(26) S2E3 Consequentialism: Problems with the Lesser of Two Evils Ethic

December 14, 2019·27 min·2 clips

If allowing evil were immoral, God himself would be damned—because every rape, murder, and torture in history has been permitted by an omnipotent God who refuses to engage in evil to stop it.

The argument begins with obedience. The host goes back to the claim that Christians are called to faithful holiness and to the means God gives them. Consequences do not get to run the room. The lesser-of-two-evils ethic is described as choosing one evil because the other option seems worse. That sounds practical enough, maybe even responsible. The host's pushback is that the practical frame has already given away too much. Moral action becomes a matter of managing outcomes. Politics is where the problem gets obvious. Christians on opposite sides can admit compromise, then still call their own bargain necessary. That does not bring clarity. It turns ethics into a calculation where some evil gets accepted, promoted, or excused because some other good is desired more. Abortion is one example. The host describes a liberal Christian tolerating it for gains against discrimination and race things, while criticizing Republican compromises around wealth. His point is not that only one side plays this game. Both do. That symmetry matters because it leaves no stable Christian measure beyond how much evil each camp is willing to carry. He calls that relativism. From there, he presses the sacred/secular split. Martyrdom makes the contradiction hard to dodge. Christians know that denying Christ is still wrong under torture, death, threats to family, or nobody watching. Sympathy belongs there. Permission does not. Obedience still defines the act. The sacred case judges the ordinary one. If faithfulness is required at that cost, ordinary effectiveness cannot quietly bless lesser evils. Underneath it all is control. The host treats the desire to manage outcomes as a recurring sin that can make effectiveness look like morality. The closing charge is blunt: be faithful, not merely effective, because lesser-of-two-evils ethics cannot hold together as a Christian ethic.

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