian optimization game, which may, at least in principle, even if the vast majority of the time it leads to reasonable conclusions, lead to us knowingly imprisoning an innocent man or releasing a guilty one. Of course there are a myriad of other types of justice that are important too. The usual four given are retributive, restrictive, restitutive, and rehabilitative. And all of them matter and should be taken into consideration by a just system.

The above does not necessarily tell us one way or the other whether or not we should conduct capital punishment. Indeed, I think the US should abolish capital punishment and would vote to do so if I ever voted in a referendum on it. However, it is rather difficult for the Catholic Church, which has centuries of writings similar to what I said above, to simply wave its hand and ignore it all by declaring capital punishment immoral under the grounds that we now have better facilities to house prisoners (as has been the standard 1 sentence argument for how our position on the death penalty could change). If the Church were to denounce capital punishment in a final manner, it would undoubtedly have to address all of these points directly and explain what in the tradition was misunderstood that led us to this point.

My personal view is that the biggest problem with capital punishment in particular is that our system is not always as charitable as I'd prefer and vengeance often colors people's view when considering punishment. As such, I think that while capital punishment can justly be carried out in at least some circumstances, we're extremely unlikely to carry it out justly and without malice. Thus, I think we ought to restrain ourselves from using it.

[TJ in Oregon]

This article by Cardinal Dulles is one of the better discussions of the Catholic view of capital punishment that I know of.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

This article by Cardinal Dulles is one of the better discussions of the Catholic view of capital punishment that I know of.

I've read this article before and found it well-put but not dispositive. I have a lot of respect for Cardinal Dulles as an expositor of traditional Catholic viewpoints on a variety of subjects, but I tend to think he takes an excessively high view of small-t tradition on these sorts of issues. iirc he halfheartedly tried to excuse the long- and rightly-abandoned distinction between just and unjust enslavement too, which is just unconscionable.

On another note, I do think retributive justice can be justified as an exercise in empathy, but it requires seriously and consistently abandoning the concept of revenge in a way that I've never known an actual advocate of retribution in the context of criminal justice to do. There's a scene in the Chronicles of Narnia book The Horse and His Boy where Aslan, in disguise as a normal lion, claws the back of a character called Aravis one of whose family's slaves was whipped after Aravis drugged her to escape a forced marriage; I thought the way this plot element was handled was kind of tacky in the book, but Aslan's "you needed to know how it felt" justification when he confronts Aravis a few chapters later strikes me as a much better and more sensitive rationale for retributive justice than the ones that get thrown around in The Death Penalty Debate, if we're going to have rationales for retributive justice at all. The problem is that I don't think anybody "needs to know" how death at the hands of a political authority feels.

[Kingpoleon]

Again I ask: Do Ezekiel 18:23, 18:32 and 33:11 make God’s position on capital punishment unwavering and clear? Vengeance is for the Lord our God, and not for man. In the words of Coretta Scott King:

“As one whose husband and mother-in-law have died the victims of murder and assassination, I stand firmly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty for those convicted of capital offenses. An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation. Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life. Morality is never upheld by a legalized murder."

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

So, Jesus had to die for our sins, OK. Is she suggesting that there's another Jesus waiting somewhere in America, so we can execute him again to absolve our sins, which is why it's essential for Wyoming to maintain what is largely a legal fiction anyway?

That makes very little sense even from the point of view of some really twisted theologian.