Situation Ethics

[Guest]

Well,

There are some very good answers here, it is great to see what wisdom people bring to tough problems, any other ideas, comments or opinions?

[Openly Curious]

Situation Two

You are a teenage girl and have just learned from a friend, that she is having sex with her boyfriend. Your friend is only 16 years old, and her boyfriend is 19.

Do you:

A. Keep it to yourself as a trusted secret

B. Tell your friends parents about it

C. Tell your friend that if she does not tell her parents, you will

D. Tell your parents about what your friend is doing

E. Other

Explain why you made your choice above

I would pick A. to keep it to myself as a trusted secret. The reason being is because it is none of my buisness as they are not little kids and again it is none of my buisness. It is the responsibility of the two of those to confess to make things right.

OC

[mrs]

No one has quite addressed the question of is it ever right to lie.

[Guest]

Most Christians operate under the assumption, that to lie is to sin. So when you ask "Is it ever right to lie?", you are also asking, "Is it ever right to sin?"

Now of course I presented an extremely difficult situation, because I did not offer any apparent oportunities to do right. I'll float some thoughts on your question, but do not feel that I can answer it with a resounding "Yes".

To my mind, lying in this situation, is an expedient to saving lives. To lie in this situation, is to do so, intending good, there is no evil motive. I am inclined to believe that when the Bible tells us that God looks upon the heart, that that includes a situation like this. Now, we could look to another thing that God allows us to do, and perhaps, draw some conclusions.

I don' think I need to establish that God considers life to be sacred, to be His to give, and His to take as He sees fit. Now, we also know from several places in the Bible, that we are permitted to kill other people. We are permitted to do so, in cases were the remedy or punishment for certain crimes or sins, is the death of the person who committed the act. We know that we are permitted to kill, in the defense of innocent life. We also know, that at least on some occasions, God not only permitted, but ordered the execution of people in acts of war.

Now, if God allowed for the destruction of sacred life, for a higher purpose, is it a stretch to think that He would allow for deceitfullness for the same ends? He never says so that i know of, sometimes, perhaps, God expects us to exercise judgment. Following the letter of the law, for some people, leads them to legalism. In legalism, the Law becomes the object of worship, instead of the Lawgiver. Jesus illustrated this problem, when He worked on the Sabbath. He violated the letter of God's Law. We know however, that He never sinned.

We live in the New Covenant. What is different about that?

2 Cor 3:3-6

3 You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

4 Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. 5 Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. 6 He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant-not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

NIV

I believe, that not only can we not live the letter, because of our weaknesses and flaws, but living in a flawed (cursed) creation, we are put in situations, where it is impossible to obey the letter on one point, without violating in on another. The problem posed in the first situation, is such an instance. In a perfect environment, we would always have perfect choices that leave us in the position to have a choice between good and evil, and not a choice of a lesser of evils. In the Gestapo looking for Jews situation, even refraining from answering, would not work, because we are not allowed to be negligent through inaction.

Remember that Jesus said also, that God permitted us to divorce. It was not His perfect will, but it was an act of grace on His part, esentially giving us permission to sin, because the hardness of our hearts was so complete, that I think He recognizes that sometimes things are so hard for us, we can barely do no other. How hard would it be, to be honest, and send your freinds off to the gas chambers? God would not, in that case, expect or demand us to be overly concerned about lying, at least I do not think he would.

Is it ever right to lie? We could invent another scenario, one that probably happens frequently. We could reverse the gender roles here, but I'll leave it in it's stereotypical form.

Suppose a man were to have an affair. Suppose that he was convicted in his heart, and felt truly terrible about, and went before God, confessing his sin, and truly and completely repented of it. Now, he is on good terms with God, and living as he shold, respecting his wife and their marriage, and the marriage relationship is the best it has been.

Now, add to this, that the wife in this situation, is the type of woman, whose values and sensitivities are such, that she would be in agonizing emotional pain, if she were ever to find out about the affair. Let's go so far as to say, that in our best estimate, she could even have a breakdown over it, or would almost certainly seek a divorce.

Assume for the moment, that the repentant husband is considering telling his wife about this former affair, and he has gone through the motions of discovering if there are complications (disease, pregnancy) and there are none. Suppose we know that there is no way anyone could ever find out about the affair unless he reveals it.

Finally, let's say that as this man considers telling his wife about the affair, that he has no selfish motive to keep quiet, that he just wants to do the right thing.

What is the right thing here. Should he tell his wife? What if she watched Oprah or something, and on that show it was said that one out of three men have affairs (not a real number here, just hypothetical) and she, out of curiousity asks him, "Have you ever cheated on me?", while she herself totally expects that answer to be "no". Many women might say "I'd would want to know". My question is, what is the right thing, what is loving, what does the greatest good? To be truthful or deceitful?

So, while I am not willing to say it is ever right to sin, I will go so far as to say sometimes perhaps the best choice we can make, is sin, and I thank God for His grace an forgiveness.

I'd be interested to see how others think about this last situation, as well as the other four.

[Marnie]

So, while I am not willing to say it is ever right to sin, I will go so far as to say sometimes, the best choice we can make, is sin, and I thank God for His grace an forgiveness.

In the context of your situation, I can see what you mean, but the Bible teaches it is never right, under any circumstances, to sin. One fruit of the Spirit is "faithfulness," and the Greek word means, among other things, trustworthy, dependable,and constant. It is also used to describe the Tribulation martyrs; those who would not deny (read: lie about) their faith but rather died for it. When tempted to lie, it's a temptation to sin like any other, and the Bible tells us that G-d is faithful (same word) and will provide a way of escape. It may not be the way we expect or want, but either G-d is sovereign or He isn't. No, I can't go along with the notion that sin is ever the best choice. It may be the immature, faithless choice, but not the best one.

Now, having said that, in the situation you gave, I said I would like to save lives. In the Bible, Rahab did that. However, she was basically a heathen, or at best a very new believer at the time of the lie. She didn't know any better. As a believer, I do know better. Would lying under that circumstance be showing a lack of faith and trust in G-d? I hope I never have to find out.

[Guest]

No, I can't go along with the notion that sin is ever the best choice. It may be the immature, faithless choice, but not the best one.

Now, having said that, in the situation you gave, I said I would like to save lives. In the Bible, Rahab did that. However, she was basically a heathen, or at best a very new believer at the time of the lie. She didn't know any better. As a believer, I do know better. Would lying under that circumstance be showing a lack of faith and trust in G-d? I hope I never have to find out.

I am not sure what you are saying Marnie.

On the one hand, we can be immature, and faithless, and try to protect life. One the other hand we can say "Sure, there are some Jews here, they are in the back room", exercise our faith, and hope God intervenes. Is that what you are saying is the mature, faithful and presumably right choice?

Now, I want to be clear here, I am NOT saying, that to lie for a good motive, is not a sin. I am saying, that under these circumstances, which hopefully God will never let us fall into, that He would not be upset (my guess - no authority) with that choice to preserve life. I do think he is saddened, that humanity is in such a state, that such a choice may be inevitable.

Consider the saints during the tribulation. I could imagine the agents of the anti-christ, requiring a person to renounce Christ, or watch as we peel you children's skin alive. What parent can hold up to such a temptation? In the flesh, no parent could. If I found myself in that state, I would hope that God would grant me the grace and knowledge to choose the right course of action, regardless of the consequences.

I would also like to add, for those who might be distorting or misunderstanding my comments, or the comments of others in this thread, that we are not suggesting that there is ever a license to sin. Sin is sin, it is always wrong. It needs forgiveness. One can never justify sinning based on the difficulty in making the right choice.

How many times in chat, has someone come in and told us of some romance they are having with a married person, trying to justify it because "he is getting a divorce", or "it just feels so right, I know it is from God", "I hate my marriage, and need out, God will understand", etc. I cannot count them. The difficulty, does not remove the sin. There is a bit of a difference in this kind of circumstance, than there is in the Gestapo/Jew one. The difference in these other circumstances, is that you can make the right choice, if you suspend your selfish interests. In the G/J circumstance, there was not temptation to sin for selfish reasons, a decision in that case, could be made on pure motives.

[RabbitDad]

Is it ever right to lie?

I mean frankly if someone asked where my sister was with intent to kill her I would lie....but are we supposed to?

That is, I believe, the whole point of this situation - to put you in the position of having to choose between lying, a sin, and protecing innocent life. I could make lots of comments on this concept, but I am interested in seeing how others might deal with these situations and see what reasons they give for their choices, especially if they can find strong scriptural support for those the choices they make. I don't want to poison the well here, with my thinking.

Here's my confusion. An act is not sin, necessarily, but sin is more of an inclination of the heart and/or will away from God's plan. Would protecting an innocent life be a sin?

The danger of course lies in the slippery slope of justifying lying or other behaviors as somehow fitting into God's plan when it's more of twisting one's own agenda into one we can convince ourselves is God's. But setting up hypotheticals is usually a recipe for trolling for dissention.

[Guest]

Here's my confusion. An act is not sin, necessarily, but sin is more of an inclination of the heart and/or will away from God's plan. Would protecting an innocent life be a sin?

The danger of course lies in the slippery slope of justifying lying or other behaviors as somehow fitting into God's plan when it's more of twisting one's own agenda into one we can convince ourselves is God's. But setting up hypotheticals is usually a recipe for trolling for dissention.

I agree that sin is a matter of the heart, and that it is acting outside of God's will. Protecting innocent life is not the sin, that is not in question, it is a requirement. It is the lying in order to do so, tht is at question and which is the source of the dilemna. We are told that lieing is a sin. The question, I suppose, could be phrased a bit differently, if we wanted to put a spin on it. We could ask:

If protecting innocent life is God's will, and failing to try to do so is a sin of ommision, are we therefore, acting withing his will by saving a life, even if lying is our means?

That looks at it as a package deal, instead of looing at the acts individually, they are after all, tied together in this scenario. That however, takes us into the realm of thinking that the end justifies the means. Here, we are headed for all sorts of trouble, especialy because we do not know the outcome of things ahead of time.

I can think of all sorts of ways Christians could be tempted to act wrongly, with an "end justifies the means" philosophy.

I agree with your slippery slope concern, which is why I went to the trouble to state categorically, that sin is never right. For myself, my position is that it may be the best option under unusual situations, but it is never right.

This type of thing is thought provoking, and difficult for us, most of us anyway, to comment on in a black and white fashion. That is why these are called moral dilemnas.

Unfortunetly, many Christians imagine moral dilemnas in there own lives, when they use their emotions to guide them to choose what feels good, over what the right thing to do is. In such cases, there is not actual dilemna, only a stubbornes to submit to the will of God.

I don't think too many have an issue with lying to save lives, but what about the other scenario, where the parent is willing to lie in order to preserve a friendship and get a young girl the help she needs in a situation which could well ruin here life. Any more takers on that one?