A Second Look at Lying and the Ethics of the New Christian Right

Part 2 of 2

Rather than give an exhaustive account of lying, it will suffice for present purposes to arrive at a basic understanding of what a lie really is. In the process it will become apparent that while all lies are deceptions, not all deceptions are lies. Once the true definition of a lie has been established, the implications for hard cases (e.g., lying to save a life) will be discussed briefly.

The Augustinian Definition of Lying

The definition of lying most commonly assumed within the Christian tradition is the Augustinian one. According to Augustine,

That man lies, who has one thing in his mind and utters another in words, or by signs of whatever kind. Whence also the heart of him who lies is said to be double; that is, there is a double thought: the one, of that thing which he either knows or thinks to be true and does not produce; the other, of that thing which he produces instead thereof, knowing or thinking it to be false. Whence it comes to pass, that he may say a false thing and yet not lie, if he thinks it to be so as he says although it be not so; and, that he may say a true thing, and yet lie, if he thinks it to be false and utters it for true, although in reality it be so as he utters it. For from the sense of his own mind, not from the verity or falsity of the things themselves, is he to be judged to lie or not to lie.^[1]

It is important to note that on this definition, merely saying something untrue does not in itself constitute a lie. Rather, for Augustine, the essence of a lie is “deliberately duplicitous speech, insincere speech that deliberately contradicts what its speaker takes to be true.”^[2] It is difficult to say whether Augustine thinks the intention to deceive is a necessary part of what it means to lie.^[3] At the very least, it seems that a lie requires intent to deceive “about what the speaker believes to be the case,” even if it is not necessary to intend to deceive “about the state of affairs in the world.”^[4] Crucially, Augustine’s definition has no regard for persons—duplicitous speech directed at anybody whatsoever counts as a lie.

One of the standout features of the Augustinian definition of lying is how broad it is, thereby ruling out the vast majority of deceptive speech as intrinsically immoral and allowing only certain kinds of deceptive utterances such as jokes and figurative expressions.^[5] This being so, if the Augustinian definition of lying is adopted, the only possible defense of deception in hard cases is an appeal to 1) choosing the necessary/lesser evil, 2) exceptions to moral absolutes, or 3) good intentions/ends. Indeed, within the historic Christian tradition, the argument that in some cases deception is justified virtually always takes one of these forms.^[6] However, these approaches to Christian ethics have already been shown to be unacceptable for various reasons.^[7] It appears, then, that if the Augustinian definition of lying is correct, and one is faced with a choice between lying and allowing an innocent person’s life to be taken, one must opt for the latter course of action, as Augustine teaches.^[8]

Fortunately—audacious as it may sound—the Augustinian definition of lying is incomplete. More than this, it is biblically untenable as it stands, for the Bible clearly teaches that God does not, indeed, cannot, lie: “Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God’s elect, and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness; In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began” (Titus 1:1–2, KJV). There are many other verses to this effect as well, such as Numbers 23:19 and 1 Samuel 15:29. Yet, at the same time, the Bible also contains passages such as this:

For every one of the house of Israel, or of the stranger that sojourneth in Israel, which separateth himself from me, and setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to a prophet to enquire of him concerning me; I the Lord will answer him by myself: And I will set my face against that man, and will make him a sign and a proverb, and I will cut him off from the midst of my people; and ye shall know that I am the Lord. And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet. (Ezekiel 14:7–9, KJV)

From this passage, we see that “God says he will himself communicate contrary to what is the case. Since Augustine defines this to be ‘lying,’ the passage clearly reveals that God does not define ‘lying’ as Augustine did, which in turn means we should not use the Augustinian definition for interpreting what the Bible says about it.”^[9] Moreover, throughout the Bible “a number of passages treat communicating contrary to known facts and deceiving others on purpose with no hint of disapproval, and several passages go so far as to commend and reward doing so,”^[10] with the Hebrew midwives’ deception of Pharaoh in Exodus 1 and Rahab’s deception of the king of Jericho’s men in Joshua 2 being perhaps the most frequently cited examples. Some proponents of the Augustinian definition of lying have suggested that in these and other such passages, “biblical characters tell lies with no repercussions” because “the lie was told for a good end.”^[11] But Paul characterizes as slanderous the claim that “Let us do evil, that good may come” (Romans 3:8, KJV) is a Christian idea. Are we to suppose that some parts of the Bible condone sinful actions on grounds that are vehemently rejected in another part of the Bible? Far better that we re-evaluate our definition of lying, lest we make God a liar.

Lying Defined in Terms of Neighborly Obligation

The problem with Augustine’s definition is that it encompasses duplicitous speech directed at all people, without distinction. In reality, not all people are alike with regard to their moral status—just as murder, rightly understood, is defined as the intentional killing of the innocent rather than the intentional killing of any person whatsoever, when we define lying we should distinguish between those whom we should tell the truth and those we should not. One way of capturing this reality is to define a lie as Hugo Grotius does, as “a violation of the existing and permanent rights of the person, to whom a discourse, or particular signs, are directed.”^[12] Under this definition,

He [Grotius] believed communicating contrary to thoughts is not sinful when the person addressed is an infant; is insane; is not deceived even if others are; is wanting to be deceived; is subject to the speaker, as when Solomon said he would cut a baby in half (1 Kgs 3:16–28); is trying to kill or rape an innocent person; or is an enemy trying to destroy you, as when Elisha deceived enemy soldiers (2 Kgs 6:8–23).^[13]

One objection to defining a lie in terms of a right to the truth is that “it is implausible to think that the Biblical passages condemning lying are relying on an unusual or ad hoc sense of the word ‘lie’ in doing so, but this is what the Grotian view would require.”^[14] However, to say the Grotian understanding of a lie is “unusual” or “ad hoc” begs the question in favor of the Augustinian definition—it only seems “unusual” in an environment where the Augustinian definition is implicitly assumed. A stronger objection is that the category of “those who have a right to know the truth” is undefined: “On its face, the Grotian definition raises more questions than it answers. What, in particular, does it mean to have a right to the truth, and under what conditions is that right lost or waived? Are the conditions easy to meet or strict? Frequently met or only rarely? Are they well known?”^[15] According to this argument, the comparison between murder (intentional killing of the innocent) and lying (intentional deception of those with a right to the truth) fails because the latter category is too vague:

“With a right to the truth” picks out no definite class of persons the making of false assertions to whom can be considered to be contrary to the goods at stake. Accordingly, neither does it specify a distinct class of persons the making of false assertions to whom can be considered to be not contrary to the goods at stake. “With a right to the truth” leaves all the necessary normative work as yet to be done, so as to identify just who has and who does not have a right to the truth. And so it seems merely to put “unjustified” at the back end of the definition of lying in the way that more obviously formal definitions do. This makes it considerably unlike the definition of murder, intentional killing of the innocent, and poorly framed as an attempted beginning to the specification of a moral absolute.^[16]

This objection is easily addressed by modifying the Grotian definition into something more specific: “A lie is a word or act that intentionally deceives a neighbor in order to hurt him.”^[17] The term “neighbor” has multiple senses, but in light of Christ’s teaching in the New Testament, we can define it as “anyone in need whom we encounter and are able to help.”^[18] This definition of “neighbor” might seem too broad, to the point that it may appear in order to define the term more narrowly, with reference to familial or community bonds. But such a definition would in turn be overly restrictive, and as one scholar has put it, “neighbor love can be interpreted in subjective-sentimental terms.”^[19] The solution here is to recognize that in the definition given above, “neighbor” is not simply synonymous with “human being”—not every person on Earth is my neighbor, for some people fall into the biblical category of “enemies.” In the context of the Ninth Commandment, the term “enemies” has been defined as “people doing bad things.”^[20] This description, while a bit crude, is nonetheless accurate—to put it more elegantly, enemies are those who, through their sinful actions, set themselves in opposition to God and the welfare of His creatures. By virtue of their active hostility to what is good, they have “forfeited the right to truth and honesty (and of course will not be expecting it).”^[21] If the idea that it could ever be righteous to deceive someone seems strange, consider this: Christ calls us to love our enemies, and when people make themselves our enemies by seeking to sin against God and their fellow man, and then attempt to gain information from us for this purpose, the most loving thing we can do for them is thwart their sinful endeavors by means of deception.^[22]

Armed with this insight, we find that supposedly hard cases in which (for example) we must “lie” in order to save a life are not difficult in reality because, when faced with someone who has murderous or otherwise wicked intent, deceiving such a person is not a lie at all and therefore not sinful. We see this pattern throughout the Bible, where deceptions are often told in order to thwart a sinful agent. Rahab, the Hebrew midwives, Jael’s deception of Sisera (Judges 4:18–21), Michal’s deception of Saul (1 Samuel 19:12–17), Jonathan’s deception of Saul (1 Samuel 20:28–29)—in all these cases, and others besides, it is nowhere suggested in the Bible that those who deceived sinned in doing so, and in some cases the deceivers are praised for their actions. Therefore, using biblical examples as a guide, it appears we have successfully reformulated the definition of a lie in such a way that it excludes hard cases, in keeping with the true spirit of casuistry.

Conclusion

Hence, just as murder rightly understood is the intentional killing of a certain class of persons (“the innocent”), lying is the intentional deception of a certain class of persons (“neighbors”). The category of “neighbors” as we have defined it is quite broad, meaning that most of the time it will still be sinful to deceive those whom we encounter. That said, we can also define “neighbor” negatively as “one who is not an enemy.” An “enemy” is one who is actively seeking to sin against God and the welfare of His creatures. When we encounter enemies, it is not only permissible, but righteous, to deceive them, for in doing so we love them as Christ commanded us. The biblical foundations for this account of lying can be summarized as follows:

These passages together (Ps 18:25–26; Ezek 14:7–9) clearly reveal that God not only acts against bad people directly and in person but at times also deceives them directly and in person. And God does this not only by withholding information, not only by letting bad people deceive themselves, and not only by using emissaries but sometimes even by communicating contrary to what he knows in order to foil and destroy them. It is again important to reiterate that God never lies in the sense of saying, doing, or implying anything contrary to his own character, plans, and purposes (Num 23:19). But we also need to understand that God does, sometimes directly and intentionally, deceive bad people. And, “because as he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17), and since God commands us to be holy as he is holy (Lev 19:2; 1 Pet 1:16), this means we should do so as well in similar circumstances.^[23]

The above discussion of lying serves as a demonstration of the viability of non-conflicting absolutism as an approach to Christian ethics. There are many other so-called moral dilemmas that may initially appear impossible to resolve without sinning, but as the present discussion has shown, they can be unraveled readily enough if we truly understand the relevant moral laws. Consider, for example, the Fourth Commandment: in his discussion of the good deceit, Timon Cline suggests that “necessity may…force men to break the Sabbath to survive.”^[24] Without embarking on a full discussion of this commandment, it is worth observing that, as with the Ninth Commandment, modern construals of it are likely overzealous in seeking to police its boundaries for rightful action. For instance, it is probably not the case that honoring the Sabbath means always attending a church service every Sunday, and that anyone who fails to do this for any reason is guilty of violating the commandment. Here, as with other moral laws, it is necessary to consider carefully the law as it has been given to us by God, as well as the relevant portions of Scripture that can further inform us as to the law’s true nature and import. If we are diligent in this task, we can be confident that truly righteous action is always open to us, even if at times it seems elusive.

Notes

1. Augustine, On Lying, trans. H. Browne, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 3, ed. Philip Schaff (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887), § 3, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1312.htm. ↑
2. Paul J. Griffiths, Lying: An Augustinian Theology of Duplicity (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2004), 31. See also Dominic M. Prümmer, Handbook of Moral Theology, trans. Gerald W. Shelton (Cork: The Mercier Press, Ltd., 1956), 134; Boniface Ramsey, “Two Traditions on Lying and Deception in the Ancient Church,” The Thomist 49, no. 4 (October 1985): 504–505, 510; Griffiths, Lying, 175–76; Christopher O. Tollefsen, Lying and Christian Ethics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 21, 30; and Stewart Clem, Lying and Truthfulness: A Thomistic Perspective (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2023), 2–3, 43, 105, 128, 155. Notably, the Augustinian definition of lying is the one adopted by Timon Cline in “Good Deceit,” American Reformer, 1 June 2024, https://americanreformer.org/2024/06/good-deceit/. ↑
3. See Griffiths, Lying, 29, and Tollefsen, Lying, 21–22, 26. ↑
4. Clem, Lying, 103. ↑
5. See, e.g., Ramsey, “Lying,” 504; Griffiths, Lying, 34–35; and Clem, Lying, 103, 128, 157–58. ↑
6. See, e.g., Ramsey, “Lying,” 520–24, 527; Griffiths, Lying, 137–38, 140, 158–62; and Tollefsen, Lying, 57–78. ↑
7. One particular form of the necessary/lesser evil approach among Roman Catholics holds that lying per se is a venial sin. As such, while it is never the case that one ought to lie, sometimes it may be the least bad option. See Prümmer, Moral Theology, 134; Lawrence Dewan, “St. Thomas, Lying, and Venial Sin,” in Wisdom, Law, and Virtue: Essays in Thomistic Ethics (New York: Fordham University Press, 2007), 374, 376–77, 381; and Clem, Lying, 26, 109–110, 156–57, 189–90. This approach, trading as it does on the mortal/venial distinction, is not acceptable to Protestants. ↑
8. See Augustine, On Lying, § 8–17, and Ramsey, “Lying,” 506, 513. ↑
9. Daniel R. Heimbach, Fundamental Christian Ethics (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2022), 305. ↑
10. Heimbach, Ethics, 299. For a list of such verses, see Heimbach, Ethics, 299–300. ↑
11. Clem, Lying, 38. ↑
12. Hugo Grotius, The Rights of War and Peace, trans. A. C. Campbell (Washington, D. C.: M. Walter Dunne, 1901), Bk. III, Ch. I, § XI, 301. A definition of lying much like this one was given in the first edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994): “Lying is the most direct offense against the truth. To lie is to speak or act against the truth in order to lead into error someone who has the right to know the truth” (sec. 2483). However, the revised edition deleted the phrase “who has the right to know the truth.” ↑
13. Heimbach, Ethics, 288. See also Grotius, Rights, Bk. III, Ch. I, § XII–XVII, 302–304. ↑
14. Tollefsen, Lying, 28n33. ↑
15. Tollefsen, Lying, 29. ↑
16. Tollefsen, Lying, 89, italics original. ↑
17. John Frame, Doctrine of the Christian Life (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2008), 830, quoted in David W. Jones, Introduction to Biblical Ethics (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2013), 193. See also Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. III (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1873), 441–44. ↑
18. Heimbach, Ethics, 312. ↑
19. Heimbach, Ethics, 296. ↑
20. Heimbach, Ethics, 282. ↑
21. Daniel A. Westberg, Renewing Moral Theology: Christian Ethics as Action, Character and Grace (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2015), 184. See also Hodge, Systematic Theology, 441, and Oliver O’Donovan, “Christian Moral Reasoning,” in New Dictionary of Christian Ethics & Pastoral Theology, ed. David J. Atkinson and David H. Field (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1995), 127. ↑
22. The case of John Calvin presents an interesting application of this understanding of lying. In his writings he aligned himself with Augustine concerning the nature of lying, on which see Raymond A. Blacketer, “No Escape by Deception: Calvin’s Exegesis of Lies and Liars in the Old Testament,” Reformation & Renaissance Review 10, no. 3 (2008): 268–69, 276, and Heimbach, Ethics, 287. In practice, however, “Calvin and his colleagues employed deceptive means” on an ongoing basis for the purpose of “their evangelistic work in France.” See Jon Balserak, Geneva’s Use of Lies, Deceit, and Subterfuge, 1536–1563: Telling the Old, Old Story in Reformation France (New York: Oxford University Press, 2024), vii. Even if Calvin did not say so himself, presumably he considered his deceptions justified because he saw the French Roman Catholic authorities as enemies of the Gospel, and therefore undeserving of the truth. ↑
23. Heimbach, Ethics, 305. ↑
24. Cline, “Good Deceit,” https://americanreformer.org/2024/06/good-deceit/. ↑