Welcome back to the Fourth Way podcast. We are continuing our series on consequentialism with a look at the lesser of 2 evils justification. In the last episode, we concluded that Christian the Christian's call is faithful holiness and an adherence to the means that God prescribes, God's holy will. Obedience is better than sacrifice. Faithfulness, not effectiveness.

That episode is is perhaps the most crucial in understanding my overall case, because if you don't agree with what God has called us to, then you're probably gonna disagree with, with how then we are to live. So in the last episode, we set up a positive case for Christian faithfulness. In this episode, I'm gonna kinda do the opposite. I'm gonna tear down consequentialism as expressed in the lesser of 2 evils ethic. So the lesser of 2 evils, you're probably familiar with, because we use the phrase fairly frequently.

Right? Well, I guess it's the lesser of 2 evils. And that ethic is is at its heart consequentialist because it says that, you know, if I have to pick an evil, I'm going to side with the evil that isn't as evil as the other one. Or I'm gonna side with the evil the other way that you can put it is, I'm gonna side with the evil that does more good. More good, less harm.

So this ethic says that when we are faced with a scenario in which only undesirable outcomes are available, the moral means we must choose is the one which brings about the least amount of evil. If you think back to our M*A*S*H conundrum, that was that example where some people would say smothering that baby to save the 50 lives was better than allowing 51 people to die. Or in our last presidential election, I heard it all the time, where people would say, hey, look, Hillary or, or Trump, you know, it I don't like either choice, but I'm gonna go with the lesser of 2 evils, so I'm gonna vote for Trump. It's okay to embrace something that that one identifies as evil if it brings about a greater good. So in in the elections, for instance, right, if Hillary is evil and Trump is evil, or if the Democrats and Republicans are both evil, then, you're essentially saying that if you vote for one of them, it is worth it to embrace an evil so that the other evil doesn't get in.

Now, on the surface, the lesser of 2 evils ethics sounds like it's really good, because you're you're accomplishing something good. You're preventing worse evil from occurring, and and you're kinda doing some good. Even though you're embracing an evil, you're really also avoiding larger evil. So it sounds like it's it's really good. But there are at least 8 problems with the lesser of 2 evils ethic that I've identified, And I'm not a philosopher.

I do this in my spare time. So I'm sure that other people who great minds who would put their minds to this, could probably come up with many more. But these are the ones that that I've been able to identify at the moment. 1st is that in in a consequentialist, assumption, right, it's that I have to choose between a lesser of 2 evils. But I can't, for the life of me, think of any scenario where you literally only have 2 options available to you.

If you listen to the The Pacifist episodes, The Nonviolent Series, then if you listen to part 2 of the one about, intruders coming into your house, it there's that same false dichotomy there that you have you only really have 2 options. You either do nothing or you act violently. Same thing in the election with president Trump or Hillary. Right? You only have 2 options.

Well, no, you don't. You have many more options depending on in your state, if you had 3rd party candidates, you had, however many options there were for 3rd party candidates. And if all of those were evil, you had the choice to abstain. Now, we can talk about whether abstention is is moral in elsewhere, and I've written a bit about that. But, nevertheless, point is, there's always more than one option and there's always an option that avoids embracing an evil.

I can't think of any scenario, and maybe there is, maybe I'm wrong about, no scenarios. But even if I am, the point is that almost every single scenario is going to have, another option. And I'm pretty sure every scenario has another option. So, consequentialism relies on creating this false dichotomy, which it does in pacifism, it does in voting, it just that's how it works. That's how it maintains its power.

It has to make you think you don't have a choice. Number 2 and, this is this is a really powerful one in my mind and that is: consequentialism fails to distinguish between engaging in versus allowing evil. Now, you have to recognize that allowing evil is clearly not immoral. Clearly. Or, God Himself is damned, because every single evil act that occurs every rape, every child molestation, every murder, every torture, every, every single evil in all of history until, the judgment is allowed by God.

If He is omniscient and He is omnipotent and He is, He is all good, omnibenevolent there you go. I remember it now. Even if He is all of those 3 if He is all 3 of those things and he allows evil, which we know he must, because I see evil all over the place, then evil is clearly not immoral, or God himself is immoral. Now I can't sit here and tell you that I know for sure why God refuses to intervene in in stopping evil, but I do know a couple things. I know first that he will bring about good through everything.

For as hard as that is for me to imagine, I know that God works things together for good, and God, is just. And if I believe those things and if those things are true, then they're God is gonna God is gonna make it right. It's gonna be just. However that is, I don't understand, but god's got that. And, another thing that I know is that god will not do evil to bring about good.

If god is omnibenevolent, if god is, cannot do wrong, then He will not do evil to accomplish those things. So He allows evil to occur, but God himself does not participate in it. So if we trust God's sovereignty and justice and and all of His attributes, and we believe in His holiness, and that God is refusing to engage in evil, why do we promote the lesser of of 2 evils ethic, which declares our need to control outcomes by throwing off the holiness that God calls us to? And that just doesn't make sense. If we know that allowing evil, is something that God does, and taking on evil is something God will not do, why do we insist on the opposite that we have to take on evil in order to not allow an evil to happen now?

Why can't we say, God, I refuse to compromise. I will maintain my holiness even though I know that that might, for a time, allow evil to occur. Why can't we do that? Because we don't trust God and we think it's our job to control things and to bring about the outcome. So the lesser of 2 evils ethic is gonna lie to us, and it's going to tell us that if we don't vote for the lesser of 2 evils, then we are responsible for the greater evil that ensues.

And, fine, it can tell you that. But if it does, know that you're also buying into an ethic that damns God, and that's a little bit problematic if you're a Christian. The third issue with the lesser of 2 evils ethic is that it makes morality subjective or relative. Morality is no longer a static decree, but kind of a a shifting value set or opinion. You know, in in elections, Republicans, conservative Christians are going to define the greatest good as things like upholding traditional marriage or stopping abortion.

Democrats are gonna define the greatest good as helping the poor or combating injustice, indiscrimination, or combating discrimination, and taking care of the earth. So they both feel like they're doing the greater good and the lesser evil even though the Republican party, takes on some things that I think are problematic for Christians, like its view on refugees and and immigrants or the way that it it panders to the wealthy and, creates more disparity between classes. And for the Democrats, I mean, abortion is is by far the the biggest thing. I think that's just a huge problem for Christians. So, but everybody thinks that they're doing the greatest good because they get to define what what the value set is, what things, they all know that they're compromising on some things.

But it's okay because they, you know, as long as the scale is weighty enough on the goods, we can overlook the evils of each party or individual. And Christians on each side are willing to sacrifice some morality and prop up some evil for the greater good that their party or candidate seeks? And who's right if they're all wrong, if they're all engaging in in some clear evil? If they've all compromised with with some sort of evil, yet label their position as good, like, who who are we to believe? What's the value set if if, it's all compromised?

Now if as a liberal Christian, I can say that abortion is just evil. But you know what? To, to get less discrimination and to fix some of these race things, and there are a lot of things that I don't like that the Republicans do, with wealth. Yeah. I need to kinda go with abortion here.

I don't like it, but I'll take it because it gets me it gets me enough of the other good things that I want. You know, both sides do it. And I just think that's that's problematic because we turn morality into this this value set and deciding how much evil we're willing to take on and willing to be okay with and promote. And that's relativism. 4th problem I have with the lesser of 2 evils ethic is that it creates a moral distinction between the sacred and the secular.

I'm gonna make a bold statement here. People who adhere to the lesser of 2 evils ethic, who think that that's a legitimate ethic, They know intuitively that their position is wrong, and I think I can prove that. So, martyrdom is something expected for Christians if they're they're faced with it. We know that if somebody is faced with torture and death or denying Christ, for a Christian, the right answer is to not deny Christ, even if even if that torture and death is done to their families. The right answer is to not deny Christ.

We can empathize with people who deny Christ. We can not know what we ourselves are gonna do, but we know that the moral thing to do, the right thing to do, is not deny Christ. And that's gonna be true even if they do bad things to your family, even if nobody witnesses it. If somebody comes into my house, I'm all by myself, and they're gonna torture and kill me, and and my family. And nobody else is around to know that it happened, to know why we died, and no good can come from it that I can perceive because nobody's gonna know the story.

Or if, like, in Romania with Richard Richard Wurmbrand, however you say his name, his family was was left in great need because he was in jail for a long time. Now what good does that what what good does that do them? The right answer, no matter what no matter what use it is, I what use I perceive it to be, the right answer is to profess Christ and not deny Him. So we're we're supposed to be willing to sacrifice our lives pointlessly for Christ as martyrs, but we don't view the maintaining of faithful holiness in the political sphere as a sacrifice we're called to make as a testimony to our true lord. So we think that it's good to sacrifice our lives for Christ even if there's no good that comes from it.

Right? We will not compromise on our faithfulness, on our testimony. Yet, for some reason, in just about anything else, we view that compromise is sometimes necessary to do good. Right? That compromising our lives.

So we don't compromise our our, what we say with our mouth. We're not willing to do that, but we're willing to do it with our actions. And that seems problematic to me. I don't think there's this distinction between the sacred and the secular because we're in God's kingdom and everything is sacred. Our lives are sacred.

And so the way that we live our lives is supposed to be sacred. There's not a distinction between being faithful in martyrdom and being faithful in whatever else God calls us to, whether that's, loving our neighbor, hiding Jews against the Nazis at the risk of our own lives, or any number of other things. Right? There there is not a distinction between professing Christ with our mouth and professing Him with our lives. Our whole lives are to be dedicated to God and testimonies of Him.

5th problem I have with the Lesser of 2 Evils ethic is that it undermines God's sovereignty, omniscience, and wisdom. Consequentialism can only act on perceived ends. So when when basing my morality on the ends, I can never really guarantee the rightness of my action. I am, performing an action because I think this is the result it will give me, and I think that that is the best result. So I I basically I I base my morality on hypotheticals and guesses rather than, on what I know God's will is for my life and trusting in His sovereignty, omniscience, wisdom, and goodness.

God will bring about, the the best results, by wielding me and and my faithfulness. So with the election, the last election, I mean, who knows what electing Trump will do? Maybe it will do something awesome. Maybe there'll be a revival for however that comes about through his presidency. But at the same time, maybe it'll be terrible.

Maybe it's gonna tick a whole nation off. People are gonna think that Christians are hypocrites. People are gonna be, liberals are gonna be really scared. And now they're you know, when they get power back, they're going to ramp up abortions. They're gonna, increase persecution, all kinds of things.

I mean, who knows? And that that's the point. We don't know what our actions are gonna do, which is why we don't base our morality not why we don't base our morality on on, you know, what we think the ends are gonna be. I mean, we base our morality on on what god says, first of all. But this is just one reason why it's ludicrous to base morality on hypotheticals and guesses because we don't know.

But we do have a God who is sovereign and omniscient, who does know, and who can wield our faithfulness even if it seems ineffective and stupid. So it's just ludicrous to base our our morality on a lesser of 2 evils ethic and compromise ourselves because we don't know what the best thing is, and we don't know, what outcomes will happen and what results it will have. So we may remain faithful. A 6th problem with the lesser of 2 evils ethic is that it can facilitate, it tends to facilitate, a worsening of evil. It creates a slippery slope for the quality, of future decisions.

So in terms of elections, we elect a guy like Trump. We've just lowered the bar for for the candidates that we're willing to accept and probably the candidates and policies that we're gonna see. And it it also, in our hearts, it creates a slippery slope of evil that we're willing to flirt with and embrace. You know, we we embrace an evil like Trump now. I mean, he's no Hitler or Stalin or anything, and he's a lot of steps away from that.

But, you know, you're able to see a whole lot more of the slippery slope of how you can go down the line and in 50 to a 100 years, how you can get to some places that you can't even imagine you'd be today. Or even if the Republican party doesn't create that slippery slope, if electing a guy like Trump on our side, means that we're allowed to flirt with evil, then what compromises is the other side gonna make to accomplish their agenda? So even if you don't think your side would ever embrace a Hitler or a Stalin, what are you paving the way for in in politics in general, even if it's not your side, the other side? 7th problem I have with the lesser of 2 evils ethic is that it undermines our defense of God's goodness in the face of evil. The Lesser of 2 evils ethic declares that rather than patient, trusting, obedience in God's means, we must embrace some evil for a perceived and immediate good.

But then, what if God's patient with evil and refusal to participate in it for good? The Lesser of 2 Evils ethic declares that immediate good is the metric for morality. A metric which we talked about, in I believe point 2, that that God then fails. And that's a big problem for theodysies because they're undermined by a lesser of 2 evils ethic. If immediate outcome, immediate goodness, is what makes something good, then what theodicy doesn't fail?

The soul building theodicy fails because, you know, God is willing to put up with evil because it helps to prepare our souls for heaven. The free will theodicy would say that God is willing to allow us to have free choices, but then that means He's willing to put up with evil because He values freedom. So every theodicy fails if it's immoral to, to to not stifle evil immediately. And finally, this is kind of a kick in the pants to, the lesser of 2 evils ethic because, this is one where it has to kind of go in the defense. Because if if the lesser of 2 evils ethic is going to say that, morality is determined by the greatest good, then there's no such thing as altruism, or it's almost impossible to be altruistic.

You know, when when I bought backpacks for the local school children in need, That was very nice of me. But, you know what? That same money, I could have bought, like, a month's worth of meals for a kid in Africa so he didn't die. Giving a kid backpacks for school versus giving a kid's the kid 30 days to live. What's better?

Well, it seems pretty clear that helping the kid live for 30 days is better. When you start to judge things by, the greatest good, it makes doing good nearly impossible. And while that doesn't disprove the lesser of 2 evils ethic, it's gonna create some bigger problems later. When we look at this in episode 17, I'll bring up one of the the conundrums that, an atheist pro choice brings up is, if you're in a, if you're in a fertility clinic as a Christian, and there's a fire, and there's a toddler in one room, and a 1,000 embryos in another, fertilized embryos, who do you save? The toddler or the embryos?

Nearly all Christians say the the toddler, and that's that's my inclination too. But if you're a lesser of 2 evils person, you gotta go with the embryos. Even if there are 2 embryos, you go with the embryos. You create some pretty big, problems, for yourself by embracing a lesser of 2 evils ethic. And you make good nearly impossible because, just about anything you do is never the greatest good.

Or if you just take one second to think about it, it's very clearly not the greatest good. So as as kind of a quick analogy to all of this, I would say that, I'm gonna set up this this hypothetical, and it's it's crazy, but I think it's useful. So let's say that you time travel to Jesus' trial. You know, he's on trial to go to the cross. You know your Bible.

You know God's will is that he's gonna be crucified. You know all of the characters, Pilate, Barabbas, the leaders. You know what their thoughts are, who's done what. Right? Barabbas is a murderer.

Pilate has to pander to the Jews. The Jews are dead set on his crucifixion. You you know what the outcome is gonna be. Jesus is going to lose. So you're there in the crowd though, and you know that Jesus is gonna lose, but you don't really know whether Barabbas is set to like, does Barabbas really have to go free?

It seems Barabbas is a murderer. Maybe you could persuade the crowd to set the thief free. A thief just stole something. It would be a greater good for Barabbas to be executed, to not have the potential to go kill any more people, and for somebody who did a lesser crime to not be executed. So in the crowd, what do you do?

Do you, shout out to free Jesus, the innocent person who deserved to be freed, but you know that he can't be because it's just not gonna happen? The crowd's against them and God's will is that he's gonna go to the cross? Or do you shout out to free the thief? And it seems to me that if you shout out to free the thief, you are guilty of, of essentially crucifying Jesus. And it seems very clear that you would shout to free Jesus even if you know that's not gonna get you anywhere because you do that though because it's the right thing to do.

I would I'll close with just a a reference to Yoder. I'd I'd certainly recommend reading, some John Howard Yoder in the politics of Jesus. And he he talks a lot about how we seek to control things, and that's really really the first sin in it. It's our, continued sin. It's just trying to control things and thinking that that's our job and that's what creates morality.

So I'll I'll leave some links down there for you to to read some yoder. But hopefully, you can understand now why I have such a problem with the lesser of 2 evils ethic. It just doesn't work. It breaks down. It doesn't provide us with a coherent Christian ethic.

But we Christians, at least Christians in America, man, we love it. It's it's, our go to to make us to help us feel effective, by embracing evil. But my charge to you is to be faithful. Obedience, not sacrifice. Faithfulness, not effectiveness.

That's all for now. So peace because I'm a pacifist and I say it I mean it.