Texas triumphs with new law banning abortsions after 6-weeks, child w/ heart beat

Well that’s kind of a gigantic correction; but thanks for that nonetheless. The stance of the Church is and has been absolutely ironclad about the sanctity of life and we here of all people, should represent her position accurately.

I don’t disagree with that, but that’s because the modern era doesn’t even ask about the soul; even the Christians have begun having a highly secular view of man. We only look at DNA, chromosomes, and leave anything about the soul, as doubtful & insubstantial. Invictus (granted, Episcopalian but still), doesn’t even believe in the very body/soul anthropology itself; and advocates for legality of late-term abortion. It is hard to imagine a more evil position than that. So you and I can nuance the questions of ensoulement and the historic positions of the Church regarding the first few weeks after conception. But before we do that, we have to form an absolutely impenetrable front against the other side here, the pink elephant in the room.

 

This is a lie. You either haven’t read what I’ve said, or you haven’t understood it (and don’t want to). I never said I didn’t believe in souls; I said (1) that - following Kant - my philosophical understanding of soul is as a moral concept rather than a metaphysical one, and (2) that the adoption of body/soul bipartite anthropology by the Church postdates the Scriptures, and thus as a matter of sound exegesis it is not legitimate to read that anthropology back into specific passages in order to try to find out when “ensoulment” occurs. If one does, the result will be all manner of absurdities and contradictions, as Kant predicted and as ZachT has already demonstrated with specific examples. I believe in a body/soul anthropology like everyone else here, but that assumption is not a magic exegetical key that can unlock the door of any question about the soul one puts to it. I also don’t see that questions about “ensoulment” are relevant to the discussion at all: the issue is what the extent of individual bodily autonomy is, not when personhood begins. I also never said I believed all late-term abortions should be legal, only medically necessary ones.

The main point I have made again and again and again throughout this thread is that the contention that early term abortions are murder cannot be supported from scripture. As ZachT has made clear, such a position is indistinguishable from the historic Anglican position, and since Episcopalian = Anglican, what else should anyone expect? So, seriously, enough of the misrepresentations and cheap shots about my being Episcopalian. Ad hominem attacks have no bearing on the validity of my argument, and no place in civilized discussion among adults. You owe me an apology sir.

 

With the clarity that time gives I see now that I misspoke in haste, but when read within the context of my original posts in the thread I probably thought my position was still clear. Naturally permitted is the incorrect use of word.

Regardless, I also hold to one of my earlier statements - that there isn’t (to my knowledge) church doctrine on this issue and there probably shouldn’t be. Each Christian should be free to discern issues not clearly determined in scripture for themselves, but should naturally give appropriate respect to the patristic writers, the historic position of the church, their bishop and their priest. On that basis it’s antithetical to Anglican tradition to decry anyone who dares hold a contrary opinion to the most extreme as an agent of Satan and would be “more Christian if they wore the skin of one”. God forbid staunch “Marxist liberals” like Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas fall foul of modern radicals.

 

What if we determine (and we should) that bodily autonomy is principally limited at the point it infringes on another humans right to life? (I think it’s limited in more cases then exclusively that, but surely we can unanimously agree that’s a hard limit?) Then, surely, personhood is the primary issue to be resolved because it sets a hard barrier at which it could never be ethical to have an abortion, unless the mothers life is threatened.

 

But, should the State be able to enforce a person’s right to life to the extent that enforcement infringes another’s bodily autonomy? Should one, for example, be able to be compelled by the State to give up a kidney, or a lung, because another person’s kidneys or lungs are failing, and unless they receive an immediate transplant, they will die? Very few, I suspect, would want to say that kind of a violation should be permissible for the State to commit, with or without some form of due process. And if that kind of infringement is inherently off the table, then (as I understand it) it ceases to matter at that point whether the intended recipient is an individual person or not. If something’s wrong it’s just wrong, regardless of who or what it affects (i.e., the nature of the debate is ultimately either Deontological Ethics vs. Utilitarianism, viz., either bodily autonomy is inherently justified, or it is justified only by what effects it has on others in specific scenarios; or, the debate is between two different deontological principles, viz., an inherent right to life vs. an inherent right to bodily autonomy, in which case what is needed is a “higher” inherently right rule that will tell us when to prioritize one deontological principle over the other). And if one can recognize a general principle in that scenario, surely it has (at least some) applicability to pregnancy as well. Now, on the other hand, I think most people would want to say that by the third semester (certainly by the final 10 weeks at the latest), purely elective procedures should be prohibited in most circumstances. So perhaps the way to reconcile that intuition with a “strong” principle of bodily autonomy is through a doctrine of implied consent (perhaps this is the “higher” deontological principle alluded to above). If Americans as a whole (not just on a state-by-state basis) were allowed to work this issue out democratically like most other Western nations, where I suppose the law would probably end up is a system that promotes and allows greater availability and affordability for a genuine choice in the early part of pregnancy, and a regime likely somewhat stricter than what we currently have in the latter part. What I’m attempting to do here is to describe a theory that could justify the particulars of what I suspect a truly democratic consensus on the subject might look like. In that regard, I have not found the application of non/post-biblical concepts like “ensoulment” to individual biblical texts to be especially helpful. The way I’m thinking through it is worlds apart from the rather crude and unsophisticated approach to the subject often taken at a more popular level of discourse, but the intent is to attempt to justify a democratic consensus that would be more permissive in the earliest stages and quite restrictive in the final stages (which in turn would roughly approximate the historic Anglican consensus in most respects). What may very well be revealed in the process of aggregating individual preferences to achieve consensus is a glimpse of higher Reason at work. That’s one reason why it’s worthwhile to wrestle with a more theoretical approach to this and other ethical subjects.

 

But compelling you to give me your kidney is not your bodily autonomy infringing on my right to life. There's no encroachment there by you. You have not taken any action that affects someone else. I am the actor in that example. The harm principle comes into play when you take some action that causes harm to another. If your bodily autonomy is being compromised there are certain actions that would be reasonable for you to take to protect your bodily autonomy, and there are some that would be unreasonable. Taking someone else's life, I thought, should be uncontentiously unreasonable, both from a deontological perspective and a utilitarian perspective.

Deontologically, my right to life is a "higher" principle, as you say. The right to life is the gateway right through which all other rights are accessed, including bodily autonomy. I have no bodily autonomy when I'm dead. Your bodily autonomy needs to be principally more important than not just my bodily autonomy, but the sum of all of my inherent rights, and the sum of all of my responsibilities I can no longer effect for others. If I have dependents, your exercise in bodily autonomy has not just trumped every one of my rights, but some of theirs as well (not applicable to abortion, but just to be complete).

From a Christian ethical framework, murder is wrong. If I am ensouled, it is never permitted to murder me, no matter how significantly your bodily autonomy is being infringed. Sure, we are bound to "love thy neighbour", but not "respect thy neighbours' sovereignty over their own bodies, to the extent of being willing to die for thy neighbour".

From a utilitarian perspective the surplus happiness you experience from not having your bodily autonomy infringed, for the duration it would have been infringed, needs to outweigh the happiness I would experience for the rest of my life, as well as the happiness I would bring others (and on the corollary be greater than the net loss of happiness others experience from my death both directly, and in terms of productive capacity).

The Texas bill was passed by the democratically elected legislature (I assume?). Americans will only be prohibited from working this out democratically if the courts overrule the Texas decision. I'm generally a bigger fan of centralisation than federalism, but I see no reason why the issue being resolved on a state-by-state basis for federalised governments is wrong, but a nationwide poll would be just.

 

The separation of church and state in Great Britain has only started occurring en masse in the mid-1800s, so the 1828 Act would’ve been one of the last pieces of legislation where is present the hand of the Church no less than that of the Government. Once the church started receding from legislation, the secular laws quickly deteriorated, on abortion and everything else; so we see in the 1828 Act’s strength, the strength of the church.

The second point is, I want to reaffirm how much of true Anglican doctrine has been lost in the last century. You live in Australia, and the Church of Australia is inches away from blessing get unions. Do you think that your prelates and theologians will eagerly share with the people the historic doctrine of the Church on homosexuality? Divorce is easy and free in Australia: do you think you’ll readily find how ferociously the Church of England forbade divorce? Even as late as the 20th century, even commanding THE KING to abdicate because he wouldn’t abide by her forbiddance of divorce?

So when you say there is no official teaching on abortion, how confident are you? How likely is that, really? Plus add the unanimous legal rulings, from centuries of jurists. The orthodox Anglican position is pretty clear.

 

But even then, there are circumstances in which the right to life can be negated by a higher principle. Biblical examples include capital punishment, warfare, and self-defense. The last of these three entails the law of double effect, which could easily be invoked in a discussion of abortion. Murder in the Bible and in the tradition of moral philosophy is unjustified killing, not killing per se. The right to life is thus neither the highest principle, nor is it absolute. A right to bodily autonomy has firm grounding in other laws (the prohibition of kidnapping, for example), but can also be negated under certain circumstances (being placed under arrest, for example). In the kidney example, the one whose rights are being infringed is the one whose kidney is being forcibly taken (i.e., stolen); there is no right to live forever, on the other hand, for the person whose kidneys are failing. So what’s needed, if we’re going to take a deontological approach, since neither right is absolute, is a higher principle that will tell us when the right to life should be prioritized over the right to bodily autonomy, and vice versa.

 

If I must include capital punishment in the framework, then the right to life is still the relevant right to consider. You took someone else's life, so in retribution the state takes your life. Your life, in that instance, did not trump another's life. Ethical cases for taking a life are limited to those cases where by doing so you save a life (self-defence, etc.), and not to serve any other principled objective. We can limit abhorrent extensions like harvesting the organs of the elderly to save the life of the young by moderating with JS Mill's harm principle.

But really, I would also say capital punishment is immoral, both from a secular deontological perspective and a Christian perspective. Jesus annulled the biblical examples by rejecting an eye-for-an-eye on the Sermon on the Mount. If you want a utilitarian argument - it's not effective as a deterrent, and the brutalisation hypothesis suggests it actually increases homicide rates.

 

Personally, my reading of Kant is that deontological ethics is a one-sided way to interpret his moral philosophy (propagated in the Anglo-American world by more utilitarian-oriented philosophers like J.S. Mill), and I agree with Rawls that any moral philosophy worth taking seriously includes an account of the consequences of actions and not just the inherent rationality (or otherwise) of the law itself. We do have to consider the concrete consequences in a holistic way rather than just focus on principles in an abstract manner.

With respect, we will have to agree to disagree about capital punishment. I recognize nothing in what Jesus said that annuls it as a power that the State legitimately possesses and has the authority (from God) to use. There was no annulment of the Mosaic Law in Jesus' teaching, and I think there is a fairly broad academic consensus on that at this point, at least among NT scholars. And I disagree about its deterrent value, in that it certainly deters the executed murderer from ever murdering anyone again. From the standpoint of the dignity of the condemned person, in some subjective respects I think life imprisonment is a worse punishment (and I morally object to it as a legitimate form of punishment for all but the most serious crimes). I realize that my stance on capital punishment goes against the grain of majority opinion in Christendom today (though I somehow doubt our separated ACNA brethren will be terribly upset with me about that particular deviation), though I think the tradition strongly favors my position over an abolitionist one. That being said, the particular manner in which capital punishment is practiced and applied in the United States leaves a lot to be desired, to put it mildly, and I would have no problem with a lengthy moratorium on executions to allow sufficient time for appropriate and necessary reforms to be done. However, although it is an unpleasant and unfortunate reality (though certainly no more so than warfare), capital punishment is a civilized State's last line of defense against anarchy and revolution, and there are certain crimes and individuals for whom it is necessary, warranted, and obligatory (e.g., Adolf Eichmann, Saddam Hussein, Timothy McVeigh, etc.).

 

This is most certainly not true, and cannot be true. Have you never eaten bacon? Do you believe adulterers should be punished with the death penalty? So surely some parts of the Mosaic Law have been annulled in some way. And on what basis could the apostles and the patristic fathers teach the fulfilment of Mosaic Law through other means, if not through the teaching of Jesus? Who are they to overrule the Law of God if it is their own teaching? Obviously it's not all annulled, we all still keep the commandments, but some of it is, and among them is the death penalty.

On retributive justice:

‘You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also;
~ Matthew 5.38-39​

On rehabilitation over capital punishment (here's this passage again):

The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, they said to him, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’ They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, ‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’ And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus straightened up and said to her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ She said, ‘No one, sir.’ And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.’
~ John 8.3-11​

When Jesus says He did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfil it He isn't saying the old laws remain unchanged, He is saying the purpose of the laws remains unchanged. The gospel is full of Jesus breaking the law to the outrage of the pharisees. In healing on the sabbath Jesus did not breach the purpose of law, just the letter of it. An eye for an eye is no longer necessary to hold society together. Not only is it no longer necessary, it's no longer productive - it causes more crime than it prevents, retribution is not so valuable as to justify more death and more crime tomorrow so we can sate our bloodlust today.

If you're pro-life (I understand you are not, but others on this forum are), and you support the Texas law, you should also oppose euthanasia and the death penalty. All life is sacred, even the lives of sinners.

I don't have much evidence of what the academic consensus is, beyond just common sense that no mainstream church follows Mosaic Law and academics often belong to churches, but I can point to the catechism of the Roman Catholic Church, which says the church is opposed to the death penalty, to indicate at least the RCC academic consensus says there is some annulment of Mosaic Law.

I respect you asked to agree to disagree, but I just couldn't stop myself from highlighting this is a pure corruption of the word "deter".

deterrence; the action of discouraging an action or event through instilling doubt or fear of the consequences.
​

Killing someone might protect future victims, but there's a big difference between criminal justice policy that prevents reoffence, and criminal justice policy that deters offences. The point of deterrence is to stop them killing the first time. The brutalisation effect, in a brain-bending reversal of intuition, observes down to the individual news article reporting on an execution that the death penalty increases the homicide rate, which is the opposite of a deterrent effect.

 

Whether it is sacred is questionable, and isn't even the relevant question. For example a communion vessel can be sacred, ie. consecrated, but then we can de-consecrate it and melt it down into a fork. So with capital punishment, the question is not whether "life is sacred", but rather if it became desecrated, de-consecrated, and thereby became forfeit. When a person kills someone, that means they can be killed in return.

The Beautitudes that you quoted, and the Sermon on the Mount, are not a disproof of this, because they are supernatural virtues, whereas capital punishment is a product of natural justice and natural law. The natural virtues and the supernatural virtues both exist. We must be selfish and provide for our families (natural), and we should love our neighbor as ourselves (supernatural). Etc. Where that line is drawn, how to combine natural law with the supernatural revelation: well that's the philosophy and the theology of the Church. But to keep that story short, capital punishment most definitely fits within that scheme, and has for thousands of years of church history.

Retributive justice does not stem from the Mosaic law, but from natural law itself. Many people who never received the Mosaic law, nevertheless had retributive justice, and implemented it rightly. Some parts of the Mosaic law have already been fulfilled and no longer applicable, but Natural law as a wider category remains intact, from the start of creation until its very end. The proof text from St. Paul where he endorses capital punishment is just one instance. Retributive justice, and natural law, are most definitely not abrogated, indeed cannot be abrogated even by God, because God is himself the author of natural law and would thus be abrogating himself.

 

Why is that true?

Natural law evolves as human nature evolves. And human nature, at least in the Christian world outside the US, has evolved beyond the desire for the blood of our enemies. I feel no desire to kill those who kill my loved ones. I don't see it as a positive manifestation of my grief (if anything it's more likely to make my grief toxic while I wait), it doesn't help anyone, and I would just be creating more suffering by taking the killers life. I certainly get no closure or enjoyment from it.


Dark Green indicates fully abolished, Light Green indicates abolished except for exceptional circumstances (like war crimes), Brown indicates abolished in practice (still have a provision for it in law, but have a moratorium), Red indicates active. Note the similarities between the map above and the map below.



Obviously Americans should be free to hold their own positions without any pressure from what the rest of the world is doing, but when I see other Christian nations that support it they all seem to be authoritarian, or unstable democracies. It makes sense to me why the death penalty is attractive in those countries. Why the death penalty is still attractive to the natures of Christians in the US is one of the very many mysteries to me of your completely foreign and yet near-culturally identical homeland.

To be honest, the only justification I can comprehend is that it creates some positive criminal justice outcome (e.g. less people are murdered in a system with capital punishment than in a system without it), and it doesn't. I cannot grasp the argument from natural law, because I don't even think I can empathise with a nature that agrees with it. To me it is like empathising with some archaic natural law of chopping hands off thieves, I'm no longer capable of rationally putting myself in their shoes in any way that is authentic or meaningful.

 

Yeah but, according to all the theologians and philosophers, human nature doesn't evolve, and neither does natural law. We have the exact same human nature as the ancient Romans.

The problem there is, not that chopping hands of thieves is archaic, but that it's something used today in Islamic countries. That's why you don't connect with it. The culture is different/wrong, the principles of justice are all messed up, just the people are all messed up.

You're using the word 'archaic' there as a mask, to cover up a cultural disconnect from its use today in people who are alien to you. But if, say, Thomas Aquinas, Richard Hooker and Samuel Clarke proved elegantly how it was a most elegant and precise enactment of justice (it's not, but let's suppose), and if you had hundreds of years of Christian and Western history which had stories of people repenting from it, from it being effective at enacting justice and deterring evil, then you'd be the first in line to support it.

After all, this is how Dr. Guillotine's machine came about in the 1790s. It was promoted as the most elegant and humane way of accomplishing its goals, compared to the messy methods preceding it. Dr. Guillotine's machine was a work of elegance, justice, and yes, mercy. And yes, your ancestors saw it as such. And frankly, for the right person, it still is that today.

 

This is correct, of course. Using "deter" in a less-than-proper way in this context is a common American tongue-in-check retort. I suppose some things can get lost in translation even when everyone's speaking English. And you're right: there's not a lot of evidence that it's a deterrent in the strict sense.

I defer to church tradition, and the Rabbis, on those items. I'm not Jewish, so most of the ritual restrictions regarding food do not apply to me as a Gentile. Regarding the death penalty, the Rabbis of the Tannaitic and Amoraitic eras came up with so many procedural hurdles to applying it that no religious Jew reads those texts this way anymore. In practical terms, it's been abolished within Judaism, but not because the Rabbis thought the punishment itself - prescribed as it was in the Torah - to be inherently unjust. In keeping with Jewish tradition, the State of Israel has never had a death penalty. They still executed Eichmann.

That capital punishment is a power rightly and necessarily belonging to the State, as the last line of defense for society against anarchy, sedition, and revolution, and to protect the population from violent criminals, is something so obvious, and so thoroughly attested in the Scriptures as well as by the vast majority of the world's greatest philosophers and lawgivers throughout history, that I consider modern opposition to it to be something of an anomaly. "You reap what you sow." One may be forced to yield that which one has wrongfully taken. That is justice. I respect those who disagree, but I don't understand them, in principle, especially when that opposition comes from within Christianity, as passages that support capital punishment are so well attested in the NT. The modern Roman Catholic Church's current stance on the subject is very much at odds with its own historic position. I would love to live in a world where capital punishment (and abortion, for that matter) was never necessary, and I do think that is the ideal toward which we should all strive, but we aren't there yet, and until we are, I think it is essential that we face the world as it is, not as we'd wish it to be.

 

I'm not convinced I've ever read a post-classical philosopher that has explicitly made that the case. Even if some did, they're wrong. Human nature observably changes. As we found cities, understand God, develop science, develop formal systems of logic and reasoning, as we better understand the world and our role in it, our natures have evolved dramatically. We are not the same peoples, in thought and in values, that we were even 2000 years ago, let alone 12,000 years ago. We can examine changes in morality beyond the coercive force of laws even in the lifespan we live in. It is especially apparent when we view the opinions of man across the span of time. If all civilisation was to collapse and we were to return to the wild tomorrow our natures would regress, but not instantaneously. We would not have the nature of a caveman in one generation, despite our environment being the same, and so clearly something is different about us today than in the past.

I would also say that scripture demonstrates that not to be the case (Do Adam and Eve's natures not change in Genesis?), and church tradition actually demands we believe the opposite (what is regeneration but a radical change in our nature?). These are both examples separate from what I'm saying, that nature organically evolves, but if we can accept natures have changed in the past through the fruit and change today through baptism, or whatever you want to say is the catalyst of regeneration, then surely we can accept evolution also changes our natures.

It's archaic to the West, an anachronism from 2500 years ago. What changed in us that we all did it two and a half millennia ago, but none of us would get any retributive pleasure from it today? Why was it natural to chop off the hands of a thief in the past, but now we feel satisfied just getting our stuff back and the thief being punished financially, or maybe a brief prison sentence in extreme cases? Even in the USA you had cropping (chopping off the ears) for offences until 1839. The same natural law defences you make today for capital punishment could have been used in the the 19th century for maiming criminals. It's a punishment in the Code of Hammurabi, it's about as historically natural law as you can get. But, I'm going to assume, the idea of disfiguring someones face for perjury doesn't sit comfortably with your nature today. Because natural law evolves as man's nature evolves. You can say retributive justice is natural (and obviously to some extent it still is), but the kind of retribution you yearn for now is different from the retribution your ancestors yearned for. Your natures are similar, but not identical.

If Aquinas made a persuasive argument for cutting people's hands off I would still see it as a symptom of his time that has no place in the modern world. I can say that with confidence because I've read Augustine's justification for the death penalty and I still hold it's unpersuasive today. We don't need it anymore, I get no retributive pleasure from it, and as evidenced by the legal reforms of most of Christendom, billions of others no longer do either.

 

Plenty of dietary rules applied to Gentiles, but if that's of contention, then why are Christians no longer circumcised? Because the letter of some of the old law was annulled to better fulfil the purpose of the law. Paul can detail a new circumcision, because the old law of physical circumcision is annulled. Jesus annulled an eye for an eye on the Mount of Beatitudes, because turning the other cheek better fulfils the purpose of the law.

 

The lex talionis wasn’t annulled. The whole purpose of Jesus’ counsel was to ensure that people who followed him would never violate it. With respect, the passage’s stance on the lex talionis is the exact opposite of the meaning you’re assigning to it, and makes perfect sense when you consider its original Jewish context. He specifically said - in the same passage - that he came to abolish nothing. The safest assumption is that that’s exactly what he meant. Like I said, in a Jewish context, what he said would’ve made perfect sense to his hearers.

 

Then we're operating on differing definitions of 'human nature'. When I say it, I mean the essential differentia of man and the substantial attributes which uniquely identify us as compared to other creatures. Sure, cultures change, but those have never been included in the definition of human nature.

If human nature changed, then we could not understand or relate to the works from thousands of years ago. But we can understand and relate to them, indeed it's one of the precious joys of a liberal education to read a 2000-year old poem, and hear it connect to something in our souls in exactly the same way as it to its hearers from aeons ago.

And by the way there's no such thing as a 'post-classical philosopher'. Classical philosophy (philosophia perennis) has books published by authors every single year including 2021, with conferences, symposia, and thousands of people in attendance. Postmodernism and critical theory hasn't quite triumphed; and never will.

 

...the meaning of "do not retaliate but instead turn the other cheek" is actually to keep retaliating in kind? What? You're going to need to explain that statement.

Yes Jesus came to abolish nothing but to fulfil. It's a gross error to read Matthew 5.17 like a pharisee, and try to use it to protect the ancient codes. Jesus says "I come not to abolish the laws of the prophets but to fulfil", then does a massive speech about all the things in the OT he thinks are dumb, tells everyone to ignore what the pharisees say and do what he says instead, and then spends the better part of the rest of the gospel breaking dozens of old laws repeatedly, and making sure everyone knows it. Did Jesus lie? No. Changing a law is not abolishing it.

Suppose you want to stop prostitution. Perhaps your first thought is to criminalise the sale of sex. At first it works, but then evil people start to abuse your law, and use it to ensure victims of sex trafficking are too afraid to go to the police for help because they're breaking the sale of sex law. You then change the law for the new era, you decriminalise the sale of sex so victims feel comfortable going to the police, and instead you criminalise the purchase of sex to deter people paying for prostitution. In this hypothetical world your new law is so successful over a long period of time prostitution is eventually entirely eradicated. Have you abolished the anti-prostitution law? Or have you fulfilled it?

Don't take this the wrong way, but what of value could you possibly extract from Matthew 5 if you think Jesus wasn't rewriting the rules in his sermon? To paraphrase: "The OT says don't murder, but I say don't even get angry with others". "The OT says don't cheat on your wife, but I say don't even lust for another woman". "The OT says you can be divorced, but I say whoever divorces except for unchastity commits adultery". "The OT says retaliate in kind, but I say turn the other cheek". "The OT says hate your enemy, but I say love your enemy and pray for them".

What is that but an annulment of the old law and an introduction of a new? Obviously not everything in the OT, but certainly a few things - including an eye for an eye. The purpose of the law hasn't changed, the adultery rule changing from "don't have sex with women that aren't your wife" to "don't lust for women that aren't your wife" is still the same law in God's eyes, it hasn't been abolished.

Perhaps. I'd say we can still relate to ancient works because human nature hasn't become unrecognisable in 2000 years, but it has still evolved. You can go back further than 2000 years, Homer is 2800 years ago and the Illiad is still a profound experience. But I also think that's because human nature around love and loss has changed much less than human nature around innate morality, virtue and justice. Specifically I discussed retributive pleasure. I get no satisfaction from wounding my enemy out of spite. My ancestors did. That's not a difference in the culture - that's a difference in nature. My ancestors had an innate feeling for what justice is, I have a different one. Obviously it's still 99% the same, but where we're talking about things like the death penalty and cropping I think it's observable how humanities morality is shifting.

I imagine you're using Classical philosophy in a way distinct from how I am. I mean the philosophy native the the Classical Period (as opposed to Medieval philosophy, Renaissance philosophy, Enlightenment (or Early Modern) philosophy, Modern philosophy and Contemporary philosophy - and Postmodern philosophy if we must include that too). There's a lot of eras of philosophy between the Fall of Rome and the mid-20th century.

Has there been a Classical philosopher of note since the Classical period? Philosophy develops, Aristotle was brilliant, but we've developed some new ways of thinking in the past couple thousand years. I don't know how much new stuff there is left to explore in the caverns of the giants.