Andechs-Sisebut wrote:No, but this confused mess that you present to us is the
reason why we have the Church. What recourse, then, do we have? Well, I am Catholic and Joohan is Orthodox, we should therefore appeal to the Fathers and Teachers of the Church.
1. Psalm 137:9 — The Catholic
Douay Rheims reads, ‘
The Lord will repay for me: thy mercy, O Lord, endureth for ever: O despise not the work of thy hands.’. But I assume you actually mean this verse in Protestant Bibles (it is 136:9 in the
Douay Rheims), ‘
Blessed shall he be who takes your little one and a dashes them against the rock!’ Firstly, this is not God, but King David the Prophet, though the Psalms are inspired. We will forego the spiritual dimension because it isn’t relevant to your contention. God does fulfil this prayer through Cyrus the Great and Darius, that destroy Babylon that held captive the Jews. ‘
Thy nakedness shall be discovered, and thy shame shall be seen: I will take vengeance, and no man shall resist me.’ (Isaiah 47:3) And, ‘
There is no peace to the wicked, saith the Lord.’ (Isaiah 48:22) (Really Isaiah 47-50). We revisit Job, ‘the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: as it hath pleased the Lord so is it done: blessed be the name of the Lord.’ (Job 1:21) You have not provided why God has done evil here? Rather, he punished Babylon and set free the Jews.
2. Exodus 22:18 — This reads, ‘
Wizards thou shalt not suffer to live.’ More commonly translated as ‘Thou shalt not suffer the witch to live.’ St. Thomas Aquinas (which I think Joohan won’t mind in this case) writes in Chapter 147 of Of God and His Creatures,
Hereby is excluded the error of those who say that corporal punishments are unlawful, and quote in support of their error such texts as, Thou shalt not kill (Exod. xx, 13): Let both grow until the harvest (Matt. xiii, 30). But these are frivolous allegations. For the same law which says, Thou shalt not kill, adds afterwards: Thou shalt not suffer poisoners (maleficos, φαρμακούς) to live (Exod. xxii, 18)
And in the
Apostolic Constitutions, Book Seven, p. 466,
The Prohibition of Conjuring, Murder of Infants, Perjury, and False Witness,
Thou shalt not use magic. Thou shalt not use witchcraft; for He says, « Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. » (Exodus 22:18) Thou shall not slay thy child by causing abortion, nor kill that which is begotten; for « everything that is shaped, and has received a soul from God, if it be slain, shall be avenged, as being unjustly destroyed. »
What do we know from all this? That ‘witches’ are evil-doers, poisoners (metaphorically and literally), wicked people that make pacts with Satan and demons (See: Catholic Encyclopedia: Witchcraft). Why, then, shouldn’t lawful authority put these people to death if it is God’s whim, who can say that it is evil?
3. Proverbs 23:13-14 — This translates as, ‘
Withhold not correction from a child: for if thou strike him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and deliver his soul from hell.’ Rather straightforward, discipline your child. It is written by St. Clement of Alexandria in The Instructor,
In fine, the system He pursues to inspire fear is the source of salvation. And it is the prerogative of goodness to save: “The mercy of the Lord is on all flesh, while He reproves, corrects, and teaches as a shepherd His flock. He pities those who receive His instruction, and those who eagerly seek union with Him.” And with such guidance He guarded the six hundred thousand footmen that were brought together in the hardness of heart in which they were found; scourging, pitying, striking, healing, in compassion and discipline: “For according to the greatness of His mercy, so is His rebuke.” For it is indeed noble not to sin; but it is good also for the sinner to repent; just as it is best to be always in good health, but well to recover from disease. So He commands by Solomon: “Strike thou thy son with the rod, that thou mayest deliver his soul from death.” And again: “Abstain not from chastising thy son, but correct him with the rod; for he will not die.”
And in the
Apostolic Constitutiond, Book IV, Sec. II — On Domestic and Social Life,
Ye fathers, educate your children in the Lord, bringing them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord; and teach them such trades as are agreeable and suitable to the word, lest they by such opportunity become extravagant, and continue without punishment from their parents, and so get relaxation before their time, and go astray from that which is good. Wherefore be not afraid to reprove them, and to teach them wisdom with severity. For your corrections will not kill them, but rather preserve them. As Solomon says somewhere in the book of Wisdom: “Chasten thy son, and he will refresh thee; so wilt thou have good hope of him. Thou verily shalt smite him with the rod, and shall deliver his soul from death.” And again, says the same Solomon thus, “He that spareth his rod, hateth his son;” and afterwards, “Beat his sides whilst he is an infant, lest he be hardened and disobey thee.”2960 He, therefore, that neglects to admonish and instruct his own son, hates his own child. Do you therefore teach your children the word of the Lord. Bring them under with cutting stripes, and make them subject from their infancy, teaching them the Holy Scriptures, which are Christian and divine, and delivering to them every sacred writing, “not giving them such liberty that they get the mastery,” and act against your opinion, not permitting them to club together for a treat with their equals. For so they will be turned to disorderly courses, and will fall into fornication; and if this happen by the carelessness of their parents, those that begat them will be guilty of their souls. For if the offending children get into the company of debauched persons by the negligence of those that begat them, they will not be punished alone by themselves; but their parents also will be condemned on their account. For this cause endeavour, at the time when they are of an age fit for marriage, to join them in wedlock, and settle them together, lest in the heat and fervour of their age their course of life become dissolute, and you be required to give an account by the Lord God in the day of judgment.
None of these things are evil, not one. One of them isn’t even God commanding anyone to dash ‘them against a rock!’ Babylon, however, was destroyed to free the Jews from captivity and their enemies yoke. Killing people of all ages, male or female, was common in ancient warfare. As a sidenote, nowhere in the Bible can I find it endorsing ‘abuse’ of a man’s wife, I don’t care if some random denomination misinterprets scripture nor for Steven Anderson.
A Good Christian is necessarily a good person, that is a moral person. But what does Mark record? ‘
And Jesus said to him, Why callest thou me good? None is good but one, that is God.’ (Mark 10:18) No person is perfect, and thus no person is ‘good’. This is what I say, men may be good but only by participation of God's goodness. I’ll just reiterate what Joohan said.
Therefore, a ‘Good Christian’ is someone that follows Goodness itself and is thus virtuous. They may stray, fall away, but if they return pertinent, they will be called Holy. St. Andrew Wouters was a Martyr of Gorkum (1572), he was a notoriously scandalous, horrible priest; a fornicator, but not a heretic. He joined his brother priests in ‘the valley of the shadow of death’, and was subsequently hanged. He proved in his last moments that he could, and was, a Good Christian, clinging to the Lord. This cannot be said of his dissolute life.
As for your reduction, I’m afraid much is left out in your assessment, and your assessment is even wrong (for instance, there are more commandments than the Decalogue, they’re summary, then there is Christ’s Summary of the Law). Your conception of ‘Love’ is deficient and faulty. If you do not have good will to your neighbour, then you truly do not love them. We force the addict to leave his addiction, we do not tolerate it because of a faulty sense of ‘love’. We conform men to Truth, to medicine, that is love. When you lie to a man, you do love him. We also must be conscious by what we mean by ‘force’. No man is allowed to coerce (through violence and other such means) someone to the Faith, they must assent freely.