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Possible Duplicate:
Is it possible to sin while intending to do good?

There are selfless acts where we are harmed by our actions to help others.

The ultimate kind of harm for a Christian is of course eternal damnation.

If a selfless act by one person to help or save other people involves disobedience to one of god's commandments, will it surely result in the doer's damnation? If so, in the balance, has good been done in the world, or evil?

It has become clear to me that my question is quite possibly a duplicate of "Is it possible to sin while intending to do good?", perhaps dependent on interpretation of damnation and sin.

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hippietrail
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    I challenge you to come up with an example of a selfless act that results in the doer's damnation. I don't think such a thing exists. – DJClayworth Sep 05 '11 at 22:56
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    Perhaps killing somebody holding a hostage? – hippietrail Sep 05 '11 at 22:57
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    As explained in this question: http://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/49/if-the-ten-commandments-say-thou-shalt-not-kill-how-can-a-christian-fight-in-a "kill" does not mean any killing, but only "murder". rescuing a hostage by killing their taker would not be murder. – DJClayworth Sep 05 '11 at 22:59
  • @DJClayworth: I have assumed that any sin is sufficient for damnation to result and that a sin committed as a selfless act still counts as a sin. But I'm very interested to hear whether either assumption is wrong. – hippietrail Sep 05 '11 at 23:00
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    IF you were going to try to make an argument based on that example it would have to start with the deed not being sin. There are situations where killing someone is not sin (say if you are an agent of the state carrying out the states God given authority to issue the death penalty). The 10 Commandments prohibition is on murder not killing. However it is much more practical to remember that such contradictions are not actually real, sin never leads to goo. Either you have your definition of sin wrong or you the good you hope for isn't good. – Caleb Sep 05 '11 at 23:03
  • Then perhaps lying to somebody holding hostages by saying they won't be punished as long as they free the hostages. Or perhaps taking the blame for something you didn't do to protect a friend or sibling, which would also require a lie. – hippietrail Sep 05 '11 at 23:08
  • Related on the issue of lying to protect: Is the Golden Rule really the Gold Standard? – Caleb Sep 05 '11 at 23:13

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This whole question is based on a wrong understanding of Christianity and sin; it imagines God as a cosmic traffic cop, letting people into heaven only if they haven't done anything on a hard-and-fast list. In fact that's not the case. God loves his creations - all of them - and wants everyone to be with him in heaven.

Forgiveness is key to Chrstianity, and the central act of God - the crucifixion - was carried out to obtain forgiveness for all people. It goes without saying that forgiveness would be applied to anyone who broke a command for a truly self-sacrificing reason, and they wouldn't therefore receive eternal damnation.

Jesus sums up the law as "Love God, and love your neighbour as yourself." A truly loving act would not be against the law. (I should warn you against trying to take that argument too far, outside the immediate context of this question, though).

DJClayworth
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  • It's late. I'll have to think how your answer fits together with other answers I've received tonight where all sins seem to be equal, being acts of disobedience, which does on the face of it seem rather hard-and-fast. – hippietrail Sep 05 '11 at 23:12
  • But if God says "love your neighbour" then a loving act isn't disobedience. – DJClayworth Sep 06 '11 at 00:01
  • Beware of spending too much time contemplating hypothetical, not to say extremely unlikely, cases. They will not lead you to a core understanding of Christianity. – DJClayworth Sep 06 '11 at 00:20
  • My gut tells me that cases would be less unlikely in times of war, genocide, totalitarianism, etc. – hippietrail Sep 06 '11 at 06:50
  • It seems that a definition of "loving act" would be necessary. – hippietrail Sep 06 '11 at 06:56
  • DJ I agree with your first premise here but I don't think it's logically fleshed out. You say "A truly loving act would not be against the law". I agree. The whole purpose of the law was to show us what sin was, to "produce sin in us" as Paul says through knowledge of the truth. However if something is not against the law (including Jesus stricter reading of it) then it follows that it is not sin. There is no need to bring forgiveness (however important a subject) into this if there is no sin involved. – Caleb Sep 06 '11 at 07:26
  • I wasn't intending to split the hair as to which applied. A genuinely loving act would not be wrong. But if it turned out to be wrong (perhaps because of unintended consequences) then forgiveness would apply. But I really waned to get the question away from assuming that Christianity is about a legal checklist of sins. – DJClayworth Sep 06 '11 at 15:36
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I think before you can come up with an example scenario, you need an example of a sin that would "result in damnation for the doer."

There is no such sin, since everyone is already deserving of damnation.

And for a Christian who has accepted Christ's forgiveness, there either is no possibility to lose the forgiveness, or the only way to lose the forgiveness is to choose to reject it (depending on your interpretation).

So this might leave room for "Choosing to reject Christ's forgiveness" as a possible sin that would lead to damnation of the doer. But I cannot imagine how this sin could ever be done as a selfless act. So even if it is possible to lose your salvation, it is impossible to it selflessly, or in a way that would save others.

Flimzy
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  • Interesting point I had failed to take into account, that the doer is by default already damned even before the act. – hippietrail Sep 06 '11 at 06:57
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Evil.

No act of sin (however selfless it appears) will ever result in saving or helping another person. There is no question of "balance" here. The long term good outcome from another person will never be the result of someone else having done evil.

See also: Under what conditions can a "good" or "charitable" act actually be sin?

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Caleb
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    How is this enforced? Suppose that a Christian lives in an area where Christians are persecuted by a despot, killing tens of thousands, while immorality is taught and praised, leading millions down the wrong path. Perhaps the ideal thing would be for said Christian to convert the despot though it would cost him his own life (torture, etc.). But the Christian hasn't the courage and instead blows up the despot and tens of thousands of other people, while carefully orchestrating the attack to make it look like it was the work of a neighboring despot who is also anti-Christian. – Rex Kerr Sep 05 '11 at 23:10
  • Dietrich Bonhoeffer would have agreed with you, Rex. – DJClayworth Sep 06 '11 at 00:17
  • @DJClayworth - I suspect so. Which is one reason why I am skeptical of Caleb's assertion; I'd like to see more to back up that point of view. – Rex Kerr Sep 06 '11 at 00:37
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    I've thought about this and I'm going to have to vote this down, even if logically it's just the inverse of what I wrote. But it's starting from the wrong place. Jesus frequently 'broke the rules', on the basis of love and doing good. He never held with the view that "no good would come from sinning (e.g. healing on the Sabbath) even if it appears good". – DJClayworth Sep 06 '11 at 00:43
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    @DJClayworth: "healing on the sabbath" was never established as sin in scripture. I think Jesus' point wasn't "sinning for the greater good is okay" but "you guys are confused about what sin is." The OP is asking about "real" sin, not confused sin. – Flimzy Sep 06 '11 at 03:44
  • @DJClayworth I do not think the statement that "Jesus never held the view that no good would come from sinning" is defensible. Not only did he condemn sinful acts but he expanded people's understanding of sin to include even thinking about them. In no place did he defend sinning on the grounds that "good might come of it", in fact when he was tempted by Satan this is exactly what Satan tried to tell Him and he refused! – Caleb Sep 06 '11 at 07:28
  • @Caleb: If people agree then I feel this question may be marked a duplicate of the question you linked. – hippietrail Sep 06 '11 at 08:52
  • @Flimzy: Actually I'm asking about all sin, "real" or "confused", especially since the nature of sin is not necessarily clear or equal in the minds of all people. – hippietrail Sep 06 '11 at 08:53
  • @hippietrail: I thought about voting as a dup when I first read it, but then I decided it had a little bit different angle here. Maybe we should wait to see if DJ and I are just confused on each-others semantics or what. I have an idea we agree here but approach the problem differently. – Caleb Sep 06 '11 at 08:57
  • While I think Caleb's "no good will ever come from a sin" and my "a truly loving act is not sinful" may be logically similar, Caleb's approach will I believe leave people thinking that if they ever do anything "against the rules" there will magically be some unexpected side-effect that will make it bad. – DJClayworth Sep 07 '11 at 13:48