The Catholic Church Opposes the Death Penalty. Why Don't White Catholics?

TNR ^ | 03/07/2015 | Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig

[PapaNew]

Well you've laid out a thoughtful argument and although I don't agree with everything you say, I appreciate your thoughtfulness.

As far as double jeopardy and jurisdiction, I think human jurisdiction is not separate from God's but is within God's jurisdiction.

Scripture does not teach that all sins of all humans have in fact been paid for

You have a problem reconciling that with God's Word:

Behold the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29).
God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them (2 Corinthians 5:19).
By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all (Heb 10:10).
And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2).

Please don't keep pretending that I am advocating no consequence for our acts. I've named several consequences that should be formally incorporated into the penal code and prison system: Restraint, Deterrence, Restoration, Forced productivity to pay their way in the Big House, and Voluntary Rehabilitation.

[xone]

Please don't keep pretending that I am advocating no consequence for our acts. I've named several consequences that should be formally incorporated into the penal code and prison system: Restraint, Deterrence, Restoration, Forced productivity to pay their way in the Big House, and Voluntary Rehabilitation.

There is no pretense that you haven't offered alternatives, just that they are inadequate and less likely to happen than the current system where the wheels grinds so slowly mucked up by ridiculous delays. Pretending that the punishments for sin have already been taken for all for those in unbelief is not Biblical despite the misuse of the passages outlined.

[Springfield Reformer]

Please don't keep pretending that I am advocating no consequence for our acts. I've named several consequences that should be formally incorporated into the penal code and prison system: Restraint, Deterrence, Restoration, Forced productivity to pay their way in the Big House, and Voluntary Rehabilitation.

No pretense.  I haven't read every single post on this thread, and I have definitely not seen these suggestion before this point.  If they were in a post to me, I must've missed them altogether.  

In any event, if you are advocating temporal consequences, that implies you accept that delegated temporal authority exists.  The only question would be why you would be inconsistent in allowing that authority to be exercised for certain kinds of action versus others. I have no doubt the explanation would run to deterrence versus retribution, such that you would distinguish between actions permitted to prevent further criminal action (typically restraint), versus retribution (eye for an eye, lex tallionis, the proportional response approach).

I say inconsistent because the Scripture is clear that although Jesus died in a specific time of history, His death was accounted for sin as from the beginning of the world:

All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
(Revelation 13:8)

Because as we know from Hebrews, the sacrificial system under Moses, the blood of those bulls and goats, etc., saved no one.  It has always been the blood of Jesus that brings about God's forgiveness.  So back under Moses, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, unequivocal capital punishment woven throughout the law, all that is happening in the context of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.  Why are those capital rules in place, if all retributive forms of punishment have been rendered null and void by the death of Christ from the foundation of the world?  Wouldn't your double jeopardy rule apply?  

As for your "all" passages, those are nice proof texts, but they don't cancel out the rest of Scripture. All of Scripture works together as a coordinated whole. That's why it is fair to ask you how, under your speculative system, the atonement actually works. We need to know that in order to understand your texts properly. The word "all" in Hebraic literature seldom if ever means an absolute set of individuals independent of a narrowing context.  More often, especially in the passages you cite, there are narrowing effects.  All kinds or categories of people.  All individuals in the local context, etc. For example:

And they came to John and said to him, "Rabbi, He who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you have testified--behold, He is baptizing, and all are coming to Him!"
(John 3:26)

Who is the "all" here?  Every man woman and child that ever lived or ever will live?  If not, you are admitting a contextual limitation on "all." If you insist on your forced meaning of the absolute set of all humans ever, this passage forces you to become an absolute universalist.  And there's no safe place in the middle between those two extremes.  The context is going to control what we think about "all" and "every."  Each passage you have cited, and several others that are typically used to advance "universal provisional atonement" (the proper name for what you are propounding) are necessarily subject to the context, both the immediate context, and the rule of the total context, by which I mean that the teaching of Scripture on the exact nature of the atonement, the qualitative question (how does it work), is just as important as the quantitative question (to whom does it apply).

Consider what Jesus said.  He tells us plainly who He laid down His life for:

I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own. As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.
(John 10:14-15)

In contract law and statutory interpretation there is a rule.  If you have a number of possible recipients of something, only those listed as the actual recipients get the something.  Here, it's the sheep. We treat the writer of the document as intentionally excluding from the list those who are not supposed to get the something.  Here, it's the non-sheep. The case is made even stronger if the author spells out a category of recipients, then names a category of exclusion, as, for example, here:

But you do not believe, because you are not of My sheep, as I said to you. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.
(John 10:26-27)

I know it is hard to hear this.  I rejected it for a long time.  Eventually I realized that camping on one verse to the exclusion of another makes as much sense as thinking a candy bar will cancel out a donut. No, they will reinforce each other, once properly understood.  If you are looking at Biblical texts that seem to be going in two different directions, it is always because you have misunderstood one or both of them.  Always.

Again, this is why it is essential to think through what really happened when Jesus died for our sins.  You mentioned the idea of a gift,, and how you have to take it for it to become yours.  But that is not the analogy of substitutionary death, vicarious atonement.  The analogy is more like this.  You owe 100k in student loans. The government will drag you off to debtor's prison if you fail to pay up. One day a stranger walks up to you and hands you a receipt, Sallie Mae (or whoever), 100K, paid in full.  If you refuse the receipt, do you still owe Sallie Mae 100k?  If you went to Sallie Mae and offered a check for 100K, would they be justified in taking it?  No. No they would not.  Will you end up in debtor's prison? No. There is no charge against you that could produce that result.

That's why it matters which model of atonement you are using.  If your "all" passages occur in a system of true vicarious atonement, where the debt is really paid off, and you insist that "all" means every human who ever lived or will live, then you have no choice but to accept the consequence of universalism.  And to be fair, some do follow through on that logic.  They are just being consistent with the initial premise.  

But that premise is flawed.  As I showed in my previous post, God's wrath is still directed at the specific sins of specific individuals.  Therefore those sins cannot have been paid for in Christ:

Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience,
(Colossians 3:5-6)

And if they are still accountable for those sins, they are still subject to retribution, not just deterrence.  If a man steals, retribution is easier to live with.  He merely has to restore what was lost, with interest.  But if he repents, and has been forgiven in Christ, he will still have to give restitution in a just system.  And that restitution will still have an aspect of retribution to it.  And that is right and fair.

Peace,

SR

[PapaNew]

God's wrath is still directed at the specific sins of specific individuals. Therefore those sins cannot have been paid for in Christ

Wrong again and we've been over this.

1) Scripture clearly states Jesus died for the sins of the whole world regardless of whether that makes sense to you. That is the first part, God's part, of the transaction for eternal life and "IT IS FINISHED". God's gift of eternal life has been fully paid for and offered to the world. The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom 6:23).

2) Scripture also states that whosoever believes on him will have eternal life (John 3:16). That is the second part, man's part, of the transaction and it is up to individuals to accept or reject God's gift.

3) Scripture also states that those who reject Christ will have forfeited the free gift of forgiveness and therefore will die in their sins (John 8:24). The gift was fully paid for but rejected, therefore, it is an incomplete gift and of no value to the one who rejected it, just like in any like transaction.

God did everything He could possibly do to bring everyone salvation, but he will never force it against their will. You seem to be stuck on the idea that if unbelievers are being punished for their sins then Jesus didn't die for their sins, but that is utter nonsense. If a gift is fully paid for but rejected by the intended beneficiary, the rejection doesn't change the fact the gift was fully paid for. Everyone's sins are fully paid for but the benefit of salvation and redemption is still for each to accept to complete the gift of eternal life.

[Springfield Reformer]

Well, OK you’ve gone to a place where you’re apparently not interacting at all with what I’m actually saying. That’s OK. This sort of thing happens. So I think we’re really done now. :(

God bless you FRiend,

Peace,

SR

[PapaNew]

We’re interacting but we apparently are unable to find much common ground to discuss this. Although I appreciate your thoughtful answers, I find I disagree with your overall approach to the gospel of grace and you obviously the same with me. That’s OK.

As I posted to someone else, it is probable that the death penalty will not be rejected anytime soon because it requires an embrace and understanding of grace. Grace is a very hard thing to understand because grace doesn’t make sense at all to the natural mind. I’ve been at this for almost 50 years and I feel like I’ve just scratched the surface of God’s grace. I’m learning and changing my mind (”repentance” I guess) all the time. 2 Peter 3:15-18 mentions this in reference to Paul and his exquisite understanding and communication of grace especially in Romans, the definite book on the gospel of the grace of God.

God bless.

[xone]

it is probable that the death penalty will not be rejected anytime soon because it requires an embrace and understanding of grace.

No, no, you don't get away with that. I understand grace well, your idea of grace is universalist. It isn't. God calls, without that man can't/won't respond because it isn't in their nature. John 6:44, John 14.6.

I embrace and understand grace fully as I am in constant need of it. But grace as a Christian understands it and how the Bible teaches it. You have a free will to do civil good works. You have a free will to refuse the Holy Spirit by persistent sin. You don't have free will to accept Christ unless the Father draws you and creates faith by grace. Eph 2:8-9.