Never do evil to bring about good?

[bobby_bambino]

Hello. I’m pretty sure that there is some verse in the New Testement, maybe in one of Pauls letters, about how one can never do evil in order to bring about something good. Does anyone know what verse I’m talking about, if it even exists? Thanks a lot!

 

[buffalo]

III. TO CHOOSE IN ACCORD WITH CONSCIENCE

1786 Faced with a moral choice, conscience can make either a right judgment in accordance with reason and the divine law or, on the contrary, an erroneous judgment that departs from them.

[1787](javascriptpenWindow(‘cr/1787.htm’) Man is sometimes confronted by situations that make moral judgments less assured and decision difficult. But he must always seriously seek what is right and good and discern the will of God expressed in divine law.

[1788](javascriptpenWindow(‘cr/1788.htm’) To this purpose, man strives to interpret the data of experience and the signs of the times assisted by the virtue of prudence, by the advice of competent people, and by the help of the Holy Spirit and his gifts.

[1789](javascriptpenWindow(‘cr/1789.htm’) Some rules apply in every case:

• One may never do evil so that good may result from it;
• the Golden Rule: "Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them."56
• charity always proceeds by way of respect for one’s neighbor and his conscience: "Thus sinning against your brethren and wounding their conscience . . . you sin against Christ."57 Therefore "it is right not to . . . do anything that makes your brother stumble."58

56 Mt 7:12; cf. Lk 6:31; Tob 4:15.
57 1 Cor 8:12.
58 Rom 14:21.

 

[Steven_Merten]

Hello bobby,

I remember decades ago, priests used to preach “lesser of two evils” in regard to killing for protection of the innocent.

It seems the Church has abandon this phylosophy in our later times. One cannot commit evil in defiance to the will of God in order that good may come of it.

Now either a kill is just and within the will of God for the protection of the innocent or a kill is unjust to the will of God. No more lesser of two evils. This is the my take on what I have heard and read from the Church.

 

[bobby_bambino]

Very cool. Thank you all!

 

[Athanasius]

bobby_bambino:

Hello. I’m pretty sure that there is some verse in the New Testement, maybe in one of Pauls letters, about how one can never do evil in order to bring about something good. Does anyone know what verse I’m talking about, if it even exists? Thanks a lot!

Perhaps you are thinking of Romans 3:8…