Is it worse to let billions die to for some spiritual gain?

[fakename]

It’s true that spirit is more important than matter so that ideally, the latter should serve the former. But what does this mean?

Here’s a test case: If spirituality is better than matter, then it would be best all the time. But if that were true, then manicheanism is true which is clearly false.

So matter must have a spiritual connection if it is to have value at all. In what sense then could it have value? In so far as spiritual things like truth and justice are preserved in material things like gov. and the Church.

So if I’m doing my moral calculation right, would it be bad for someone to allow billions of people to die in order for someone to gain say, the high virtue of love? Or what if billions were allowed to die for millions to gain the same thing?

(Note: I say “allowed” in order to show that this is being done under the principle of double effect, so that it’s not intrinsically wrong.)

would the cost be too great? But how does one measure the spiritual value of billions of people against the certain gain in spiritual value of millions of others? I’m actually at a loss here so I defer to others.

 

[edward_george]

Here’s a test case: If spirituality is better than matter, then it would be best all the time. But if that were true, then manicheanism is true which is clearly false.

I think this is a false premise. To say that the spiritual is superior is not tantamount to Manicheanism. To assert the superiority of the spiritual to the material is not to deny the goodness of material creation, as did Manicheanism, merely to say that while the material is good, the spiritual is superior in goodness. To say that a five gallon bucket holds more water than a beer glass does not deny the water-holding faculty of the beer glass, it is just a statement of the superiority of the bucket at holding water.

-ACEGC

 

[Barbkw]

It’s true that spirit is more important than matter so that ideally, the latter should serve the former. But what does this mean?

Here’s a test case: If spirituality is better than matter, then it would be best all the time. But if that were true, then manicheanism is true which is clearly false.

We aren’t one or the other, we are both matter and spirit. We are “of the Earth” and we are “of God”.

Of course, being “of God” is better because God is holy. However, we (of the Earth) have a free-will search to discover the will of God for us.

So if I’m doing my moral calculation right, would it be bad for someone to allow billions of people to die in order for someone to gain say, the high virtue of love? Or what if billions were allowed to die for millions to gain the same thing?

Yes, of course. You (as a human) are taking away another person’s free will. You are stopping the free will progression of individual people in their search for God.

 

[fakename]

Granted, one premise was false because I accidentally used different definitions of the words spiritual and material.

But I later corrected it in the same post as you can tell.

But am I taking away people’s free will by allowing them to die? Sometimes, I suppose, but this is by accident so the question then becomes “is spiritual advancement for some better than having some others loose their free will?”

And also remember that spiritual advancement makes the will even freer so the question is also a question between some people gaining more freedom and others loosing. That only makes the question unnecessarily difficult.

IMO I think we should just stick to the original question before branching out:

Is it spiritually worse or not to have billions accidentally die by some people/person’s actions to advance spiritually?

Here’s an argument: Constantine would’ve never progressed spiritually had he not won the battle in Milan. But Constantine probably defeated several more people than he lost. So it is okay for a large group of people to be killed for the sake of one man in direct combat so much more is it okay to advance one man indirectly.