On Sun, 02 Dec 2007 17:23:54 -0800, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> "God can make exceptions - for example, if God commands you to kill,
>> then you aren't in violation of the 5th commandment, because God said
>> to do it."
> 
> Well, sure. Obviously if it comes from *God* it makes sense that it's an
> exception. Where JHVH commanded his followers to commit genocide,
> obviously they were justified in doing so. Or if someone says "thou
> shalt not suffer a witch to live," I guess that would override the "thou
> shalt not kill" bit.

The difficult thing for me (and I suspect for you as well) is the whole 
"God commanded me to do it" piece.  It's not provable (scientifically) 
that God has spoken to anyone, ever, so in order to not receive 
punishment those implementing the laws of man would have to have faith 
that what the "implementer" of God's will did in fact receive 
instructions from God.

I would think, as an "implementer" of God's will that one would have to 
assume that God would know there would be punishment in the laws of man 
and that there would be a price to pay in that regard.  So, either God 
intended the implementer to be punished or God would intervene and 
prevent the punishment from happening.

> But then, that would seem pretty absolute too. I guess some would argue
> you *should* kill the witch, some would argue you *shouldn't* kill the
> witch, so yah, OK, I guess there's some other context there. :-)

Quite possibly.

Jim

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