ReligionDiscuss General Theology, Religions and Denominations, God's Attributes, Predestination and Free Will, Dispensationalism, Eschatology, Philosophy, Origins, Archaeology, Science, World History and other such topics.
Moral Dilemma for Catholics: Hell or Murder? -
March 1st, 2012, 08:59 AM
Suppose that I am living in Iran, and I have just got finished fornicating with an arab woman there. Shortly afterwards, I am encountered by a group of Islamic terrorists.
They bring me back to their hideout, where they have an American soldier tied up and gagged. I am given a choice. Either I cut off his head and renounce my American citizenship. Or else, they'll cut off both of our heads.
If I don't cut off the soldier's head, I am in serious apprehension about my eternal salvation. I've just committed a mortal sin. There's always the possibility that I can try to make an act of contrition and hope for the best...but it ain't looking good. If I don't commit the murder, I may burn in Hell for all eternity.
On the other hand: I could commit the murder, and at some point, I'll likely be able to make a good confession.
Here, because of the purely accidental circumstances, we have a paradoxical result:
1. If I don't commit the murder, I might burn in Hell.
2. If I commit the murder, I might not burn in Hell.
What ought I to do?
When a Man Lies He Murders
Some Part of the World
These Are the Pale Deaths Which
Men Miscall Their Lives
All this I Cannot Bear
to Witness Any Longer
Cannot the Kingdom of Salvation
Take Me Home
Slogan/motto:
Of course you realize this means war! ~ Bugs Bunny
Reputation:
March 1st, 2012, 09:06 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Traditio
Suppose that I am living in Iran, and I have just got finished fornicating with an arab woman there. Shortly afterwards, I am encountered by a group of Islamic terrorists.
They bring me back to their hideout, where they have an American soldier tied up and gagged. I am given a choice. Either I cut off his head and renounce my American citizenship. Or else, they'll cut off both of our heads.
If I don't cut off the soldier's head, I am in serious apprehension about my eternal salvation. I've just committed a mortal sin. There's always the possibility that I can try to make an act of contrition and hope for the best...but it ain't looking good. If I don't commit the murder, I may burn in Hell for all eternity.
On the other hand: I could commit the murder, and at some point, I'll likely be able to make a good confession.
Here, because of the purely accidental circumstances, we have a paradoxical result:
1. If I don't commit the murder, I might burn in Hell.
2. If I commit the murder, I might not burn in Hell.
What ought I to do?
I thought Christians believed once saved always saved ...
Well, back to the topic ... Could you live with murdering another innocent human for the purpose of gaining entry into *heaven*.
Using the presumption that there is a heave and hell, I don't understand how anyone could live with doing something like you described nor would they actually deserve to be rewarded for their actions.
I thought Christians believed once saved always saved ...
That's what a minority of Protesants think.
Quote:
Well, back to the topic ... Could you live with murdering another innocent human for the purpose of gaining entry into *heaven*.
Using the presumption that there is a heave and hell, I don't understand how anyone could live with doing something like you described nor would they actually deserve to be rewarded for their actions.
Qua murder, you don't deserve Heaven. You deserve Hell. I designed the thought experiment for the following reason:
1. Consequentialists assert that an act is right if and only if the act carries the greatest number of good consequences.
Here, the consequences are the possibility of Heaven versus the possibility of Hell (albeit per accidens). If it's admitted that I ought not to murder in this case, this demonstrates the falsity of consequentialism.
2. But this also demonstrates the falsity of Thomistic/Aristotelian ethics. If it is asserted that the goal of all moral acts is the last end (for Aristotle, happiness in general, for St. Thomas, the attainment of the beatific vision), then here is a case in which committing a morally right act (not committing the murder) carries the distinct possibility of not attaining the beatific vision.
3. I hence conclude that both Thomas/Aristotle and the consequentialists are wrong. Morality has nothing to do with happiness in any sense. Kant speaks well when he says that if morality has any teleology at all, it's not happiness. It's worthiness to be happy.
Which shows, Rusha, that you ultimately have Kantian leanings. You assert that one ought not to commit the murder, since even if you could obtain Heaven that way (albeit accidentally, by allowing you to live long enough to repent of the murder, etc.), you nonetheless ought not to do so. Why? Because, qua murder, you wouldn't deserve Heaven. You'd deserve the opposite, namely, Hell.
Moral imperatives bind categorically, not hypothetically.
When a Man Lies He Murders
Some Part of the World
These Are the Pale Deaths Which
Men Miscall Their Lives
All this I Cannot Bear
to Witness Any Longer
Cannot the Kingdom of Salvation
Take Me Home
Slogan/motto:
Hope sees the invisible, achieves the impossible.
Reputation:
March 1st, 2012, 10:21 AM
Easy solution - don't fornicate!
Easier said than done, I know.
Remember that the sacraments exist for our benefit and God is not bound to them. We should never feel like we have to outwit God somehow. My advice would be to let them behead you and hope for a miracle.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rusha
I thought Christians believed once saved always saved ...
That we believe one can fall from grace through an act of blatant disregard for God's will (hence the need for repentance and confession) is one of the things that Evangelicals abhor most about Catholicism.
"So as not to exchange one evil for another, this poor land must be saved from the scourge of friend and foe alike." - Friedrich Schiller
Posting ability officially rated "pretty good" by Delmar.
I literally could have given any mortal sin in its place. Ideally, we would completely abstain from all mortal sins and commit virtuous actions every chance we get.
But that's not the point of the thought experiment. The point of the thought experiment is how are we to answer the question: "Is morality intrinsically related to happiness?" The consequentialists, virtue theorists and St.Thomas/Aristotle answer "yes," albeit in different ways. Kant answers no. I think that Kant's right.
Quote:
Remember that the sacraments exist for our benefit and God is not bound to them. We should never feel like we have to outwit God somehow. My advice would be to let them behead you and hope for a miracle.
Suppose I could tell the future. I know for a fact that if I die at this very moment, I won't be sufficiently sorry for my sins for God's grace to be operative. But I know that I will at a future time.
Even then, I think that the moral imperative still would be binding: "Thou shalt not commit murder." In this case, literally, "come Hell or high water." It is at this moment that the Categorical Imperative would impose itself most strongly: "Act so as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end in itself, never merely as a means to an end."
When a Man Lies He Murders
Some Part of the World
These Are the Pale Deaths Which
Men Miscall Their Lives
All this I Cannot Bear
to Witness Any Longer
Cannot the Kingdom of Salvation
Take Me Home
Slogan/motto:
Of course you realize this means war! ~ Bugs Bunny
Reputation:
March 1st, 2012, 12:15 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Spitfire
That we believe one can fall from grace through an act of blatant disregard for God's will (hence the need for repentance and confession) is one of the things that Evangelicals abhor most about Catholicism.
It's actually one of things I do like about Catholicism.
Slogan/motto:
Don't look back; something may be gaining on you.
Reputation:
March 1st, 2012, 02:11 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Spitfire
That we believe one can fall from grace through an act of blatant disregard for God's will (hence the need for repentance and confession) is one of the things that Evangelicals abhor most about Catholicism.
I wouldn't say I abhor it....but then I don't abhor Catholicism to begin with. I just disagree with some stuff.
Destroy another fetus now, we don't like children anyhow, I've seen the future baby......... It is Murder.
~Leonard Cohen
To my mind it is wholly irresponsible to go into the world incapable of preventing violence, injury, crime, and death. How feeble is the mindset to accept defenselessness. How unnatural. How cheap. How cowardly. How pathetic.
~Ted Nugent
I thought Christians believed once saved always saved ...
Thats what I believe since i do not believe that we can become spiritually unborn anymore than we can become physically unborn, but osas is definitely not what all christians believe.
Quote:
Well, back to the topic ... Could you live with murdering another innocent human for the purpose of gaining entry into *heaven*.
We have all done exactly that. Through our sin, we murdered an innocent, Christ.
Thankfully though, Christ does not require us to murder anyone to get into heaven, all we need do is receive His offer of forgiveness for our sins. No one goes to hell to 'pay' for their sin, they go for rejecting the payment that was already made for us all.
Quote:
Using the presumption that there is a heave and hell, I don't understand how anyone could live with doing something like you described nor would they actually deserve to be rewarded for their actions.
I agree, we do not deserve what He did for us but His love and forgiveness is much greater than we can comprehend. He doesn't ask us to sacrifice for Him, He did it for us.
With all due respect, you've blown my mind with this type of take on morality. You seem to be purposing very scientifically that one would need to commit this murder in order to make a good confession at a later date for both the murder and the fornication. and hence be saved.
How about we up the ante. You have just fornicated with a woman in the middle-east. They take you hostage in whatever country your in. They say to you, press the nuclear launch button and we will release you. Where does your morality take you with that one eh? Bet I gotchya there.
Slogan/motto:
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
Reputation:
March 1st, 2012, 10:44 AM
I do not even know where to begin, you have a severely twisted theology. The God you seem to worship is at best capricious. You have absolutely zero understanding of what grace is. Grace is not something that is granted after you grovel and squirm in front of a wrathful judge or someone begging for the life in front of a powerful mafia boss. You are like the prodigal son on his way home, rehearsing his groveling, the father does not even listen to him. You fail to take the idea of God being love seriously, God is simply an angry judge who will cast you into hellfire if you overstep one of his boundaries.
Besides, none of your options are moral, your entire concern is immoral from a Christian perspective. You are acting out of your own self-interest. You are treating the other as a mere instrument for your own "moral perfection", which ultimately is selfishness since it is only an instrument for self-serving. You do it only to preserve your self in face of the capricious angry judge who is the God of your twisted theology.
You should take the advice of John in his first epistle:
"There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love."
You still have the wrong perception, you seem to act out of fear for your own punishment because that is what you think God is all about, punishment. You are still in bondage of death (if you think like that) which is the father of the fear which makes love impossible.
"By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace." (Luke 1:78-79)
“There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future.”
Slogan/motto:
“Theist and atheist: The fight between them is as to whether God shall be called God or shall have some other name” S.B.
Reputation:
March 1st, 2012, 12:17 PM
Has traditio just debunked Catholicism?
Do right and risk the consequences. You don't need a priest to intercede on your behalf. The intercession has already been done. Ask for forgiveness from God and let them do what they will to you. Don't murder to save yourself.
God is not discoverable or demonstrable by purely scientific means, unfortunately for the scientifically minded. But that really proves nothing. It simply means that the wrong instruments are being used for the job. ~John Bertram Phillips
what a thread. 
See Sela's post too.
Hybrid Mode
