Cooperation in Bank Robbery a Sin?

[vern_humphrey]

Thank you. I was hoping that this was the ‘explanation’… that by prior agreement between the teller and the employer, the teller’s job is to do what robbers say. Since the money belongs to the bank, the bank has the authority to allow the teller to co-operate with robbers.

This solution avoids opening the Pandora’s box that gets open once you say that a person being coerced doesn’t have free will.

On the other hand, you could probably dream up a hypothetical situation where such an agreement didn’t exist (either explicitly or implied). For example… lets say you don’t work for the bank, you’re just a customer there, and the robber orders you to help him carry the cash out to his car.

The Church recognizes that one who acts under coersion in a matter like this does not sin.

Now, if the robber gave you a loaded gun and ordered you to stand there for five minutes while he made his getaway, and to shoot anyone who tried to call the police, that would be another matter.

 

[Neil_Anthony]

You are not required to defend the cash with your life.

Agreed, but there’s a difference between the bank teller defending the money, by, e.g. trying to tackle the robber, and the bank teller actively helping the robber to rob the bank.

So the bank teller has two choices that don’t involved “defending the cash”

1. Refuse to co-operate with the robber: simply ignore his orders. Don’t defend the money and don’t help the robber. This action avoids committing the evil of cooperation with theft and will result in the bank teller’s death
2. Co-operate with the robber and help him commit theft

 

[po18guy]

If you work at a bank, and a robber with a gun demands that you give them cash, is it a sin to give them the money? Does it make a difference how easily the robber would have been able to get it without your help (for example, is the money sitting beside you or is it locked in a vault with a combination that you know).

When threatened with deadly force, you are not acting out of a free choice. You must freely consent to sin before it attaches to your soul. Coercion removes the freedom of consent.

Christ’s peace.

 

[Neil_Anthony]

The Church recognizes that one who acts under coersion in a matter like this does not sin.

Do you have a quote or reference to the CCC or some other document?

 

[Neil_Anthony]

When threatened with deadly force, you are not acting out of a free choice. You must freely consent to sin before it attaches to your soul. Coercion removes the freedom of consent.

Christ’s peace.

Thank you, but…

isn’t a choice between dying and cooperating with the robber still a “free choice”? Jesus had a free choice, and he chose to die, as did a lot of martyrs.

 

[po18guy]

Do you have a quote or reference to the CCC or some other document?

Catechism of the Catholic Church 1857: For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must together be met: “Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent.”

Thus, if you drove a car not knowing your passenger was to commit a robbery, there is no sin. Staring deadly force in the face removes your freedom of consent to the sin, thus it is not sin.

Christ’s peace.

 

[po18guy]

Thank you, but…

isn’t a choice between dying and cooperating with the robber still a “free choice”? Jesus had a free choice, and he chose to die, as did a lot of martyrs.

I think you are overanalyzing this just a little. God gave you life for a purpose. That purpose may not yet have been revealed to you. Thus, to knowingly subject yourself to mortal danger is to place at risk realizing God’s purpose for your life. Nowhere has God ever insisted that you relinquish your life for such a reason. To give it up for the sake of His Kingdom is a blessing, but that is clearly not the case in a common robbery. The mere living of life is not a death sentence!

Here is a searchable CCC online:

scborromeo.org/ccc.htm

You might buy a full catechism at your local Catholic bookstore. They are not expensive… A “Compendium” of the CCC is even more affordable. You can probe the depths of Catholic moral teaching within its covers.

Christ’s peace.

 

[Neil_Anthony]

Catechism of the Catholic Church 1857: For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must together be met: “Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent.”

Thus, if you drove a car not knowing your passenger was to commit a robbery, there is no sin. Staring deadly force in the face removes your freedom of consent to the sin, thus it is not sin.

Christ’s peace.

If you ‘stare deadly force in the face’ do you not still have a choice between obeying and disobeying?

If you did not consent to helping the robber, then you would not move your arm, grab some money, and put in in the bag for him. You could simply not perform the action.

Perhaps I need to see what ‘consent’ means:

consent: to permit, approve, or agree; comply or yield (often fol. by to or an infinitive): He consented to the proposal. We asked her permission, and she consented.

If you comply with the robber, and do as he says, you are consenting to help him.

 

[Neil_Anthony]

I think you are overanalyzing this just a little. God gave you life for a purpose. That purpose may not yet have been revealed to you. Thus, to knowingly subject yourself to mortal danger is to place at risk realizing God’s purpose for your life. Nowhere has God ever insisted that you relinquish your life for such a reason. To give it up for the sake of His Kingdom is a blessing, but that is clearly not the case in a common robbery. The mere living of life is not a death sentence!

Are you saying that it is okay to commit evil to prolong your life? I thought self-defense was okay, but only because self-defense isn’t an evil. But I think helping a robber is an evil… or does it count as self-defense in that case? Is that why?

Here is a searchable CCC online:

scborromeo.org/ccc.htm

You might buy a full catechism at your local Catholic bookstore. They are not expensive… A “Compendium” of the CCC is even more affordable. You can probe the depths of Catholic moral teaching within its covers.

Christ’s peace.

Thanks, I have the catechism and consult it often.

 

[po18guy]

If you ‘stare deadly force in the face’ do you not still have a choice between obeying and disobeying?

If you did not consent to helping the robber, then you would not move your arm, grab some money, and put in in the bag for him. You could simply not perform the action.

Perhaps I need to see what ‘consent’ means:

If you comply with the robber, and do as he says, you are consenting to help him.

But not freely!

 

[po18guy]

Are you saying that it is okay to commit evil to prolong your life? I thought self-defense was okay, but only because self-defense isn’t an evil. But I think helping a robber is an evil… or does it count as self-defense in that case? Is that why.

The robbery is not yours, it’s the robber’s sin. You were not given life only to lose it at the earliest opportunity. Think of those you love, and who love you. Should the robber, who will answer to God, deprive the world of this love? You have the right to resist evil, but you also have the ability to make prudential judgments. Prudence dictates that you cooperate in a physical sense, not a moral sense. If you resist and are are killed by the robber, what if it leads to him also killing those around you? Would you then share responsibility in a limited sense, for their deaths?

Christ’s peace.

 

[DanteAlighieri]

One of my eighth grade CCD students asked me if I would die if asked to deny Jesus. Of course the reponse that all would like to hear is yes, of course I would die rather than deny Jesus. But, in reality one would never know unless one were set in that circumstance. While this could be considered martyrdom, it none the less leaves me to wonder about my wife and children and all of the other precious gifts that I would deny my presence by forfeiting my life to prove my faith. Would Jesus want me to die to prove my faith to Him?? Is it necessary that I should?? He definitely understood Peter when he denied knowing Christ out of fear for his life.

Neil_Anthony, sometimes there are no clear cut answers. God knows our weaknesses and our love for Him however we react to the externals in a moment of time. In closing I would say that Jesus knows our hearts and our fears better than we do. We hold stewardship over our lives as a gift from God and should do everything and anything to preserve it. I feel that the person doing the coercion has the bigger sin…God Bless…teachccd

Keep in mind that we are never permitted to endanger our own souls for the benefit of others. Handing over the money in a robbery is not a sin, because one is not complicit in the robbery, and as someone else points out, the money is of less value than one’s life. If one denies Christ at gunpoint, one is risking one’s soul to protect one’s earthly life, or the earthly well-being of one’s family. While the culpability would certainly be lessened due to the coercion involved, the act is still objectively sinful, whereas handing over the money in a robbery is not.

I would imagine that the instances in which one is called to lay down one’s life in witness to Christ are relatively rare, and that failing to do so would not in and of itself be damning, but look at it this way: what guarantee does one have that the assailant wouldn’t shoot anyway, despite the compliance?

Peace,
Dante

 

[Br.Rich_SFO]

If you work at a bank, and a robber with a gun demands that you give them cash, is it a sin to give them the money? Does it make a difference how easily the robber would have been able to get it without your help (for example, is the money sitting beside you or is it locked in a vault with a combination that you know).

OF course the act would be itself objectively sinful. But because you did not act of your total free will, Subjectively there would not be any guilt of the sin on you.

 

[Spirithound]

Now, if the robber gave you a loaded gun and ordered you to stand there for five minutes while he made his getaway, and to shoot anyone who tried to call the police, that would be another matter.

One might make the argument here that the moral option is to shoot (non-fatally) the robber (if he’s still armed).

 

[Neil_Anthony]

OF course the act would be itself objectively sinful. But because you did not act of your total free will, Subjectively there would not be any guilt of the sin on you.

Oh, thanks! Actually you’re the first one to say that giving the money to the robber would be objectively sinful, unless I’ve misunderstood the others.

How confusing!

So does that mean that to refuse the demands of the thief, knowing he would kill you and leave your children without a father, would NOT be a sin?

 

[jmcrae]

Oh, thanks! Actually you’re the first one to say that giving the money to the robber would be objectively sinful, unless I’ve misunderstood the others.

How confusing!

So does that mean that to refuse the demands of the thief, knowing he would kill you and leave your children without a father, would NOT be a sin?

It would be an imbalance of justice, because you had traded your life (higher value) for money (lower value).

In the case of someone lying about his religion in order to save his family, we have the example of the martyrs to follow - they became Saints by not denying their Christian faith when asked directly.

They weren’t stupid about it - they didn’t advertise their Christian faith, and they held Mass in the catacombs where the authorities wouldn’t think to look for them, but when asked directly, they did not deny Christ.

Those who did deny Christ were called “lapsi” and were immediately excommunicated from the Church, so we can see that the Early Church (and by extension, the Catholic Church) does not consider it unjust to die for one’s faith in Christ at the hands of violent unbelievers - the reason is that our Christian witness is of greater value than our physical lives.

To put it on the scales of justice:

money (lesser value) < human life = loss.

Christian witness (greater value) < human life = profit.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Agreed, but there’s a difference between the bank teller defending the money, by, e.g. trying to tackle the robber, and the bank teller actively helping the robber to rob the bank.

So the bank teller has two choices that don’t involved “defending the cash”

1. Refuse to co-operate with the robber: simply ignore his orders. Don’t defend the money and don’t help the robber. This action avoids committing the evil of cooperation with theft and will result in the bank teller’s death
2. Co-operate with the robber and help him commit theft

No, the teller’s choices are:

1. Refuse to co-operate with the robber and die.
2. Co-operate with the robber and survive.

I’ve never been in a bank robbery, but I have been in combat. And I have learned that bullets have their own inescapable logic.

 

[Neil_Anthony]

It would be an imbalance of justice, because you had traded your life (higher value) for money (lower value).

In the case of someone lying about his religion in order to save his family, we have the example of the martyrs to follow - they became Saints by not denying their Christian faith when asked directly.

They weren’t stupid about it - they didn’t advertise their Christian faith, and they held Mass in the catacombs where the authorities wouldn’t think to look for them, but when asked directly, they did not deny Christ.

Those who did deny Christ were called “lapsi” and were immediately excommunicated from the Church, so we can see that the Early Church (and by extension, the Catholic Church) does not consider it unjust to die for one’s faith in Christ at the hands of violent unbelievers - the reason is that our Christian witness is of greater value than our physical lives.

To put it on the scales of justice:

money (lesser value) < human life = loss.

Christian witness (greater value) < human life = profit.

Thank you, this solution to the problem meshes very well with common sense.

But, please consider…

You’re making a moral decision based on the relative good & evil of the action and its consequences, which if course is forbidden for intrinsically evil actions

Of course, when faced with a choice between two actions, if one of them is intrinsically evil, we must always select the alternative choice, regardless of the consequences.

When neither action is intrinsically evil, it makes sense to choose the action which produces the least harm or the most good. Which is what you are doing here.

So, I conclude that you believe that helping a robber is not intrinsically evil, even when considered apart from the consequences.

Presumably, it is not intrinsically evil because it is performed under duress.

However, the catechism says that duress can keep a sin from being imputed to us, but it doesn’t say that it makes a evil into a good.

Anyway, if duress can make an intrinsically evil act into a good act, then what considerations go into the judgment of whether there is enough duress to overcome the intrinsic evil? Can we refer to the laws of the country we live in to tell us if we’re under enough duress? This varies from culture to culture and country to country. Or does the church provide some guidance.

Is this really any different than relativism or moral utilitarianism?

 

[jmcrae]

Thank you, this solution to the problem meshes very well with common sense.

But, please consider…

You’re making a moral decision based on the relative good & evil of the action and its consequences, which if course is forbidden for intrinsically evil actions.

No, I’m not - I’m not considering morality at all, here, really. I’m evaluating based on the relative value of the justice to be gained/lost by the action.

So, I conclude that you believe that helping a robber is not intrinsically evil, even when considered apart from the consequences.

Presumably, it is not intrinsically evil because it is performed under duress.

Yes.

However, the catechism says that duress can keep a sin from being imputed to us, but it doesn’t say that it makes a evil into a good.

Nor am I saying that it is a good. What I am saying is that justice profits when human life is preserved, in this particular case. The morality/immorality of the action belongs to the bank robber. The other people involved did not become involved voluntarily; therefore, their decision-making has to be based on justice; not on morality.

 

[vern_humphrey]

A case can be made that there is a sort of moral imperative to defend against a robber – after all, if we all successfully defended, there would be no successful robberies.

However, human life trumps that – no one is required to lose his life (or to risk losing it) in a case like that outlined in this thread.