- Will the death penalty someday disappear from human legislation?
“The death penalty will assuredly disappear and its suppression will signal progress for humankind. When humans become more enlightened, the death penalty will be completely abolished on the earth. They will no longer need to be judged by others. I speak of a time which is still very distant for you.”
Social progress still leaves much to be desired, but we would be unjust toward modern society if we did not see progress in the restrictions imposed on the death penalty among more advanced nations, and on the nature of the crimes to which its application is limited. If we compare the safeguards by which justice is enforced to protect the accused nowadays and the humaneness with which they are treated (even when found guilty) with what was practiced in the not-too-distant past, we cannot fail to recognize the path upon which humanity is progressing.
- The law of self-preservation gives us the right to defend our own life. Doesn’t this right apply when we eliminate a dangerous member from society?
“There are other means of saving yourselves from danger without killing. Moreover, it is necessary to open the door of repentance to the criminal rather than to close it.” - Although the death penalty may be banned from civilized societies, wasn’t it necessary in less-advanced times?
“Necessary is not the right word. People always think a thing is necessary when they cannot find anything better. But as they become enlightened, they better understand what is just or unjust, and they repudiate the excesses committed in times of ignorance in the name of justice.” - Is the restriction on cases in which the death penalty is applied an indication of the progress of civilization?
“How can you doubt that? Doesn’t your spirit revolt when you read the reports of the human slaughters that were formerly perpetrated in the name of justice and frequently in honor of the Divinity; of the tortures to which the condemned and even the accused were submitted in order to wrest from them, through excess pain, a confession for a crime that they very often had not even committed?
Well then, if you had lived in those times, you would have thought that it was all quite natural, and perhaps as a judge you would have done even more. It is thus that what seems just in one era seems barbaric in another. Only the divine laws are eternal. Human laws change with progress, and they will change further until they have been placed in harmony with the divine laws.” - Jesus said, “Whoever kills by the sword shall perish by the sword.” Don’t these words represent the consecration of the penalty of talion? And isn’t the death imposed on the murderer an application of this penalty?
“Be careful! You are as mistaken about these words as you are about many others. The penalty of talion is the justice of God; it is God himself who applies it. You all suffer this penalty at every moment because you are punished wherein you have sinned either in this life or in another. Those who have caused their fellow humans to suffer will be in a situation in which they themselves will suffer in like manner. This is the meaning of Jesus’ words. Didn’t he also say to you ‘Forgive your enemies?’ And didn’t he teach you to ask God to forgive your offenses as you yourself forgive, that is, in the same proportion in which you yourself have forgiven? Understand this well.” - What about the death penalty imposed in the name of God?
“It is equivalent to taking God’s place in the practice of justice. Those who act thus reveal how far they are from actually understanding anything about God, and how much they still have to expiate. The death penalty is a crime where it is applied in the name of God, and those who do so will be responsible for such murders.”
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