I would not necessarily consider what he did to be a sin. Is it sinful to give untruth to men who have no regard for the truth? I would debate that to the point I do not deny the truthfulness of my allegiance to God. Certainly would make for an interesting thread.Homer wrote:There can be cases where the Christian must choose the lesser evil. Situations can arise in life where the only choices you face are acts that would normally be a sinful. A classic case in ethics is that of the USS Pueblo where the ship had been seized in 1968 as a spy ship by North Korea while in international waters. The ship's captain, Lloyd Bucher, signed a false confession to save his crew from execution.Can the Christian choose the lesser of two evils? Or must the Christian choose no evil at all?
As an aside, his confession is a hoot, he pulled one over on the North Koreans. Excerpts can be read here, very funny:
http://www.usspueblo.org/Prisoners/Pete ... ssion.html
I believe the greater or lesser evil reaches a new level when it involves weighing the taking of human life.
Let us look at some of the claims I have heard Christians make to justify our present wars:
What I hear? Sucks to not be an American, because we will wage war on your streets rather than ours. We will have all the collateral damage take place over there because we don't want it to happen here. Our priority is American lives first. The lesser evil we chose is for you to suffer the war on your soil and have your women and children caught up rather than ours."We should fight them there to prevent the fight from coming here and killing our people. It is the right things to do as an American, protect our people."
I don't know how I can stand before God with that defense. "I pulled the trigger, but he made me do it by being a bad guy." Seems like the Adam in the garden defense."Collateral damage really isn't our fault even though we pulled the trigger that led to the death of civilians. If the bad guy wouldn't have been bad or wouldn't have put himself among innocents those innocents would still be alive. Its the bad guy's fault, he made us kill those women and children."
I know this doesn't cover all aspects, but it is some of the thoughts going through my head.
Would I lie to protect life? Probably.
Would I take life to protect life? I don't know. Does it matter if the life I'm taking is an innocent or a criminal life? I don't know.