@Stalwart metaphysically speaking there is no such as a “necessary evil”. In historic Christian teaching evil is a privation and is contingent. To say that any evil is “necessary” is a contradiction in terms. @Rexlion I’m not sure there is much wiggle room when it comes to resisting government orders, especially since it has not been revealed that laws must agree with one’s conscience in order to be obligatory. As St. Paul put it so well: It seems pretty clear to me from this passage that conscience is not something set over against the State, anymore than Tradition is set over against Scripture (in the historic Christian understanding). Conscience is neither objective nor infallible, and I’m not sure why it’s being elevated by some here far beyond any status the Tradition would grant it. Conscience is merely a passive emotional state that only has moral force if it is rationally confirmed, whether by appeal to Scripture, Tradition, the secular law, societal consensus, argument, etc. As St. Paul made so clear in Romans, the presumption is in favor of the rightness of the secular law. So if the secular law tells you to do X and your conscience is telling you to do Y, that’s actually a pretty good sign that your conscience is wrong and you should do Y, if we’re going to rely on divine revelation here. Some of you seem to have it exactly backwards.
I think the flaw in this may be demonstrated with one example. Suppose you were a German in Germany during the late 1930s or early 1940s, you (like all citizens) have been ordered to report the location of any Jews you might know of, and you are aware that any Jews you report will be arrested, their property confiscated, and they will be taken to a deadly concentration camp. The secular law tells you to report them, and your conscience is telling you to not report them. Is that really a "pretty good sign that your conscience is wrong"?
It seems to me you did make a special case for Christians argument. or you are simply arguing that compliance with the law of the state is optional. This later case is clearly highlighted as a problem by Paul, and our default position should be to obey the law. I am not saying, however, that there is never a case when it may be right to not follow a law, but I am saying that this most certainly is not a default position. Let me assure you @Rexlion I am not an exception. It is not fair to suggest my statement was overly broad. what I said was This was a response to Given an abundance of literature in the common arena suggesting that vaccination is a right loving and just response to the threat of the pandemic, in order to protect, ourselves, our loved ones, and the vulnerable in our community, you said without argument to support it that 'you feel' it is contrary to the divine will for you. In truth we are probably not worlds apart, for we do all have consciences, and in the main they serve most people well. However it is clear that they are not a perfect guide, and I base that assessment on the number of failing we see in the world and in the Church, where we presume either people were misinformed by their conscience, to actually operated against to counsel of the conscience.
I’m not talking about metaphysics. It’s a colloquialism, and we both know that. All it means to say, is that the existence of government is not a good in itself which should be sought. In the way that life is a good, or that the summum bonum is a good, which should be sought for its own sake, well government is not a good in that way. A similar example is war. War may be good, but it’s not a good. It’s not something we should seek more of, but rather it’s a necessary evil colloquially speaking. Similarly government. Similarly capital punishment. There are many things which are good but they aren’t goods, which we should pursue and maximize. They aren’t like human flourishing which is a good that we should seek to maximize as much as possible. Indeed because of them being necessary evils we should minimize them. We should minimize war, we should minimize capital punishment, and we should minimize government.
When I said "I feel" in that context, I don't mean to make anyone think that my "feeling" is an impression without rational basis. It's just that I've been trying to avoid getting into an explanation of the factual rationale behind it, because it is likely to open the door to others trying to argue against that factual rationale, which will hopelessly derail the thread. Let's just say that I have reasons to believe the vaccine is not as safe as it is portrayed to be, nor is the need for the vaccine as dire as it is portrayed to be. You certainly feel that getting these vaccines is the right thing to do, and perhaps you also feel that requiring everyone to receive one of these Covid "vaccines" is a moral good (even though they are totally unlike any vaccine we've ever been given before, because up until recently all vaccines contained dead or reduced-strength virus). You base these feelings on the information which has been presented to you and on the things the Bible and your conscience tell you to do in a situation wherein the information you've received is true and undistorted. This is also how I base my feelings: on the information I've received and on how the Bible and my conscience tell me to respond if the information I've received is true and undistorted.
I agree with @Stalwart that government is a necessary evil. Government is subject to corrupting influences. It is legitimate for a person (whether Christian or not) to doubt and question the actions of government when they seem out of the ordinary or disingenuous. To obey the dictates of the State without question, no matter what they may be, does not strike me as rational let alone Biblical. As with so many scriptures, the verses we've all read (which tell us to be obedient to rulers) should not be interpreted as absolutes in and of themselves.
Gentlemen, with respect, you seem to be forgetting that the essential functions of government in their original and most perfect form - lawmaking, judging, etc. - are divine attributes. By definition, they cannot be evil. So as far as the Christian tradition of thinking about these things is concerned, I'm afraid you guys are talking about a non-entity, (and we are, in fact, talking about metaphysics here, if the presupposition is that government qua government exists at all, the contrary of which is tantamount to denying that God is the ultimate Judge). But I digress. To put it in less philosophical terms, how something "appointed" and "instituted by God" (cf. Romans 13), which is "not a terror to good conduct, but to bad", and "is God’s servant for your good", can somehow be "evil" in any sense escapes me. If some human governments turn out to be bad, as has happened throughout history, it is not because it was government per se, but because bad human beings were exercising it. In the hands of a morally good agent there is nothing evil about it. Furthermore, the institution of human government need not have been a result of the "Fall", but rather could just as easily have been, and arguably was, part of the original creation itself. As Aquinas put it: The notion that there would have been government with or without sin/evil does not stand or fall with Aquinas and whatever cogency we may assign to his position. It is defensible on other, non-Aristotelian, grounds, including social contract theory. Among modern, secular thinkers, the preeminent example of this line of thought is Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia. (There's really no point in even discussing this subject at all today without having first at least read Nozick.) In any event, we really ought to put aside all this nonsense about government being a "necessary evil". There's nothing inherently Christian about such sentiments that I can see, at least not if Scripture and Tradition are one's guide in such matters.
It is a moot question. When we look at the Patriarchal traditions of the Old Testament clearly starts with a family structure, which seems to persevere in the main until Joseph is sold into slavery. The return from Egypt is much more focussed on the tribe, and we have a sense of a developing hierarchy and body politic in this period. The other nations had Kings, and Israel wanted a King, and so David was appointed King of Israel, and the sense of nationhood and government seems to become the entity. Most of this is incremental and I think that these things are markers of the process that is going on, rather than the process itself. Given that there is a strong biblical tradition or nationhood, kingship, and government, so it seems perhaps a little dismissive to declare government a necessary evil. None the less I agree that we all have a responsibility to ensure that governments stay on track. Within the contemporary world we rely on the principle of a free press to keep us informed. I think I mentioned earlier that this is, in my view, one of the things that is clearly not functioning properly at the moment, and indeed at times seem to be hand in hand with the corruption that is going on. I think it is more appropriate to regard government as a given, a moral neutral, threat wields its power for good or ill. They certainly are worth of scrutiny, and to have their actions questioned, however I also believe in the main our default position should be compliance, and only in unusual circumstances would I advocate disobedience.
I believe the fundamental objection here is to the COVID-19 vaccines. I have to wonder what the real objection to these is. It does not seem to me that many of them are objective. I real cannot grasp why some people are so opposed to them.
Lest we forget, Israel was stupid to have wanted a king 'like all the other nations around them.' It was not God's best for them.
I would have to type for at least 2-3 hours to lay out all the information and reasons in a cogent fashion. But would you grasp it?
I don't mean to suggest incapability of grasping it, but willingness. Information is generally disregarded when it goes against one's deep-seated thoughts and beliefs.
The reason Covid is at the center here is because it is 99.97% survivable and yet because of it police are punching people in the face, turning entire countries into prison camps, and in general restructuring society on the entire planet. All because of something which is marginally more serious than the flu. The argument we are offered is that this worldwide fascism is “for the greater good.” Our reply: “for the greater good” is an utterly bankrupt and false basis for government. It is frequently even evil, because genocide, euthanasia, and government eugenics have been frequently served up under the guise of greater good. Consequently the basis for government has to be something else which does not aid and abet evil. And does not offer to the evil people an extra power which lets the reign of evil and sin have a greater scope in the world.
I don't object to the vaccine. I am vaccinated as is my wife. My objection is to the forcing of anything on anyone. I missed a lot of the debate as I can see so I am not going to attempt to go back and pick up where I left off. I will just join in where we are now
The flu has been around for far longer than I’ve been alive, and yet I’ve never known a single person who has died from the flu or been hospitalized because of it. I do know people who have died and/or been hospitalized from COVID-19. With respect, it is inconsistent in the extreme to pick and choose when to play the percentages game. When progressive measures work to lower abortion rates (for multiple decades in a row), the pro-lifers scream that nothing short of a total ban is acceptable. Yet somehow +600,000 preventable deaths (<0.5%) of children and adults is acceptable to the same group. “Pro-life”, indeed. People just need to take the shot and stop complaining about it. My patience with that crowd ran out a long time ago. Their arguments are garbage.
I have known a couple people who have died from the flu. I have known more than 5 people who have died of Covid. It is a lot more dangerous but even then forcing the shot on someone is not right. They know the risks and they can accept them or not.
The people who refuse it aren’t the ones I’m worried about. That’s just natural selection doing its work. It’s the vulnerable people who get infected because of the deliberately unvaccinated that I worry about. Since there’s no constitutional right to breathe on people or infect people, I have zero problem with forcing people to get it, up to and including kicking their door in and jabbing their arm under restraint if necessary. I’d rather it not come to that, but that should absolutely be considered a final option for the truly uncooperative. Everyone without a legitimate medical exemption should be required to get it.
You are confusing the flu with the cold. Many people don't realize that the two are different things. The flu can be an extremely deadly infection, which kills 100-200,000 people a year. Here is an NIH article from 2019: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6815659/ "Until recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated the annual mortality burden of influenza to be 250 000 to 500 000 all-cause deaths globally; however, a 2017 study indicated a substantially higher mortality burden, at 290 000-650 000 influenza-associated deaths from respiratory causes alone, and a 2019 study estimated 99 000-200 000 deaths from lower respiratory tract infections directly caused by influenza."
On the basis of the data we have you have overstated the survival rates rates. Given that these statistics have already been impacted by the proportion of citizens who have been vaccinated I suspect the number you have produced with an apparent precision of two decimal places is incorrect. The reference to countries being turned into prison camps I will allow on the basis of poetic licence. We are back in church this Sunday, with masks and no singing and capacity constraints (4sqm rule) in place. Please note I am not attacking your position, but when it comes to numbers we need some white hat thinking.