Concern for eugenics or public health cannot justify murder, even if commanded by public authority. Infanticide, fratricide, parricide, and the murder of a spouse are especially grave crimes by reason of the natural bonds which they break. “The fifth commandment forbids direct and intentional killing as gravely sinful,” and the text continues, Our Catechism points out we must also keep in mind the special relations that bind us to one another. Such actions, condemned in these commands, are all acts of uncurbed power, which fails to recognize that the perpetrator and the victim share a commonality that preclude destructiveness. Not only are they the most tersely expressed commands, but also they all address the ways in which vulnerable persons in community are assaulted, diminished, and destroyed. The three commands on killing, adultery, and stealing together constitute something of a special group. God created us in His image if we look like God, we ought to act like Him.Īnd here we might mention God always looks out for the most vulnerable of His creatures, a concern we see reflected particularly in the Fifth Commandment and the two that follow. However, the Law on Sinai does nothing more than set in stone what God engraved on our hearts on the sixth day of creation. Too, the Law establishes a special and intimate relation between God and His human creation.
What the saint tells us is the commandments are nothing new God gave them to Moses not as a revelation, but so we would have a permanent reference point. He (God) speaks thus, as if to those who know and understand the point.” He asks, when God said, “You shall not kill,” why did He not add, “because murder is a wicked thing?” He replies, “The reason was that conscience has already taught this. An exception who proves the rule – and perhaps explains this silence – is St. We may be surprised to discover the early Church writers have little to say about the Ten Commandments. In his Sermon on the Mount he said, “You have heard that it was said to the men of old, ‘You shall not kill….’ But I say to you that every one who is angry with a brother shall be liable to judgment.” (Matt 5:21) We might point out that Jesus expanded the prohibition in the Fifth Commandment to include anger. The law forbidding it is universally valid: it obliges each and everyone, always and everywhere. The deliberate murder of an innocent person is gravely contrary to the dignity of the human being, to the golden rule, and to the holiness of the Creator. (Gen 4:8) He says, “The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground, and now you are cursed from the ground….” Our Catechism summarizes the Biblical teaching when it states Scripture bears evidence to this when God punishes Cain for murdering his brother Abel. …from its beginning it involves the creative action of God and it remains forever in a special relation with the Creator… God alone is the Lord of life from its beginning to its end: no one can under any circumstance claim for himself the right directly to destroy an innocent human being. We talk about the “sacredness” of human life, but how often – if ever – have we considered the basis for this belief? In 1987, the Church’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued an Instruction, Donum vitae, which teaches human life is holy because it is God’s gift. The commandment does not cover capital punishment, killing in a war, or the killing of animals for food which is not to say the Old Testament is unconcerned with the ethical problems posed by these things. the unlawful killing of a member of the community.
The Protestant reformer, John Calvin, observed that charity “contains the sum of the second tablet.”īiblical scholars hasten to point out the Scriptural language of the Fifth Commandment is very precise. In this community no one may take advantage of another, nor may one deprive another of her or his rights. Because we are God’s creatures, we are part of a community ordained by God, a community in which each individual enjoys rights and shares responsibilities. These six commandments govern our relations with one another and reflect the immense value of God’s human creation. When we arrive at the Fourth Commandment, in which God ordered our ancestors to honor father and mother so they might enjoy a long life in the land He planned to give them, we approach the second tablet of God’s Law.
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