“An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” This statement, or something pretty close to it, is attributed to Gandhi. Most people solemnly nod and agree with this. But it seems to me this isn’t correct, at least as applied to the biblical principle.
The biblical principle is to limit retaliatory justice
so as to not let things get out of hand. But more to the point, an eye for an
eye, when taken biblically, does not result in the whole world going blind. It
results in one eye for one eye. It would not necessitate the original offending
party responding, and the second party again in kind, until everyone was blind.
Justice is served in the eye-for-eye swap. It would be an act of injustice for
the original offending party to again bring harm to the individual.
This is not to say that Jesus’ commentary on the issue
is mistaken. Matthew 5:38-39 have Jesus discussing the great contrasts of the
understanding of the day vs. the heart issues in the Sermon on the Mount. My
only point for the day is sometimes conventional wisdom can arrive at similar
points to Jesus but for bad reasons.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please remember to see the comment guidelines if you are unfamiliar with them. God bless and thanks for dropping by!