Skip to content

Add your phone number?

Optional. Nothing is sent unless you choose it.
The Historic Faith
Sign in
All Questions
Question 4
Augustine argues that Jesus’ command to “turn the other cheek” requires “not a bodily action, but an inward disposition,” making it possible to kill while “loving” the person; what do you think Bercot means when he says that kind of reasoning is “playing games with Christ,” and what does it reveal about how God weighs inner motives versus outward obedience?
Another way to ask: Why does Bercot call Augustine’s idea—killing someone while still “loving” them—“playing games with Christ,” and what does this say about whether God cares more about motives or about obeying Jesus’ words?

Direct Answer Bercot means Augustine uses clever logic to keep Christian language while emptying Jesus’ commands of their real, lived meaning. The transcript portrays God as caring about inward motives, but not as a substitute for outward obedience—Kingdom citizens cannot do violent deeds and claim the “right disposition” makes it Christlike.

Support from Transcript:

  • Augustine answers Jesus’ nonresistance teaching by redefining it: “what is required here is not a bodily action, but an inward disposition.”
  • Bercot paraphrases the implication: “it’s okay to kill someone so long as you love the person you’re killing.”
  • Augustine’s illustration: the apostle can be “struck” and pray for pardon “in the next world,” yet “outwardly he wished the man to be punished.”
  • Bercot’s evaluation is blunt: “That kind of logic might win a paper argument, but it’s playing games with Christ.”
  • He states the Kingdom principle Augustine misses: “the means is always just as important as the end…How we do something is just as important as what we do.”
Discussion Follow-ups When do we rely on “good intentions” to excuse disobedience? How do we keep motive and action together without becoming merely external?

Jumpstarter 4 of 10
Back Questions Next