I don't think you understand the implications of what you're saying (more anon), but I'm not advocating civil penalties for heretics, so this is all mostly unnecessary.
Times were different then, huh AJ? Well if you can claim that something evil by objective standards can be excused because of extrinsic factors (everybody's doing it), then your morality is relative to your times and seasons. Hence Augustine was a moral relativist. And those who defend his actions because of the times and seasons are likewise moral relativists.
1) I'm not sure exactly how I'm expected to reply to comments like this without calling them stupid. After a certain point, it seems a waste to make any deeper reply.
In #44, I said, "He'd be wrong [in his defense], but not a relativist."
What part of "wrong" strikes you as an appeal to everyone else doing it? Or any kind of defense? Did you read #44 at all?
2) But even as stupid as your attack on ME was, you then actually said, "Hence Augustine..." Augustine was born in 354 and died in 430. I'm writing in 2005. So what can *my life* possibly prove about Augustine? He was already long dead a thousand years ago!
3) I repeat: Augustine defended his position as right on general principles. This can be wrong, but not relativist. Let it be noted that the Circumcellions, at least, really did need to be suppressed.
4) If an act which would be evil apart from other considerations cannot be defended by "extrinsic factors", such as what the victim had been up to, we need to abolish the legal system. Or will you try to explain why heresy isn't an extrinsic factor but crime is? But that assumes heresy isn't illegal. The whole dispute between Augustine and us is over whether that ought to be the case.
Or more accurately, crime is a factor extrinsic to the acts themselves which make locking a person up, taking his money, or killing him lawful for the magistrate to do. Why one set of factors, but not another? That's the dispute, and it calls for political philosophy, not glib stuff about relativism. (And for the record, the answer should be something that applies everywhere and always, and should not include heresy as a civil crime.)
But Augustine (and Calvin) did.
In #44, I said, "He'd be wrong [in his defense], but not a relativist." What part of "wrong" strikes you as an appeal to everyone else doing it? Or any kind of defense? Did you read #44 at all?
If he'd be objectively wrong, and if you are defending his position because even though he was wrong, you have to take into consideration what was going on at the time, then YOU would be a moral relativist. Yes it was wrong for Augustine to advocate the killing of heretics to protect the purity of the Church. Objectively it was wrong. Biblically it was wrong. You admit it was wrong. That should be the end of the argument. We ought not defend that which is wrong because of the times and seasons. We ought not to defend killing in the name of Christ. To justify it in any way is to practice Moral Relativism.
3) I repeat: Augustine defended his position as right on general principles. This can be wrong, but not relativist. Let it be noted that the Circumcellions, at least, really did need to be suppressed.
Just because you can argue that your sin was justifiable based upon "general" principles does not mean that you are not practicing moral relativism. Wrong is wrong. What he did was wrong. Even you admit that. So don't try to justify it. You can try to understand his position, but if you attempt to justify it, then you are engaging in Moral Relativism.
Moral relativism results in an inability to see your own sinful actions as sin. That is where the danger is. Everyone (including me) has a tendency to downplay their own wrong and to attempt to justify it some manner (It was the woman you gave me) but just because you can defend a sin on "general principles" does not take it out of the realm of sin and resorting to general principles to defend it is no excuse. It is Moral Relativism.