The divine in all

Juliet Morton considers the question: why can we countenance torture?

by Juliet Morton 12th June 2015

A central Quaker tenet is the divinity in all humans, that ‘we are all children of God’. This has implications for how we want people to be treated and what we do. Sometimes our belief conflicts with the wider situations we find ourselves in.

Take torture as an example. Despite knowing that torture is hideous and banned under international law, many people think, feeling terrible doing so, that under certain circumstances, in the interests of the safety of other people and oneself, torture is justified. This conflict, between believing in the divine within humans and using torture on someone, poses a dilemma.