What appears in the Gospels as several distinct sayings is, in fact, one more legal maxim, fully consistent with the maxims of the sword and the carcass. This maxim can be stated plainly:
Where there is no competence, there is no culpability;
where competence is claimed, responsibility is fixed.
The sayings “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” and “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains” are not about mercy versus judgment, nor about emotions or intentions. They are two formulations of the same rule of law. Not knowing what one is doing and not seeing are legally equivalent states. Both describe incompetence—an inability to function as a responsible decision-maker. In law, guilt cannot be meaningfully assigned where competence is absent. A blind person is not judged for choosing the wrong path; an ignorant person is not judged as the author of outcomes they could not assess.
This is why Jesus’ prayer from the cross is not sentimental forgiveness but a legal declaration. He does not say the act was good or acceptable. He declares the actors incompetent. Responsibility is therefore reassigned elsewhere. Forgiveness follows not because evil vanished, but because culpability could not properly attach to those performing it.
This maxim resounds throughout the Gospels. The one faithful in little is entrusted with much because proven competence expands jurisdiction. The one entrusted with much is judged more severely for failure because knowledge multiplies responsibility. This is also why prophets must come and warn. Without warning, catastrophe would be meaningless as judgment. Warning creates competence; competence creates accountability; accountability makes judgment intelligible rather than arbitrary.
At this point the analogy to the sword-bearer and the vulture becomes exact. The person who kills a sword-bearer is not the true decision-maker; the sword-bearer is. The vulture feeding on a carcass is not the cause of death; it is the outcome of death. In both cases, responsibility shifts upstream, away from the visible actor and toward the one who created the conditions under which the act became inevitable and non-prosecutable.
The same logic applies to sin and ignorance. The sinner who does not know what he is doing is not the primary decision-maker. He is an outcome. The blind do not govern reality; they move within it. Responsibility therefore cannot terminate with them. It must be assigned to those who see and claim to see.
This is why Jesus’ harshest judgments fall not on sinners but on the Pharisees. When they say, “We see,” they legally bind themselves. That claim establishes competence, and competence fixes liability. From that moment, they cannot appeal to ignorance or confusion. They bear responsibility not only for their own actions but for the state of the world their knowledge failed to heal.
This leads to the conclusion that feels scandalous but follows rigorously from the maxim: the existence of sinners is not an embarrassment to the righteous; it is an indictment of them. Just as a carcass cannot complain about vultures and a sword-bearer cannot complain about violence, the Pharisees cannot complain about sinners. Complaint itself is disallowed once responsibility has been claimed and neglected. If they truly saw, the world around them would not look the way it does.
This also explains why Jesus eats with sinners and why their presence does not compromise him. Sinners are not the problem to be eliminated; they are the evidence of abdicated responsibility elsewhere. Jesus lives as the competent should live. He sees, and therefore he acts. He knows, and therefore he bears responsibility. He does not demand distance from outcomes; he enters them to repair what others allowed to decay.
So the maxim stands alongside the others:
- The sword-bearer cannot complain about death by the sword.
- The carcass cannot complain about vultures.
- The incompetent cannot be held as final decision-makers.
- The knowledgeable cannot complain about the consequences of their failure.
In every case, culpability follows competence, and complaint is disallowed where responsibility has been forfeited or abdicated. This is not leniency toward sin; it is a radical reassignment of judgment to where it belongs—on those who claimed sight and failed to live accordingly.