A Time to Kill

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
3 A time to kill...

Ecclesiastes 3:1-3


I’m watching a movie as I type this. The movie involves widespread chaos and mayhem. Most of it is caused (directly or indirectly) by one man. That man could have been stopped on multiple occasions. The only problem is that the way to stop him on those occasions would have involved killing him.

They should have done it. Of course there is an argument to be made that they did the right thing by not killing him. It just isn’t the right argument.

There is a law that says, in essence, “Thou shalt not kill.” That law must yield to the higher law whenever it would cross it. What is that higher law? That is a fair question. The first answer is the easiest for me--that God’s will in any given situation is the higher law. That answer is easy for me because I have faith in God. I have bought into the rhetorical appeal to God’s ethos. I trust him for who he is. If God says it is time to kill, then I believe it is time to kill. We won’t go into the can of worms that opens–e.g. the “God told me to do it” defense to murder.

The next answer is that societies have set up governments and endowed them with the right to take life. This answer is harder for me because I don’t know that society has the right to break the laws outlined in Exodus 20. It isn’t hard to think of governments that have abused the right to take life. For me this is a utilitarian consideration. Society comes together and decides certain rules under which it will function, with certain punishments attached. By making the rules and enforcing them, society prevents chaos and its children, including murder.

A complete discussion of the pros and cons of capital punishment is outside the scope of this post. There are several theories of punishment. One is retributive justice, which calls for punishment that will set at right the disturbed moral balance. One is deterrence. Deterrence can be broken down into general and specific deterrence. General deterrence envisions punishment as a means of discouraging everyone from breaking the law–stocks come to mind. Specific deterrence is designed to stop the criminal himself from breaking the rules in the future. The single most effective form of punishment for specific deterrence purposes is capital punishment–kill the criminal. I maintain that for certain criminals, specific deterrence is society’s highest priority. This is especially true in the world of mass murder and comic books. Take one life lawfully to save the unlawful taking of many lives.

Of course, society’s rules should include enforcement mechanisms and procedures. Enforcing the laws without following the proper procedures is a violation of society’s rules because law’s necessary companion is order. I don’t advocate vigilantes taking life to save life, but self defense and defense of others are situations in which society has approved the taking of life without following procedure. I advocate shooting the guy holding a gun to someone’s head--if it makes sense under the circumstances. For example, if the guy holding the gun is going to escape and kill lots more people–kill him. Another example is when you have the villain in custody, and he is likely to escape or direct further mayhem and murder from jail. In that case, go through the procedure and execute him swiftly.

This is taking longer than I thought by the way.

Sure, refusing to kill someone is noble and can separate hero from villain, but killing someone can also save lives. The greater good is served by taking the life of the one who will take the lives of many, and it is not noble to stand by while people die just so you can avoid being the one to pull the trigger. There is a time to kill.

Ok, one last thing. The movie ends in a lie, because “sometimes the truth isn’t good enough.” At first it really bothered me, but then I thought, “what greater irony than the atonement?” Punish the one innocent man as if he were the most guilty, to make the guilty innocent. I think the ending may be an intentional (and imperfect) atonement reference. There were some interesting lines at the end. “Why is he running?” “Because we have to chase him.” “He didn’t do anything wrong.” “We’ll chase him, because he can take it.”

Just so we're clear, I think the truth is good enough and the atonement is the truth.