Pints With Aquinas - 76: Is it okay to kill someone in self-defense?

Starting point is 00:00:00 Pints with Aquinas depends on your support. If you're an awesome person and want to prove it, go to pintswithaquinas.com, click the Patreon banner, and there you can learn how to support the show for as little as $2 a month. Every dollar helps, and we are grateful for your support. Welcome to Pints with Aquinas, episode 76. I'm Matt Fradd. If you could sit down over a pint of beer with St. Thomas Aquinas and ask him any one question, what would it be? In today's episode, we'll ask St. Thomas whether it's ever okay to kill another person in self-defense. What's up everybody? Good to have you back here at Pints with Aquinas, the show where you and I pull up a barstool next to the angelic doctor to discuss theology and philosophy. Today, as I said, we're going to be talking about killing in self-defense, and we'll get to that in a moment. But how are you? It's so good to be here with you. Thank you

Starting point is 00:01:09 for letting me into your ear holes week after week, no matter what you're doing right now. Jogging at the gym, eh? Laying on the couch, eating a bag of potato chips, wishing you were the kind of person who liked to jog at the gym. I don't know. But look, it's just great to have you here. Hey, I want to tell you about a few awesome things that we're doing at Pints with Aquinas. First of all, I'm sure you're familiar with our comic book strips, comic strips right now here at Pints with Aquinas. I release about two every month. Thanks to all of you amazing people who are supporting Pints with Aquinas on Patreon. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You've got to check out the latest one. If you go to pintswithaquinas.com and click comic strips,

Starting point is 00:01:48 you'll see our whole catalog of comic strips. One recent one we had is, can you prove a negative? Now, this is something that's often asked by atheists. They'll say something like, well, how do you expect me to prove the non-existence of God when it's impossible to prove a negative? And in the comic strip, well, you go look at it yourself, but essentially Aquinas says, well, can you prove that there are no lions in the pub right now? Yes. She says, of course I can do that. Well, can you prove the non-existence of square circles? Yes. Yes. Yes. She says. And then Aquinas says, do you really not see where I'm going with this? And that's how he wins the argument. Because if it's true that you can't prove a negative, then you, well, you've just, you've contradicted yourself in saying that you can prove that there

Starting point is 00:02:36 are no lions in the pub. You've contradicted yourself in saying that you can prove there are no square circles and so forth. Anyway, kind of fun. Second of all, if you haven't yet got the ebook I wrote specifically for y'all, it's called You Can Understand Aquinas, A Guide to Thomas's Metaphysical Jargon. Now, I know that sometimes when people offer ebooks and you go get them, it's hugely disappointing because it's like, oh, wow, this was three pages. This is literally a blog post that I had to give you my email for. Well, I do want your email, but then you get like, it's about a 25 page book. It's quite good, I think. It's written by myself and philosopher Robert Delfino. And we go through Aquinas' most common metaphysical jargon, being in essence, the difference between a hierarchical series of

Starting point is 00:03:24 causes and a linear series of causes, Aristotle's four causes, how they apply to the five ways. Someone downloaded this ebook and wrote to me recently and said that they wish that this was stapled to every work of Aquinas because it would make him a heck of a lot more understandable. So, if you're like me and you don't just want to hear people talk about Aquinas, you don't just want to read commentaries about Aquinas, you want to read Aquinas, then I think that this book is going to help you a great deal. You can't buy the book, but you can get it for free by going to pintswithaquinas.com, throw in your email there, and you'll get it immediately. What else should we talk about? I'm coming up with these t-shirts, these Pints with Aquinas t-shirts. They'll be out soon. Maybe

Starting point is 00:04:04 they're already out. I'm recording this about two weeks in advance. So buckle up for that. Dude, this is just the bomb. I'm loving this and I hope you're loving it too. I always appreciate your feedback. If you guys have questions that you want answered, if you have any particular direction you want me to take the show in, you let me know. You can follow me on Twitter, Pines with Aquinas, or Facebook. Join our Facebook forum. We've got about 1,200 people discussing all things Aquinas there. By the way, one thing I've done recently is I was poring over the Summa Theologiae, other works of Aquinas's, and I took out these little quotations of his. And I thought to myself, you know what

Starting point is 00:04:45 would be sweet is if I posted a quote from Thomas Aquinas once or twice a day to Twitter. Wouldn't that be sweet? And that way, y'all out there can get like a bite-sized morsel of Thomas Aquinas a couple of times a day. And so that's how you'll do it. It's directly a quotation from Thomas Aquinas. None of the quotes that I put in are quotes that I heard about on the internet, you know, that you'd read and you're like, there's no way Aquinas said this, you know. These are directly from his works. So if you want to follow Pints with Aquinas on Twitter, that would be a way to kind of subject yourself to even more Aquinas every day. All right, today, as I said earlier, we want to talk about whether or not it's okay to kill somebody in self-defense. This comes from the second part of the second

Starting point is 00:05:31 part of the Summa Theologiae, the Secundus Secundi, question 64, article 7. Now, Aquinas is going to say, yes, yes, it's okay to kill a man in self-defense. But before he does that, he responds to five of the best objections that anyone can come up with. All right. So, if you're thinking to yourself, no, you shouldn't kill a man in self-defense, chances are one of these objections that Aquinas raises toward his position is going to be one that you're currently thinking about. So, here's what we'll do. We'll go through each of these objections. Okay. There's five of them, as I say, they're quite short. So stay with me. We'll read an objection and then we'll read a response and then we'll read the second objection.

Starting point is 00:06:14 Then we'll read the second response and then we'll read his main answer. Okay. So here's the first two objections. I'll give both the first and the second because in his first response, Aquinas refutes both of these, the first two. So objection one is, it would seem that nobody may lawfully kill a man in self-defense. Why? Well, for Augustine said, I do not agree with the opinion that one may kill a man lest one be killed by him, unless one be a soldier, exercise a public office, so that one does it not for oneself, but for others having the power to do so, provided it be in keeping with one's person. Now, he who kills a man in self-defense kills him lest he be killed by him.

Starting point is 00:07:07 Therefore, this would seem to be unlawful. All right. So essentially saying, quoting Augustine as saying, you know, you shouldn't kill someone in self-defense. But if you're a soldier and it's your duty to protect the common good, in that case, you might be able to kill. All right. But you shouldn't just kill in self-defense. All right. Here's a second objection. Further, he says, Augustine, quote, how are they free from sin in the sight of divine providence who are guilty of taking a man's life for the sake of these contemptible things? End quote. Now, among contemptible things, he reckons, that's Augustine, quote, those which men may forfeit

Starting point is 00:07:46 unwillingly, as appears from the context. And the chief of these is the life of the body. Therefore, it is unlawful for any man to take another's life for the sake of the life of his own body. Okay. So this objection is saying, you know, that the life of the body is really a contemptible thing. If you die, you'll go and be with the Lord anyway. So, to kill in order that you not be killed, you know, you're not justified in that. All right. Here's the objections. I'm sorry. Here's the response to the objection that Aquinas gives. And what's awesome is it's, let's see, two sentences, three sentences. He says, the words quoted from Augustine refer to the case when one man intends to kill another to save himself from death. The passage quoted in the

Starting point is 00:08:35 second objection is to be understood in the same sense. Hence, he says pointedly, for the sake of these things, whereby he indicates the intention. This suffices for the reply to the second objection. This is a really good point, hey? And I think something like we need to learn from. Because when somebody, maybe you're kind of arguing with somebody on Facebook or, you know, maybe just a friend over dinner. And they trot out a very impressive philosophical name, you know, maybe just a friend over dinner. And they trot out a very impressive philosophical name, you know, like, well, according to Kant or according to Hume or Augustine says,

Starting point is 00:09:13 and it can sound pretty powerful, especially if they're quoting Augustine verbatim. But as Aquinas shows here, well, actually Augustine's being quoted out of context. finest shows here, well, actually, Augustine's being quoted out of context. All right. So, never be afraid when somebody tries to refute something you've said or refute a position of the Catholic Church or your Christian faith. You could simply say, okay, where exactly did he say that? And they might say, well, it's, you know, in one of his works. Yeah, but would you mind showing me exactly where? I'd love to read it in context, if you don't mind. You know, it's been said that a text without context is a pretext for a proof text. I forget who said that, but I think it's a good line. All right, here's the third objection for why you shouldn't kill in self-defense.

Starting point is 00:10:11 defense further pope nicholas says concerning the clerics about whom you have consulted us those namely who have killed a pagan in self-defense as to whether after making amends by repenting they may return to their former state or rise to a higher degree. Know that in no case is it lawful for them to kill any man under any circumstances whatever. Now, clerics and laymen alike. Now, so that's the end of Pope Nicholas's quote. And then, so somebody uses Pope Nicholas's quotation, and then from that says this. Now, clerics and laymen are alike bound to observe the moral precepts. Therefore, neither is it lawful for laymen to kill anyone in self-defense. Aquinas responds by saying, irregularity results from the act, though sinless, of taking a man's life. As appears in the case of a judge who justly condemns a man to death for this reason, Here is the fourth objection.

Starting point is 00:11:21 Further, murder is a more grievous sin than fornication or adultery. Now, nobody may lawfully commit simple fornication or adultery or any other mortal sin in order to save his own life since the spiritual life is to be preferred to the life of the body. Therefore, no man may lawfully take another's life in self-defense in order to save his own life. Okay. That's a pretty good objection, right? I mean, it sounds good, you know? It's like, look, murder is clearly worse than fornication and adultery. Okay. But we would all say that you shouldn't fornicate in order to save your life. So, if you shouldn't, if you're not allowed to commit this lesser sin, fornication or adultery, then surely you shouldn't commit a greater sin, the sin of murder, to prevent being killed.

Starting point is 00:12:16 And Aquinas responds in one sentence by saying the act of fornication or adultery is not necessarily directed to the preservation of one's own life, as is the act when sometimes results the taking of a man's life. All right. So, if someone's trying to attack you or attack your family and you defend yourself and end up killing them, all right, well, the reason you are defending yourself and warding them off is precisely to avoid being killed. No one starts attacking you. Well, I don't think, generally speaking, it's not the case that somebody starts attacking you and so you start to fornicate with them in order to not be killed. Okay, fifth objection. Further, if the tree be evil, so is the fruit, according to Matthew 7.17.

Starting point is 00:13:04 Now, self-defense itself seems to be unlawful, according to Romans 12, 19. Not defending yourselves, my dearly beloved. Therefore, its result, which is the slaying of a man, is also unlawful. Aquinas says, The defense forbidden in this passage is that which comes from revengeful spite. Hence, Aglos says, not defending yourselves, that is, not striking your enemy back. All right. Now, so those are the five objections and the five responses, okay?

Starting point is 00:13:50 Now, something you should know about the Summa Theologiae and the way these questiones disputate, or however they put it, the disputed questions. This is the sort of format that Aquinas writes in. This was the format used in debate in schools in Europe during the 13th century, or some of them, in which students would come together and raise objections and then respond. And so in the Summa Theologiae, and wherever you see this format where there's objections and a response, Aquinas always takes the same approach, right? He says, here's all the objections. And then he says, on the contrary, and then I answer that. So when he says on the contrary, that little bit there is a summary of what the basic opinion is in response to these objections. Okay. It's not necessarily Aquinas' well, it isn't his fleshed out opinion on the matter. It's just, well, here's the response that's been given to this objection, and then I'm going to answer in my own

Starting point is 00:14:45 way. Okay. So he says, on the contrary, it is written in Exodus 22, if a thief be found breaking into a house or undermining it and be wounded so as to die, he that slew him shall not be guilty of blood. All right. That's Exodus 22 verse two., it is much more lawful to defend one's life than one's house. Therefore, neither is a man guilty of murder if he kills another in defense of his own life. And then Aquinas says, I answer that. And so, here's going to be the bulk of what Aquinas thinks on the matter. By the way, if you have the Summa Theologiae or if you want to begin reading it, sometimes people find it very difficult to begin reading the objections and then the said contra, then the I answer that and the replies. You know,

Starting point is 00:15:34 one way to sort of go through the Summa in a way that, you know, won't bog you down is to read the article question. All right, so we're reading from the Secunda Secundae 64, Article 7. Well, instead of reading all the objections and all the replies and the said contra, just read his main response. So if you go through the Summa, just read his main response to every one of the article questions. That's one way of doing it. All right. So he says, I answer that. Nothing hinders one act from having two effects. Okay. Only one of which is intended while the other is beside the intention. So let's give an example. Someone comes into my house. They try to hurt my wife. I force them. Actually, let me tell you a

Starting point is 00:16:25 story. This is a true story. I forget if I've told this elsewhere before. I remember my wife, right after the birth of our first child, Liam, we were living in Ireland at the time in Donegal. It was a cold night and my wife and son were in the bed with me. Liam was sleeping with us at the time. This was several days after he came out of the hospital. And we heard this loud banging in our house. And it was really scary, right? Because you often think, well, how would I respond if someone broke into my house?

Starting point is 00:17:02 But you're not really sure how you would respond. And it was quite frightening because it was really dark. It was about two in the morning and we just hear this bang, like someone came, someone had clearly come into our house because not only could we hear the banging, but they were kind of shouting. Now I just went into kind of primal mode. I jumped up out of my bed and I like puffed my chest up and I started, you know, getting really angry. It was kind of cool, actually. I didn't mean to do it. It just started happening. And it turned out there was this drunk guy. He was a big bear of a man. And he'd broken into our house and he was sort of shouting and he was clearly completely plastered. And he was sort of like mocking us for being religious people. And he had mud all over his boots.

Starting point is 00:17:51 I remember that. He was trampling through our house. And, you know, I remember that we have, for whatever reason, we had a brass candlestick in the kitchen on top of the microwave. And I'm looking at it and I'm looking at him and I'm like, I'm going to have to grab that and smack him in the head as hard as I can. Like, I don't want to kill him, but I don't want to hit him just to piss him off, right? And then have him come at me. So like, if he gets aggressive, I'm going to grab that candlestick and I'm going

Starting point is 00:18:21 to smack him across the face very hard. Now, I didn't have to do that, thank God. I was going to grab that candlestick and I'm going to smack him across the face very hard. Now, I didn't have to do that, thank God. I was able to sort of talk him down and get him out of our house and call the authorities. But suppose I had have hit him because he was becoming violent with me or he started heading towards, you know, say the bedroom to be violent with my wife or my child, I most certainly would have clocked this guy as hard as possible. Suppose I did that and I killed him. This would come under what Aquinas is talking about right here in the Summa Theologiae, the law of double effect.

Starting point is 00:19:01 Now, basically what that means is it's when you take an action, which in and of itself is okay, right? It's aimed at a particular good end, right? The preservation of my family, right? But that this action may have two effects and one effect might be a bad side effect, okay? That I don't desire, namely the killing of this man. That's what he means by the law of double effect. So with that in mind, let me just read that first sentence again, okay? He says, nothing hinders one act from having two effects, right? So if I hit him, that would have two effects. It would prevent my family from being harmed, and it would kill him, all right? And then he says, only one of which is intended, while the other is beside

Starting point is 00:19:46 the intention. I didn't mean to kill him. Now, moral acts take their species according to what is intended and not according to what is beside the intention, since this is accidental. Accordingly, the act of self-defense may have two effects. One is the saving of one's life. The other is the slaying of the aggressor. Therefore, this act, since one's intention is to save one's own life, is not unlawful, seeing that it is natural to everything to keep itself in being as far as possible. And yet, though proceeding from a good intention, an act may be rendered unlawful if it be out of proportion to the end. Wherefore, if a man in self-defense uses more than necessary violence, it will be unlawful. Whereas if he repel force with moderation, his defense will be lawful. Because according to the jurists,

Starting point is 00:20:56 it is lawful to repel force by force, provided one does not exceed the limits of a blameless defense. Nor is it necessary for salvation that a man omit the act of moderate self-defense in order to avoid killing the man, since one is bound to take more care of one's own life than another's. But as it is unlawful to take a man's life except for the public authority acting for the common good, it is not lawful for a man to intend killing a man in self-defense except for such as have public authority who, while intending to kill a man in self-defense, refer this to the public good, as in the case of a soldier fighting against the foe, and in the minister of the judge struggling with robbers, although even these sin if they be moved by private animosity. So, suppose this man walks into my house, you know, hey, how's it going? Or let's suppose he comes to the door and he's not offering much

Starting point is 00:22:14 threat, but he gets verbally abusive with me, right? Something like that. And I take out a gun and shoot him. Okay, that's clearly exceeding the force that I ought to be, you know, putting forth to prevent his aggression. All right. Smacking him in the head with a candlestick, you know, isn't as he's walking down the hallway to hurt me or my family. So this is again, what Aquinas means by the law of double effect. In fact, in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, where it actually addresses this issue of legitimate defense in paragraph 2263, the Catechism actually quotes Aquinas. It says, the legitimate defense of persons and societies is not an exception to the prohibition against the murder of the innocent that constitutes intentional killing. And here's where it quotes Aquinas, where he says,

Starting point is 00:23:10 the act of self-defense can have a double effect, the preservation of one's own life and the killing of the aggressor. The one is intended, the other is not. It goes on to say, love towards oneself remains a fundamental principle of morality. Therefore, it is legitimate to insist on respect for one's own right to life. Someone who defends his life is not guilty of murder, even if he is forced to deal the aggressor a lethal blow. aggressor a lethal blow, right? Forced to deal the aggressor a lethal blow, all right? So, the point is there, like you might be fully aware that that is what you're doing. You're dealing a lethal blow in order to stop him. There's a quote here, if a man in self-defense,

Starting point is 00:24:03 again, this is from Aquinas, if a man in self-defense uses more than necessary violence, it will be unlawful. Whereas if he repeals force with moderation, his defense will be lawful. Nor is it necessary for salvation that a man omit, not do, in other words, the act of moderate self-defense to avoid killing the other man since one is bound to take more care of one's own life than another's. Did you get that? You are bound, dear Thomist listener. You are bound to take more care protect more than anyone else's. In 2265 of the Catechism, it says, Legitimate defense can be not only a right, but a grave duty for one who is responsible for the lives of others.

Starting point is 00:25:02 The defense of the common good requires that an unjust aggressor be rendered unable to cause harm. For this reason, those who legitimately hold authority also have the right to use arms to repel aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their responsibility. Now here we're getting into the issue of just war doctrine, to their responsibility. Now, here we're getting into the issue of just war doctrine, and we might spend another episode addressing this and what Aquinas has to say about this. He essentially has, you know, three things have to be met in order for a war to be just. But, you know, think about it this way. If you're sitting here today and you're listening to me and you're thinking to yourself, okay, I get what Aquinas is talking about, that someone should defend themselves,

Starting point is 00:25:44 okay? And I get what Aquinas means when he says, you should defend themselves. And I get what Aquinas means when he says, you should defend your family. If you're listening to me and you say, yeah, it would be totally irresponsible if someone comes to hurt your family, Matt, and then you sit on the couch and say, hey, I'm a pacifist while that man has his way with your wife and child. If you recognize that that would be immoral, then you will also recognize that there are times when wars can be just because war or a just war is merely an extension of the just way in which an individual may ward off an aggressor or protect those under his care from an aggressor. Okay? Good. Thank you very much for tuning into Pints with Aquinas this week. I look forward to speaking to you again next week. I want to thank everybody who makes this show possible by supporting us on Patreon. Every time somebody puts through, you know, like a two bucks a month, five bucks a month,

Starting point is 00:26:44 10 bucks a month, I see it in my inbox immediately. And I get super jazzed about it. And I, and I send you guys a message and I'm just, I can't tell you how thankful I am. If you're interested in learning more about how to support the show, go to pintswithaquinas.com, click support. And that's how you can learn how to do that. Also, I'm going to put the show notes at pintswithaquinas.com. That's where I'm going to put them from now on. I'm not going to put the show notes at pintswithaquinas.com that's where I'm going to put them from now on I'm not going to be putting them on the actual podcast itself they're going to go at pintswithaquinas.com so go to pintswithaquinas.com

Starting point is 00:27:13 you know click the title of this podcast and right there you'll be able to see Aquinas' words for yourself okay right that's it I love you guys God bless bless you. Chat with you next week.

Pints With Aquinas - 76: Is it okay to kill someone in self-defense?

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