Thou Shalt not Murder
One of the great cornerstones of Christian morality is the 5th Commandment (or 6th for Catholics):
On the surface this seems to be a fairly straightforward moral law, but there is a complication. The standard definition of ‘murder’ is “
the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another”. If this commandment has a universal application whose legal/moral system is used to determine what is or is not unlawful?
Legal (or traditionally acceptable) acts of killing have varied enormously through time and between cultures. Examples include:
- Honour killing
- Mass killing/genocide
- Human sacrifice
- Burning heretics
- Intentional killing of non-combatants
- Stoning for various crimes
- Infanticide
- Revenge killing
Even today there are differing views of what constitutes legal killing between culturally similar, developed Western countries. Obvious areas of difference are:
- Capital punishment
- Euthanasia/assisted suicide
- The circumstances under which killing in self-defence is acceptable
- Abortion
Given this variability, the 5th Commandment appears to lack definition unless it’s tied to a particular legal/moral system.
Whose law determines when killing is or is not lawful?
OB
More Reading:
Thou shalt not kill - Wikipedia
Murder - Wikipedia
Honor killing | sociology | Britannica
Human sacrifice - Wikipedia
capital punishment | Definition, Debate, Examples, & Facts | Britannica
euthanasia | Definition, History, & Facts | Britannica
burning at the stake | History & Facts | Britannica
United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect
Stoning - Wikipedia
Revenge - Wikipedia
Homicide - Wikipedia
Infanticide - New World Encyclopedia
BBC - Ethics - Abortion: Historical attitudes to abortion
A lot of this depends on one's broadly theological approach to the relationship(s) and intersection of Church and State.
From a Lutheran perspective we have what is often called the Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms. Generally speaking, it means that the Church and the State are fundamentally different kinds of things; the Church is the minister of the Gospel, the State is the minister of temporal justice.
In essence that means that the civil laws which govern society, though differing depending on time and place, are what establishes civil and temporal justice in society. Thus what constitutes murder would, generally, then be defined by civil law--at least insofar as the ministering of temporal and civil justice is concerned.
Thus the State may decree that the death penalty is just, and under its civil jurisdiction the death penalty would not be counted as murder.
Now, as far as Divine Justice is concerned, it may very well be that what is counted just or unjust under civil, temporal law is not in agreement with Divine Law. But we also believe that
1) A person is made justified before God by grace alone, through faith, on Christ's account alone. And thus sins, great or small, are forgiven. This does not mean that one may live lawlessly and still have their golden ticket to paradise, but getting deeper into that particular theological tangent would be outside the scope of the current discussion.
2) There is a Final Judgment at which time all must stand and give account of the lives they lived.
On account of this distinction, the Church as the Church is outside of its jurisdiction (as it were) to tell the State how to conduct its affairs. That is, the Church cannot be lord or master of the State. Neither can the State be lord or master of the Church--if Caesar demands that we deny Christ and worship him instead, the Church is duty-bound to disobey such a law.
Atop of this, I would add St. Augustine's maxim that "An unjust law is no law at all". Which Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. quotes in "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", and is foundational to King's principles of non-violent civil disobedience. That is, from a place of conscience, unjust laws do not bind us to being complicit or complacent in regard to injustice.
The Church can, I would argue, speak as a conscientious voice toward the State. Likewise, while the Church may not command the State; there is nothing to stop individual Christians, in their vocation as citizens, from putting in their voice and energies in the realm of statecraft.
Thus, were the State to declare the free-for-all killing of a certain demographic as perfectly lawful (as a pure hypothetical):
1) Christians would be in no way justified in killing, regardless of civil law on the matter.
2) The Church can speak conscientiously, calling evil evil.
3) Christians can, as a matter of conscience and as citizens speak out, and seek changes to civil law in accordance with whatever rules govern such individual participation in matters of the State.
If we applied this to, oh I don't know, abortion:
1) A Christian may argue that they cannot, because on religious grounds it would still be wrong.
2) The Church may not tell the State what to do, but can still speak its voice on the subject if it believes this to be unjust.
3) Individual Christians can, on the basis of conscientious citizens, speak and vote.
But under civil law, where abortion is legal, abortion isn't murder under said civil law.
This has been very verbose--arguably too wordy--but I think the meat and potatoes would be thus:
"Thou Shalt Not Murder" applies to both Divine Law and civil law. Where civil law defines murder, so murder has been defined. In accordance with Divine Law even if civil law does not proscribe an act as murder, one would still be liable for his or her actions on the Day of Judgment.
That there is both civil temporal law; and divine law. Temporal and civil justice; and divine justice.
So a thing may be both legal and wrong; conversely a thing may be both illegal and right. The Church cannot strong arm the State; but that does not mean Christians having to blindly follow the State.
I'm hoping this all made some semblance of sense. But as a disclaimer, what's been said here is simply my understanding of the Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms (along with influence from Dr. King and Pastor Bonhoeffer) Also, while I provided abortion as an example (since it is probably the most obvious example in a discussion such as this) I have not provided my own personal views on that subject.
-CryptoLutheran
