Violence

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Revprodeji' date='20 September 2009 - 02:57 PM' timestamp='1253473032' post='1969738']
You never know when someone is violent because they hate, violent because they're desperate, violent because they think you're someone else, violence because they're hungry, or poor, or whatever. As a Christian, it's your duty to choose love--to overcome evil with good. If love does not overcome evil in that immediate case, you have not failed to do your duty as a Christian. But, if you choose violence over love and concern for the humanity behind that veneer of hate, you have failed to be a Christian. You have "loved only those who love you," and even the pagans do that.

So when is violence permitted? Why does the CCC teaching seem to be very different then the non-violence of Christ and the martyrdom of the early Church?
[/quote]

Revprodeji,

Defensive violence is not contradictory to charity.

~Sternhauser

[N/A Gone]

explain.

[N/A Gone]

Which is greater: Your belief in the right to defend or Christ's command to love your enemies, put away your sword, and turn the other cheek?

Responding with violence is far more a gamble than responding with love. He truly would have been lucky to escape without morally wounding the other image-bearer or himself. I believe in the sanctity of life. I believe that a human person is a child of God. I do not believe persons can do anything to strip themselves of their status as children of God.

"If the teen was an experienced mugger and used violence then the story could be 'nice guy dies giving his wallet'"... Read More
or

"nice guy sacrifices own life for life of a mugger" or if he had responded differently "victim is stabbed attempting to disarm mugger" or "mugger killed with own knife; everyone's happy"

"Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."

"Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me."

Did Christ teach self-defense or self-sacrifice and self-denial?

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Revprodeji' date='20 September 2009 - 06:40 PM' timestamp='1253486420' post='1969942']
explain.
[/quote]

Well, what is charity? "A divinely infused habit, inclining the human will to cherish God for his own sake above all things, and man for the sake of God?" http://tinyurl.com/mv4brw

It is not an uncharitable act to kill a man who poses a grave and immediate threat to you, unless you are motivated by personal rancor. You can will the salvation of the aggressor while in the act of killing him. Further, you are not necessarily seeking the good of the aggressor if you allow him to continue to rape or murder. Stopping may be an act of charity. Killing him may not need always be an act [i]motivated[/i] by charity, but it is also not [i]contrary[/i] to charity.

As a creature created for love of God and of your fellow man, you cherish man, and one of those men is yourself. As CCC 2264 says, "Love toward oneself remains a fundamental principleof morality. Therefore it is legitimate to insist on respect for one'sown right to life. " Letting someone kill you is not in itself a charitable act. Letting yourself be killed can be a charitable act, but it is not an intrinsically charitable act. It could be quite uncharitable, if you do not have a grave reason to allow him to kill you, and you have a wife and children to support. In such a case, you would have a duty, in charity and justice, to defend yourself. It could be even be uncharitable to the future victims of the person you do not stop.

~Sternhauser

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Revprodeji' date='20 September 2009 - 06:44 PM' timestamp='1253486687' post='1969943']
Which is greater: Your belief in the right to defend or Christ's command to love your enemies, put away your sword, and turn the other cheek?

Responding with violence is far more a gamble than responding with love. He truly would have been lucky to escape without morally wounding the other image-bearer or himself. I believe in the sanctity of life. I believe that a human person is a child of God. I do not believe persons can do anything to strip themselves of their status as children of God.

"If the teen was an experienced mugger and used violence then the story could be 'nice guy dies giving his wallet'"... Read More
or

"nice guy sacrifices own life for life of a mugger" or if he had responded differently "victim is stabbed attempting to disarm mugger" or "mugger killed with own knife; everyone's happy"

"Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."

"Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me."

Did Christ teach self-defense or self-sacrifice and self-denial?
[/quote]

Human beings are created in the image and likeness of God. I, too believe in the sanctity of life. I believe a human person is a child of God. I believe that God has killed his own children before, when they were found to be killing his other children. If my brother tried to kill me, that would not make him any less the son of my father. But when my brother acts in a manner contrary to the image and likeness of God, I am not required by charity or justice to allow him to kill me.

Self-sacrifice is good. You may not sacrifice others. A refusal to defend oneself, barring a grave reason to do so, is a sacrifice of others when you have obligations to meet. Yes, God will take care of them. But as a husband and father, you are an agent of his providence, and you should not needlessly let yourself be killed.

Someone who attempts to kill his fellow man is, in the very act, forfeiting his own life. He can have no reasonable expectation that he may not be justly killed by his intended victim.

Whoever loses his life for Christ will find it. One is not obliged to lose one's life at the hand of a murderer, as long as your means of preserving your life are not intrinsically evil. Killing is not intrinsically evil. Denying the faith would be evil.

~Sternhauser