Wednesday 22 May 2019

The Fifth Commandment


YOU SHALL NOT KILL

This is one of the shortest of the commandments, blunt, absolute and to the point. Why is killing prohibited? Because the Lord, the God of Israel, is the living God and whatever has life owes that life to God. Before we talk about a right to life, then, we must speak about the gift of life. Human beings cannot claim dominion over that gift since it originates in God who breathed into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life (Genesis 2:7).

If breath is one thing that reveals the presence of life then blood is another. When Cain kills Abel, his blood cries from the ground to heaven. God is the one to whom the blood (life) belongs and it does not pertain to anybody else to exercise dominion over the blood of another human being.

The God of the Bible is living whereas the idols of the nations are dead. They have eyes but they cannot see, they have ears but they cannot hear, as the psalm mockingly puts it. In reply to Jesus’ question, ‘who do you say I am?’ Peter answers ‘you are the Christ, the Son of the living God’ (Matthew 16:16). Jesus describes himself as ‘the way, the truth and the life’, ‘the resurrection and the life’, one who has come ‘that they might have life abundantly’ (John 14:6; 11:25; 10:10). We are temples of the living God, Paul says (2 Corinthians 6:16), and in God we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:24,28). Having died with Christ in baptism we have been raised to a new life in him (Romans 6:11). We are destined to drink the water of eternal life (Revelation 22:17).

One question we might have about this commandment is whether it refers only to human life. The tradition in both Judaism and Christianity is that it refers principally to the killing of human beings. Humans have always killed animals for food and for sport. There are questions about whether such killing is morally justified and about how it should be done if it is regarded as morally justified. Human beings are given dominion over the rest of the animal kingdom but this does not mean they can do what they like with it. If animals are killed for food then this should be done in ways that are ‘humane’ (and the animals beforehand should be allowed a life that is humane). The killing of animals for sport is a different matter that needs to be thought about carefully.

When it comes to human beings, because they are ‘persons’ – spiritual beings, capable of knowledge and love, created in the image and likeness of God, destined for eternal life – the commandment applies in its simple and obvious sense. Human life is a form of life that represents God within the creation. This is the basis for talking about the ‘sanctity’ of human life, a principle accepted not only in Judaism and Christianity, but also in the great religious traditions, and by all philosophers until very recently. The legal and moral systems of civilized societies are founded on the ‘right to life’, which is the fundamental entitlement of a human being in relation to other human beings. This right, as a natural, human right, rests on a theological understanding of the human person.

Jewish and Christian tradition allowed for what seem like exceptions: killing in self-defence, in the conduct of a ‘just war’, or in capital punishment. At first sight they seem to go against the commandment: one human being directly and intentionally kills another. In self-defence, it is wrong to kill someone if one can protect oneself from him by less drastic action. It is not clear how the principles of just war should be understood today: war is a very different reality to what it was when those principles were established. The Church now regards capital punishment as practically unnecessary: the aims of punishment are better achieved in other ways.

In his encyclical letter Evangelium vitae (On the gospel of life, 1995), John Paul II gave the Church a lengthy and rich reflection on the fifth commandment. Although it is phrased negatively, he says, such negative commandments serve an extremely important positive function, to protect the dignity of each individual, in particular the weakest and most vulnerable members of the human community.

No comments: