184. Sinning alittle sin to avoid abig scandal?
184. SINNING A LITTLE SIN TO AVOID A BIG SCANDAL?
Whether spiritual goods should be foregone on account of scandal?
Objection: It seems that one ought sometimes to commit a venial sin in order to avoid scandalizing one’s neighbor, for instance, when by sinning venially one would prevent someone else from committing a mortal sin; because one is bound to hinder the damnation of one’s neighbor as much as one can without prejudice to one’s own salvation, which is not precluded by a venial sin. . . .
Reply: Some have said that one ought to commit a venial sin in order to avoid scandal. But this implies a contradiction, since if it ought to be done, it is no longer evil or sinful. . . .
He whose duty it is to teach should not teach what is contrary to the truth . . . on no account ought he to suppress the truth and teach error in order to avoid any scandal that might ensue (II-II,43,7).
For any act to be morally right, three things are necessary: (1) right act, (2) right motive, and (3) right circumstances. If any one of these factors is not right, the act is wrong.
Motives and / or circumstances can never make an intrinsically wrong act right. E.g., if all torture is wrong (St. Thomas does not think it is, by the way), then it is wrong even to torture a terrorist who has planted a ticking nuclear time bomb in the middle of Manhattan. A sin is a sin. No is no, and never yes. As St. Thomas says so simply, to say that sometimes one “ought” to commit a sin is a contradiction, for what we “ought” to do is good, not evil. “I ought to sin” means “I ought to do what I ought not to do.”
But what if the harm done by not sinning is spiritual instead of just physical? What if the scandal (spiritual harm) done by not sinning is eternal? What if someone who is in a state of mortal sin threatens to kill not me but himself if I do not blaspheme? I believe he will go to Hell forever if I do not sin reluctantly, and thus not mortally (for “full consent of the will” is one of the conditions of a mortal sin). Should I imperil his eternal salvation to save my moral purity?
This is a tricky question, and most tricky questions are solved only by changing the perspective, backing up and remembering “the big picture”. The “big picture” here is that we are not God, and God has issued clear commandments to the whole human race for all times and circumstances. We are to obey our Commanding Officer. That is more certain than our calculation of the probable consequences of bodily and spiritual harm, temporal and eternal harm, to our souls and the souls of others.
But isn’t it wrong to lie? And didn’t the Dutchmen rightly lie to the Nazis about where the Jews were hiding? And wasn’t that good? That was obviously good, but it was not a lie. Not all deceptions are lies, just as not all forcible taking of personal property is theft (e.g., kicking his gun out of a madman’s hand). We can explain why in two ways. Either (1) the Nazis had given up their right to the truth, as a lethal aggressor gives up his right to life (after all, the commandment does not say never to utter false propositions but never to bear false witness against your neighbor), or else (2) this deception was not a lie but precisely the truth—the truth of keeping your promise to the Jews you were hiding.
How you explain this case may be tricky, but what is not at all tricky is the principle that we should never do evil even for the sake of good. If we could do that, then it would be all right for nine of ten people on a lifeboat to murder one innocent person so that the nine could eat him and survive rather than all ten dying of starvation. And once that camel’s nose is under the tent. . . .
Some twentieth-century theologians actually taught that we should not send out missionaries because fewer pagans would go to Hell if they had the excuse that they had never heard the gospel. (They didn’t put it that plainly, but that was their point.) That is an example of suppressing the truth (a sin of omission) or even lying (a sin of commission) in order to avoid scandalizing (harming) souls. That’s just dishonest. Back up. Look at the obvious: What are our marching orders? Who is our Commanding Officer? Where did the Great Commission come from? Are we the General or His soldiers?