Do the ends justify the means?

My wife and I like to watch shows that everyone else already watched. It’s easy to get them on blu-ray and enjoy them after the kids go to bed. Plus if they leave you with a cliffhanger, you just go and watch the next episode. We started watching 24 a few weeks ago, and are still deciding whether we will keep going with it. It’s fun and all, but my ability to suspend reality just isn’t that high. (I mean, how many times is that guy going to die?)

The show is a case study on a particular philosophical argument. It is the age old question of: Do the ends justify the means. For instance, if it is in the interest of national security, or saving the President, or avoiding a nuclear bomb going off in L.A., isn’t it plausible that you would do anything to stop it? You could even murder someone in cold blood (which Jack Bauer does) in order to save hundreds of thousands of people. That would be permissible, right?

Then Tim Challies, in his blog this week, was talking about pragmatism, which is the philosophy behind this idea. He was talking about how pragmatism effects churches. Sometimes I think I buy into the myth that the spiritual ends justify the means. As long as God “blesses” an event, and everything turns out good in the end, it doesn’t matter how I got there, right?

Wrong. God really cares about the process. It’s because he really cares about our hearts. Our heart posture toward God is more important to him than our results. It’s kind of like his slogan in the Old testament: to obey is better than sacrifice.

How are you doing with pragmatism? Do you subtly believe that the ends justify the means? Are the results more important, or how you got there?