The Characterisation of God and the Retributive Punishment of David

Evidence from 2 Sam 12–20 and related texts is sought to give depth to a portrait of God’s characterisation related to retribution: God can be described as judging and ruling, author of covenant and curse, creator, redistributor of power and possessions, and demonstrating fatherly love. The key phrases ‘evil in the eyes of the LORD’ and ‘favour in the eyes of the LORD’ are examined for insights into God’s interior judgement. Whilst the former suggests impartiality and the latter partiality, both are subjective interior responses of God after David’s actions gain God’s attention and are consistent with God’s covenant relationship with David. External descriptions of God as transcendent and communicating through a prophet are used to develop the divine characterisation further.

He Shall Repay the Lamb Fourfold

When retributive divine punishment against David in 2 Samuel 12 includes the death of David and Bathsheba’s newborn child, troubling issues surrounding God’s character are identified by many commentators. In order to examine the divine violence against David’s household in 2 Samuel 11–20 in Part 1, the terms punishment and retribution are defined. Punishment is pain imposed on a person judicially determined as guilty, either through declaration by an authorised party or through transgression of an established law. By this definition, David’s newborn is not individually punished but either collectively punished as part of David’s household, or the victim of collateral damage. Retribution is distinguished from natural consequences that proceed from transgressions, and defined as backward looking, proportional payback for an offence. Elements of Kant’s formulation for retributive punishment are introduced.

Retributive and Consequential Violence in 2 Sam 11–20

Elements of David’s transgression in 2 Samuel 11–12 are delineated, suggesting that David is not condemned for murder and adultery per se but for violating God’s prerogative to give and the principle that God takes from the master to give to the servant. Building on Klaus Koch’s distinction between retribution and natural consequences for sin, it is shown that the violence against David described in Nathan’s oracle in 2 Samuel 12 is both a judicial, proportional punishment and natural consequences in the form of a curse. The dynamics of God’s forgiveness of David are explored in depth, including the apparent role of retributive punishment for restoring the offender identified in the work of Kant. The nature and implications of collective punishment in the story of David, including the effects of David’s sin on his household, are addressed.

Extortion, intuition, and the dark side of reciprocity

Extortion occurs when one person uses some combination of threats and promises to extract an unfair share of benefits from another. Although extortion is a pervasive feature of human interaction, it has received relatively little attention in psychological research. To this end, we begin by observing that extortion is structured quite similarly to far better-studied “reciprocal” social behaviors, such as conditional cooperation and retributive punishment. All of these strategies are designed to elicit some desirable behavior from a social partner, and do so by constructing conditional incentives; the main difference is that the desired behavioral response is an unfair or unjust allocation of resources during extortion, whereas it is often a fair or just distribution of resources for reciprocal cooperation and punishment. Thus, we conjecture, a common set of psychological mechanisms may render these strategies successful. We know from prior work that prosocial forms of reciprocity often work best when implemented inflexibly and intuitively, rather than deliberatively. This both affords long-term commitment to the reciprocal strategy, and also signals this commitment to social partners. We argue that, for the same reasons, extortion is likely to depend largely upon inflexible, intuitive psychological processes. Several existing lines of circumstantial evidence support this conjecture.

Introduction: Public Criminology Meets Public Theology

Criminologists have seldom considered learning from theology, yet theologians have written on themes of criminological concern, including regarding issues of criminal justice. In this introductory chapter crossover between the two subjects is highlighted as an opportunity to critique retributive punishment and present new thinking on the place of hope, mercy and restoration in secular criminal justice settings. The focus is on learning from Christian theology although it is acknowledged that there may be much to learn from other faith traditions as well. The focus for this chapter is the space between public criminology and public theology. The rest of the volume is then introduced.

Civic death as a mechanism of retributive punishment: Academic purges in Turkey

In an era when authoritarian governments increasingly target academics, Turkey’s 2016 purge of more than 6,000 academics and their diminution to civic death is conspicuous in its cruelty. Although unprecedented, this is not the first time that Turkish academics have been punished en masse. By looking at the tools with which academics have been expelled from educational institutions, the public sphere, and the political body, I attempt to develop a nuanced understanding of the interconnected forms of punishment directed towards academic citizens as knowledge producers. I suggest that the 1980 coup accomplished three things: it introduced new mechanisms of punishment based on a logic of retribution instead of compensation; it changed the legal system into a regime of exception; it transformed academics into patriotic worker-citizens. The latest purges have brought an additional change in the status of academics’ citizenship, rendering them as disposable citizens forever at risk of being targeted as the ‘civic dead’.

Professional Judges’ Disbelief in Free Will Does Not Decrease Punishment

There is a debate in psychology and philosophy on the societal consequences of casting doubts about individuals’ belief in free will. Research suggests that experimentally reducing free will beliefs might affect how individuals evaluate others’ behavior. Past research has demonstrated that reduced free will beliefs decrease laypersons’ tendency toward retributive punishment. This finding has been used as an argument for the idea that promoting anti-free will viewpoints in the public media might have severe consequences for the legal system because it may move judges toward softer retributive punishments. However, actual implications for the legal system can only be drawn by investigating professional judges. In the present research, we investigated whether judges ( N = 87) are affected by reading anti-free will messages. The results demonstrate that although reading anti-free will texts reduces judges’ belief in free will, their recommended sentences are not influenced by their (manipulated) belief in free will.

‘We Will Not Go Away’

This chapter studies the participation of victims in international criminal tribunals. Victim participation in international criminal trials has been uneven. Historically, prosecutors often have side-lined victim testimony in favour of documentary or physical evidence or assumed that justice for victims equated to retributive punishment of offenders. In recent decades, however, victims have become more active contributors in criminal investigations and proceedings. Victim participation at all stages of the Hissène Habré trial, for example, suggests a growing trend towards greater victim inclusion in international and national criminal trials. As such, it is incumbent on court personnel, as well as international justice researchers and practitioners, to better understand the diverse needs of victims and how they can be best supported before, during, and after trials.

Professional judges’ disbelief in free will and punishment

There is a debate in psychology and philosophy on the societal consequences of casting doubts about individuals’ belief in free will. Research suggests that experimentally reducing free will beliefs might affect how individuals evaluate others’ behavior. Past research has demonstrated that reduced free will beliefs decrease laypersons’ tendency towards retributive punishment. This finding has been used as an argument for the idea that promoting anti-free will viewpoints in the public media might have severe consequences for the legal system, because it may move judges towards softer retributive punishments. However, actual implications for the legal system can only be drawn by investigating professional judges. In the present research, we investigated whether judges (N = 87) are affected by reading anti-free will messages. The results demonstrate that although reading anti-free will texts reduces judges’ belief in free will, their recommended sentences are not influenced by their (manipulated) belief in free will.