God and Torture

Is torture wrong, and
does God judge it as such?

Is torture wrong, and
does God judge it as such?

To those of us raised on the Golden Rule, the answer would seem to be an
obvious and resounding yes. So long as you find extreme pain extremely
disagreeable, "doing unto others as you would have them do unto you"
pretty clearly does not entail waterboarding or electrical shocks.

Yet for all the moral clarity we personally may bring to the issue, the fact
remains that the debate over torture is still just that — a debate. As a
recent study revealed, a significant
number of Christians in the United States believe that torture can be justified
— and presumably, that its use is ordained by God.

Regrettably, the reality of such dissent forces us to confront an awkward
question.

In short, if the American church is ever to speak with one voice against
torture, we need to ask not if torture is wrong, but if it is right — or
better, if God thinks torture is right.

Of course, that's a tough question to stomach. In fact, to my mind the thought
of God actively willing torture is even more abhorrent, than the worst machination of Steve Schmidt. (Which, for the record, is
saying a lot.)

Yet painful though it may be, if we're ever to move forward, the possibility
that God might will torture is one we must consider.

And when we do, we find two basic arguments. The first runs as follows:

a) God loves all life
b) Torture saves lives
c) God wants us to torture.

The logic here is patently shallow, so I'll be quick. The trouble isn't merely
the dubious assertion that "torture saves lives." Even more, it's
that God's love for all human beings is precisely why God would never want to
torture a single one.  End of story.

Alas, the second argument runs a little deeper.  At its core lies the
following:

a) Torture is justifed only in defense of a universal, divinely-sanctioned
moral good.
b) Freedom is a universal, divinely-sanctioned moral good.
c) Torture is justified in defense of freedom.

We might call this the "freedom argument." Since God desires our
freedom above all else, torture is just to the degree that it defends
freedom. 

The problem here is that the "freedom argument" fails to take into
account why God wants us to be free in the first place.

As you may recall, the lynchpin of Christian faith is free will: if our faith
is to have meaning, we need to freely will it. Take away that will, and you
take away the entire structure of Christian belief.

In this view, political freedom is universally good only because it inscribes
in law our free will — or put differently, it makes free will as central to
our politics as it is to our faith.

By contrast, torture seeks to destroy free will. As
I've written elsewhere, the whole point of torture is to make someone will what you want them
to — to override the autonomy of their mind. As such, torture runs counter to
the idea that the will is universally sacrosanct, set apart by God as the locus
of our spiritual and moral lives.

Which is why torture cannot be marshalled in defense of freedom. The two are
morally incompatible: freedom is a universal good only if free will is
universally sacrosanct; torture is just only if it is not.

The Golden Rule may offer reason enough for why torture is wrong, but that is
why torture is not right. And if we're ever to forge unity on the issue, we would
do well to keep it in mind.

Chris Meserole is the editor of Democratic Vista and the founder of Thinker Media.