Hiding the key to knowledge

Following up on the thoughts about "explaining away" God's rules, it struck me that sometimes there isn't a really good alternative.

Take, for example, charging interest. Exodus and Deuteronomy forbid charging interest to one of your people, especially the poor.

On the other hand, in purely civil terms it makes good economic sense to allow the charging of rent for the use of your property -- you are deprived of the use of it for a while and ought to be compensated. And experience shows that if you forbid charging any interest, either the supply of loans dries up or people develop workarounds.

What kind of workarounds? Well, you can redefine usury to mean "extortionate charges." After all, Jesus' parable of the talents doesn't condemn earning interest, so maybe only excessive interest is meant, despite the Torah text.

Or you can get picky and say it only applies to insiders, but of outsiders you may exact what you choose. This doesn't seem just.

You can buy a nominal item from the lender for cash and arrange to sell it back later for more money. Legal fiction

You can pay a commission proportional to the amount borrowed that varies with the length of time you need the money. Legal fiction

Distinguish between loans for investment and loans for consumption: the former being activity which should bring a return that the borrower can easily pay the lender from--and therefore not predatory. Splitting hairs, but maybe supportable

And so on. Some of these are Muslim inventions, and some more universal. The point is that an activity which is apparently forbidden sometimes has to happen in some way whether forbidden or not--and not in order to break any other commandments, just to manage ordinary buying and selling. (If you are among those who believe ordinary buying and selling is evil, please remember that attempts to forbid this have been some of the most calamitous experiments in history. Whatever evil you hope to stop that way, starving people is worse.)

Killing people is bad, and murder is forbidden, but sometimes there's war, or self-defense, or just having to kill a fellow villager who has proved dangerous to the community and who won't stay away. I've known some thoroughgoing pacifists, and been very grateful that they were not in charge of anything. But what shall the church say? That war is good? (a lie) Or that because war is bad you must never kill? (not obviously true, and has very bad effects; scripture seems to show an implicit duty to defend) Or that war is bad but the church would exceed its mandate if it told you what to do? (you really don't want the state to be supreme). Or that it is only permissible when God's prophets endorse it? (which are which?)

Or perhaps that killing is bad and you'd better never get comfortable with it, even when it is necessary? And pray that God will understand. (My own view is that although Cortez will have a lot to answer for at the Judgment, he'll at least be able to say that he helped destroy the Aztec empire. However, I'm not God; weight my view accordingly.)

Consider the giving of alms. I know from observation that if I give cash to X, he'll use it to give grief later as a "drunk and disorderly." Do I follow the plain command and give when he asks, or assume some kindness to my neighbors, or perhaps even responsibility for X, and decline or perhaps just give on my terms (e.g. food)? The Didache (first century church document) says "Let your alms sweat in your hands, until you know to whom you should give." That seems to suggest a bit of discernment is advisable, though in context there's no other hint of it--though in any event it expects a generous spirit. (and warns of judgment on beggars who don't need the alms!)

Do I owe more to the immediate request of X for money, or to his wife and the likely (though never entirely certain) result of X's use of the money?

How much of this is muddying the waters? Is it a council of despair to say that sometimes there are no good choices and we will have to answer for whichever of them we choose? That's a dangerous claim, since there almost always are good choices, and we tend to jump at loopholes and excuses. Which makes "sometimes no good choices" an easy way to muddy the waters and hide the key to knowledge.