“Go you therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to obey all that I have commanded you”* (Mt. 28:19-20).
The following is the footnote to the above passage from THE NEW AMERICAN BIBLE, the official Bible of Roman Catholic Church in the United States—with Imprimatur.
*“All that I have commanded you: the moral teaching found in this Gospel, preeminently that of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). The commandments of Jesus are the standard of Christian conduct, not the Mosaic law as such, even though some of the Mosaic commandments have now been invested with the authority of Jesus.”
If the commandments of Jesus are the morally controlling standard of Christian conduct and not the Mosaic law—which includes the so-called Decalogue or Ten Commandments—and if the Sermon on the Mount is preeminent as a standard in the commands of Jesus that are superior to the Mosaic Law, it is for certain that the commandments of Jesus and preeminently the Sermon on the Mount also takes precedence over philosophy and philosophical theories and conjecture about what the conduct of the Christian should be.
So the issue is how does a Christian logically get from the commands of God Incarnate, Jesus, as the standard of Christian conduct, with the Sermon on the Mount being preeminent among them, to Christian inquisition, Christian just war, Christian capital punishment and Christian abortion theories that morally permit the Christian to do the things that those activities require?
The answer is a Christian cannot logically get from Jesus’ commandments, with the Sermon on the Mount holding a preeminent place, to participation in any of the activities mentioned about. The moral justifications for Christians participating in inquisitions, wars, capital punishment and abortion owe nothing to anything Jesus ever said or did.
But, if “the commandments of Jesus are the standard of Christian conduct, not the Mosaic law” does this then eliminate for the Christian the moral validity of going to the Old Testament to justify their participation in war? Of course it does! Besides and parenthetically, there is no just war theory in the Old Testament. War is only conducted on orders from God. But as the U.S. Catholic Bishop state in their 1983 PASTORAL LETTER ON WAR AND PEACE, “There is no notion of a warrior God who will lead the people in historical victory over its enemies in the New Testament.”
This leaves available only human philosophies—with their extremely limited perceptions of reality and with their universalizing of moral principle based on interpretations of their limited perception— to morally justify such activities by Christians. Of course, all the perceptions and interpretations of reality and the Source of reality that are used by Christians to morally justify war, etc.—contrary to the expressed commandments of Jesus—must come via a concupiscence drenched consciousness and sub-consciousness. Then from this little storehouse of limited and low-grade knowledge conclusions about good and evil are drawn. These in turn the Constantinian Churches raise to a level of moral equivalency or moral parity or moral superiority with commandments of God Incarnate concerning Christian conduct that is in conformity with the will of God as revealed by Jesus! Jesus’ commandments—that not even the Mosaic law is superior to—are now secondary to, or at best are only equal to, mere human philosophical speculation about good and evil, and about the ways and means of eternal salvation for each and all.
Christian moral theories that justify Christian participation in inquisitions, wars, death penalties and abortions are madness in reason’s mask—cacophonous spiritual, teleological and theological madness.
How long, O Lord, how long?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_O860l8u3U&feature=youtu.be
-ECM
