The Evil of the Lesser Evil

Life often gives us horrible choices. In these situations, all options seem bad no matter what we decide. When faced with these decisions, we usually say we must choose between “the lesser of evils.”

Something about this saying has always made me uneasy. I mean, isn’t choosing a lesser evil still choosing evil?  

Like many things in life, how we view a choice depends on how it is framed. 

In sales, there is a technique called the “assumed close.” This is where the salesman gives you a choice related to the next step in the sales process while glossing over or assuming that you already said yes. 

For example, let’s say you are shopping for a car. The salesman prints out the offer with the price for you to review, but it’s slightly higher than your budget. Noticing your hesitation, instead of asking if you accept the offer, he hands you a pen and asks if you want the color to be red or black. 

Notice what he did? Notice how he didn’t give you a chance to say no to the sale but reframed it as a choice about the color instead? Of course, you also have the option to reject the offer and walk away, but this was not presented to you for obvious reasons. 

The Temptation

It came to me that Jesus also faced a similar situation. In Matthew 4: 1-11, we read about how the Spirit led Jesus out into the desert to be tempted by Satan. 

After unsuccessfully tempting Jesus to satisfy his hunger by turning a stone into bread and to prove who He was by throwing himself off a cliff, Satan offers Him something He knows Jesus can’t resist. 

As we read in Matthew 4: 8-11, “The devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.”

Let’s look at how Satan framed this decision. 

First, we must realize that the context of Satan’s temptation was rooted in his self-centered view of the world. 

He was and is in the business of getting us to make transactional choices that trick us into choosing things that are important in his kingdom instead of those things that are important in God’s kingdom. Let’s see how he attempted to do this with Jesus. 

Satan witnessed the great love Jesus had for humanity during his ministry. I believe Satan was appealing to this love when he offered Jesus the opportunity to grab the reigns of worldly power to save the world from all future pain and hardship.  

His fundamental proposition to Jesus was this: “Jesus, consider all the future evil you can prevent by doing something so simple as kneeling before me and taking direct control. Think about all the wars, rapes, murders, child molestations, and abortions that your beloved will have to experience if you don’t. And, as a bonus, you don’t have to suffer an agonizing death on the cross”. 

Satan proposed that the lesser evil was to violate the first commandment to “have no other Gods before me.” Bowing down to Satan would allow Jesus to achieve the good He could undoubtedly do if the worldly levers of power were in His hands. Satan was trying to convince Jesus that the end (worldly good) justified the means (disobedience to God).

However, Jesus refused to allow Satan to put Him in a box where He must choose between the “lesser of evils.” Instead, Jesus re-framed the offer as a choice between good and evil, not between evils. 

He chose what the Father considers good: His obedience and steadfastness to his moral character were more important than any worldly reward or outcome. He showed us that grabbing the worldly levers of power at any cost or reward was not the answer.

In this case, no one can argue that God wants less sin and suffering. However, bowing down to Satan was not the means to achieve this end that God had in mind.  In other words, God is all about the means to the end, not just the end itself. As it turns out, character counts more than worldly results or policy.

Reframing The Choice

In today’s world, we see the devil constantly conflate the good that God wants with the good that we want. He uses this to get us to justify our actions by convincing us that his end is what God wants. 

If you think God wants wealth, power, and happiness at all costs, then the means will always be justified by your end, not His. We assume that if we have wealth, health, power, and happiness, God must be happy with the ends we used to achieve these things. We say that we are “blessed”. 

The Jews also viewed those in their society this way. Those who were considered successful and influential were considered “blessed” by God regardless of the means they used to achieve their “blessings.” 

Conversely, those who were poor or sick were considered cursed by God because of something they or their family did.

As citizens of the worldly kingdom, the kingdom offered to Jesus in the desert, we are told that what makes us great is wealth, power, fame, intelligence, physical beauty, being a particular skin color, belonging to the proper religious denomination or political party, etc. As followers of Christ, we know intuitively that Jesus considered none of these essential contributions to a human being’s worth. 

We see this influence today in many comments about people experiencing homelessness. We say things like, “Well, they put themselves in that situation, so they must get themselves right so that God will bless them the way he has blessed us.” 

On the other hand, we often put the wealthy and successful members of our society on a pedestal of worldly sainthood because of the material things they have achieved, again, without regard in many cases to the means they used to get there. 

Jesus teaches us a different way. In His suffering and death on the cross, He showed us how to practice sacrificial love, even and especially for our enemies. 

In His resurrection, He shows us the fruit of His obedience by rising from the grave to defeat Satan and death in one fell stroke. 

The world laughs at this choice because they don’t understand it. As Paul tells us, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18). 

It is foolish to the world because the lesser evil for them would have been for Jesus to disobey the Father to save His life. To Jesus, the lesser evil was to obey the Father even at the cost of his human life. His death was the means. God’s mercy was the end. 

So, our choice is clear. Whose end do we seek, and at what price are we willing to pay to achieve it? Will we continue to build crosses for our enemies the way the world does, or will we carry the crosses of our enemies as Jesus calls us to do?