(d) ‘Some actions are always wrong.’(15 marks)

Question 1

• There are some actions that can never be justified, like murder or rape. There are
clearly no circumstances in which these actions would be the right thing to do.
• What is right or wrong cannot change from one time and place to another. Laws
might change but morality is constant.
• The Bible is clear in the Ten Commandments that some things are always wrong.
• There is a natural law that is higher than all the laws of states or countries and
this natural law does not change.
• Jesus makes it clear in the Sermon on the Mount that he has not come to abolish
the law but to fulfil it – he says that not one stroke of the law will disappear
showing that rules about what is right and wrong are unchanging.
• Life is complicated and it is not possible to say that actions will always be wrong
in all circumstances.
• Jesus cautions against being too strict in judging others. We cannot know the
intentions of a person’s heart so should never rule any action to be wrong in all
circumstances.
• The laws of the Ten Commandments and Natural Law are just a reflection of a
society’s norms at a given point in history – they are not eternal and unchanging
because many things once thought of as wrong are now seen as acceptable.
Relevant reference to sources could include:
• The Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17, Deuteronomy 5:4-20):
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the
house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make
for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above,
or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not
bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God,
visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth
generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of
those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not take the name of
the Lord your God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his
name in vain. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall
labour, and do all your work; but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your
God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your
manservant, or your maidservant, or your cattle, or the sojourner who is within
your gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that
is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath
day and hallowed it. Honour your father and your mother, that your days may be
long in the land which the Lord your God gives you. You shall not kill. You shall
not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against
your neighbour. You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet
your neighbour’s wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his
ass, or anything that is your neighbour’s.”
• Matthew 5:17-20
“Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not
to abolish them but to fulfil them. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass
away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.
Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men
so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and
teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you,
unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will
never enter the kingdom of heaven.”