Theology III

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Quote:
Like me, you still accept that some of the Old Testament Law is valid to establish in society. "Thou shalt not murder," and "thou shalt not steal," are pretty broadly accepted in today's society.


I would say that the moral teachings of the Old Testament are true, but I'm dubious about importing the punishments. As you point out, the Old Covenant is more concerned with justice, while the new is the establishment of mercy and grace; as Christians, we are not under the Old Law:

"Rev 21:1, Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea."

"Romans 7:6, But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held;"

Romans 6:14, For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace."

etc.; you of all people know I could keep going on at great length!

There are two senses I can immediately see, in which we are no longer under the Law. One is that some of the rituals in the Old Testament Law have been rescinded, because their completeness has been found in Christ. One doesn't need a photograph of a vista, if one is at the place in the photograph and seeing for oneself the fullness of the reality.

So ritualistic commands, such as those Sis referred to from Leviticus, are rescinded. Paul talked about circumcision the same way- it had a lot of ritualistic significance, because it was symbolically portraying what was to come.

Jesus' behavior on the Sabbath, such as allowing his disciples to eat heads of grain as they walked, was directed on a similar basis.

In that sense, we aren't any longer under the Law.

The more important sense in which we aren't under the Law, in my view, is that when Christ enters us, he makes righteousness the overflow of our actions. Thus we will fulfill in our behavior the righteous requirements of the Law. Laws against murder and theft, or adultery, or other, wouldn't apply to us because our spirits are functioning in harmony with God's Spirit. That is not to say that such laws are invalid, but we don't have to worry about them at all because we by instinct would not break them.

If Christ is alive in our hearts, creating the fruit of righteousness, then the civil laws in the Old Covenant would find nothing in us to judge, because we obey those laws automatically.

A third way in which Old Covenant is replaced by New Covenant is the one you mentioned: The New Covenant emphasis on mercy. The manner in which this mercy is to be extended is the place where our disagreement lies.

I agree with you that mercy must be practiced in law as well as on a personal level.

Let's start by talking about the law against murder, as that's something where everyone here probably has a good deal of common ground. You and I would agree, I think, that there should be a law against murder. You may not feel that the death penalty is a valid punishment for murder, in the modern context, but we both feel that murder should not be legalized. We probably would both agree, I think, that laws against murder should be practiced with mercy. Jurors and judges should act with justice, but they should also look with compassion on the person their sentence is going to be impacting. The practice of their justice should be tempered with mercy.

However, whatever the degree of punishment the law should lay out for murder, there should be some kind of punishment. Mercy might completely excuse some killers, such as people who kill for self-defense, or maybe some perpetrators of "crimes of passion" (though I feel punishment of some kind should be imposed in the latter case). There may be some premeditated murders where mercy should excuse much of the guilt. Perhaps mercy should wash away the death penalty, in modern society, allowing for laws against murder to be practiced in that much more generous a fashion. But even if the law should be practiced with mercy, we both (I suspect) agree that there should be laws against murder, and there should be a penalty for murderers that mercy can temper in various ways depending on the circumstances of the crime.

You would not feel, however, I expect, that it is good for society to have laws and penalties against murder completely removed in every case on the basis that we now live in an age of mercy and of the New Covenant.

Here is where I suspect that you and I part paths on the Old Testament Law. I would apply the above model of having punishments for murder, but tempering the application of those punishments with mercy depending on the circumstances, to other laws in the Old Covenant, including laws against idolatry and witchcraft. I don't believe that laws against these things are to be completely rescinded because we live in a New Testament era any more than I believe laws against theft or murder should be completely rescinded. The law should establish justice, and sometimes the just penalty can be a very hard one. But because we live in a New Testament era, we should temper the application of these laws with mercy.

Does that make sense to you?

I think it's more consistent than the common Christian view of today, which tempers Old Covenant laws against murder with mercy, yet still says that laws here should exist, but then in cases of witchcraft or idolatry says that Jesus' mercy means we should completely remove the application of the Law.

I think that we really should be thinking more about the fact that when Christ enters our hearts, he transforms us so that we will not have to worry about the requirements of the Law, as we fulfill them by instinct. This, to me, is the most central way in which we are no longer under the Law, though there are others. It is a responsibility of human governments to offer justice to their citizens and impose penalties against wrongdoing. We are not under these laws, because Christ makes us fulfill their just requirements by the godliness in the new nature we have in Christ. But for those that do break these laws (which, in my view, should be based on the justice of God that has been revealed in the Old Covenant Law, rather than on human ideas of what justice might be), penalties still exist. And we will be able to judge these cases of lawbreaking with mercy too, and be able to judge far more appropriately because God is perfecting our choices.

What our modern mentality is doing, however, is something that did not occur in the Christian time of government. The modern mentality is spurning more and more of justice, because its wickedness is increasing immensely. Because religious diversity became prominent, judgment against it was rescinded. Because sexual immorality became prominent, judgment against it was rescinded. With witchcraft, I think that the legalization partly came hand in hand with religious freedom, which isn't good, as they are different kinds of offenses (though there is a lot of crossover), and also with increasing disbelief in society in the potency of witchcraft.

The origins of the legalization of witchcraft, religious freedom, sexual immorality and now infanticide (abortion) are the origins of the modern era, the end of the Medieval Ages. These are the origins of the shift from interpreting Old Covenant laws as just and as good to mandate in society, while tempering their application with mercy, to the view that the New Covenant allows us to completely do away with Old Covenant civil laws. Old Covenant justice. We are no longer tempering justice with mercy, in many cases, but are instead doing away with justice altogether with regard to several extremely crucial forms of wickedness. Our society is moving toward increasing acceptance of sin, and many Christians are lagging behind them a few steps all the way, dragging their feet, objecting to new forms of immorality as they become legalized and fighting them, but ultimately Christians are shifting into the view that justice in society's laws should be completely removed in favor of New Covenant mercy, and all judgment should be left for the Last Day.

No Christian that I know of has gone that far, as yet, but very, very few Christians up to the modern age would have seen the freedoms of our society as anything other than the weeds of anarchy coming into maturity.

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Since you mention that you are becoming a Catholic, I'll note that the Catholic Church opposes the use of the death penalty, except where it is necessary.

Since 1995, yes. This is an extremely new position, and opposes the Catechism's teaching that "Preserving the common good of society requires rendering the aggressor unable to inflict harm. For this reason the traditional teaching of the Church has acknowledged as well-founded the right and duty of legitimate public authority to punish malefactors ... not excluding, in cases of extreme gravity, the death penalty." (No. 2266).

However, I will confess that I find very interesting the reasons John Paul II cited for changing the Church's historically held position. He said that the change is the result of new advances in governmental justice system and in penal laws. To me, that's rather like the reason I would object to many forms of slavery. In the past, national economics were less well developed than they are today, and it was pretty necessary to allow certain forms of slavery. As well as just, many times (Disclaimer: I am NOT talking about racist slavery, or kidnapping people to make them slaves. Racism is evil). But today, economics are sufficiently sophisticated that this is no longer necessary, and therefore, in my view, less valid today than it was in the past. The removal of the death penalty because of the advanced capabilities of modern society is interesting, and I will carefully consider it before saying whether I agree or disagree with this new Church position for the modern times.

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

I would also point out that many, many people who call themselves "witches" these days are nothing of the sort. They are usually just a rather bland sort of neo-pagan, whose "spells" are nothing more than prayers to Gardnerian gods. These are not the sort of people with whom Kramer and Sprenger concerned themselves.

Yeah, I know that idolatry and witchcraft share a lot of common ground. I'm not sure that I'd say their "'spells' are 'nothing more than prayers to Gardnerian gods,'" though, for prayer to some evil spirit can bear results akin to those found in the occult. As I said, there can be a lot of crossover between these two sins.

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lief
Pentecost. Which is actually rather neat for me, symbolically, as my experience of God up to now has tended to focus on Pentecost.


That's great to hear! I'll remember you in my prayers in the time leading up to your conversion.

Thanks .

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lief
In 324 AD, Constantine declared Christianity to be the official state religion, though, and he imposed fines on many pagan temples.


But doesn't the fact that there were functioning pagan temples for him to fine show that, though Christianity was the state religion, paganism was still allowed?

Sometimes . . . If by that you mean that the death penalty wasn't commonly used to punish it at that time, you're right. As I read more about it, I find that Constantine also demolished a number of pagan temples. He fined some and demolished others. He did allow some publicly displayed pagan festivities, though.

Constantine also didn't only banish Arius- he also banished all of the Arians and banned Arian writings.

I don't think that this kind of leadership could be considered religiously free, do you? It had more freedom than most later Christian governments, we can agree, but it certainly didn't have religious equality, and religious freedom was a matter of degrees.

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lief
There were a bit many of them in that time period, I think, for this to be a very viable option.


But even in the time of Augustine, pagans were still very much present and a part of Roman world, which would seems strange, if they had been repressed legally for about 100 years.

Not really. It takes a lot of time for things to change, and before Christianity transformed the West, it was almost all pagan. The Jews were the only non-Christians that weren't. It takes a long time to change the course of that much culture, tradition and history.