Niebuhr on Ethics
We have no come to the fairly general conclusion that there is no “Chrstian” economic or political system. But there is a Christian attitude toward all systems and schemes of justice. It consists on the one hand of a critical attitude toward the claims of all systems and schemes, expressed in the question whether they will contribute to justice in a concrete situation; and on the other hand a responsible attitude, which will not pretend to be God nor refuse to make a decision between political answers to a problem because each answer is discovered to involve a moral ambiguity in God’s sight. We are men, not God; we are responsible for making choices between greater and lesser evils, even when our christian faith, illuminating the human scene, makes it qute apparent that there is no pure good in history; and probably no pure evil, either. The fate of civilizations may depend on these choices.
From Niebuhr, “Theology and Political Thought in the Western World.”
