I am writing this to warn Christians thinking about voting for Joe Biden for President that you are in great danger of committing grave sin that jeopardizes your eternal soul. Before you stop reading now because you do not want to be challenged in your thinking or ideas, please know that I am not saying you necessarily have to vote for Trump, or that you have to like what Trump is doing. I did not take the time to write this because I love Trump. Truly, I am writing this only because voting for Biden will jeopardize your eternal salvation.
The question is one of moral theology and not politics. No one is immune from morality or the natural law. No one. You will be judged after you die, in part, on whether you intentionally committed grave sin with a full understanding of what you were doing. It is, therefore, important to have a good understanding of the moral principles involved before taking any specific action in life—including voting.
To guide us in our moral theology discussion, I will use the Handbook of Moral Theology by Dominic Prummer. This was a popular and well-respected guide to moral theology for years. It was a “go to” guide for training seminarians before the Second Vatican Council, so you can be sure it is free from most modernist heresies.
I will also make the assumption that abortion, i.e. the slaughter of innocent pre-born life, is in itself a gravely evil and mortal (i.e. will kill your soul) sin. I realize that many people do not actually think it is wrong to intentionally destroy innocent human life just because the life happens to be developing in the womb of the mother as opposed to a baby crib owned by the mother. But because this post is directed towards Christians, I will presume we can all agree that abortion is morally wrong (even though I know that may be a stretch given the state of modern Christianity). If you are a Christian that thinks abortion is an acceptable practice, I suggest you reevaluate where you attend church and from who you received your spiritual and moral guidance.
The Moral Principle Involved
To begin with, let’s agree that voting in itself is not wrong or evil. It’s not the act of voting that is wrong, it is WHO you vote for that may be wrong. So, we are not dealing with a situation where the voter’s direct action (voting) is evil, we are dealing with whether the voter could be implicated in someone else’s sin—that is, is it sinful to vote (or give power) to a public official that will use his authority in office to commit evil deeds? In terms of moral theology and to rephrase the question: Am I committing sin by cooperating with evil if I vote for a politician who will engage in evil acts as a public official?
Let’s define terms. “Co-operation in evil is concurrence in another’s sinful act.” Cooperating with evil by definition “presupposes the evil will of the sinner and is a means of bringing this evil will to completion in an external act.” In other words, we are assuming the person committing the evil act intends to perform that evil act already and is not led into the sin by your act. We know Joe Biden intends to directly and actively support the voluntary slaughter of innocent life and intends to use the office of the U.S. Presidency to promote such killing because that’s exactly what he says he intends to do and has made that an issue in his campaign.
Cooperation with evil can be “formal” cooperation or “material” cooperation. Basically, you are engaging in formal cooperation “if help is given to another to commit sin as a sin.” Material cooperation is cooperation “in the physical action only.” In other words, if you intend for the ultimate evil outcome by helping another achieve that outcome, you are formally cooperating with that evil. If you only help the sinful actor by supplying the means (or material) without the intent of achieving the outcome, that is material cooperation.
Most “pro-choice” voters are engaged in formal cooperation with evil by voting for Joe Biden because they want and intend that Biden will in fact implement and carry out his promises to publicly fund the killing of innocent life, appoint justices to courts that will uphold a “constitutional right” to abortion, and change the law to make aborting babies easier. Consequently, “formal co-operation is an act which is evil in itself both because of its object and because of the intention of the agent.” In other words, if you intend to vote for Biden because you support his position on killing innocent life, that act of voting for Biden is itself evil and you are now in a state of enmity with God and your eternal soul is in grave jeopardy if you were to die without reconciling with God first.
The trickier question for Christians is whether voting for Biden is sinful if the voter does not intend to vote for Biden because of his position on abortion, but chooses to vote for Biden for other reasons, even if you (the voter) disagree with Biden on the issue of abortion. This is where “material” cooperation comes in to play because by voting for Biden you are supplying him with the material to carry out his evil deeds (political authority) without intending or wishing him to use that power for that purpose.
While formal cooperation with evil is never permitted, material cooperation with evil is sometimes permitted, depending on the circumstances. This principle “is derived from the fact that material co-operation is in itself a good act [e.g. voting] which is abused by another [e.g. Joe Biden] through his own malice.” Because material cooperation involves voluntarily aiding evil without the direct intent to accomplish the same evil, the analysis shifts to assessing the morality of performing an act even though the evil outcome is foreseeable. If and when is this ever allowed?
Performing an act that results in an evil outcome is permissible if four conditions are met: (1) the act is good in itself or at least indifferent, (2) its immediate effect is good, (3) the intention of the agent is good, and (4) the agent has a proportionately grave reason for acting.
Application of the Moral Principles to Voting for Biden
Let’s apply these conditions to the pro-life Christian who detests Trump for his personality and his policy positions and wants to vote for Biden. Can this voter morally cast a vote for Biden?
Condition 1: The act of voting in itself is good (as discussed above). Not an issue there.
Condition 2: There has to be some good effect from the decision that comes before the evil outcome. If you detest Trump as a human being and his policies, the pro-life Christian could at least make the case that the effect keeps Trump out of office, and call that a good effect. Let’s assume that is true.
Condition 3: Let’s also assume the pro-life Christian has the best of intentions and does not wish to promote abortion by voting for Biden.
Condition 4: Here is where the pro-life Christian gets tripped up. The pro-life Christian must have a proportionately grave reason for acting and permitting the evil effect. Does our desire to avoid the bad things we think Trump would do as President outweigh the evil effect of promoting abortion if Biden is elected? How do we weigh this?
In order to answer that, we have to consider the gravity of the evil outcome of abortion, how close is the union between our act of voting and the likelihood that the evil outcome of more abortions will occur, and how certain are we that more abortions will occur if Biden is elected. The graver the evil and likelihood that our actions will result in the evil outcome, the more serious must our reason be for taking the action in the first place.
Some pastors and religious leaders would argue that this is simply a prudential judgment that each voter must make for themselves when weighing the pros and cons of voting for Biden. “It’s a matter of conscience” they will say. The problem with this is that it ignores objective reality and subjects the decision to the pure subjective will of the individual to decide for themselves as to how wrong abortion really is and whether “other issues” weigh more heavily than abortion, especially if there are many of them. For example, as Joe Christian, assume I think Trump is bad on ten public policy issues but Biden is only bad on one (abortion). Is it acceptable to vote for Biden because ten greatly outweighs the one bad issue?
Objective truth dictates that the voter CANNOT in good conscience ever vote for Joe Biden precisely because abortion is an objectively worse evil than all other possible wrongheaded policy positions Trump may take combined. Why?
Because a public policy that condones and promotes killing innocent human beings is worse than any public policy which leads to economic poverty, suffering, persecution, and killing of non-innocent life (such as the death penalty). This is simply a matter of logic because life (i.e. being able to live) is a prerequisite to any other human activity on this earth. So long as any person is alive, they have the potential to thrive, do good works, and make the world a better place. No such option exists for that person who was killed before they even had a chance to be born.
I will address one potential counter-argument. What if Trump’s (or another candidate’s) policies also lead to the death of millions. For example, what if his immigration policies of closing or tightly regulating the border lead to the inability of persecuted people to enter the United States, and as a result they die of malnutrition or war? Isn’t that as bad as abortion?
The answer is NO because first of all there is no evidence whatsoever Trump intends to kill millions who seek entry into this country, unlike Biden who absolutely understands that his abortion policy is designed to kill millions because by definition that’s what abortion is. Secondly, there is nothing inherently wrong with closing or regulating a nation’s border, in fact, it is probably a good thing for millions inside the nation. The fact this may lead to harm for those unable to enter the country is not a direct or proximate effect of closing the border—the actual act of closing or regulating a border does not in itself kill anyone nor is that the intent. Third, there is no evidence that everyone who does not enter into this country will die or even be harmed as a result—abortion is always, by definition, a death sentence.
At the end of the day, abortion is an evil that exists in its own category outside the realm of other ills and problems in the world, including health, economic, educational or cultural problems. Therefore, unless Trump or any other presidential candidate was proposing a similar policy designed to exterminate a mass amount of people, then there can be no discussion or discernment as to whether you can vote for Biden or another politician. You simply cannot vote for Biden.
I will leave the door open to discuss whether a Christian is required to vote for Trump. But there is no question that a Christian cannot vote for Biden. For further discussion on why Christians cannot vote for Biden, check out this video with a more detailed analysis.