A moral conundrum, and Jesus' answer

I recently came across an old post at a skeptic's blog discussing a moral conundrum. There are layers of conversation in that post, which in itself was a response to this very brief hypothetical in moral philosophy, which runs (with one correction to the text): 

Here is an interesting ethical question. Suppose Smith knows for sure that if he steals $1.000,000, Jones will not murder Williams. But if he does not steal $1,000,000, then Jones will murder Williams. If he steals, of course he's a thief, but if he doesn't steal, does that mean he's an accessory before the fact to murder? See what trouble you get into when you ask questions like this to a philosopher?

The conundrum is too far-fetched to be interesting as more than an armchair exercise, but for those interested in armchair exercises, there it is. To me, the more interesting comment is the skeptic's follow-up: 

Why is it a dilemma?  Because to most religious believers, there is apparently no "correct" answer.  Either choice is wrong.  But that simply illustrates a big problem with religious ethical systems in general: they don't work in real life.  The believer sees moral values as being concrete and absolute.  Murder is wrong.  Stealing is wrong.  Period.  In this situation, you'd be wrong, no matter which choice you make.  Under Divine Command Theory, God dictates whether things are right or wrong, but since moral values are absolute, there seems to be no wiggle room.  There is no right thing to do.  In deontological ethics, it is one's duty to follow the rules (as set out by God), but the rules say we shouldn't make either of these choices.  This is indeed a conundrum for the religious believer.  And let me add here that this particular scenario might never occur in real life, but there are many situations where one is faced with a choice between two things that are both considered to be wrong.  In fact, it happens all the time.

The part that troubles me is that there is so clearly a way to resolve it within Christianity (and within Judaism), but this seems relatively unknown in modern discussions. It is covered explicitly in the Bible. It is something that Jesus discussed and the religious philosophers and moralists studied intently. The fact that it could get into a modern discussion as an unexpected twist or unsolvable problem, that is the baffling part. 

Here is a recorded example of Jesus addressing the exact situation where two paths for action are each against a different moral law, and how that is resolved: the greater law is kept and the person is blameless with regards to the lesser law. Let's look at Jesus' comments first, and then some more follow-up: 

Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless? But I say to you, That in this place is one greater than the temple. (Matthew 12:5-6)

Again as part of the same train of thought, later in the same chapter: 

And he said to them, "What man shall there be among you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the sabbath day, will not lay hold on it, and lift it out? How much then is a man better than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the sabbath days." (Matthew 12:11-12; same or similar conversation also recorded in Luke 14)

While Jesus teaches that the principle of greater good is in effect, he is hardly breaking new ground here. It's the driving force behind the question of which law is the greatest, since the greater law is the one that takes precedence in case of conflict. Discussions of "Which is the greatest commandment?" are recorded in three of the gospels (see Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30, Luke 10:27). For those who followed the ethical and philosophical discussions of the day, this was not about which commandments have bragging rights, but about which ones could not be transgressed, which took precedence in case of conflict. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart (etc)" takes the top priority, and "love your neighbor as yourself" takes the next, according to Jesus. 

These are not just philosophers' questions like the murderer-and-thief puzzle. This is the guarantee that conundrums can be resolved without blame, when the lesser commandment yields to the greater. It also upholds the desirability of reconciliation even in cases when there is blame: love is generally the greater law than the one transgressed.