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What are the positive aspects of the death penalty?

Death Penalty: Christian Hypocrisy? (Long)?

  • Okay, this is not a troll. I'm really looking for an honest answer, so please help me out. I'll try my best to be respectful, but if I cause offense, I apologize in advance. But that also goes for the people answering: keep it civil, please. You're welcome to correct me if I wrong, but my impression of things is, or at least the way I see it portrayed in the media goes something like this. In the Old Testament, the god was a jerk, but in the "New" Testament, he's had a makeover and he's a really nice guy. Basically, that whereas Judaism tends to focus more on justice, Christianity tends to focus more on his mercy and love. To swallow this story whole-sale, of course, one would have to ignore Jewish history, and have never heard of Rabbi Hillel The Elder or any of his students and followers. But anyway, as it turns out, Judaism--and specifically the Tanach--prescribe the death penalty for a number of offenses. In one of the last years that it was still running, the Sanhedrin passed a decree, that the death penalty would be abolished. According to their religious law, this ruling remains in effect for all time, unless and until a prophet makes direct testimony to the contrary. I asked a rabbi why they had done this so long ago. His response was that every once in a few years or decades, the Sanhedrin would review their records: if there had been too many death sentences carried out in a given time period, a temporary moratorium would be declared and the judges would conduct an internal investigation, to find out "what had gone wrong?" After a few hundred years, they came to the conclusion that since human judgement is imperfect, and there is no cure for death, there is no way to carry it out with justice. If someone is wrongfully executed, the court cannot possibly make amends. I was stunned to hear this! Old judges and priests, of the biblical era, cringed at the thought of killing too many people in a given amount of time, even by the justice system, and furthermore, they were disturbed by the possibility of wrongful executions. Keep in mind, this is before the era of forensics, let alone DNA that might exonerate someone. There was one other thing bugging me. So I asked the rabbi, why was the death penalty allowed in times of the Tanach? His reply was that almost all of the executions mentioned specifically in the bible actually come at the direct orders of god, relayed through a prophet. At the time the Sanhedrin rendered the decree, the age of prophecy had come to a close about 500 years prior. If you're still with me, you know that was at least 2,000 years ago. This means that the Jews had already abandoned the death penalty, while the merciful and loving worshipers of Christ were torturing, mutilating, burning, and killing them. Even today, as Christians preach the gospel of unconditional love, they fight tooth and nail to keep the death penalty on the books. It's not even the Evangelicals. Even the old Catholic Church has stated in the most unambiguous terms that it is -not- against church doctrine to support the death penalty. Does anyone else see a major contradiction and hypocrisy? Note: There are, of course, many Christian groups and individuals who are just as staunchly opposed to the death penalty. I congratulate you for putting your humanity and decency before everything else. I also realize that there are Catholic-majority countries which have put a moratorium on, or have abandoned the death penalty. Many Catholic judges and politicians who stand to oppose it. This question is not addressed to you guys. I congratulate you for doing the right thing. Note2: No antisemitic remarks, please! Keep it civil, I'll remind you. And please be clear and coherent; I humbly request that there be no ramblings.

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    Gotta agree with you here. I did not know that part about the Sanhedrin, so thank you! Personally, I have done time, I would prefer the death penalty to life without parole but the other side is the fact that life without parole does allow for a finding of innocence on appeal. Or at least you get to keep on breathing, thus giving you a chance to "repent". Fact is that the death penalty HAS resulted in too many executions of innocent people. There was at least one governor (I believe it was Illinois, not sure) that looked at the statistics on wrongful executions and commuted all the death sentences to life in prison. And he was a very conservative Republican. Blessings on your Journey!

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You are mistaken as to what the Catholic Church teaches. A Catholic who supports the death penalty in a country fully capable of imprisoning a criminal who poses a danger to other, do so in opposition to the Church. Here is the Catechism: 2266 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 2267 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 www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive…

Zog Blaster

For the same reason Israel orders assassinations and air strikes on palestinians: to act as a deterrent to behavior that endangers society.

fwer

IMO, You may separate first the words "kill" and "murder" (took life of somebody). Because as far as I know the one which is prohibited is "murder", and not "kill". When Jesus met with the centurion (captain) of Capernaum, He was not instruct the centurion to leave his job. If you had committed a murder, the right Christian thing to do would be to give yourself up to the police and be hanged. It is, therefore, in my opinion, perfectly right for a Christian judge to sentence a man to death or a Christian soldier to kill an enemy. I always have thought so, ever since I became a Christian, and long before the war [WWII], and I still think so now that we are at peace. It is no good quoting 'Thou shalt not kill.' There are two Greek words: the ordinary word to kill and the word to murder. And when Christ quotes that commandment He uses the murder one in all three accounts, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And I am told there is the same distinction in Hebrew...When soldiers came to St John the Baptist asking what to do, he never remotely suggested that they ought to leave the army: nor did Christ when He met a Roman sergeant-major - what they called a centurion. The idea of the knight - the Christian in arms for the defence of a good cause - is one of the great Christian ideas. War is a dreadful thing, and I can respect an honest pacifist, though I think he is entirely mistaken. What I cannot understand is this sort of semi-pacifism you get nowadays which gives people the idea that though you have to fight, you ought to do it with a long face as if you were ashamed of it. It is that feeling that robs lots of magnificent young Christians in the Services of something they have a right to, something which is the natural accompaniment of courage - a kind of gaiety and wholeheartedness. - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 118-119

Hizkia Ardianto

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT The death penalty imposed by the state for the punishment of grave crimes. It is certain from Scripture that civil authorities may lawfully put malefactors to death. Capital punishment was enacted for certain grievous crimes in the Old Law, e.g., blasphemy, sorcery, adultery, and murder. Christian dispensation made no essential change in this respect, as St. Paul expressly says: "The state is there to serve God for your benefit. If you break the law, however, you may well have fear: the bearing of the sword has its significance" (Romans 13:4). Among the errors of the Waldenses condemned by the Church in the early thirteenth century was the proposition that denied the lawfulness of capital punishment (Argentré, Collectio de Novis Erroribus,I, 86). St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) defends capital punishment of the grounds of the common good. The state, he reasons is like a body composed of many members, and as a surgeon may cut off one corrupt limb to save the others, so the civil authority may lawfully put a criminal to death and thus provide for the common good. Theologians further reason that, in receiving its authority from God through the natural law, the state also receives from him the right to use the necessary means for attaining its end. The death penalty is such a means. If even with capital punishment crime abounds, no lesser penalty will suffice. The practical question remains of how effective a deterrent capital punishment is in some modern states, when rarely used or only after long delays. In principle, however, it is morally licit because in the most serious crimes the claims of retribution and deterrence are so demanding that the corrective value of punishment must, if necessary, be sacrificed.

Daver

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