God is the Lord and Giver of Life,and He is entitled to take anyone's life, from the unborn babe to the bus full of high school kids, any time He wishes. This cannot be said of us: we are not Lords and Gods and we are explicitly forbidden (for instance) to shed innocent blood.
So the definition "Murder is the premeditated, unlawful taking of a life," is a good one, if "unlawful" refers to God's law, not the law of any particular political regime.>p> But I'm still interested in more specificity. Is it ever lawful, in terms of Divine and Natural Law to intentionally kill an innocent person? ("Innocent" in this context means i.e. a person not convicted of a capital crime, who is also non-combatant (not committing violent aggression.)
This is a question which has interested me for a long time.
There is something very despairing in me when I see photos of charred women and children and babies in strollers.
If you mean could a person just kill someone just to kill someone (not in self defense, combat, etc) then no...it is against both Divine and Natural Law.
The Holocaust comes to mind. The Nazis killed the Jews just because they were Jews.
But let's recall from the words of the NT that hating your brother (fellow man) is akin to murder. John writes: Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. 1 John 3:15 NASB
So murder can extend to not only the physical act itself but the mental as well. It's like Jesus defining adultery as lusting being just as sinful as the physical.