catholic church is officially opposed to capital punishment....Sorry my friend, many of the questions I ask are ones I cannot answer or ones for which I am looking for a different viewpoint....
ok, here are some thoughts on capital punishment.
Thou shall not kill(murder is the translation)
Genesis 9:5-6 And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.
Leviticus 24:17-22 And he that killeth any man shall surely be put to death. And he that killeth a beast shall make it good; beast for beast. And if a man cause a blemish in his neighbour; as he hath done, so shall it be done to him; Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again.
And he that killeth a beast, he shall restore it: and he that killeth a man, he shall be put to death. Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger, as for one of your own country: for I am the LORD your God.
why would God institute this? How about because God has given man free choice...to love...or to hate...and this death penalty was given to protect the dignity of man.
And is not governmental authority given by God also?
John 19: 10-11 Then saith Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee? Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above
and Jesus acknowledged it in another place:
MAtthew 8:5-10 When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. "Lord," he said, "my servant lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering." Jesus said to him, "I will go and heal him."
The centurion replied, "Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and that one, 'Come,' and he comes. I say to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it." When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, "I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.
It is of some interest here to say that he healed the servant with no other comments to the Centurion, but when dealing with the woman caught in adultry, Jesus says, "go and sin no more". I only mention that, as you might think Jesus would tell the centurion to get another job, where he would not be killing people, if he felt it necessary.(or course that is just my opinion)
Safeguards have been installed in our system. Perfect? By no means, but look:
1. Murder trials have jurors of 12 impartial people. Hard to do sometimes, but not impossible.
2. Evidence must prove guilt.
3. Judge to oversee, and make sure procedures are correctly followed acording to the law.
4, and now we have DNA testing which can further take away any doubt. There have already been men released from the death penalty just for this reason.
There are many other scriptures which indirectly deal with this subject. I suspect that the hardest one to deal with is when Jesus says to turn the other cheek and to not resist evil. DO you believe that Jesus is saying to let murderers and thieves and rapists and madmen run and rule the earth freely? |
