The witness of the Scriptures to the good of human life is the soul of John Paul II's prophetic proclamation of the Gospel of Life. The Old Testament already articulates and gives a basic meaning to the awe we instinctively feel when confronted with the presence of new life or the mystery of death. The encyclical returns time and time again to this theme, citing various biblical texts. We will devote the rest of our consideration to these two points. As we ponder this narrative, the word of God will lead us to share in God's perspective on the terrible thing that happens when a human life is unjustly taken.
Brother kills brother .
The human being standing in front of us is a person . He or she is a living embodiment of the mystery of materiality, frailty, history, and eternity that reaches its fulfillment in a personal relation to others and to God. God cherishes this relation and has his own plan for the full flowering of this person in time and in eternity. No one but God can decide the moment of another's death. When we step into that divine role we enact once again that grasping for the knowledge of good and evil the power to act and then decide for ourselves whether the act was good or evil which brought death into the world in the first place.