The Death of the Unborn and Biblical Penology: Why “Life for Life” Applies in Principle

 by Rev. William M. Brennan, TH.D.

Introduction

A central question in biblical ethics is whether Scripture treats unborn life as fully human life under God’s justice. If the unborn child is truly a human person, then the destruction of that life cannot be treated as a mere inconvenience or private loss, but must be evaluated under the Bible’s highest moral categories. Scripture consistently teaches that human beings bear God’s image, that innocent bloodshed is a profound evil, and that civil justice exists to uphold the sanctity of human life. When these principles are brought together, a coherent biblical-penological argument emerges: if the unborn is fully human, then the intentional killing of the unborn falls under the same “life for life” moral logic Scripture applies to intentional homicide.

This essay argues that (1) Scripture recognizes the unborn as truly human, (2) Scripture distinguishes accidental from intentional killing, and (3) Scripture assigns “life for life” as the fitting judicial response to deliberate, unjust killing of a human being. Taken together, these principles establish that, within the Bible’s own categories, the deliberate destruction of unborn life would be treated as a capital offense in principle.

1. The unborn as a human life under biblical moral concern

The Bible does not treat personhood as something earned after birth, nor does it ground human dignity in development, independence, or social recognition. Instead, it presents human worth as rooted in God’s creative act and purpose.

This is seen throughout Scripture’s way of speaking about life in the womb. The unborn are not described as “potential people” but as real subjects of God’s knowledge, calling, and care. The biblical worldview treats the womb as a place where human life truly exists and where God is already at work in forming persons. Thus, unborn life falls under the category of human life that matters morally, not simply biologically.

This framework is essential: if the unborn is within the moral category of “human being,” then what is done to the unborn cannot be treated as morally trivial.

2. Exodus 21:22–25: injury to the unborn and “life for life”

Exodus 21:22–25 is a key legal text because it places pregnancy outcomes inside the court’s concern and assigns penalties based on harm.

The case describes men fighting who strike a pregnant woman so that “her children come out.” The law then divides outcomes:

• If the children come out but no harm follows, a fine is imposed under judicial oversight.

• If harm follows, the legal principle becomes lex talionis: “life for life, eye for eye…”

The critical point is that this is not merely a fine-for-loss framework. When harm is present, the text moves immediately into the Bible’s highest judicial language: the proportional justice of life and limb.

Within biblical penology, “life for life” is the category used when a human life has been wrongfully taken. Exodus 21 does not treat pregnancy loss as automatically outside that category; rather, it introduces a scenario where a pregnancy crisis can trigger the law’s strongest justice principle. That strongly supports the conclusion that the unborn child is regarded as the kind of being who can suffer legally cognizable harm—up to and including death—and that such harm invokes proportionate justice.

In other words, Exodus 21 places the unborn within the realm of persons protected by the same judicial logic used to protect any human life.

3. Genesis 9:5–6: the image of God and the principle of capital accountability

Genesis 9:5–6 provides the foundational rationale for biblical penology concerning homicide:

“Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.”

This passage grounds the seriousness of murder in the doctrine of the imago Dei: human beings uniquely bear God’s image. For that reason, the unjust shedding of human blood requires an equally weighty judicial response. The principle is straightforward:

• Murder violates the image of God in the victim.

• Therefore justice requires the life of the offender in response.

This is not presented as emotional revenge but as moral accounting. The penalty corresponds to the value of what was destroyed. Since the victim’s life was image-bearing life, the punishment is proportionate: “by man shall his blood be shed.”

The relevance to unborn life is clear in principle: if the unborn is truly human—an image-bearing human life—then the deliberate destruction of that life is the deliberate shedding of human blood, the category Genesis 9 places under the ultimate judicial sanction.

4. Numbers 35: the Bible’s sharpest legal logic on intentional killing

Numbers 35 offers some of the most explicit penal instruction in Scripture on homicide. It distinguishes accidental killing from intentional killing and repeatedly affirms that the murderer “shall be put to death.” It also forbids commutation:

“You shall accept no ransom for the life of a murderer… he shall be put to death.”

This is central to biblical penology: some crimes are so severe that they cannot be made right with compensation. The life taken cannot be bought back. The law treats intentional homicide as a unique offense that threatens the moral fabric of the community.

Numbers 35 also describes bloodshed as defiling the land and insists that justice must address it rather than ignore it. Thus, the penalty is not a private vendetta but a public moral act intended to uphold the sanctity of life and restrain further violence.

Applied as a principle, the logic would be: if intentional killing of a human life is what triggers this sanction, and if unborn life is human life, then intentional killing of unborn life falls under the same moral classification.

5. Intent and culpability: why deliberate killing is treated more severely than accidental harm

Biblical law does not treat all killing as morally identical. It recognizes categories such as:

• accidental death without malice,

• negligent harm,

• deliberate murder with intent and cunning.

Exodus 21 itself distinguishes between a killing that occurs without intention and one that is carried out intentionally: the former may involve refuge or lesser penalties; the latter requires death even if the offender seeks sanctuary.

This distinction is important because it means the Bible treats intentionality not as a minor detail but as a core moral difference. The more deliberate the act, the greater the culpability.

Therefore, when reasoning within biblical penology, an act that is intentional and aimed at the death of a human being is categorized in the same moral space as murder, not accident.

6. Lex talionis and the moral shape of justice

“Eye for eye” is often misunderstood as primitive vengeance, but in Scripture it functions as a restraint and a measure:

• punishment must match harm,

• justice must not be arbitrary,

• the poor and weak must not be discounted,

• the powerful must not escape accountability.

Because the loss of life is the greatest harm, the logic of lex talionis culminates in “life for life.” It represents the principle that the law exists to treat human life as morally sacred and not negotiable.

If the unborn is fully human, then the law’s “life for life” structure becomes morally relevant whenever unborn life is unjustly taken.

7. The synthesized conclusion inside the biblical system

When the biblical principles are assembled, the argument forms a consistent chain:

1. Human life bears God’s image and therefore has inviolable moral value (Genesis 9:6).

2. The unborn is treated in Scripture as real human life, not as a non-personal object.

3. Exodus 21:22–25 places pregnancy harm within judicial concern and applies “life for life” when harm rises to the level of fatality.

4. Biblical law treats deliberate killing as uniquely severe, distinguishing it from accident and negligence (Exodus 21; Numbers 35).

5. Therefore, within the Bible’s own categories, the deliberate killing of unborn human life falls under the same moral classification as intentional homicide and thus under the “life for life” principle of biblical penology.

This does not depend on later philosophy, medical knowledge, or social convention. It is an argument from the Bible’s own view of life, justice, and moral accountability.

Conclusion

Biblical penology is built on the sanctity of human life as image-bearing life. Exodus 21:22–25 is significant because it brings unborn life into the legal sphere of harm and justice and employs the strongest judicial principle—“life for life”—in a pregnancy-related case. Genesis 9:5–6 establishes that the shedding of human blood requires capital accountability because the victim bears God’s image, and Numbers 35 clarifies that intentional homicide is a crime that cannot be settled through compensation but demands the highest sanction.

If the unborn is fully human, then the deliberate destruction of unborn life necessarily falls within the Bible’s category of unjust bloodshed and therefore within the moral logic of “life for life.” Within the biblical system itself, this conclusion is not an emotional leap but an application of the Bible’s consistent justice principles to the status of the unborn as fully human persons.

Divine Goodness, Redemption, and the Origin of Spirits: A Redemptive-Historical Critique of Augustinian Teleology

 By Rev. William M Brennan, TH.D.

Abstract

This essay argues that dominant Augustinian and Reformed accounts of creation, evil, and final judgment rest upon a speculative teleology—namely, that the chief end of creation is the demonstration of divine attributes—that is neither explicitly biblical nor internally coherent. When combined with doctrines of eternal punishment, this framework fractures divine benevolence and sovereignty, redefining “good” as instrumental to divine self-manifestation rather than as other-directed love. By contrast, the redemptive-historical narrative of Scripture presents creation as ordered toward redemption, culminating in the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ. Within this framework, traditional accounts of the origin of human spirits—creationism and traducianism—prove inadequate, motivating renewed consideration of the pre-existence of spirits as a provisional explanatory hypothesis. While Scripture does not explicitly teach pre-existence, neither does it foreclose it; moreover, pre-existence coheres more naturally with an entirely redemptive telos while avoiding moral and metaphysical difficulties endemic to orthodox alternatives. The essay concludes by defending epistemic humility: theological coherence must be pursued where Scripture speaks, but dogmatic closure must be resisted where revelation remains silent.

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1. Introduction: Teleology as the Hidden Determinant

Disagreements about hell, judgment, and redemption often mask a deeper divergence concerning the purpose of creation. In post-Augustinian Western theology, especially in its Reformed scholastic forms, creation is frequently construed as a theater for the manifestation of divine attributes—justice, mercy, sovereignty, and power. Within this paradigm, eternal punishment is justified as “good” insofar as it displays divine justice, even if it does not serve the good of the punished.

By contrast, Scripture presents a redemptive-historical narrative in which creation, covenant, judgment, and restoration are unified within a single salvific purpose. The present study contends that these two frameworks are incompatible. The former fractures divine attributes into competing principles; the latter integrates them within divine love as revealed in Christ. This divergence has significant implications for doctrines of evil, hell, anthropology, and the origin of spirits.

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2. Augustine, Privation, and the Persistence of Evil

Augustine’s privation theory of evil correctly denies evil any positive ontological status, defining it instead as the absence or corruption of good. However, Augustine simultaneously affirms the eternal persistence of privation in the damned. Evil is thus defeated ontologically but preserved eschatologically.

This position introduces a tension. Privation, by definition, has no intrinsic telos; it exists only parasitically upon the good. To maintain privation eternally—without restorative intent—requires appealing not to benevolence but to divine will. Eternal punishment is therefore justified not as good for the creature, but as good for the order of creation or for the manifestation of justice. Divine sovereignty and divine goodness are asserted together but never fully reconciled. They remain in dialectical stasis.

Later Reformed theology intensifies this structure by explicitly grounding eternal reprobation in God’s decretive will, often framing it as necessary for the full display of divine glory. This move does not resolve Augustine’s tension; it hardens it.

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3. The Biblical Grammar of Divine Goodness and Love

Biblically, divine goodness is not defined abstractly but narratively and relationally. “Good” consistently denotes that which gives life, restores communion, and perfects the other. Divine justice is covenantal and restorative, not retributive as an end in itself. Judgment serves redemptive history; it is never portrayed as intrinsically valuable apart from its relation to healing and restoration.

The definitive revelation of God’s nature is the cross of Christ. Here, justice, power, and glory are expressed through self-giving love and suffering-for-the-other. Any theological account that renders eternal loss “good” while denying its loving or restorative character stands in tension with this Christological center.

Accordingly, the “grand demonstration of attributes” model proves alien to the biblical witness. Scripture does not present creation as a metaphysical exhibition but as the arena of God’s redemptive action.

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4. Hell as Necessity Without Eternalization

A redemptive-historical framework does not deny hell or judgment. Rather, it reconceives them as necessary consequences of sin within a moral universe ordered by holiness. An unregenerate spirit cannot immediately abide the divine presence; therefore, a real post-mortem state of exclusion, confinement, or darkness must exist. Scripture’s language of Hades, prison, chains of darkness, and second death coheres with this understanding.

Crucially, such judgment need not be metaphysically eternal. From the creature’s perspective, it may be indefinite and inescapable apart from divine intervention. From God’s perspective, it remains subordinate to redemption and does not require the eternal preservation of evil. This preserves both divine holiness and divine love without redefining goodness as self-serving.

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5. Anthropological Difficulties: Creationism and Traducianism

The origin of individual human spirits remains one of theology’s most persistent unresolved questions. Two dominant orthodox accounts both fail under scrutiny.

Creationism, which posits that God creates each soul ex nihilo, cannot adequately account for the universal inheritance of a sinful nature without implicating God in the creation of corruption. Traducianism, which locates the transmission of the soul in biological generation, struggles to explain the sinlessness of Christ without ad hoc exceptions.

These failures do not merely reflect gaps in knowledge; they reveal structural incoherence. Both systems claim dogmatic certainty where Scripture offers none.

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6. Pre-Existence as a Provisional Hypothesis

The hypothesis of the pre-existence of spirits—historically associated with Origen—re-emerges not from speculative excess but from explanatory necessity. Pre-existence avoids attributing the origin of sin to God, preserves Christ’s purity, accounts for inherited dispositions, and coheres with a redemptive telos in which creation serves healing rather than demonstration.

Scripture does not explicitly teach pre-existence. However, it does not explicitly deny it either. The absence of direct teaching is plausibly explained by irrelevance to human redemption—the central concern of revelation—rather than by refutation. Angels, described as “sons of God,” moral agents subject to judgment, and beings bearing likeness to God, further complicate simplistic denials of pre-temporal moral existence.

Pre-existence should therefore be held provisionally, not dogmatically, as a plausible explanatory framework rather than revealed doctrine.

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7. Covenant, Redemption, and Epistemic Humility

The guiding principle emerging from this analysis is methodological rather than speculative: metaphysics must be subordinate to redemption. Where Scripture speaks—of Christ, covenant, judgment, resurrection—it demands coherence and integration. Where Scripture is silent—on the origin of spirits—it demands humility rather than closure.

Theological systems that absolutize speculative accounts while redefining divine goodness betray the redemptive grammar of Scripture. By contrast, a restrained openness to unresolved questions honors both divine revelation and creaturely limitation.

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8. Conclusion

The Augustinian–Reformed paradigm, grounded in an unscriptural teleology of attribute-demonstration, cannot integrate divine sovereignty and divine love without redefining goodness and eternalizing evil. A redemptive-historical framework, centered on Christ and ordered toward restoration, offers a more biblically coherent alternative.

Within this framework, traditional accounts of spirit-origins prove inadequate, rendering pre-existence a compelling but provisional hypothesis. Whether ultimately correct or not, such a hypothesis better serves a theology in which creation exists not to display God, but to be healed by Him.

The task of theology is not to resolve every mystery, but to ensure that where God has revealed Himself—in Christ crucified and risen—our doctrines do not contradict the love they proclaim.