Justice/Vengeance

[ServantofGod]

In Scripture we are told to not seek vengeance:

"Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”- Romans 12:19

Many will use that verse to condemn the seeking of justice against those who have done criminal things against us(e.g. Seeking the death penalty for your brother's murderer, ect...). Are we allowed to/is it possible to pursue justice being done to someone who has personally hurt us, without "vengeance"? Where would the line be drawn?

venge·ance /ˈvɛndʒəns/
–noun
1. infliction of injury, harm, humiliation, or the like, on a person by another who has been harmed by that person; violent revenge: But have you the right to vengeance?
2. an act or opportunity of inflicting such trouble: to take one's vengeance.
3. the desire for revenge: a man full of vengeance.
4. Obsolete. hurt; injury.
5. Obsolete. curse; imprecation.

 

[toddpedlar]

In Scripture we are told to not seek vengeance:

"Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”- Romans 12:19

Many will use that verse to condemn the seeking of justice against those who have done criminal things against us(e.g. Seeking the death penalty for your brother's murderer, ect...). Are we allowed to/is it possible to pursue justice being done to someone who has personally hurt us, without "vengeance"? Where would the line be drawn?

venge·ance /ˈvɛndʒəns/
–noun
1. infliction of injury, harm, humiliation, or the like, on a person by another who has been harmed by that person; violent revenge: But have you the right to vengeance?
2. an act or opportunity of inflicting such trouble: to take one's vengeance.
3. the desire for revenge: a man full of vengeance.
4. Obsolete. hurt; injury.
5. Obsolete. curse; imprecation.

Seeking the death penalty for a murder is utterly appropriate - or did God err in writing the Law? It isn't vengeance that one is seeking but the Biblically-defined penalty that the state is empowered to enact. One boundary have to be careful to respect, though, is that the solutions sought by us in legal proceedings for any crime do not go BEYOND the Law's prescribed restitution.

Quite honestly, I believe life imprisonment is far worse than the death penalty, in capital cases, and is not a biblical penalty. Imprisonment in general is problematic, in that it is simply detention - and restitution is very rarely actually made to the victims (e.g. as might be if the prisoners were required to work and the 'pay' for that work be made to an account for the restitution of the object in question).

 

[RamistThomist]

God disapproves of vigilante vengeance. God doesn't disapprove of civil magistrate vengeance. In fact, in the OT, God places the land under a curse of murder goes unpunished.

 

[Iconoclast]

God disapproves of vigilante vengeance. God doesn't disapprove of civil magistrate vengeance. In fact, in the OT, God places the land under a curse of murder goes unpunished.

Yes,Like this;Numbers35

30Whoso killeth any person, the murderer shall be put to death by the mouth of witnesses: but one witness shall not testify against any person to cause him to die.

31Moreover ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, which is guilty of death: but he shall be surely put to death.

32And ye shall take no satisfaction for him that is fled to the city of his refuge, that he should come again to dwell in the land, until the death of the priest.

33So ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are: for blood it defileth the land: and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it.

34Defile not therefore the land which ye shall inhabit, wherein I dwell: for I the LORD dwell among the children of Israel.

 

[Thomas2007]

In Scripture we are told to not seek vengeance:

"Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”- Romans 12:19

Many will use that verse to condemn the seeking of justice against those who have done criminal things against us(e.g. Seeking the death penalty for your brother's murderer, ect...). Are we allowed to/is it possible to pursue justice being done to someone who has personally hurt us, without "vengeance"? Where would the line be drawn?

venge·ance /ˈvɛndʒəns/
–noun
1. infliction of injury, harm, humiliation, or the like, on a person by another who has been harmed by that person; violent revenge: But have you the right to vengeance?
2. an act or opportunity of inflicting such trouble: to take one's vengeance.
3. the desire for revenge: a man full of vengeance.
4. Obsolete. hurt; injury.
5. Obsolete. curse; imprecation.

Seeking the death penalty for a murder is utterly appropriate - or did God err in writing the Law? It isn't vengeance that one is seeking but the Biblically-defined penalty that the state is empowered to enact. One boundary have to be careful to respect, though, is that the solutions sought by us in legal proceedings for any crime do not go BEYOND the Law's prescribed restitution.

Quite honestly, I believe life imprisonment is far worse than the death penalty, in capital cases, and is not a biblical penalty. Imprisonment in general is problematic, in that it is simply detention - and restitution is very rarely actually made to the victims (e.g. as might be if the prisoners were required to work and the 'pay' for that work be made to an account for the restitution of the object in question).

Good response, I would just clarify that exacting lawful Justice is an aspect of God's vengeance. The civil magistrate is the ordained institution that bears the sword against evil doers and is the temporal means of God's vengeance.

As Todd correctly pointed out imprisonment is a grave injustice to all parties, God, the victim, society and the criminal himself. Failing to enact penal sanctions within the general equity of God's law is an exercise of juridical atheism and violates both the establishment and free exercise clauses of the First Amendment to the United State's Constitution.

 

[ServantofGod]

If the government fails to punish the wrongdoer, such as in a muslim country where a radical can get away with outright murder, would it be wrong to seek justice on one's own?

 

[toddpedlar]

If the government fails to punish the wrongdoer, such as in a muslim country where a radical can get away with outright murder, would it be wrong to seek justice on one's own?

As has already been noted, if one "seeks justice" on one's own, it's not justice that has been found when all is said and done, but wicked self-satisfaction.

 

[RamistThomist]

If the government fails to punish the wrongdoer, such as in a muslim country where a radical can get away with outright murder, would it be wrong to seek justice on one's own?

There is a Hank Williams Jr song called "I got Rights" where he deals with that. Awesome, if scary song.
YouTube - I've Got Rights

In a Muslim country you, a non-Muslim, are forbidden to bring charges against a Muslim because you are an infidel mongrel Christian dog and your word is about as good as such.

Now back to the Hank song, you could sort of place the murderer in a situation where you would be forced to fight in self-defense. Running on ethical ice, but it's not really vigilantism either.

 

[toddpedlar]

If the government fails to punish the wrongdoer, such as in a muslim country where a radical can get away with outright murder, would it be wrong to seek justice on one's own?

There is a Hank Williams Jr song called "I got Rights" where he deals with that. Awesome, if scary song.
YouTube - I've Got Rights

In a Muslim country you, a non-Muslim, are forbidden to bring charges against a Muslim because you are an infidel mongrel Christian dog and your word is about as good as such.

Now back to the Hank song, you could sort of place the murderer in a situation where you would be forced to fight in self-defense. Running on ethical ice, but it's not really vigilantism either.

Unfortunately that ice of which you speak is sitting at a happy temperature of 50 degrees F, so running on it is out of the question.

To put a potential murderer in a position in which you would be forced to fight in self defense is to provoke a neighbor to sin, and to act in such a way as you think will likely cause him to stumble headlong into it. This is explicitly forbidden in Scripture and no less wicked than direct vigilantism.

 

[RamistThomist]

If the government fails to punish the wrongdoer, such as in a muslim country where a radical can get away with outright murder, would it be wrong to seek justice on one's own?

There is a Hank Williams Jr song called "I got Rights" where he deals with that. Awesome, if scary song.
YouTube - I've Got Rights

In a Muslim country you, a non-Muslim, are forbidden to bring charges against a Muslim because you are an infidel mongrel Christian dog and your word is about as good as such.

Now back to the Hank song, you could sort of place the murderer in a situation where you would be forced to fight in self-defense. Running on ethical ice, but it's not really vigilantism either.

Unfortunately that ice of which you speak is sitting at a happy temperature of 50 degrees F, so running on it is out of the question.

To put a potential murderer in a position in which you would be forced to fight in self defense is to provoke a neighbor to sin, and to act in such a way as you think will likely cause him to stumble headlong into it. This is explicitly forbidden in Scripture and no less wicked than direct vigilantism.

Let's say he wants to kill me (and he has made it clear). Let's also say that I have a concealed carry license. Let's say I take a walk at night time.

 

[VirginiaHuguenot]

John Calvin, Institutes, 4.20.31:

31. Constitutional defenders of the people's freedom

But whatever may be thought of the acts of the men themselves, the Lord by their means equally executed his own work, when he broke the bloody sceptres of insolent kings, and overthrew their intolerable dominations. Let princes hear and be afraid; but let us at the same time guard most carefully against spurning or violating the venerable and majestic authority of rulers, an authority which God has sanctioned by the surest edicts, although those invested with it should be most unworthy of it, and, as far as in them lies, pollute it by their iniquity. Although the Lord takes vengeance on unbridled domination, let us not therefore suppose that that vengeance is committed to us, to whom no command has been given but to obey and suffer.

I speak only of private men. For when popular magistrates have been appointed to curb the tyranny of kings, (as the Ephori, who were opposed to kings among the Spartans, or Tribunes of the people to consuls among the Romans, or Demarchs to the senate among the Athenians; and, perhaps, there is something similar to this in the power exercised in each kingdom by the three orders, when they hold their primary diets.) So far am I from forbidding these officially to check the undue license of kings, that if they connive at kings when they tyrannise and insult over the humbler of the people, I affirm that their dissimulation is not free from nefarious perfidy, because they fraudulently betray the liberty of the people, while knowing that, by the ordinance of God, they are its appointed guardians.

Whenever I think of vigilantes, this verse comes to mind:

Ecc. 7:7 Surely oppression maketh a wise man mad;