Is there such thing as necessary evil, or is it all a excuse for doing regular evil? No simple yes/no answers please

Can I lie to save lives? ("No, no one in mah basement, Mr Nazi, sir.")
Can I steal to save lives?
Can I maim someone, knock someone out, or otherwise assault them in order to save lives?
Can I kill to save lives?
Can I falsely deny Christ to save lives? (Particularly mine.)

Christians and their thinkers have wrestled with this since Christ ascended into heaven.
In the first few centuries, the answer was always "no", but ever since the Diocletianic persecution split the church in two over the last sin in my list, which spawned the "No, you cannot"-ists of the Donatists and Meletians, it seems to me that we've been doing naught but make excuses for why "a white lie" is acceptable.
It's not entirely fair to paint the Donatists or orthodoxy in that light, since it isn't that the Donatists didn't want forgiveness for recalcitrants, only that recalcitrant or treacherous clergy ought not thereafter celebrate mass. But, I'll happily abuse their argument to suit my own. ;^)

I think this point is severely underrated, and I often wonder what Christianity we would have if the Donatists and Meletians hadn't won their argument.
Would we even have the limp-wristed Christianity and other problems we have today? But before larpers celebrate and shout, "yeah!", pro-tip: there would never have been any of your much-loved crusades, either.
See, that moment was pivotal for the Church, and everything changed after that, the Church became the Roman Empire and visa versa soon after that.

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No, we'd have an insane issue with the church tearing itself apart because you can always accuse your clergy of moral laxity(just like how radtrad independent caths and orthos schism away by mumbling how they are in league with heretics), which retroactively invalides your sacraments, which means you have no assurance in your faith(like finding out your marriage is invalid because your priest's a pedo)

I read Job recently. Job was the most righteous man on earth. When God spoke to Satan as Satan made his bets he kept saying "behold he is in your hands" and it didn't make sense to me until the end of the story. After Job's trial when God spoke to him he described the dragon and said something like "He is the God of all proud men", so even Job who was closer to perfect than any man on earth realized his God was Satan, he was wicked and repented. I don't think there's a such thing as necessary evil. I think the world itself is evil to the core and we are evil to the core which is why we all need God's mercy.

I believe we would've been better off (being normally superior moral examples), but it is what it is. I'm going to be Catholic and my answer for those things is "h*ck no you can't under any circumstances," though that is clearly not the consensus for some reason, and I had to explain why this is not some heresy to hold and act on personally.

There is no reason that Christians should go with the ways of the fallen world to affect an evil condition in it as far as I'm concerned, and anything else is just one giant mental gymnastic to continue in the sin they love more than God.

No, I don't think so, unless we're talking removal of a dangerous individual from among the peaceful or something like that. I reckon a good metric would be "typically frowned upon action taken for no (immediate) personal gain, and usually at risk of great personal harm."

How is that not that same as effectively saying sin = good? It reminds me of the phrase "the end justifies the means" which seems to apply to God and his use of sin but for some reason does not for us

Because He works all things (all of them) for His good and that is also why we give thanks in all circumstances because it's His Will. Things would be much better for everything if we didn't sin but we do, so He saves us anyway (sin being the reason this good is able to be done in the first place).

There is none of that stuff in my Bible.

Back when Christianity was illegal in the Roman Empire, many Christians would publicly renounce Jesus so that they would not get executed. After Constantine legalized Christianity, these people came back into the open about their faith. The Donatists were a group of people who believed that people that rejected Jesus out of fear could not be clergymen, while the Meletians thought that those people shouldn't even be called Christian.

Sometimes I don't think about these problems and I get on with life fine, but other times I get really stuck with them and, while initially your answer was quite satisfactory re-reading it it dredges up the same old problem for me.

First off, while I'm confident it's not what you were saying, your post could be read that God reactively ordains and manages the impact of the evil in the world to bring about good. But this implies he does not sovereignly ordain the world and is not all powerful and in total control, which we know is false.

Therefore it does seem to be the case that, while we sin of our own volition, ultimately, due to God being in complete control, that it really is a case of 'the ends justify the means' for God, which we are not allowed to apply/live by ourselves (and therefore implies a double standard or hypocricy)?

Pls no bait I'm a bad Christian who always struggles with the question of free will, sin, predestination, etc. when it comes up