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This paper was written by Dr. Michael Jones as a helpful sample of the Capstone Essay. Under
no circumstances should you copy portions of this paper to use as your own. Copying another
person’s original thoughts is considered plagiarism. Use this paper as a template for formatting
purposes only. If you want to use this as a template, you should type over the text with your own
words. If it is discovered that you used Dr. Jones words as your own, you will fail the class for
academic dishonesty. – Prof. Yonts
LIBERTY UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
The Revelational Christian Ethic and Capital Punishment
ETHC101-B01
Introduction to Ethics
by
Michael S. Jones
January 1, 2017
Contents
I.
Introduction……………………………………………………………………………… 1
II.
The Revelational Christian Ethic………………………………………………………… 1
III.
Capital Punishment …………………………………………………………………….. 3
IV.
Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………… 7
V.
Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………… 8
1
Introduction
In this paper I will attempt to answer the question, “Should a Christian support the death
penalty?” Implicit in this question is the anterior question, “Does a Christian ethic support the
death penalty?” A Christian approach to this issue will necessarily involve an attempt to find a
way of reconciling or at least balancing sentiments that are major themes in Christian thought but
that seem to point in opposing directions on this issue. Such potentially contrasting themes
include mercy versus justice, forgiveness versus judgment, and love versus responsibility. These
themes and tensions run throughout the Bible and cannot be blithely disregarded as if the biblical
position is obvious.
I will approach this issue in two steps. First I will describe the methodology that I believe
a Christian should utilize when attempting to solve moral dilemmas. Then I will apply this
methodology to the death penalty. The position that I hope to substantiate is that, regardless of
what stance on the death penalty is rational for non-Christians, Christians should view the death
penalty as immoral and therefore should take a public stand against it.
The Revelational Christian Ethic
I believe that the best approach to solving moral dilemmas is a modified Divine
Command Theory sometimes called Divine Nature Theory. According to this, what is good in
this world is a reflection of the nature of the creator of this world, God. Hence ethics is, in a way,
a subset of theology.1 The transcendence of God makes it necessary for him to reveal himself to
us in order for it to be possible us to do theology and thus revelation is a prerequisite of ethics,
too.
1
Michael S. Jones, Moral Reasoning: An Intentional Approach to Distinguishing Right from Wrong.
(Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt, 2017), 103-5.
2
I believe that God has indeed revealed himself. I base this belief primarily on the testimony of
Jesus Christ, who, through his miraculous resurrection, has shown that he is God incarnate. The
resurrection is God’s stamp of approval on Jesus’ ministries and teaching, and Jesus taught that
God has revealed himself in various ways including the inspiration of the scriptures that we call
the Bible.2
Broadly speaking, this revelation takes two forms: general and special. General revelation
is that knowledge of God that he has communicated to us through creation (as the apostle Paul
indicates in Romans 1) and the human conscience (Romans 2). Special revelation is God’s
communication of specific truths to specific people through mediums like dreams, visions,
angels, prophets, miraculous vocalizations, inspired writings like the Bible, and especially the
incarnation of God as Jesus Christ.
Both of these forms of revelation are useful to the ethicist. Ethical thinking that is based
on general revelation is called “Natural Law Ethics.” There is no specific term for ethical
thinking that is based on special revelation, but the term “Christian Ethics” can be used to refer
to the Christian practice of utilizing general and special revelation to construct an ethical system
and resolve moral dilemmas.3
I believe that God’s revelation is sufficient to guide the believer in resolving any moral
dilemma.4 Furthermore, it is my opinion that any solution to an ethical dilemma that is not
harmonious with the approach advocated by God through his revelation is mistaken. However,
there is a significant complicating factor: interpretation. The scriptures are subject to multiple
2
This argument is taken from the work of scholars like N.T. Wright, Michael Licona, and especially Gary
Habermas. See Gary Habermas, The Risen Jesus & Future Hope (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003).
3
Jones, Moral Reasoning, 109-12.
4
I believe this to be an implication of II Timothy 3:16, 17.
3
interpretations. This is an important reason why Christians often disagree on moral issues. But I
do not believe that a correct interpretation of the Bible is impossible. What is required is an
effective interpretative strategy.
The study of how to properly interpret the scriptures is called “hermeneutics.” A
grammatical-historical-contextual hermeneutic will lead the reader back to the original author’s
intent and, via that intent, to the message that God inspired that author to communicate.5 Once
God’s message has been thus discovered, careful, logical thinking will enable the ethicist to
apply this message to the moral dilemma with which he or she is wrestling.6
Capital Punishment
The issue in applied ethics that I have chosen to address is capital punishment. One of the
most foundational of all biblical teachings is that God is love. This aspect of the nature of God
seems to be as intrinsic to God as his omniscience, omnipotence, or any of his other immutable
attributes. This is reflected both in the Apostle John’s repeated affirmation that “God is love” and
Jesus’ summary of all of the Jewish law in just two commands: love God and love your
neighbor.7 The Christian obligation to love all, even one’s enemy, is undeniable.8 Hence the
Christian is obligated to love even the murderer. This, of course, poses a prima facie challenge to
capital punishment.
5
Jones, Moral Reasoning, 113-15.
6
For a more detailed explanation of this, see Jones, Moral Reasoning, 116-20.
7
I John 4:8, 16; Matt 22:37-40 and other passages.
8
Matt. 5: 43-45, “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine
enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray
for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in
heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust”
(King James Version).
4
There is, however, an obvious counter-argument stemming from the obligation to love
beyond the murderer, to consider the potential threat that a murderer poses to those around him.
This is acerbated in situations where the murderer is a hardened criminal with thoroughly
ingrained patterns of violent behavior. Who aught we to love first? Who should we love most?
It might be argued that, in contrast to others in our community, the murderer has voluntarily
relinquished his claim to our love, and that therefore we ought to love him less and love others
more, not abandoning our love for the murderer but rather prioritizing our love for the innocent
and protecting them from him through the death penalty. But we must keep in mind that we
could protect them through a life sentence without parole instead. We do not need to choose
between loving one and loving the others when the lives of both can be spared.
Counters to this small argument against the death penalty abound. It can be argued that
the death penalty, when imposed on those who have committed murder, restores justice, that it
saves taxpayer expenses, that it serves as a deterrent to others, and that it has biblical precedent.
In this paper I am not at all concerned with the first three of these arguments, for here I am not
trying to argue from the perspective of common good, but rather from the perspective of
Christian ethics. Hence I will not entangle myself in the important but difficult debates over the
comparative cost-effectiveness of the death penalty or its purported (and disputed) effectiveness
as a deterrent. I direct our attention instead to the question of whether or not the death penalty is
biblical.
Most people are familiar with the principle of lex talionis (law of retaliation) enshrined in
Genesis 9:6, “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of
God made he man.”9 Many conservative Christians take this as a carte blanche endorsement of
9
Genesis 9:6 (King James Version).
5
capital punishment. But unless we are willing to mandate that every single time one human kills
another the life of the killer must also be sacrificed, a much more nuanced understanding of this
text is required, for a woodenly literal reading of the text would result in absurdities. If a
murderer is put to death, must the executioner also be put to death? And how about the
executioner of the executioner? Or how about the person who kills another in self-defense or to
defend his family? There are a variety of situations in which an act that results in the death of
one human at the hands of another should not result in the death of the latter.
Hence we must approach biblical texts that relate to this issue in a way that is
characterized by an informed hermeneutic and careful exegesis. And we must make a number of
distinctions relating to the texts on which we wish to base our position. Some biblical texts speak
descriptively rather than prescriptively, and the mere fact that capital punishment was practiced
at some time during biblical history does not entail that it is moral for Christians to support it
today. Some passages that address moral issues are permissive rather than prescriptive; that is,
they permit some action but do not prescribe it as a requirement. Concluding that the actions
being permitted in such passages must be moral is overly hasty, for God may be permitting the
action for reasons of his own even though the action in question is not generally moral. This
seems to be Jesus’ interpretation of Moses’ permission of divorce: God (through Moses)
permitted divorce in Deuteronomy 24 not because divorce is a moral practice but in spite of the
fact that it is not moral and goes against God’s ideal design for marriage.10 In Jesus’
interpretation, Moses delimited divorce but did not endorse it as moral. Hence some biblical
passages that seem to permit capital punishment may actually be delimiting it instead.
10
See Matthew 19 for Jesus’ discussion of this.
6
In every attempt to apply a principle derived from a biblical passage to a situation outside
of the one directly addressed the reader must make a determination of whether the principle is
conditional or unconditional. Some biblical principles may be timeless, unconditional, and
therefore normative for all people. Others are clearly intended for a specific context. Many
commands and prohibitions found in the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament) – perhaps even a
fairly large majority of them – were intended for a specific time and people and do not apply to
Christians in the post-New Testament era. This is true of circumcision, various dietary
commands, the rituals involving the Temple, the prohibition from marrying gentiles, and many
others. Some of these are not explicitly moral while others are. A pertinent question is whether
the institution of capital punishment found in the Old Testament is conditional or normative. One
cannot simply assume that because it is permitted or even commanded in the Hebrew Bible it is
therefore normative for all people.
In the article “Contemporary Capital Punishment: Biblical Difficulties with the Biblically
Permissible,” Eric and Walter Hobbs argue that the moral issue of capital punishment parallels
the moral issue of divorce and should be handled the way that Jesus handled divorce.11 That is,
killing other humans is not God’s ideal, regardless of the circumstances. God (through Moses)
permitted the death penalty for His own reasons, which may have included impressing the
sanctity of life on humanity through demanding the most severe penalty from those who take a
life. However, once that goal was accomplished the death penalty had fulfilled its purpose and
was no longer needed. This may be why the death penalty is not repeated in the New Testament.
Eric E. Hobbs and Walter C. Hobbs, “Contemporary Capital Punishment: Biblical Difficulties with the
Biblically Permissible,” Christian Scholar’s Review 11 (1982): 250-62.
11
7
So far from being repeated, it may have been repealed by Jesus when he protected the woman
caught in adultery from being stoned, which was the penalty proscribed in the Hebrew Bible.12
One timeless, normative principle that is found in both the Hebrew Bible and the New
Testament is the principle of the sanctity of human life. Human life is so extremely dear because
it reflects the life of God himself, the source of our existence. To denigrate human life in any
way is to dishonor the God who it reflects. In light of the uncertainty of the normativity of any
Old Testament affirmation of the death penalty and in light of the certainty of the normativity of
the imperative not to dishonor the imago dei, it seems appropriate for Christians to steadfastly
eschew the death penalty. Furthermore, in light of the finality of the death penalty, it seems
prudent, to say the least, to err on the side of caution. Hence it seems to me that the most biblical,
the most hermeneutically informed, and therefore the most Christian position vis-à-vis capital
punishment is one of strong opposition to it.13
Conclusion
Capital punishment is an important issue: losing one life is a tragedy, but following that loss with
the punitive loss of a second makes it even worse. In this paper I have attempted to apply the
Revelational Christian Ethic to this issue to discover what the most consistently Christian
position is on capital punishment. My conclusion is that Christians should view the death penalty
as immoral and therefore should take a public stand against it.
12
John 8:1-11. The Hebrew Bible speaks of the death of both the man and the woman involved (Lev 20:10;
Deut 22:22-24).
13
Laura A.Stivers, Christine E. Gudorf, and James B. Martin-Schramm. Christian Ethics: A Case Method
Approach (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2012), 296.
8
Bibliography
Hobbs, Eric E. and Walter C. Hobbs, “Contemporary Capital Punishment: Biblical
Difficulties with the Biblically Permissible,” Christian Scholar’s Review 11
(1982): 250-62.
Jones, Michael S. Moral Reasoning: An Intentional Approach to Distinguishing Right
from Wrong. Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt, 2017.
Stivers, Laura A., Christine E. Gudorf, and James B. Martin-Schramm. Christian Ethics:
A Case Method Approach, 4th ed. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2012.
ETHC 101
CAPSTONE ESSAY ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS
OVERVIEW
This assignment is an essay that brings all of the knowledge and skills developed in this course
to bear on a single ethical issue. You will write an 1800–2000-word essay (not including
footnotes, the title page, table of contents, and bibliography) that combines the insights and
arguments of the second and third discussions into a single carefully-articulated work. Format
should be 12pt, Times New Roman font and in Turabian format.
INSTRUCTIONS
Begin your paper with a brief introductory paragraph that clearly states your goals, thesis, and
method. State what metaethical theory you are defending, the issue in applied ethics you are
addressing, the conclusion(s) you want to defend.
Next, provide a lengthy and detailed defense of the metaethical theory you defended in
Discussion: Compare and Contrast Metaethical Theories. This will likely reflect what you
argued for in your thread and the feedback that you received from the professor and/or
classmates who responded to your thread. Here you can go into much more detail than you could
in the discussion, which was limited to 600 words. If you have changed your mind since
Discussion: Compare and Contrast Metaethical Theories and wish to defend a different
theory, you may do so. This section of the Capstone Essay Assignment would be roughly half
of your paper (three to four pages).
Next, proceed to the applied ethics issue that you discussed in your Discussion: Ethical
Application thread. Here you should greatly expand upon your argument. Add detail, nuance,
and argumentation, providing a fairly complete and comprehensive application based on the
theory you defend in the first half of the paper. You may illustrate the application with real-life
examples, but please do not fill your paper with anecdotes. You should anticipate possible
objections to your approach to the issue and respond to them in an objective and informed
manner. (For ideas on how others might object to your approach, a good place to begin would be
your classmate’s reply to your thread, but you need not stop there. Many books and articles have
been published on issues in applied ethics, and these can provide a wealth of possible arguments
relevant to every issue.) You are encouraged to use quotes from sources as a way to support your
arguments, but quotes should not make up more than one and a half pages of your essay.
Your conclusion should reflect what you have argued in your thesis. It should recap what you
have accomplished and how you have accomplished it.
This paper is not required to utilize any sources outside of those that were used in the class (the
two textbooks, the videos, and the PointCast presentations), but use of additional resources is
permitted and encouraged. At the minimum the paper should utilize the resources from the class.
All resources used must be listed in the bibliography and any resources quoted, paraphrased, or
alluded to must be documented via footnotes formatted according to Turabian. Sources such as
Wikipedia and online dictionaries do not count as academic sources and should not be used.
Biblical references are encouraged, but will not count as an academic source.
Page 1 of 2
ETHC 101
Remember, your footnotes and bibliography (if you had one) do not count toward the 2000 word
limit. You will be penalized if you exceed the limit, so please do not.
Your paper must begin with a title page that includes a paper title, your name, the date, and the
course name and number. The second page of your paper must be a table of contents. The last
page of your paper must be devoted to your bibliography. The paper must utilize 12 point Times
New Roman font, double-spaced, with one inch margins. It must be double-spaced rather than
triple-spaced between paragraphs and there should be only one space after the end of each
sentence.
Any documentation in the body of your paper must be done via footnotes formatted according to
Turabian. If you are not familiar with how to do this, simply look it up online. There are many
websites that explain Turabian formatting. Footnotes should be single-spaced 10 point Times
New Roman font.
Your paper must be submitted as a Microsoft Word document. If you submit it as a .pdf or
anything other than a Microsoft Word document it will not be graded.
Proofread your work before handing it in! Errors of spelling, grammar, syntax, and punctuation
will affect your grade. This is a university-level writing assignment. Please write accordingly.
Submit your finished paper via the submission link. Turnitin is a program that checks your work
for plagiarism. Plagiarism is unethical and will not be tolerated. If you are not sure what
plagiarism is, it is your responsibility to find out. Ignorance is no excuse. Do not plagiarize!
This assignment contributes to achieving and assessing the achievement of all four of the Course
Learning Outcomes.
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