When Caiaphas the High Priest stated prophetically and emphatically that it was better for one man to die than the whole nation to perish, he put in place a plan based on an idea that led to the sacrificing of the life of one innocent man, Jesus Christ, so that the Jewish priestly caste would not incur the wrath of the Romans. Of course the priests themselves had ulterior motives in getting rid of him because he was proving to be a threat to their authority. The taking of one innocent life in order to save the life of a whole nation was not a bad trade off, it was the lesser of two evils in their eyes and they therefore chose the lesser one and they felt justified in doing so.
The problem is that taking the life of an innocent human being is always an intrinsic evil and therefore cannot be qualified by circumstances or intentions. There is an absolute right to life of the innocent. Note that I did not say that the right to life is absolute, it is not. It is quasi-absolute but not absolute as it may be qualified by circumstances and intentions such as in the case of war or self-defence or penal codes or even martyrdom. However, the taking of an innocent life can never be qualified. It is thereby unqualified and absolute. The Jewish priests, of all people, should have known this as they were the inheritors of a religious tradition and a code of law, the Mosaic Law and the Decalogue − the Ten Commandments − which had as their very basis this fundamental ethical imperative. Not only did God through Moses reveal this law to them, but they could also have arrived at it through reasoning, as it was based a priori on established concepts of natural law that human practical reason adjudicates when considering the anthropological nature of man. This was also Pilate’s travesty of justice. He stated in John’s Gospel, that he found no fault with him and was therefore duty bound to release him, but in order to satisfy the praxis of his administrative short-term aims, he not only broke the precepts of Roman law but also those of natural law and condemned an innocent man to death. By an unnatural coincidence, they put to death a man who had taught in the Sermon on the Mount that desideratum of Christian and ultimately human perfection, that he had come to not to abolish the law of Moses but to fulfil it and that whoever kills shall thus be liable to judgement.
The great mistake of Caiaphas and the other priests of the temple was that they were obliged to put into practice and make sure that other people practised the Law of Moses, something that not only did they not do but instead chose an option which was antithetically completely utilitarian and sought the means which were justified by the end, the greatest happiness for the greater number at the expense of the absolute right to life of an innocent man.
Another unqualified absolute right, which is not often thought of as such, is the right to fidelity from one’s spouse and the duty of obligation to one’s spouse. This too cannot be qualified by intention or circumstances and is therefore considered an intrinsic evil if transgressed and is, too, based on natural law. It is interesting to recall that it was on the Sermon on the Mount too, that Christ spoke out against adultery and divorce qualifying Mosaic Law in the process. In both these cases it seems that natural law is the a priori basis of revealed law.
When it comes to the formulating of positive (civil) law, it might be important to keep in mind that the state would be wise to swipe a page out of divine prudence so to speak by keeping in mind the exigencies of natural law a priori when formulating these civil ordinances. Does the state wish to have a situation where the absolute right to life of innocent human beings is flaunted as in the necessary freezing of human embryos in IVF or in abortion? Does the state want to create a legal position where the publicly witnessed promise of marrying spouses to remain faithful to each other is made to be worth nothing and, unlike any legal contract, can even be broken unilaterally? I was always a deontologist ethically. I believe that we have a duty to respect the absolute rights of individuals both as regards the right to life of innocent human beings and the right to fidelity of married spouses to each other and the duty therefore to build a milieu where this right is nurtured and respected.
As the Blessed John Paul II used to say, we are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song. To the Christian, the victory of Christ over death a priori to our very own such experience remains our guarantee that these absolute rights, both mentioned by him, will forever remain part of the absolute ethical standards through which we aim to achieve true fulfilment and happiness as human beings. The fact however that both these rights are built on natural law itself throws sufficient anthropological material into the equation for them to merit weighty considerations by secular society as well if it too wants to be happy and fulfilled. This is what I believe.
Michael Asciak MD
BIRKIRKARA