The people of God have often faced ethical dilemmas. For example, if it is wrong to kill one’s son and it is wrong to disobey God, then what should Abraham have done when God told him to sacrifice Isaac (Gen 22)? God commands obedience to the king, but the king commands the murder of innocent male children. What should the Hebrew midwives do (Exod 1)? The Scriptures enjoin obedience to parents but one’s parents insist that he not serve God. What is the responsibility of love (Matt 10:37)? The Bible forbids lying but the lives of God’s servants can be saved by intentionally falsifying. What should Rahab have done (Josh 2,6)? The queen commands that all God’s prophets be killed. A man defies her and hides one hundred of them. Was Obadiah right (1 Kings 18:13)? The Bible demands obedience to human government (Rom 13:1-2), but the king rules that all should worship an idol. Were the three Hebrew children wrong in disobeying the authorities (Dan 3)?
Besides these biblical examples there are many examples of moral conflicts which are instanced in human experience. Should the doctor take the life of the mother or the unborn baby, if both cannot live? Is it right to push someone out of an overcrowded life boat to save others? Should one first save his father or the man who just invented a cancer cure? Is it morally right to return a man’s gun to him if he demands it in order to kill his wife? There are several responses which one may make to such conflicting ethical situations. The four basic ones will be reviewed here in terms of the Christian biblical ethic of love.
The First Way: There Is Only One Absolute Duty of Love
The Second Way: There Is Always a Third Alternative for Love
The Third Way: Performing the Least Non-Loving Act
The Fourth Way: Subordinating the Lower Laws of Love to the Higher Ones
The Scriptures give ample illustrations of the principle that higher commands take precedence over lower commands. Jesus said that love for God is more important than love for parents, even though both are commands of God (Matt 10:37). Peter made it clear that the command to obey human government was not higher than the one to preach the Gospel (Acts 4). The Hebrew midwives (Exod 1) and the three Hebrew children (Dan 3) were all commended for disobeying human government when it conflicted with a higher ethical command. Abraham’s intent to kill Isaac was morally right only because it was put in irresolvable conflict with his direct obedience to God’s higher command to obey Him (Gen 22).
Three things are clear from these and other biblical examples. First, there are real conflicts among God’s commands which are personally unavoidable by the individual. Second, a man is morally obligated to follow the highest command when he cannot do both. Third, God does not hold men guilty for following the highest command. Rather, God commends them (cf. Abraham, Hebrew midwives).
This raises one final question, namely, in what sense is this view absolute when it allows that one is not obligated to follow some (lower) ethical laws when they conflict with higher ones? There are three ways in which it may be said that all commands based on God’s nature are absolute even though they must sometimes be subordinated to higher ones.10 First, they are absolutely binding as such on the particular relationship toward which they are directed. Lying as such is always wrong. And in relation to another man’s life, it is never right to murder him, and so forth. However, what is absolutely binding as such in a simple relation is not necessarily the right course of action in a complex situation where one must decide between two commands as conflicting. Secondly, when there is a conflict, it is an absolutely binding ethical obligation to follow the higher law revealed by God in His Word.
Finally, implied in the above is the truth that God has established absolutely the very order of commandments based on their proximity to His very nature as holy and loving. In short, some things are more godly and more loving because they are more Godlike. And Scripture is the only true source for knowing precisely the ordering of God’s priorities. If we are wrong in ethic judgment, then, it is because as Jesus said, “You do err not knowing the Scriptures” (Matt 22:29).
A knowledge of the priority of values has two very important implications. First, by knowing which commands are higher and which are lower, one knows which “evil” is the greatest good in the more rare irresolvable conflicts. Secondly, an awareness of divine priorities enables the Christian to distinguish the best from the merely good in the more common everyday choices. For it is not only a good to choose the lesser “evil” in unavoidable conflicts, but it is also an evil to elect the lesser good when there is no unavoidable conflict. In this latter respect ignorance of the biblical priority of values leaves the Christian vulnerable to the perennial temptation to sacrifice the best on the altar of the good.