Gitmo Gulag More Torture, More Terror?

Although torture is a very individual and personal action with one person deliberately inflicting severe mental or physical pain and suffering on another, it is also an action which cannot be understood apart from the society in which it takes place.[1] This is not only 

because cultural and social values can prohibit, limit, permit or even encourage its practice but also because the idea of the common good provides the most common rational justification for what would otherwise be morally indefensible. This paper examines the argument for “doing evil in the name of good”, the theological connections between broad-scale socio-political principles and individual actions and the theological principles which provide the foundation for a Christian approach to the claim that the common good can justify torture. The conclusion is that torture can never be justified as an evil done for the common good and this does not rely on the commonly cited reasons of natural law, social justice, a shared humanity or human rights but more specifically and cogently on evangelical themes relating to the call to participate with Jesus Christ in the covenant community of God.