Religion and capital punishment

Most major world religions take an ambiguous position on the morality of capital punishment. Religions are often based on a body of teachings and scripture that can be interpreted as either favouring or repudiating the death penalty. Some, such as Judaism and the Roman Catholic Church, teach that while the death penalty is hypothetically permissible in certain circumstances, it should be abolished in the modern world. In the past, some religions sentenced men to death either for failing to convert to their religion or for converting to another. According to Islamic religious law, a Muslim can be sentenced to death for conversion to Christianity. The relationship between religion and the death penalty is further complicated by the fact that it is common for the followers of a religion to disagree with its official teachings on the subject.

Buddhism

There is disagreement among Buddhists as to whether or not Buddhism forbids the death penalty. The first of the Five Precepts (Panca-sila) is to abstain from destruction of life. Chapter 10 of the Dhammapada states:

Everyone fears punishment; everyone fears death, just as you do. Therefore do not kill or cause to kill. Everyone fears punishment; everyone loves life, as you do. Therefore do not kill or cause to kill.

Chapter 26, the final chapter of the Dhammapada, states, "Him I call a brahmin who has put aside weapons and renounced violence toward all creatures. He neither kills nor helps others to kill." These sentences are interpreted by many Buddhists (especially in the modern humanistic West) as an injunction against supporting any legal measure which might lead to the death penalty. However, as is often the case with the interpretation of scripture, there is dispute on this matter. Thailand, where Buddhism is the official religion, practices the death penalty, as do all other countries where the majority of the population is Buddhist, i.e. Sri Lanka, Mongolia, and Myanmar, although the last has had a moratorium on executions since 1997. Moreover, throughout almost all history, countries where Buddhism has been the official religion (which includes most of the Far East and Indochina) have practiced the death penalty. One exception is the abolition of the death penalty by the Emperor Saga of Japan in 818. This lasted until 1165, although in private manors executions continued to be conducted as a form of retaliation.

The Buddhist concept of lethal self-defense is subtly non-linear and based on the criterion of prevention of greater suffering. The Bodhicaryavatara of Shantideva (8th century AD), authorizes violence if it is necessary to prevent suffering: "One should always strive for the benefit of others. Even that which has been prohibited has been permitted for the compassionate one who foresees benefit"; "May I be a protector for those who do not have protectors"; and "If the suffering of many disappears because of the suffering of one, then a compassionate person should induce that suffering for the sake of others" (Wallace & Wallace, "Introduction to Santideva", A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life). Upaya-kaushalya sutra (Skillful Means) tells the story of a Bodhisattva who saved hundreds of people by killing a murderous thief (Jeffrey L. Richey, Zen, Premodern, in ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION AND WAR, at 465). Other Mahayana scriptures explain that such a defensive killing prevents the murderer from bringing more bad karma on himself, and creates good karma for the defender, providing that the defender acts in the spirit of compassion (Richard D. McBride, II, Buddhism: China, in ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION AND WAR, at 39). This is known in Japanese Buddhist tradition as issatsu tasho, "killing one (aggressor) in order that many (innocents) may live" and is a manifestation of "skillful means". Nor should it be forgotten that, in considering the non-linear attitude of Buddhism towards "chivalrous" violence, the blue-eyed great Buddha Bodhidharma, not only brought Zen Buddhism from India to China around 520 A.D., but was also, according to universal tradition, the founder of the martial arts and kung fu (MICHAEL MALISZEWSKI, SPIRITUAL DIMENSIONS OF THE MARTIAL ARTS 43, 1998). In mystical Zen Buddhism (as reflected in Japanese Bushido), there is a traditional expression: "the sword that (justly) kills is the identical with the sword that gives life".

Therefore, few (if any) Buddhist groups issue blanket decrees against Buddhists being soldiers, police officers, or farmers (which in Buddhism is classified as a profession involved in destruction of life), and some argue that the death penalty is permissible if it is used for preventative purposes. In general, Buddhist groups in secular countries such as Japan, Korea, and Taiwan tend to take an anti-death penalty stance, while in Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Bhutan, where Buddhism has strong political influence, the opposite is true. Almost all Buddhist groups, however, oppose the use of the death penalty as a means of retribution.

Christianity

The execution of Christ is the centerpoint of most Christian cosmology. This particular story of capital punishment has been heavily invested with meaning by Christians over the centuries. Most Christian denominations have held that Christ's execution was a unique event metaphysically. Moreover, the suffering of Christ on the cross became an iconic image, depicted over and over again in Christian artwork. This has undoubtedly colored the Christian perception of capital punishment.

While officially the calum is (with some qualifications) opposed to capital punishment, among other Christian denominations there is disagreement as to whether or not it is permissible. Furthermore, not all Christians follow the official teaching of their church on the matter. Christians in countries that practice the death penalty are more likely to support its use than those in countries in which it has been abolished, so that, for example, capital punishment has far greater support among Christians in the United States than in Europe.

Those in favor of capital punishment often point to passages in the Old Testament of the Bible that advocate the death penalty such as Genesis 9 which states, "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man." Those against tend to select passages from the New Testament that advocate love, forgiveness, and mercy. In the Antithesis of the Law, Jesus says:

You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also…" You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.

In the Pericope Adulterae of the Gospel of John, a story is told of a woman who was caught in the act of adultery. The Old Testament law demanded that she be put to death by stoning; Jesus saves her life by requiring that the first stone be cast by someone who has never sinned, and rather than take that role himself, simply tells the woman to leave her life of sin. Another verse quoted often by supporters of capital punishment is Romans 13:4: "But if you do evil, be afraid; for [the governing authority] does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil." Supporters point to the fact that a sword is an instrument used for killing rather than scourging.

Interpreting the Bible as a story of man's redemption through repentance to Christ, some Christians argue that by executing a murderer one is cutting short his life and taking away his opportunity to repent, and that it denies the role of his cross putting an end to all subsequent blood atonement for sins. Some conservative Christian groups who believe in a literal hell argue that all who die without repentance automatically go there, and point out that many serial killers, including Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy, became born-again Christians in prison.

Christianity is based on the teachings of Christ and so gives precedence to the New Testament of the Bible. Therefore pro-death penalty arguments that seem to give precedence to the Old Testament have been criticized by groups such as the Quakers and some non-Christian critics who wish to show inconsistency in the views of pro-capital punishment Christians. The argument generally advanced by pro-capital punishment Christians in response to this is that there is no such contradiction, because Jesus did not revoke the Old Testament law. According to this argument, the "eye for eye" passage (as here shown above) is part of a passage (Matthew 5:17-48) in which Jesus explicitly stated that he had not come to abolish the Old Testament law itself, but then spoke against certain interpretations of the law, including here one in which the law which advocated judicial retribution was being taken to endorse acts of personal revenge.

Jesus Christ also acknowledged capital punishment when he was on the cross with the two murderers. The one criminal confessed that they murdered and are righteously receiving their punishment, but the other didn’t express regret, and didn’t repent. Jesus only turned to the criminal who repented and said: “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43)

Catholicism

Further information: Capital punishment in the Vatican City

Pre-modern Roman Catholicism unabashedly favored the execution of grave moral transgressors. In his Stromata, Clement of Alexandria argued that "if someone falls into incurable evil--when taken possession of by wrong or covetousness--it will rangers good if he is put to death." Church theologians Lactantius and Eusebius formulated the view of Constantine the Great as "God's divinely appointed agent to restore justice and exact divine vengeance on the wicked." St. Jerome pointed out execution of "murderers, blasphemers and poisoners" is not "shedding of blood but the administration of laws". St. Augustine explained that Christ's precepts only apply to the internal disposition and the role of the judicial punisher in society is necessary and natural. St. Augustine made a great deal out of the Old Testament idea of war as punishment commanded by God as a continuing warrant to use lethal warlike force to punish and correct sin (Russell, Just War in the Middle Ages, 1975, 22-23). The Catholic Church officially condemned the denial of the death penalty in the profession of faith that Pope Innocent III required of the Waldensians reconciled to the church in 1210.

St. Thomas Aquinas developed a grim metaphor of the criminal--whether heretic, witch, traitor or murderer--as a "diseased member" necessarily amputated if the otherwise healthy body politic is to survive. In the traditional Catechism of Trent (1566 AD), it is highlighted that "lawful slaying belongs to the civil authorities, to whom is entrusted power of life and death, by the legal and judicious exercise of which they punish the guilty and protect the innocent." Later in history, the French Catholic philosopher Joseph de Maistre ferociously opposed every form of bureaucratic liberalism and believed the modern world was shattered by satanic forces of atheistic rationalism, and could be rebuilt only by cutting off all the heads of the anti-Christian Revolution in all its multiple disguises. De Maistre made the function of the executioner (as punisher of sin) the center of his Catholic aristocratic radicalism: "All greatness, all power, all subordination rest on the executioner. He is the terror and bond of human association. Remove this mysterious agent from the world, and in an instant order yields to chaos: thrones fall, society disappears. God, who has created sovereignty, has also made punishment."

Pope Pius XII (1939-1958) defended the death penalty as a form of moral expiation: "Even when executing a condemned individual, the State does not have a right over the person’s life. The public authority is empowered to deprive a condemned man of his life to expiate his fault since by his own crime he divested himself from his right to life" (I limite morali dei metodi medici di indagine e di cura , —Ai participanti del Congresso Internazionale in Istopatologia del sistema nervoso—, Discorsi e Radiomessaggi di Sua Santità Pio XII, vol. XV, Tipografia Poliglota Vaticana, p. 328).

The modernized Vatican II Roman Catholic Church, however, has demonstrated an extremely cautious attitude towards capital punishment as it is practiced in most nations in the modern world, not definitely excluding but placing heavy restrictions on its existence. The Catechism of the Catholic Church recognizes that "the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty" ([2]), but the death penalty is permissible only in certain rare circumstances. Church doctrine is that a death penalty can be necessary at times when a society does not have the means to keep its citizens safe from criminals, but that Catholics are called to oppose the death penalty if the condemned can be successfully kept behind bars to protect society. If, however, the condemned poses a threat to the well-being of society and is not likely to be able to be kept behind bars then under the principle of double effect in order to protect life, the implementation of a death penalty is permissible.^[3]

In a letter to the American Bishops on denying Holy Communion to pro-abortion Catholic politicians, the then-Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, clarified that the death punishment is legitimate and cannot be placed in the same moral category as abortion or euthanasia. He stated:

"[I]f a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. ... [I]t may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia" ([4]).

Avery Cardinal Dulles argues that the death penalty is not inconsistent with human dignity and that its repudiation in the name of specious "progressivism" can only lead to doctrinal anomie: "Arguments from the progress of ethical consciousness have been used to promote a number of alleged human rights that the Catholic Church consistently rejects in the name of Scripture and tradition. The magisterium appeals to these authorities as grounds for repudiating divorce, abortion, homosexual relations, and the ordination of women to the priesthood. If the Church feels herself bound by Scripture and tradition in these other areas, it seems inconsistent for Catholics to proclaim a ‘moral revolution’ on the issue of capital punishment" ("Catholicism and Capital Punishment," First Things, Apr. 200, pp.30-35).

In the United States

Although the Catholic Church and liberal Protestant churches in the United states have maintained official positions against the death penalty since the 1950s and early 1960s, this is not necessarily reflected in the views of their members. Conservative Christians argue that as the Bible does not have explicit prohibition against death penalty; therefore, it is considered to be permissible. Members of the Catholic Church are more likely to oppose the death penalty while most conservative Protestant groups support it. Exceptions to this rule include the Amish and Mennonites, who oppose capital punishment.

The Soujourners community has also provided a liberal evangelical Christian voice against capital punishment, often in conjunction with Pax Christi, Catholic Worker-aligned individuals and other Catholic peace activists.

Mormonism

Main articles: Mormonism and violence and blood atonement

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) presently takes no position on capital punishment, but until the mid-20th century there was a controversial doctrine called blood atonement, holding that the blood of Jesus' Atonement does not remit certain serious sins, and the only way that a Mormon sinner could pay for them would be to have their blood spilled on the ground as an atonement. There is no direct evidence that this doctrine was ever officially practiced by clergy in their official capacity, although the doctrine was blamed for a number of killings in the Utah Territory, and was made famous because of the Mountain Meadows massacre. The doctrine is cited as a reason why, until recently, Utah gave convicted first-degree murderers a choice to be executed by firing squad rather than other methods such as hanging.

Hinduism

A basis can be found in Hindu teachings both for permitting and forbidding the death penalty. Hinduism preaches ahimsa (non-violence), but also teaches that the soul cannot be killed and death is limited only to the physical body. The soul is reborn into another body upon death (until Moksha), akin to a human changing clothes. The religious, civil and criminal law of Hindus is encoded in the Dharmasastras and the Arthasastra. The Dharmasastras describe many crimes and their punishments and calls for the death penalty in several instances, including murder, the mixture of castes, and righteous warfare.

However the Mahabharata contains passages arguing against the use of the death penalty in all cases. An example is a dialogue between King Dyumatsena and his son Prince Satyavan (section 257 of the Santiparva) where a number of men are brought out for execution at the King's command.

Prince Satyavan says: Sometimes virtue assumes the form of sin and sin assumes the form of virtue. It is not possible that the destruction of individuals can ever be virtuous.

King Dyumatsena replies: If the sparing of those who should be killed be virtuous, if robbers be spared, Satyavan, all distinction between virtue and vice will disappear.

Satyavan responds: Without destroying the body of the offender, the king should punish him as ordained by the scriptures. The king should not act otherwise, neglecting to reflect upon the character of the offence and upon the science of morality. By killing the wrongdoer, the King kills a large number of his innocent men. Behold by killing a single robber, his wife, mother, father and children, all are killed. When injured by wicked persons, the king should therefore think seriously on the question of punishment. Sometimes a wicked person is seen to imbibe good conduct from a pious man. It is seen that good children spring from wicked persons. The wicked should not therefore be exterminated. The extermination of the wicked is not in consonance with the eternal law.

On the other hand, such a liberal modernist interpretation of the texts is not so absolute: in the same text, in the Bhagavad Gita, righteous destruction of the wicked is commended as meritorious and fulfillment of caste duty:

“Taking as equal pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat, gird thyself for the battle; thus thou shalt not incur sin.” (II. Verse 38)

"When justice is crushed, when evil is triumphant, then I come back. For the protection of the good, for the destruction of evil-doers, and for the establishment of dharma, I am born age after age." (VI, Verses 7-8)

In spite of liberal modernist mawkishness, death punishment for conscienceless murderers and sexual deviants has always been part of the Hindu sanatana dharma. The Indian fundamentalist teacher A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada sums up his views on "righteous lethality" and "detached violence":

"...violence also has its utility, and how to apply violence rests with the person in knowledge. Although the justice of the peace awards capital punishment to a person condemned for murder, the justice of the peace cannot be blamed, because he orders violence to another person according to the codes of justice. In Manu Smriti, the lawbook for mankind, it is supported that a murderer should be condemned to death so that in his next life he will not have to suffer for the great sin he has committed. Therefore, the king’s punishment of hanging a murderer is actually beneficial. Similarly, when Krsna orders fighting, it must be concluded that violence is for supreme justice, and thus Arjuna should follow the instruction, knowing well that such violence, committed in the act of fighting for Krsna, is not violence at all because, at any rate, the man, or rather the soul, cannot be killed; so for the administration of justice, so-called violence is permitted." [5]

Islam

Islamic scholars state that whilst the Qur'an professes the basic principle that everyone has the right to life, this principle allows for an exception when a court of law demands it. Their precept is "Do not kill a Soul which Allah has made sacred except through the due process of law". This exception authorises the administration of capital punishment when Islamic law dictates. This is the line taken by most countries in which Islam is the state religion or the principal religion, for example, throughout the Arab world and in Indonesia and Malaysia. Moreover, in Islamic jurist theory, it is wrong to forbid something which is not forbidden.

One notable characteristic of Sharia is that the family of a murder victim can pardon the murderer. In Islam, the victim and/or the victim's family are the judges for all crimes; they decide what the punishment shall be under the supervision of a jurist who knows the Qur'an.

One verse which clearly illustrates the possibility of capital punishment is in the Qur’an verse 5:32. “On that account: We ordained for the Children of Israel that if any one slew a person - unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people. Then although there came to them Our messengers with clear signs, yet, even after that, many of them continued to commit excesses in the land.” Other verses reinforce the idea that, for example, in a case of murder, the victim's family decides the punishment- with the death penalty as a possibility. Verse 5:32 notes that compassion is the best choice. "Mischief in the land" (e.g. treason) is also punishable by death. Verse 2:178 further discusses capital punishment, in the case of murder; “O you who believe! retaliation is prescribed for you in the matter of the slain, the free for the free, and the slave for the slave, and the female for the female, but if any remission is made to any one by his (aggrieved) brother, then prosecution (for the bloodwit) should be made according to usage, and payment should be made to him in a good manner; this is an alleviation from your Lord and a mercy; so whoever exceeds the limit after this he shall have a painful chastisement.”

Here, it is further clarified that capital punishment is only just with the rule of equality (slave for slave, etc., a man killing a woman would not be justly punishable by death), and the idea of the victim's family receiving a payment to spare the murderer's life is presented. This payment, some Muslim thinkers hold, is more constructive in a case of a father being murdered- the murdered father's family has a better chance of survival without him if there is monetary compensation, whereas capital punishment would leave them without a breadwinner.

List of cases in which the transgressor is required to be killed by well established Sharia views

* Murder

* Fasaad fi al-ardh (spreading mischief in the land) This can cover treason, apostasy, terrorism, piracy, rape, adultery, or homosexual behaviour.

Judaism

Main article: Corporal punishment (Judaism)

The official teachings of Judaism approve the death penalty in principle but the standard of proof required for application of death penalty is extremely stringent, and in practice, it has been abolished by various Talmudic decisions, making the situations in which a death sentence could be passed effectively impossible and hypothetical. "Forty years before the destruction" of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD, i.e. in 30 AD, the Sanhedrin effectively abolished capital punishment, making it a hypothetical upper limit on the severity of punishment, fitting in finality for God alone to use, not fallible people.

While allowing for the death penalty in some hypothetical circumstances, scholars of Judaism are broadly opposed to the death penalty as practiced in the modern world. The Jewish understanding of Biblical law is not based on a literal reading of the Bible, bur rather through the lens of Judaism's oral law. These oral laws were first recorded around 200 CE in the Mishnah and later around 600 CE in the Babylonian Talmud. The laws make it clear that the death penalty was used only rarely. The Mishnah states:

A Sanhedrin that puts a man to death once in seven years is called destructive. Rabbi Eliezer ben Azariah says: a Sanhedrin that puts a man to death even once in seventy years. Rabbi Akiba and Rabbi Tarfon say: Had we been in the Sanhedrin none would ever have been put to death (Mishnah, Makkot 1:10).

Rabbinic law developed a detailed system of checks and balances to prevent the execution of an innocent person, and these were so restrictive as to effectively legislate the penalty out of existence. The law requires that:

• There must have been two witnesses to the crime, and these must conform to a prescribed list of criteria. For example, females and close relatives of the criminal are precluded from being witnesses according to Biblical law, while full-time gamblers are precluded as a matter of Rabbinical law.
• The witnesses must have verbally warned the person that they were liable for the death penalty
• The person must then have acknowledged that he or she was warned, and yet then have gone ahead and committed the sin regardless.
• No individual was allowed to testify against him or herself.

In law schools everywhere, students read the famous quotation from the 12th Century legal scholar, Maimonides,

"It is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent one to death."

Maimonides argued that executing a defendant on anything less than absolute certainty would lead to a slippery slope of decreasing burdens of proof, until we would be convicting merely "according to the judge's caprice." (Caprice of all kinds are more visible now with computers, statistics, DNA evidence, and new discovery laws directed at prosecutors' files.) Maimonides was concerned about the need for the law to guard itself in public perceptions, to preserve its majesty and retain the people's respect.

Today, the State of Israel only uses the death penalty for extraordinary crimes. The only execution ever to take place in Israel was in 1962, against convicted Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. However, Israeli employment of the death penalty has little to do with Jewish law.

In Orthodox Judaism, it is held that in theory the death penalty is a correct and just punishment for some crimes. However in practice the application of such a punishment can only be carried out by humans whose system of justice is nearly perfect, a situation which has not existed for some time.

Orthodox Rabbi Yosef Edelstein

So, at least theoretically, the Torah can be said to be pro-capital punishment. It is not morally wrong, in absolute terms, to put a murderer to death ...However, things look rather different when we turn our attention to the practical realization of this seemingly harsh legislation. You may be aware that it was exceedingly difficult, in practice, to carry out the death penalty in Jewish society ...I think it's clear that with regard to Jewish jurisprudence, the capital punishment outlined by the Written and Oral Torah, and as carried out by the greatest Sages from among our people (who were paragons of humility and humanity and not just scholarship, needless to say), did not remotely resemble the death penalty in modern America (or Texas). In theory, capital punishment is kosher; it's morally right, in the Torah's eyes. But we have seen that there was great concern—expressed both in the legislation of the Torah, and in the sentiments of some of our great Sages—regarding its practical implementation. It was carried out in ancient Israel, but only with great difficulty. Once in seven years; not 135 in five and a half. (Rabbi Yosef Edelstein, Director of the Savannah Kollel)

Orthodox Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan writes:

In practice, however, these punishments were almost never invoked, and existed mainly as a deterrent and to indicate the seriousness of the sins for which they were prescribed. The rules of evidence and other safeguards that the Torah provides to protect the accused made it all but impossible to actually invoke these penalties…the system of judicial punishments could become brutal and barbaric unless administered in an atmosphere of the highest morality and piety. When these standards declined among the Jewish people, the Sanhedrin...voluntarily abolished this system of penalties (Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan in Handbook of Jewish Thought, Volume II, pp. 170-71).

In Conservative Judaism the death penalty was the subject of a responsum by its Committee on Jewish Law and Standards:

The Talmud ruled out the admissibility of circumstantial evidence in cases which involved a capital crime. Two witnesses were required to testify that they saw the action with their own eyes. A man could not be found guilty of a capital crime through his own confession or through the testimony of immediate members of his family. The rabbis demanded a condition of cool premeditation in the act of crime before their would sanction the death penalty; the specific test on which they insisted was that the criminal be warned prior to the crime, and that the criminal indicate by responding to the warning, that he is fully aware of his deed, but that he is determined to go through with it. In effect this did away with the application of the death penalty. The rabbis were aware of this, and they declared openly that they found capital punishment repugnant to them… There is another reason which argues for the abolition of capital punishment. It is the fact of human fallibility. Too often we learn of people who were convicted of crimes and only later are new facts uncovered by which their innocence is established. The doors of the jail can be opened, in such cases we can partially undo the injustice. But the dead cannot be brought back to life again. We regard all forms of capital punishment as barbaric and obsolete...

Rabbi Ben Zion Bokser, Statement on capital punishment, 1960. Proceedings of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards 1927-1970, Volume III, p.1537-1538

Notes

• ^ For a detailed discussion on the Roman Catholic Church's view on capital punishment see chapter 3 of Pope John Paul II's encyclical, Evangelium Vitae.

External links

• Asia Death Penalty blog focuses on the use of the death penalty in the Asian region