HYPOCRITE PAUL CONDEMNS DOING EVIL THAT GOOD MAY COME
Broadly speaking moralists talk about two moralities. Consequence based
systems such as utilitarianism encourage you to do harm if you are sure the
benefits will be worth it. Christian morality is about the kind of act you
do so it says you may not kill, commit adultery, mock God and so on no matter
what the reward will be. It is not limited to worrying only about results.
It is about the kind of person you are, your virtue or otherwise.
Paul in Romans 3:7-20 condemns people who lie to glorify God though it means
making sure they will be saved by lying to them when one can get away with it.
It says that we can’t do evil so that good may come. It complains that he and
his followers are accused of teaching the good end justifies evil means.
He then asks as evil is never to be excused no matter how good the aim or the
results if the Jews the people of God are better than other nations? He
says they are not for all start out as sinners. The argument here is that
as evil is always inexcusable that means that anybody doing it is a sinner and
all people are sinners.
Paul knew his ban on doing evil to bring about a great good would fall on deaf ears. He purposely ignored how people see how complicated an action is. In reality there is no action just a collection of actions. Non-actions are in their own way actions too. Every aim and everything in your actions is a coin with a beneficial side and a harmful side. To hide this he does not say, "We forbid you to do evil for the sake of the good in the situation" but makes it future orientated. He talks about people doing evil now for the good to come later. People who do what many call evil can do it for the intended good is ALREADY there. Harm and benefit are on a spectrum.
If you do evil, say burn a Bible in public, for you think good will come you think the good will come for you think some of it is there already. You may think the good you see right now will be the seed of a better good. So it is because of what you see now that you are confident that the deed is worthwhile.
If it is wrong to save people from eternal damnation with a lie then it must be wrong to disguise your pockmarks with makeup for that is deception too. It must be wrong to use clothes to make your body look better than what it is. Those are action lies. Life would be impossible if the apostle was right. But he didn't care. He was only lying to his gullible and stupid audience and getting away with it.
There are those who falsely claim to be Christians who endorse the end justifies the means doctrine. Many of them follow something called Situation Ethics. It gives the person too much freedom. For example, the banker who wrecks the lives of investors so that his sick child can have holidays all the time is engaging in Situation Ethics. He argues that his child has priority. Situation Ethics says all should be guided by love and love is the only thing we should put first, even above moral rules, clearly makes love too thin. It can mean anything. What is love if there are no rules to clearly show us what it is? It is turned into a vague feeling and not a principle. It cannot really be Christian for it is clear that Jesus might have been a fraud if he thought there was a good enough reason to be.
Jesus made it an iron rule that God must be loved with all the heart and all our being. Situation ethics allows you to renounce God to save your child.
If that is bad, perhaps we cannot win? Perhaps any alternative is going to be dangerous too? Do we toss a coin then? You decide.
We conclude that those who say we should do the right thing no matter what happens are not being entirely honest with us.
