Potter vs. Abanes' cant

Never tell a lie. Even if the Nazis were to come pounding on your door, demanding to know the whereabouts of the family hiding in your basement, you should never tell a lie.

Heard that one before? There are "theologians" who hold that position. Hew to the truth, and consequences be damned, because who can second-guess God? That old ratbag Kant held a similar view. A less sophisticated exponent is Richard Abanes. The idea is that consequences (the death of a family, for example) are irrelevant to the rightness of the deed.

Even poor young Harry Potter had Abanes all in a lather because he's been a very naughty boy.

I wonder if Abanes who is, among other things, an outspoken evangelical apologist, has ever actually read the Bible. Take Jeremiah 38 for example. The king of Judah, a vacillating character called Zedekiah, summons the prophet to a secret meeting. Things are looking bad, the Babylonians are at the door. Jeremiah appeals to the king to turn himself over to the invader for clemency, but Zedekiah is capable of little more than hand-wringing. The meeting concluded, Zedekiah asks the prophet to lie.

Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “Let no one know about this conversation lest you will die. If the officials hear that I have spoken with you and if they come to you and ask you what I spoke of to you, even though they threaten you, you will say to them: I only made a petition to the king not to send me back to the house of Jonathan to die.”

It seems a fairly straight forward situation for any 'divine command ethics' exponent. You'd think Jeremiah, of all people, would know a 'divine command' imperative when he saw one. Be staunch! Fess up at the first opportunity! But Jeremiah seems to be closer to Potter than Abanes.

All the officials came to Jeremiah and questioned him. He replied just as the king had instructed him, and they said no more since no one had overheard the conversation.

Which perhaps goes to show that you can't always swallow Kant's cant...