Sinning to save someone's life

[St_Francis]

The Church says that I have a grave duty to defend someone whose life I am responsible for. I can use legitimate defense in that situation, including deadly force if necessary.

But according to you, I cannot lie to do the same thing.

Right, because some good things are *more good *than other good things.

Saving a life is a good thing. Avoiding committing a sin is a *even better *thing. We cannot focus on the lesser good while ignoring the greater good.

The thing about using deadly force is that it does become sinful at the point at which what you want to do is to kill the person. If you *must *kill the person for effective defense, that is unfortunate; it is a side-effect of the defensive action, not what you wanted to do. But if there is a point at which what you want to do is just to see that person dead, then that aspect would be sinful.

So, the taking of a life can be sinful or not sinful; it can be murder or it can be killing.

Mere killing, as in defense, is not sinful, so you have not committed a sin in the protection of the life.

However, if you lie, that is in and of itself sinful, so you can’t do it, *even *to save a person’s life.

Deceit, otoh, is all right in that situation where it wouldn’t be in others.

 

[ejp123]

Well, Jesus broke the sabbath rules to save a sheep and to heal. I would hope that God is not so legalistic and barbaric that he would be offended if the person committed a sin to save there child. What would that say about God if He is offended by such an act to save a child?

 

[Marc_Anthony]

The ends don’t justify the means. You can’t sin even to save a child’s life.

St. Thomas Aquinas wrote a bit about this where he basically said (if I remember correctly), “Okay, you technically shouldn’t do this, but if you did the sin is so minor that God might actually be more pleased at your intentions then upset about the sin. The thing is, God would be even more pleased if you didn’t sin at all.”

Basically he’s saying that if you’re going to sin this would be the one to commit but you really shouldn’t sin at all. Most humans though would sin in this situation, and it’s really not a big deal if you do. If you’re holy enough and detached enough that you’re able to avoid sinning here don’t, but most people aren’t at that level so don’t beat yourself up over it.