Is It Murder? The Problem of Ethical Language
By Charles Wellborn
[Dr. Charles Wellborn is Professor of Religion Emeritus, Florida State University, Tallahassee and for 20 years was Dean of the Overseas Campus in London where he now lives.]
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One of the most distinctive attributes of the human race, setting men and women well apart from any other species, is the power of verbal communication. While some experiments have seemed to show evidence of rudimentary communication among animals such as chimpanzees by means of signs and grunts, and while some people have fantastic theories about dolphins, the human ability to communicate not only simple facts but complex ideas remains unique. The entire area of human language is still, in many ways, a puzzling mystery to psychologists, neurologists, and linguists.
While human verbal and written communication is a highly developed and distinctive skill, it is not without its problems. Sir Francis Bacon, the 16th century lawyer and philosopher (whom some people believe wrote Shakespeare`s plays), recognized those problems when he wrote in his influential treatise, The Advancement of Learning, "The first great judgment of God upon the ambition of man was the confusion of tongues; whereby open trade and intercourse of learning was chiefly embarred."
While one might quibble with Sir Francis as to whether, scripturally, this was the first judgment of God on a sinful human race, he stands on solid ground in terms of the Old Testament story of the Tower of Babel, which tells us that God punished the pride and ambition of His people by "confounding" their language. The story is usually employed as an explanation of the myriad of different human tongues-English, Chinese, Arabic, etc. But it can equally well apply to the manifest ambiguities and difficulties of interpretation within a single language, such as our own English.
Many of the words we use in everyday verbal intercourse are capable of many different understandings. Take the word "love." When someone says to you, "I love you," what does he or she mean? The word may convey simple lust, mindless obsession, passionate regard, deep affection, the desire for manipulative possession or jealous ownership, friendship, altruistic concern-the list of meanings can go on and on. The interpretation of those words by the one to whom they are addressed is conditioned by many factors: our knowledge of the speaker, the context in which the words are spoken, and, perhaps most importantly, by what in a particular set of circumstances we want the words to mean.
H. Richard Niebuhr, the American theologian, has pointed out that the process of communication is not complete until what he called "the gesture"-the initial words or actions-is interpreted and responded to by the recipient of that gesture. The meaning of any individual`s "gesture", as well as the response and interpretation to it, is always shaped and bounded by the unique physical, intellectual, emotional, and cultural situation. There is insight in the pronouncement of Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carroll`s Alice Through the Looking Glass "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean -neither more nor less."
These observations have a particular relevance to the problem of how Christians are to understand the words of the Scriptures. The Bible is given to us in human language, words set once and for all in a particular format. Those Christians who believe in what is called "verbal inspiration"-that is, the idea that each scriptural word is in the fullest sense directly inspired of God, overriding any personal beliefs, characteristics, or limitations of the human writer-must deal seriously with a basic question. If this understanding is true, then what do these inspired words actually mean? The thorough-going verbal inspirationist can never stop with the mere words. He must devise creeds, dogmas, catchechisms, choosing out of a number of possible meanings the "correct" one. What is obvious through twenty centuries of Christian history is that preachers, theologians, and the rank and file of Christian believers have arrived at many differing understandings of the same sets of scriptural words. When Christians begin to try to enforce their particular interpretations on others, or maintain that they and they alone have understood the only correct meaning of the words, they are claiming for their human views the same divine imprimatur as the Scriptures themselves. That seems to me, as one sinful human being among many, an impossible position. I cannot accept that any individual, group, or human organization can lay claim to such divine authority.
In the realm of Christian ethics, a case in point is the interpretation of the meaning of the Decalogue. Christians accept the Ten Commandments as a solid, God-given basis for healthy moral conduct. But what do the Commandments actually mean, when applied in actual life situations?
Take, for example, the Sixth Commandment, "Thou shalt not kill", more accurately translated as "You shall do no murder." The commandment clearly places an extremely high value on every individual human life. "Murder" can be defined as unjustified killing. Here, the application of the moral law takes on complexity. What actual circumstances "justifr" the taking of human life? The answer to that question has been the subject of debate and disagreement through the centuries. Earnest Christian believers have looked at thorny issues such as the killing of enemies in wartime, capital punishment, abortion, birth control, euthanasia, and self-defense, all of which arguably involve the taking of life, and have reached widely different conclusions.
Across the centuries one can discern an irregular pattern of development in the understanding of "murder." In ancient times a widely held view was that the prohibition of unjustified killing applied only to family and clan members. Thus, the killing of Abel by Cain was essentially the crime of fratricide. Over the years the meaning of "murder" gradually came to include the killing of those in one`s own tribe and then, in ones nation. Christian pacifists and conscientious objectors argue today that the killing of any other human being, even in war, is unjustified. The problem in this regard has been heightened by the slaughter of civilians and non-combatants, including women and children, in modern "total war."
Clearly, the understanding of the meaning of the Sixth Commandment has been materially shaped by the contemporary cultural context. At this point Christians need to be especially careful in their approach to the interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures. Numerous sections of the Old Testament present genuine problems of ethical understanding. We believe that the Old Testament is given to us by God as an instrument of edification and the understanding of spiritual truth. It tells the story of the struggle of Israel to understand and obey God`s laws. That struggle was replete, as the Hebrew prophets repeatedly pointed out, with human misunderstanding and error. We are to learn from and profit by, not only the valid insights gained by Israel, but also their mistakes.
Two examples, out of many, will help to make the difficulty plain. We are told in the Book of Joshua that when Jericho was conquered, the Israelites, in obedience to Joshua`s command, "utterly destroyed all that were in the city, both men and women, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword" (Joshua 6:2 1). Are we to believe that it was actually the will of a loving God that innocent women, children, and even animals, should be brutally and cruelly put to the sword? Are is it more sensible and consistent to believe that Joshua, a sinful man and, to some extent, a prisoner of his culture, misinterpreted God`s will in a spirit of vengeance? The Old Testament must always be viewed through the eyes of Jesus. Is it possible for us to imagine Jesus sanctioning such a massacre? Were the lives of all the inhabitants of Jericho worthless in the sight of God? Was the killing of Jericho`s women and children "murder"?
The Book of Judges relates one of the more tragic stories in the Old Testament. Jephtha, military leader of Israel, preparing for battle, tries to bargain with God and makes the foolish vow that if God grants him victory, he will sacrifice whatever first greets him when he returns home. Victory is achieved, and when Jephtha arrives home, he is greeted first by his only child, a daughter. In fulfillment of his vow, he sends his daughter to her death.
What are we to make of this? Are we to see it, as preachers sometimes extol it, as a great act of faith and obedience on the part of Jephtha? Or-are we to see it as the disastrous story of a sinful man, misunderstanding the will and character of God, actually committing "murder"?
Perhaps I can press the point with a far-fetched, hypothetical, modern example. If President George Bush, at the beginning of the Gulf War, had publicly vowed that, if God gave America victory over Saddam Hussein, he would sacrifice whatever first met him at the White House door, how would most sensible people, including Christians, have reacted? And if the President had been greeted on his return by George, Jr., his eldest son, and, in fulfillment of his vow, had sent his son to his death, what would have been our judgment on him? The whole example is, of course, ridiculous, but the fact that we cannot conceive such a scenario surely passes some sort of judgment on Jephtha.
Concrete examples of the shaping of the interpretation of Scripture can be multiplied almost endlessly. In the 6th century, Procopius, secret court historian for the Emperor Justinian in Constantinople, wrote of his Christian master (who had built the magnificent Santa Sophia and left his enduring legacy in the Justinian legal code), "He did not accept that the crime of murder extended to those who did not agree with him on theological or, indeed, other matters. He slew them without compunctions of conscience." In the Middle Ages the leaders of the Holy Inquisition piously believed that it was the will of God for them to torture or even kill in order to preserve the purity of their doctrine. In the years leading up to the American Civil War devout pastors across the South proclaimed that the Scriptures endorsed and approved the institution of human slavery. Today, few if any honest Christians support that interpretation of God`s moral law. We easily recognize that in the past such distortions of Biblical interpretation resulted largely from cultural conditioning. It is more difficult for us to accept that our own contemporary understandings may be similarly misshapen.
To return to Richard Niebuhr`s terminology, the Scriptures can be seen as a "divine gesture." That gesture consists of a particular set of words. The process of communication is not complete until we interpret and respond to the gesture. Our response, as sinful persons locked up in a time-space box that conditions our every thought and action, is always and everywhere partial and problematical.
I have concentrated here on one particular Biblical injunction: "You shall do no murder." I have emphasized the difficulties of interpretation when we apply that moral law to specific problem areas. I have deliberately not set out my own views on such issues as war service, capital punishment, abortion, and euthanasia. I certainly have views on each of these problems, and I am prepared to argue my views in the appropriate forum. But what I want to make clear here is that my views are personal ones, and I claim no pseudo-papal infallibility for them.
Our responses must take account of the complex dimensions of the problem. Look at the issue of capital punishment, for instance. Is legalized killing by the state the “justified” taking of human life? The answer to that question is not given by a simple repetition of the basic Scriptural text. True, the Old Testament routinely, in accord with its cultural context, seems to approve forms of capital punishment, often cruel and barbarous forms. And the New Testament nowhere specifically condemns capital punishment as such. (It should be remembered that the New Testament is also silent on many other issues which were now contemporary moral ˆ problems, such as the industrial exploitation of children or environmental pollution.)
Today’s Christian approach to the morality of capital punishment must take into account any number of questions, some of them factual and others ethical or philosophical. What is the acceptable purpose of capital punishment? It obviously is not reform or rehabilitation. Is it a deterrent to the commission of other capital crimes? If it is, would it not make sense to follow the example of previous societies and use the most painful and public methods, such as open-air hanging or the public guillotine? It is taken for granted that any legal process should involve justice. Are we certain that the legal bureaucracy we have set up to make decisions on capital punishment is a fair and equitable one? Is it worth the risk for society to execute ten guilty murderers if it also executes one innocent person, caught up in a fallible system? Does legalized execution ultimately humanize or brutalize the total society? If the punishment should fit the crime, which is worse — a quick, “humane” execution, or to be locked away for years in the “hell-holes” which modern society calls prisons? Is the economic factor decisive; that is, the comparison of cost between executing a criminal and imprisoning him or her for long periods of time? Should legal justice strive to be totally objective, or should it be influenced by the understandable emotional demands for revenge on the part of the victim’s family? Does final judgment involving the death of a human being belong to the Lord or to a human court?
I suggest that such questions only begin to reveal the complexity of the issue. My rhetoric may at times betray my personal view, but my views are not the core of the problem. We are seeking the best moral truth we can find.
Where does all this leave us? Is there hope for some progress in our understanding of God’s “gestures”? I do not think that such progress will arise out of dogmatic creedal pronouncements, whether those dicta originate in Rome, Nashville, or Salt Lake City. Our hope now, as in the past, rests in a continuing, open dialogue within the Christian community. What is essential is free, untrammelled discussion and debate among those who honestly strive to find moral enlightenment. That dialogue must be firmly set within the real-life parameters of the twentieth century. It must take into account all of the valid dimensions of the problem. There is still new light to burst forth from the Old Book.
ˆ In the process we must not be afraid to take hard new looks at old problems. There is no change in the basic words of the Scriptures, but there is continuing change in human interpretations of that Scripture. My own Baptist forebears — people like Roger Williams and John Leland — were branded heretics by the established religious authorities of their day. If history has taught us anything, it is that yesterday’s “heresy” is quite often today’s “orthodoxy.” New light does come, but it comes only through the free dialogue of committed Christian believers, armed with honesty and humility. Human declarations involving claims to some sort of divine infallibility are often the last resort of those who find it difficult or impossible to defend their views within the wider Christian family. There is no escaping our Christian responsibility. God has given us the Scriptures. He has also given us minds and spirits. I believe he expects us to use those gifts in the continuing search for his will in matters of moral conduct. The job is tough, but “toughness” is one appropriate description of the Christian life. Given our manifold human limitations, the answers at which we arrive may rarely be final or definitive, but the quest must continue.
If the Christian family is what it proclaims itself to be — a “community of love” — we must make certain that changing and differing understandings of Biblical language must not be allowed to shatter the bonds of Christian fellowship. While holding strongly to our own honest perceptions, we must not allow our differences to sever us from other Christians who have just as honestly arrived at a different interpretation. And we must always be ready to listen to what others believe and to enter into a meaningful dialogue with them. It is only in this way that we can hope for any real moral progress. We might even come to a clearer understanding of what the Decalogue means when it says, “Thou shalt not kill.”
