This is not to say that casuistic law should be abandoned because of its abuse. Indeed, God`s apodictic commandments must be elaborated in the challenges of our daily lives, and therefore some direction must be offered, even if, as a last resort, a person must form his own judgment and take responsibility for his own actions. The problem we all face is knowing what is good and then having the moral courage to do it. The 10 commandments are examples of apodictic law: direct commandments, without conditions or provisions, they must apply to all who are under the Old Testament covenant between God and Israel. Therefore, genuine love motivates a believer to fulfill the requirements of the law (Romans 13:10). It is the love of God poured out in the heart of the believer that is the dynamic motivator of our conduct, and this love manifests itself in harmony with, and not separately, the apodictic laws and commandments of Sacred Scripture. Apodictic law includes absolute general commandments, which are issued from above as “thou shalt not do it” and as such have little application in the courts. The Ten Commandments are an excellent example of apodictic law. This chapter presents the basic evidence for common thematic and successive connections in the apodictic (“do this/do not do that”) laws of the Covenant Code (Exodus 20:23-21:2 and 22:20-23:19) and the prologue and epilogue of the laws of Hammurabi. These sections of both texts appear in the same relative position as the bookends around their central casuistic laws. The apodictic laws of the Code of the Covenant reproduce three times the thematic sequence of what might be called the admonishment block of Hammurabi`s epilogue, and the themes of the admonishment block constitute the fundamental content of all the apodictic laws of the Cox. A major change in Hammurabi`s text was to replace the human king with Yahweh as legislator. And although much of the law of the Old Testament no longer applies specifically to us, especially the ritual and civil law (since none of us are under the Old Covenant, nor are the citizens of Old Israel), some of the ethical law of the Old Testament has been explicitly renewed in the New Testament.
However, these are no longer rooted in a system of laws, but are based on the commandment to love God and love others (Mark 12:30-31). For example, apodictic law forbids making false statements, but if you secretly hid a Jewish neighbor during World War II and were then confronted by a Nazi stormtrooper who asked you where Jews might be hiding, apodictic law would require you to reveal the truth. Or consider the case of Rahab, who, after receiving the Israelite spies, was given the same choice to tell the truth or preserve life (Joshua 2). From: Apodictic Law in A Bible Dictionary » We are no longer under the law of Moses: Jesus Christ fulfilled that law and opened something new. Casuistic law: A legal form characterized by an “if. then” condition stating an act and its consequences and indicating mitigating circumstances or considerations. A biblical example is Exodus 21:12-13: “Whoever kills a man shall be killed. If it was not deliberate, but if it is the result of an act of God, then I will point to you a place where the murderer can escape. This is contrary to apodictic law. When God`s law is applied in different cases, we call it a casuistic law (if a person does this and that, then it will be punishment). Casuistic law in Israel is often the development of laws for specific personal and social needs in light of God`s holy and eternal apodictic law.
Although Christ condemned the casuistry of the scribes and Pharisees who perverted the law through human speculation, He in no way minimized the role of specific obedience to God`s commandments. but made special obedience a test of the authenticity of the disciples` love (John 14:21). While obedience to God`s apodictic law can never be the basis for gaining His salvation (except through the righteousness attributed to Christ), Paul tells us that the law itself is holy, just, and good (Romans 7:12). Therefore, casuistic law would argue that we should tell the truth to whom the truth is due. In both cases mentioned above, casuistic law can be seen as clarifying the law and eliminating confusion as to its application. We can argue that Rahab, who lived in the context of the war and had transferred her loyalty from the king of Jericho to the God of Israel as his true king, was not obliged to make full revelations to the soldiers. Their higher duty to protect the lives of God`s servants trumped the universal apodictic command to speak the truth, and their actions were acceptable to God. I hear theologians and some preachers talk about apodictic law and casuistic law. What are they talking about? Unfortunately, as you might expect, casuistic law has often been viewed negatively in Christian history as excuses and exceptions where there shouldn`t be, and this has too often led to situational ethics. Situational ethics reduces the apodictic law of a system of legal rules to the “law of love alone,” in which the apodictic law is quickly treated as a “servant of love”; so popular when Debby Boone sang these words decades ago in the song “You Light Up My Life” – “it can`t be wrong if it feels so right.” This chapter and the next chapter deal with the compositional logic that plays a role in the creation of the apodictic laws of the Federal Code.
These laws demonstrate very clearly the ideological intent of the Code of Alliance, whether it seeks to create a composition of laws that stands as a symbol of resistance to Assyrian hegemony in the late 8th or early 7th century BC.