Hello Surgec68   . Thank you for entering this month's contest. Congratulations on your victory in this months contest. You won because you were the only one to provide a truly coherent root and branch argument to answer the question. Also you uncovered the greatest weakness in Trump's position his attitude toward forgiveness. In a world where all are sinners, those who cannot forgive cannot be forgiven. Trump might not be pure evil by the strictest definitions but he is in trouble if he does not change his view on this matter.
As the official Judge of this contest, I have the following comments to offer for "The Moral Spine" 
 Did you answer the question?
Yes and not just on the superficial level of pointing a finger at Trump but quite systematically, looking at the entire basis on which judgment and mercy are founded.
Use of quotes, proof-texting or AI - could I hear your voice?
There was a good biblical framework to this answer and also quotes from Greg Bahnsen and Athanasius.
How consistent was your argument?
You were quite systematic in preparing the basis of any criticism of Trump dwelling not on salacious rumors or contested accusations but rather on Trump's own declarations and specifically how God and man should judge enemies.
My thoughts on the substance of what you said
You were absolutely right to insist that any serious moral judgment must be grounded in a coherent moral framework.
I appreciated the way you examined and rejected some alternatives to a Christian moral vision. Some might argue that this section was unnecessary and consumed space better spent on Scripture itself, but in this context I think it served as an important preamble.
You rightly dismissed preference-based moral relativism as expressing personal approval or disapproval rather than truth. You also challenged consensus-based appeals to the “greater good,” exposing their dependence on vague standards, unexamined assumptions, and the interests of elites who often benefit from them. Likewise, you rejected outsourcing moral judgment to experts as a form of conformity, borrowing moral authority without grounding it in either the self or God. Your preamble contextualizes your answer into the modern West and would not be as effective in China, India or the Muslim world for instance.
Where the essay became somewhat long-winded was in its articulation of Christian morality itself. The reasoning was careful and systematic, but it missed a crucial dimension: how God’s righteousness and moral will are incarnated into the human condition through Christ. Christian morality is not only revealed law or abstract principle; it is embodied, fulfilled, and clarified in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
That said you rightly grounded morality in God’s glorious nature, His holiness, righteousness, truth, justice, and love, made known through Scripture and the Spirit. God’s unmatched glory gives humanity its purpose and gives weight to moral claims. His love, which permeates His judgments, explains both justice and mercy, and ought to shape how we regard others.
You also addressed the Mosaic Law and the spirit in which obedience should be understood. Here you rightly emphasized that orthopraxy and orthopathy matter as much as orthodoxy. However, the clearest Christian account of why some laws no longer apply and others do is found in Christ Himself: in the new covenant, in His fulfillment of the ceremonial and sacrificial law, and in the outward turning of God’s people toward the Gentiles. Laws that marked Israel as distinct, such as food laws, were no longer necessary once the people of God became a missionary rather than an ethnically bounded community.
Your definition of evil follows Augustine: evil is not merely bad behavior but a turning away from the nature of God.
Within this framework, you assessed the fruit of Donald Trump’s life. You argued that his judgments are not motivated by the love that characterizes God as judge, nor by righteousness or justice, but by pride and personal grievance. Those who oppose him are condemned not for objective wrongdoing but for perceived disloyalty or insult. This vindictive posture appears persistent rather than occasional. He does not forgive; he retaliates. There is a long list of court cases against media organizations that have dared to question or oppose him including the recent $5bn case against the BBC. He uses law to intimidate and shut people up. This raises serious questions: how can one receive God’s mercy while refusing to extend it? How can one accept Christ’s sacrifice while rejecting its logic of grace toward the undeserving?
Where I think the argument falters is in its apparent conflation of sin and evil. Scripture teaches that all are sinners (Romans 3:10, 23), but evil refers to something deeper than ordinary sinfulness. The Bible distinguishes degrees and kinds of moral corruption. A genuinely evil person loves evil, sins deliberately and without repentance, hardens their heart against truth, corrupts others, and calls evil good and good evil. Ordinary sinners, by contrast, know they are wrong, even when they repeat their sins, and recognize their need for forgiveness. Importantly, Scripture does not portray any human being as evil in the same way Satan and his demons are. Human beings remain redeemable through repentance. It might have strengthened your argument to quote examples where Trump has said he has never sought forgiveness from God, does not believe he has done anything wrong. Biblically this is an absolutely unsustainable conviction as we have all done something wrong.
The question posed was whether Trump is evil, not merely whether he has borne evil fruit. Your argument seems to suggest that his persistent vindictiveness is so fundamental to his character that it constitutes his identity. That may be possible, but we cannot know this with certainty. Most people sin persistently while still knowing their actions are wrong. To suggest that Trump’s condition is irreversible or unforgivable risks moving beyond what Scripture allows us to claim. Final judgment belongs to God, and Christians are called to leave room for mercy.
There is also the matter of mixed fruit. Trump has taken actions that many Christians believe have benefited the Church or protected persecuted believers. If his fruit is not uniformly bad, that complicates any absolute judgment about his moral identity.
To some extent, the essay’s title invited a prophetic tone that private individuals cannot fully justify, since we lack prophetic authority and cannot see the heart. That may be an unavoidable cost of framing the question so starkly, and I do not regret the theological reflection it provoked, particularly on God’s justice, but the limitation should be acknowledged.
Finally, Trump’s public office matters morally. The use of authority to restrain genuine threats to the common good, such as organized crime or violence, is not morally equivalent to the pursuit of personal vendettas. Christian moral evaluation must distinguish between the two.
Despite these concerns, I found this to be a strong and thoughtful essay, your best submission so far, and one that raises serious and necessary questions about judgment, power, justice, and mercy within a Christian moral framework.
Mechanical issues
Nothing that majorly distracted from the content.
Thanks again for entering.
LightinMind 
"My Philosophy of Rating and Reviewing"
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