How much does logic matter? It matters greatly if we are to love God with our whole heart, our whole soul, and our whole mind. But does logic matter to God? Rene Descartes was skeptical. In replying to critics, he contended that “God could have brought it about … that it was not true that twice four make eight” (Sixth Replies).

St. Thomas Aquinas, however, teaches otherwise. “Whatever implies contradiction,” he writes, “does not come within the scope of divine omnipotence” (ST I, q. 25, art. 4). And why not? Because contradiction amounts to non-being. Moreover, God’s omnipotence is best shown not in erasing logical contradictions, not even in creating the universe, but rather in sharing and having mercy. In doing so, He leads us to a participation in His own life.

So, what about living our own lives, here and now? That’s what ethics is about. Utilitarianism dominates ethical theory today. Jeremy Bentham, one of its founders, proposed its guiding principle: “the greatest happiness of the greatest number, [that] is the measure of right and wrong” (A Fragment on Government). For his part, John Stuart Mill specified that happiness is “pleasure and the absence of pain” (Utilitarianism). Ironically, the principle itself is logically muddled. The concept of the greatest happiness is maximizing, while the concept of the greatest number is distributive. So which takes priority? Should I, for example, act to produce a hundred units of happiness for one person or, instead, one unit of happiness for a hundred people (supposing that happiness comes in units)? How about fifty units for fifty people? Flipping a coin isn’t much of an answer, is it?

Sadly, people often confuse the greatest happiness principle with the concept of the common good. The difference is that the common good includes the good of everyone, without exception. We are to understand that good, moreover, in terms of human flourishing, not units of happiness or pleasure.

Ethics leads us to consider principles because our lives are full of particulars that we need to come to terms with. In the established disorder in which we live, nonviolent civil disobedience might well be our best strategy. Indeed, civil disobedience has a biblical precedent recounted in the first chapter of Exodus. We read that Pharaoh orders “the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, ‘When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew woman…if it is a son, you shall kill him.’” But they fear God and refuse to do so. When Pharaoh challenges them, they answer that the Hebrew women “are vigorous and are delivered before the midwife comes.” We then read that “God dealt well with the midwives…and gave them families.”

Yet the question arises, and it did so for Thomas himself, whether the midwives, for all their resolve, did not go wrong in lying to the Pharaoh. (Civil disobedience, then and now, can get messy.) Considering the case, Thomas writes that “Although the midwives had a good will with regard to saving the children, yet their will was not right, inasmuch as they framed falsehoods” (ST I-II, q. 114, a. 10, ad. 2).

With due, and great, respect, I am not persuaded. Philosophy, after all, is not a thumbscrew! In defense of the midwives, it’s worth noting that their reply to Pharaoh is a broad statement, but it need not be taken as a universal claim. Doubtless, our heroines foresee that he could draw a mistaken conclusion from it. But doing so would be his mistake, and yes, a logical mistake. Of note: as long as Scripture is read, the names of Shiphrah and Puah will be remembered. As the new Ignatius Study Bible points out, Pharaoh remains nameless.