Jan 12
17
A Problem with the Golden Rule – Martin Luther
An illustration of the Golden Rule:
“This story is told of Duke Charles of Burgundy. A certain nobleman took an enemy prisoner. The prisoner’s wife came to ransom her husband. The nobleman promised to give back the husband on condition that she would lie with him. The woman was virtuous, yet wished to set her husband free; so she goes and asks her husband whether she should do this thing in order to set him free.
The husband wished to be set free and to save his life, so he gives his wife permission. After the nobleman had lain with the wife, he had the husband beheaded the next day and gave him to her as a corpse. She laid the whole case before Duke Charles. He summoned the nobleman and commanded him to marry the woman. When the wedding day was over he had the nobleman beheaded, gave the woman possession of his property, and restored her to honor. Thus he punished the crime in a princely way.
Observe: No pope, no jurist, no lawbook could have given him such a decision. It sprang from untrammeled reason, above the law in all the books, and is so excellent that everyone must approve of it and find the justice of it written in his own heart. St. Augustine relates a similar story in The lord’s Sermon on the Mount. Therefore, we should keep written laws subject to reason, [from] which they originally welled forth as [from] the spring of justice.” -Martin Luther, On temporal Authority, 2:318-19 as found in Luther’s Pragmatic Appropriation of the Natural law Tradition by Thomas D. Pearson. p. 55-56. Natural Law: a Lutheran Reappraisal.
Questions:
- Does a natural law ethic provide relief for the thirst of revenge?
- Does Christianity?
- Where is the place for retributive justice?