8 Comments

harry
June 19th, 2012 | 9:25 am

Re: Lies, Truth, and Live Action’s Tactics

A lot more than Live Action’s tactics would be appropriate and entirely ethical in resisting the anti-life juggernaut’s assault on humanity. I am not saying that anything and everything is appropriate. There are tactics that should and would be rightly condemned, but Live Action is not engaging in any of those things.

Christopher O. Tollefsen’s Christianity needs to go from his head to his heart.

Michael PS
June 19th, 2012 | 10:37 am

Re: Lies, Truth, and Live Action’s Tactics

St Augustine says in the De Mendacio

“For that death which men are foolishly afraid of, who are not afraid to sin, kills not the soul but the body, as the Lord teaches in the Gospel; whence He charges us not to fear that death: but the mouth which lies kills not the body but the soul. For in these words it is most plainly written, “The mouth that lies slays the soul.” [Wisdom 1:11] How then can it be said without the greatest perverseness, that to the end one man may have life of the body, it is another man’s duty to incur death of the soul?”

To me, this argument appears unanswerable.

St Augustine also quotes Psalm 5 “You hate all who do wrong; you destroy those who tell lies,” where lying is singled out as a special object of God’s vengeance, for liars he not only hates, but also destroys.

This seems to accord with Revelation 21:8 “But the fearful and unbelieving and the abominable and murderers and whoremongers and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars [Kai pasin tois pseudisin], they shall have their portion in the pool burning with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

harry
June 19th, 2012 | 11:55 am

Hello, Michael PS,

I don’t think it is all that simple.

Jacob lied when he said that he was Esau, and yet he received a blessing. Judith lied to Holofernes to save her people and is blessed for her actions (Judith 15:10-11).

Not only that, one would have an obligation to deceive the Nazi’s as they hunted for Jews. Sometimes people have no right to certain knowledge.

If some madman entered a family’s home waving a gun and announced he was going to kill everyone there, it would be perfectly fine to try to convince him you were the only one home even if you weren’t. Please tell me you don’t think one would be obligated to tell him the kids were playing in the basement if asked.

The Nazis, like our hypothetical madman, had no right to the knowledge they sought, and people were obliged to deceive them when possible. Planned Parenthood is responsible for the deaths of far more innocent human beings than the Nazis.

Ray Ingles
June 19th, 2012 | 2:31 pm

harry – Actually, Edward Feser, a philosopher who’s been lauded here, says you can’t lie even in the ‘gun waving madman’ scenario.

Michael PS
June 20th, 2012 | 2:06 pm

Harry

As for OT examples, St Augustine contends that sometimes the deeds and actions (as Jacob covering himself with skins and claiming to be the first-born) were said and done, not untruthfully, but prophetically; true, in what they signified and symbolized and should not be called on as examples under the New Covenant.

As for the gunman cases &c there is any amount of difference between telling a lie and practicing a deception, as by the use of evasion, equivocation and wide mental reservation to one who is not entitled to the truth – as in the old example (which does not work in English) “Non est hic,” meaning “he is not here” or “he does not eat here.” An English example would be “I could not say,” meaning either “I do not know” or “I am under an obligation not to say.

Similarly, “He is not here and, if he were I would deny it” [Where “No” is defined as meaning “yes” or “no”] Similarly, using words in an accepted, conventional sense, where “not at home” means “not receiving visitors”

But the main thrust of St Augustine’s argument that no one is obliged to save life by incurring damnation still stands.

Joe Mc. . Faul
June 21st, 2012 | 12:44 am

“Not only that, one would have an obligation to deceive the Nazi’s as they hunted for Jews. Sometimes people have no right to certain knowledge.”

This exception to the requirement for telling the truth used to be in the Catholic Catechism. It has since been removed.

harry
June 21st, 2012 | 10:59 am

But the main thrust of St Augustine’s argument that no one is obliged to save life by incurring damnation still stands.
– Michael PS


One would think there is no such thing as an inordinate desire to remain spiritually undefiled. Yet there is such a thing and it comes about when faith, hope and charity become less than primary virtues in one’s spiritual life. This is particularly true for the greatest of these, which is charity.

That I have great sadness, and continual sorrow in my heart. For I wished myself to be an anathema from Christ, for my brethren …
– Romans 9:2-3


St. Paul’s love of others was so great that he was willing to suffer even an anathema, or curse, for their sake. Avoiding becoming spiritually “unclean” or “tainted” was not uppermost in his mind. His love for others was uppermost and it overwhelmed him, as did that of Christ, Who let Himself be taken for a sinner for our sakes.

Avoiding becoming spiritually “unclean,” when it is one’s primary goal, is basically self-centered and leads to the most outrageous perversions of spirituality:


Then they led Jesus from Caiphas to the governor’s hall. And it was morning; and they went not into the hall, that they might not be defiled, but that they might eat the pasch.
– John 18:28


Here we find those more determined than anyone else to remain spiritually untainted in the process of committing deicide, yet thinking they are avoiding becoming defiled in the sight of God.

I think St. Augustine, if he had lived in Germany at the time, would have done all in his power to deceive the Nazis who were hunting down Jews. He would have done this out of regard for Christ’s presence in His least brothers and sisters. The alternative would be, for all practical purposes, the same as handing Him over to Pilate once again and shouting “Crucify him!” Far from doing any such thing as that, Augustine would have deceived the Nazis if possible because he loved Christ more than himself and would have first been thinking of Him in His least brothers and sisters rather than first being worried about his own spiritual “perfection” becoming tainted.

Michael
June 22nd, 2012 | 6:05 am

I’m not sure how any investigative journalism would be done if everyone followed Tollefsen’s strictures. The problem with sting operations occurs when they allow themselves to distort the truth they find once they enter the group they’re investigating. The sex-selection sting fell apart not because Live Action had to tell lies in order to enter the door, but because they started telling lies about what they found there. See the critique by Media Matters (http://mediamatters.org/blog/201205310024).

There’s nothing wrong with an ethical sting operation, but because sting operations begin with lies, they must be very careful to end the lies there.