Agree with the general Janet Smith school because Scripture has pride of place before Aquinas and catechism2. Christ uses a ruse with the Canaanite woman who cries after Him about her daughter's plight. First He is silent....non response signifying to the desperate that He has no interest in delivering her possessed daughter. Then He states an inaccuracy which He does not state elsewhere to other suppliant non Jews like the centurion: Mt.15:10 "He said in reply, 'I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel'." Again Christ has no problem later helping the centurion or the Samaritan woman at the well so that generally not strictly He is sent to Israel as very primary but not exclusively so as He is leading the woman to hear.
The woman's great faith sees through His mideastern ruses. I see this dichotomy on this topic as really being a Western versus mideastern difference.
Solomon's ruse in commanding the baby to be cut in two produces the truth of who is the real mother just as Joseph's ruse with his brothers produces their repentance
about selling him to a passing caravan (talk about rejection by siblings). The people of the Bible including Christ could easily understand undercover work...even if later schoolmen of the West and catechism writers cannot.

I freely admit that I am neither deep nor subtle in my thinking, at least not on the levels being discussed here.

But it seems to me that the Nazi at the door is at least one of the key test cases for any suitable moral philosophy of lying (if I can say it that way). If Justice would demand of me that I abet murderers, then that would be a significantly flawed view of Justice. . .

Excellent article and very perceptive comments by bill bannon. The cross-cultural aspect of understanding Biblical communication is often overlooked. This may have been at the root of Jesus' telling his brothers he was not going up to the feast when he may have merely meant, "I have not completed my plans yet to go up." After all, wasn't that one of the three annual feasts for which the Law required the attendance of all able-bodied males?

I agree in the primacy of scripture in this (and other) discussions, so here are a few more examples.

In the Acts of the Apostles, one can find instances of straight-up, no-guile truthfulness despite the risks, such as when Ananias approaches blind Saul in Damascus. One can also observe other more thought-provoking instances such as in Phillippi, when Paul chose not to disclose his citizenship until after being beaten, and in Jerusalem, when Peter questions Sapphira about the price of the donated land, knowing all along what the true price was.

In Joshua, there is the second attack on the Canaanite city of Ai, in which the God-given battle plan is a ruse. In Samuel, there is the not-fully-complete answer God tells Samuel to give to Saul, namely that Samuel is there for the sacrifice. True, but not divulging details that Saul did not righteously need to know.

My "takeaway" is this: God is not scared of the complexity of life, but knows the safely righteous way past every reef, rock and shoal. If our whole self is given to God as a living sacrifice, and our mind is being renewed by him, then we will know God's will, that which is good, and acceptable, and perfect (Romans 12:1-2).

While every act of lying is also an act of deception it does not follow that every deception is in an instance of lying. Lying is morally wrong deception. But then it follows that something must be added to deception to make it such that certain acts of deception are morally wrong whereas others (playing a practical joke, for instance, or trying to make sure it really is a surprise party) are not. And here it seems not just implausible but wildly implausible to say that lying is deceptive speech whereas other acts of deception are not speech. To say speech is what turns deception into something absolutely wrong is unsound. Commands are speech acts. But no one would say that commands, just by virtue of being commands, impose obligations. So we need to add to morally proscribed deception something more than that the deception in question is also an instance of speech. It seems to me Bonhoeffer had it about right--lying is keeping the truth from someone who has a morally legitimate claim upon it. On Bonhoeffer's account, such deception would be clear failure in one's moral obligation.

If it's justifiable to kill one man (even a blameless lunatic) to save a dozen good men from murder, you ought to be able to do something less violent to save the lives of good men (or babies) from murder, like lying about who you are. The true compatibility of Faith and Reason seems to demand it.

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?”
He 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.

Thank you, Janet, for your careful examination of our arguments. And I am very glad you aren't defending the actions like those allegedly committed by Lila Rose.

It is final paper grading time, so I will just respond briefly and selectively.


A. Assertion can be embodied in multiple communicative modalities. Obviously, speech, sign language and writing. That's uncontroversial. It can also be embodied in gesture, since to distinguish gesture from sign language would be a hopeless task. Furthermore, one can make assertions by all sorts of other conventions, some of them long-standing and some of them set for the occasion. These are all speech acts in the general sense.

If I set up the convention with you that one lantern means they're coming by land and two lanterns mean they're coming by sea, and I put out two lanterns with communicative intent while knowing that they're coming by land, then I've asserted to you that they're coming by sea--and I've lied.

But the communicative intent is crucial. If I put up two lanterns in order to see well enough to perform surgery in the room (maybe there is no other room available and no other place for lanterns), then I haven't made any assertion and I haven't lied, though I may have non-intentionally deceived you (which non-intentional deceit may be justified by the Principle of Double Effect).

Assertion thus involves a sign of some sort and an appropriate communicative intent. It is common among contemporary philosophers to suppose that the sign must be conventional, but I think that's an unwarranted assumption. We should at least leave open the hypothesis that some signs signify as they do by human nature or maybe even by divine fiat. But we can at least say that typically the sign operates by convention--certainly, that's true for the bulk of our oral and written vocabulary, and maybe all of it.

The word "sign" in English is ambiguous. In the non-linguistic or non-communicative sense, x is a sign of y simply provided that an occurrence of x is normally significantly correlated with an occurrence or presence of y. Thus, smoke is a sign of fire, Smith's fingerprint is a sign of Smith's having been there, and lights in a house are a sign of occupation. The linguistic or communicative sense is harder to give a precise definition of. We can say, as a start, that linguistic signs are signs because of the role they play in communication, because of what they express. An occurrence of a sentence "There is an ox here" (spoke in a typical assertoric context) is not merely correlated with the presence of an ox, but it expresses or communicates the presence of the ox. The two lanterns put up in order to communicate that they're coming by sea are a linguistic sign in this sense. They are not merely correlated with coming by sea.

This distinction in hand, I can answer some of Professor Smith's concerns.

1. One can indeed lie by deed as well as by oral speech and writing. But not all deeds that deceive are lies. We need to distinguish the deeds into those that are signs in the non-linguistic sense, as when the suspect's running away is a sign of guilt (the suspect is obviously not asserting guilt!), and those deeds that are signs in the linguistic sense, as when one puts out two lanterns to signify that they're coming by sea. Further, it is not even the case that all deeds that are intended to deceive are lies. Again, only communicative or linguistic (in a general sense that includes putting out lanterns) deeds can be lies, and even then only if they are intended to be communicative in the relevant way. For instance, if I am alone at home and hear someone sneaking around my property, and I yell truths loudly to myself while alternating voice impressions in such a way as to make the person sneaking around think there are several people arguing, then I am engaging in deeds at least superficially of a linguistic sort, but I am not communicating. I am deceiving but not lying. Likewise, if someone asks me what time it is, and I correctly give him the time, but I do so with a German accent because I know that this person has a bias in favor of Germans, I am deceiving but not lying.

2. This also makes for a relevant distinction about the disposition of tents in a military encampment. The arrangement of tents is a sign only in the non-linguistic sense, and hence may be deceit, but is not lying. It could be lying if the arrangement of tents were a sign in the linguistic sense. If I were a double agent, I might lie to the enemy that I will put my tent near the general's if we're going to attack at night. I might then put my tent far from the general's, while in fact we're planning an attack in the middle of the night. In so doing, I would be lying. That's a real distinction.

3. Exactly parallel with the distinction between signs, one can make a distinction about signifying. All of my deeds provide people with evidence about all sorts of things. One can call this "signification" in a generalized sense, at least when it is intentional, though I think that's awkward use of the term. Signification strictly speaking is linguistic signification. It occurs insofar as I am communicating. When I give correct information with a fake German accent, I am not signifying in the linguistic sense that I am German.


B. I fully agree with the non-final Catechism’s claim that it is wrong to deceitfully assert a falsehood to someone who has a right to the truth. If it is wrong to deceitfully assert falsehoods, it is in particular wrong to assert them to someone who has a right to the truth. There is no logical conflict between the two versions of the Catechism in regard to what is right and wrong. It’s just that the final version makes a stronger claim that the first. (Maybe there is a bit of a conflict as to the definition of the word “lie”, but what calls for assent is the moral content—what is right and what is wrong—and not the philosophical analysis of the word “lie”.)


C. Once one makes the distinction between a lie and a deceit, and says like Tollefsen and I do that lying is always wrong, a further question comes up, namely whether deceit is also always wrong. What Aquinas says about deceitful true statements seems to suggest that he thinks deceit is also always wrong. And that may make some of the Scriptural cases harder to handle.

But I think one can save Aquinas here, too. This is more speculative, and I don’t know if Tollefsen agrees with me. Let’s make a further distinction between intentional deceit and non-intentional deceit. Intentional deceit is, roughly speaking, an action where one intends to make someone have some belief that one oneself takes to be false. But sometimes one can foresee that one’s action will cause someone to have a false belief without actually intending that he have a false belief. And in those cases, sometimes, Aquinas’s Principle of Double Effect will apply. (Aquinas might say that such actions involve material but not formal deceit.)

I got from discussion with Mark Murphy the idea that one can actually defend quite a number of non-linguistic deceitful acts in this way. Consider the paradigmatic case where I am being pursued by an enemy, and I come to a cross-roads. I lay a false trail pointing left and I go right. Am I intending to deceive the enemy into thinking I went left? Not necessarily. All I need for my escape is that the enemy think that the balance of evidence available to him favors the hypothesis that I went left. The enemy does not actually have to think that I in fact went left. We often think that the balance of evidence favors some hypothesis even though we do not actually assent to the hypothesis, and indeed an epistemically cautious enemy is likely to think this way: “It looks like he went left, but maybe he didn’t. Still, it’s more likely given the evidence that he went left, so left is where I will go.” And it is quite true that the balance of evidence available to the enemy favors the hypothesis that I went left, if I’ve done a good job laying a false trail, so the thought I intend him to think is actually true. In fact, I can have this intention even if I foresee that the enemy will, additionally, form the belief that I went left. For I do not intend him to go left because of the false belief that I went left. I intend him to go left because of the true belief that he has evidence that I went left.

Could one defend lying in this way, saying that one is saying a falsehood, but not saying it in order to cause false belief, but only to cause the true belief that there is evidence for a falsehood? I don’t think so. For lying isn’t only wrong because it’s deceitful. Jorge Garcia, Chris Tollefsen and I agree it’s wrong at least in part because of a betrayal of solicited trust, and the Double Effect argument does not assuage that concern. Aquinas, too, has two different worries about lying. First, it is deceitful. And there my Double Effect argument applies. But he has a second worry, namely that it is an unnatural act, an act opposed to the nature of (assertoric) speech, much as he thinks that various sexual acts are unnatural acts. The Double Effect argument leaves that concern intact.

Thanks Janet and Alex. I agree with most of what Alex says in reesponse, but want to make one quick point about (C). I do not think Aquinas considers all deception wrong, and I don't think he considers telling a known truth with the intent to deceive a lie. The passage Janet quotes from in support of the claim that a deceptive true statement is a lie is, in full:

However, the essential notion of a lie is taken from formal falsehood, from the fact namely, that a person intends to say what is false; wherefore also the word "mendacium" [lie] is derived from its being in opposition to the "mind." Consequently if one says what is false, thinking it to be true, it is false materially, but not formally, because the falseness is beside the intention of the speaker so that it is not a perfect lie, since what is beside the speaker's intention is accidental for which reason it cannot be a specific difference. If, on the other hand, one utters' falsehood formally, through having the will to deceive, even if what one says be true, yet inasmuch as this is a voluntary and moral act, it contains falseness essentially and truth accidentally, and attains the specific nature of a lie.

So (me again) what makes something formally false is the intention to speak falsely, not the intention to deceive, though one usually will engage in formal falsehood through having the will to deceive -- i.e., that is one's purpose for asserrting what one thinks false. So assertion contra mentem really is the core of Aquinas's understanding of what a lie is, and we cannot infer his position on deceit simply from what he says aout the absolute impermissibility of lying.

I am a bit surprised at all the examples of ruses as used to defend lying. Let me briefly say something about each case that was mentioned.

1. Silence is not a lie. By saying nothing, Jesus is not asserting that he doesn't care. People can draw that conclusion if they like, but that's their drawing of a conclusion.

2. Jesus was sent to the lost sheep of Israel as the Messiah. Of course there was a further purpose to his being sent, namely the grafting of the gentiles onto Israel and their salvation, but the specific mission is to the lost sheep of Israel. And the fact that something isn't a part of Jesus' specific mission doesn't mean he can't do it!

3. Paul's not disclosing his citizenship is no lie. It is silence. Of course, one can draw a false conclusion from it, but one can draw false conclusions from all sorts of things. We don't have any absolute duty to prevent the drawing of false conclusions.

4. Asking a question one knows the answer to is not a lie--that would be a really big stretch. I am not lying to my students if I ask them "What Father McMullin understand scientific realism to be?" even when I know the answer better than they do.

5. Solomon is not asserting that the baby will be cut. He is commanding that it be cut, presumably planning to countermand the command. Commands are not assertions. Of course, one can draw a false conclusion from a command, but that doesn't make the command a lie. This is true even if the person issuing the command intends the false conclusion to be drawn--that only makes the command deceit, not yet a lie.

6. What we say about Joseph's case depends on a difficult question, namely whether it is an essential part of a lie that one be trying to get the other person to believe the falsehood. Thus, Joseph says to his brothers: "You are spies." But obviously he's not trying to get his brothers to think that they are spies! So if a lie requires an attempt to get someone to believe the falsehood, then Joseph isn't lying. Of course, his apparent non-recognition deceives them, but he isn't lying to them. On the other hand, one might think, and I actually think this is the better view, that one can lie even without trying to deceive, and I think that that's wrong, too. (The catechism says it's wrong to assert falsely with the intention to deceive, but does not say it's OK to assert falsely without such an intention.) If that's right, then we have to either say that Joseph isn't really making an assertion--that accusations of a certain sort in interrogation don't count as assertion--or that he is and is doing wrong. The Bible doesn't say that everything he was doing here was right.

7. The case of Joshua at Ai is an obvious case of a ruse rather than a lie.

8. As to Samuel, an incomplete truth is still a truth. That's why in court we not only swear to tell the truth, but we also swear to tell the whole truth. It wouldn't be lying to tell only a part of the truth, but in court it would be oath-breaking. And it could be deceitful.

-----------------

Finally, as to the oft brought in analogy between lying and killing in defense of the innocent, there is at least significant difference. We are in the image and likeness of God, and while God both gives life and takes away life, "God is not a man that he should lie, or the son of man that he should change his mind" (Numbers 23:19). God's utter reliability, in assertion (not lying) and in promise (not changing his mind), is one of the central divine attributes taught in Scripture. Without the assumption that God doesn't lie, how could we trust Scripture, in fact? We could say "Yes, Scripture is inspired by God." But it is only if we assume that God doesn't lie that we can be sure that therefore Scripture is true.

I take it that the implicit argument is something like this:
1. Lying is less harmful than killing.
2. If x is permissible for saving the innocent, and y is less harmful than x, then y is permissible for saving the innocent.
3. Hence, lying is permissible for saving the innocent.

But I think principle 2 is dubious, as the case of sexual sins shows. Adultery in at least some cases is less harmful than killing. But it is wrong to commit adultery to save the innocent, even in cases where the adultery is less harmful than killing. Take a case where a tyrant says that unless you commit adultery, you and your spouse will be put to death. Such cases aren't imaginary. These are cases where you keep troth (a word closely related etymologically to "truth") and die. Similarly, we read in Maccabees about the seven brothers who died rather than eat pork. Excessive? No: covenant and truth are central to the character of God as revealed in Scripture.

Alexander R Pruss: I agree that the argument near the end of your comment, as you have summarized it, is incorrect. But I don't think that's what Smith and others, including me, are trying to say. Speaking for myself only, I am not making a utilitarian calculus of relative harm, which opens to door to justifying all kinds of evil. Rather, I am making distinctions between when certain actions are permissible and when they are not. Killing, stealing and lying (or whatever virtual synonym is philosophically appropriate) are actions that cause some harm by their nature, but in specific circumstances they are permissible, even praiseworthy, to do.

But adultery is always wrong regardless of circumstances. To make fair comparisons, I argue that we should try to use these action verbs at comparable levels of "particularity". The term adultery describes a specific misuse of the sexual act, one that is always wrong. But the sexual act is not always wrong. Likewise, murder is always wrong, but killing is not.

To wrap up most of these concepts in a single scriptural reference, my favourite is Judith: a holy woman who served her people and God well. She deceived an enemy commander, not just with words but with an implied promise of sexual reward, got him drunk, and beheaded him while he was in a helpless drunken stupor. It would have been immoral if her plan involved actually sleeping with Holofernes, but it did not. Risky, yes, and not advisable under most circumstances, but it's a fine example of how brutal and deceitful tactics can sometimes be permissible and even praiseworthy.

@ Alexander R Pruss - "7. The case of Joshua at Ai is an obvious case of a ruse rather than a lie."

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Thank you for your reply.

Just to make sure I was not misunderstanding the meaning of the word ruse, I looked it up. Here's a layman's definition from dictionary.com: "ruse - a trick, stratagem, or artifice." I then looked up artifice and, well, the reader can do that, but it quickly circled back to the idea of deception. English has an incredible palate of words for shading the truth, it seems--far too many for my taste.

With all due respect, however, don't you think distinguishing between the words "lie" and "ruse" here might be making a distinction without a difference? Both label an attempt to deceive, don't they? For one to be permissible but the not the other would seem to run afoul of Christ's command to let our yes be yes and our no, no, just as you imply is the case with my "defense of lying" by using scriptural examples.

Please consider your own example:

"All I need for my escape is that the enemy think that the balance of evidence available to him favors the hypothesis that I went left. The enemy does not actually have to think that I in fact went left."

This seems rather like straining out a gnat, albeit with tools of great sophistication, maybe even lasers. I mean no offense, but my inclination in circumstances like this is to start looking around for an undetected camel. Perhaps, methinks, the dastardly dromedary or the blackguard bactrian could exist in the project of finite humanity creating a moral plane of infinite expanse and application without infinite knowledge and wisdom to go with it. This would rather seem a project of messianic proportions, in keeping with the great leveling projects predicted in Isaiah chapter 40.

I have two questions for you, if you have a little more time:

1. If you don't mind, what is your age or age range? That will help me to understand your history of dealing with real life's complexities. I'm in my 40s.

2. What of Jesus' words that he wasn't going up to the feast, but did anyway? That did not appear in your examples.

Mr. Pruss
You write:
" 1. Silence is not a lie. By saying nothing, Jesus is not asserting that he doesn't care. People can draw that conclusion if they like, but that's their drawing of a conclusion."

You are incorrect. His silence is a "lie" or ruse in context since a woman is present begging that He help her. That context defines His silence in a way that another context would not. He is not solitary on a hill but is being silent in the context of a pleading human being. The Trappist Abbot, Thomas Keating, says Christ is stretching her faith from point A to point B and later will exclaim at her passing the test in effect.

You write:
" 2. Jesus was sent to the lost sheep of Israel as the Messiah. Of course there was a further purpose to his being sent, namely the grafting of the gentiles onto Israel and their salvation, but the specific mission is to the lost sheep of Israel. And the fact that something isn't a part of Jesus' specific mission doesn't mean he can't do it!"

Response.....He was leading her to believe that the phraesology meant He could not help her.
Later when He says " It is not right to give the food of the children to the dogs"... He is fibbing about the nature of miraculous healing power....it is not
quantitatively limited the way food is....if He exorcizes the girl, it subtracts no
miraculous power vis a vis the Jews....yet He implies it will diminish rhat given to the Jews. When Solomon orders the baby to be cut in two, it is a stereo communication....a command to the soldier...a statement to the two women as to what is going to occur. To pretend that it is only a command to the soldier actually makes the story incomprehensible....the primary communication is the informing of the women through the command to the soldier.

Could I add to Bill Bannon's list of apparebtly Biblically sanctioned lies? I have cited this examples probably about three times alreday in the peirodic essyas on the ethics of lying, in 'On the Sqaure' - but as far as I recall, no-one has ever adressed this example, though they have adressed others. So I'd be interested in what you (e.g. Alexander Pruss) think...

The example is that of God reporting to Abraham what Sarah had said. In Genesis 18:12 Sarah gives as the reason why she could not possibly conceive a child, that “My Lord [i.e. Abraham] is old”. But when God reports to Abraham what Sarah said, He reports her as having said of herself “And I am old”, rather than that Abraham was old! Is this not a Biblical case of God Himself lying so as nt to offend Abraham, and not to cause friction between Abraham and Sarah. The Rabbis of the Talmud understand it that way - and I think it is a rather beautiful interpretation. Certainly, this doe snot seem to be a ruse, but a downright lie - telling Abraham that Sarah said something which she did not say.

G's question is puzzling. Here is the pssasage in question:

 12 Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?

 13 And the Lord said unto Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah alaugh, saying, Shall I of a surety bear a child, which am old?

Among the difficulties with the conversation about lying is the conflation of the notion of "assertion contrary to mind" with "anything less than complete reporting of what is the case." By the latter standard, Alex and
I lied in not reporting every line of Janet's piece. But the difference between economy and lying is reasonable and clear enough, save perhaps in some marginal cases, of which this is not one. God *obviously* did not lie in reporting Sarah's words as far as He did and not reporting other aspects of what she said. What did He assert that was contrary to His mind?

I will be responding as time permits during this busy season.

I am glad that Pruss now grasps that I was not defending the alleged actions of Lila Rose and associates.

Here I want to respond to just one point, Pruss's claims that "There is no logical conflict between the two versions of the Catechism in regard to what is right and wrong."

What is reasonable and what is logical are not always the same.
Pruss’ claim that there is no logical conflict between the two Catechisms is true strictly speaking but it is not a reasonable reading of the texts. It is reasonable to infer from the statement “no girls allowed” that boys are allowed unless further clarification is given. Of course, some smart aleck might follow the statement "no girls allowed" with the statement "no boys either"; he would not have violated logic thereby but he would have played a little deceiving trick on the audience.
While there is no logical conflict between the two Catechisms it is nonetheless reasonable to infer that if a lie is defined as "to speak or act against the truth in order to lead into error someone who has the right to know the truth" (CCC 2483, 1st edition), it is not a lie to speak or act against the truth in order to lead into error someone who does not have the right to know the truth. It would be highly misleading for the Catechism to make such a statement if indeed it intended to express an absolute condemnation of speaking or acting against the truth.
I am sorry I have a hard time believing that a reader of both texts can reasonably conclude that the two versions are saying the same thing, albeit the final version more strongly. Surely the authors knew that there are two strong strains of argument among theologians and philosophers concerning false enunciative signification: one that all false enunciative signification is immoral and the other that only false enunciative signification to those who deserve to know the truth is immoral. It would be irresponsible as well as misleading for the authors of the first edition to define lying as they did and mean by it a condemnation of all false enunciative signification.

Thanks for your thoughts, Chris. However, the way in which God's reporting seems perilously close to lying is covered-over by the English translation that you have used, and is much clearer from the original Hebrew. In your translation, Sarah calls both herself and Abraham 'old', and then God merely holds back from Abraham the fact that Sarah had also called Abraham 'old'. However, in the Hebrew, Sarah says of herself that she is 'worn out', and she says, at the end of her comment, that Abraham is old. Then God reports to Abraham, that Sarah said that she was old. But she never said any such thing. Here is my translation of the Hebrew, which tries to use the same world in English in each place that the same word is used in the Hebrew, and a different one where a different one is used:

“(12) And Sarah laughed within herself, saying: ‘After I have been worn out will I have joy, and my lord is old’. (13) And God said to Abraham: ‘Why did Sarah laugh, saying: ‘Will I really give birth, and I am old’?’.”

In both Sarah's and God's report, Sarah's comment ends of with a phrase of the form '...and x is old'. But 'x' for Sarah was 'my lord', whereas in God's report, it was 'I'.

If you really need to insist that God di not lie on this occasion, then I suppose you could say that God changed the wording in his reporting of Sarah;s comment. Her saying 'worn out' of herself gets changed to 'am old'said of herself, and then he simply chooses to miss out what she said about Abraham.

To Chris.
You say you agree with most of what Alex says. It would help me to know if you agree with
1) His view that it is moral for a protector of Jews in his attic to say to a Nazi seeking to kill the Jews in the attic, “There are no Jews in the attic” if when the protector says that he is trying to “speak the language of his interlocutor.”
2) His view that the final version of the Catechism is simply a stronger statement of the first version and not in significant conflict with it.

Now to Chris’ statement that “I [Chris] do not think Aquinas considers all deception wrong, and I don't think he considers telling a known truth with the intent to deceive a lie.” Chris and I are in agreement that Aquinas does not disapprove of allowing deception to happen.

Where we disagree is whether Aquinas holds that voluntarily and knowingly saying something true with the intent of deceiving is a lie. Chris cites precisely the passage that I believe supports my claim: “If, on the other hand, one utters' falsehood formally, through having the will to deceive, even if what one says be true, yet inasmuch as this is a voluntary and moral act, it contains falseness essentially and truth accidentally, and attains the specific nature of a lie.” Chris does not offer an interpretation of this portion of what Aquinas said; I can’t see how it says anything other than that the person who intends to deceive with true speech is lying.


Let’s review Aquinas’s basic position. What Aquinas is condemning is signification he designates as “falsum”. Any Latin speaker understands “falsum” to mean “that which deceives” since it is derived from the verb fallere meaning “to deceive.” All enuciative significations contrary to the truth, whether or not the signifier knows they are contrary to the truth, are false/deceiving; these are material lies. Those who know that the contrary to the truth statements they voluntarily make are contrary to the truth are guilty of a formal lie as well as a material lie. People may engage in false/deceiving signification (the object of an act/finis operis) for many reasons, among them to amuse, console, save lives, or to deceive (the ends of the act/finis operantis). Those who speak falsely/deceptively for the sake of deceiving (the end of the act/finis operantis) have perfected their lying/deception (the object of the act/finis operis); they have engaged in what is false/deceptive for the sake of deception and that is allowing what is formally or essentially something to achieve its proper finality. On the other hand, those who engage in false speech for the sake of amusing, are lying/deceiving but they do not “perfect” their lying/deceiving behavior; since it is not aimed at deceiving (though does deceive) it is does not achieve its proper finality.

Now the person who says something true for the purposes of deceiving is not committing a material falsehood. But he is committing a formal one. As Aquinas says, his act, “contains falseness essentially and truth accidentally, and attains the specific nature of a lie.” The truthfulness is accidental to the action; the falseness/deceptiveness is essential. Thus the individual signifying something true with the intent of deceiving is lying, in Aquinas’ view.


The fact that Aquinas thinks that true speech can be a lie, shows that it is not having a divided self that constitutes the essence of lying for Aquinas.

I truly appreciate this discussion. Nevertheless, I will (feebly) attempt to defend Lila Rose by pointing out, with all due respect, that few professional theologians or philosophers achieve success in real combat, i.e., that not so abstruse as to be of little practical use to society. Lila made a real difference, with good intent, in what I consider a just war (how many abortions take place every year?), against what I can't help but see as the forces of evil (the person who could rend an innocent baby to shreds, virtually with their bare hands, is one who could be led into virtually any evil imaginable), showing forth lies a thousand times more damaging than any collateral damage her "misplaced tent" may have caused to delicate sensibilities.

†

Janet Smith said: it is nonetheless reasonable to infer that if a lie is defined as "to speak or act against the truth in order to lead into error someone who has the right to know the truth" (CCC 2483, 1st edition)

But there is nothing in the context of this claim that suggests that it is intended as a rigorous definition; by the time we get to this passage we have already been treated (CCC 2467-2470) to a section on truthfulness that gives no hint of such a qualification on truthfulness and also (CCC 2482) to an Augustinian definition of lying, unqualified by any reference to the right to truth, despite the fact that, as the very first thing said on the subject, it's natural to read this as a straightforward definition of what the Catechism is next going to discuss. Further, this section (CCC 2483) is not devoted to explaining what lying is but why it is contrary to truth. And just a little later we again lack any qualification, as we are told why lying is condemned by nature: i.e., "The deliberate intention of leading a neighbor into error by saying things contrary to the truth constitutes a failure in justice and charity" (CCC 2485). The only way, I think, to read the first edition of the Catechism as defining a lie with reference to right to truth is to take CCC 2508 as a straightforward definition; but of course, whether one does so depends on how one interprets the passage it is summarizing.

There are two further, related, points that have to do with the 'right to truth' qualification itself. (1) One thing we clearly cannot do is read the section on lying out of context as if it had no relation to its context. And throughout this section there are discussions in which the mean between saying more than one ought and saying less than one ought is specifically highlighted. Given that the very next sentence in CCC 2483 ed. 1 is about how lying is an injury both to truth and to neighbor, one could very well read the reference to the right to truth as simply connecting the discussion to that of truthfulness in CCC 2469, where the issue of justice (and thus right) is specifically in view. (2) It is impossible to say what 2483 ed. 1 means if we are not given an account of what constitutes this right to truth and how people without it should be treated. But the only indications of this at all in context all indicate that we should be silent when it comes to those who do not have the right to truth; this is the only thing in view in the only lengthy and explicit discussion of the right to truth (CCC 2488-2492).

My point here is not that it's impossible to read these sections in Smith's way; only that it is not at all possible to claim that it is the only reasonable way to do so. The puzzle that Smith raises in her comment above ("I have a hard time believing that a reader of both texts can reasonably conclude that the two versions are saying the same thing, albeit the final version more strongly") arises entirely from her insistence on treating 2483, and not 2482, as providing the definition of lying, instead of reading it simply as a clarification of how lying violates the virtue of truthfulness (which is a virtue of justice in a broad sense, and to which talk of rights naturally pertains). If you do not take this approach to the text, it is not so clear that the disparity between the first edition and the revised edition is significant. We must not get boxed into assumptions about the interpretation that are at best weakly supported by the text itself.

Janet writes to me:

"You say you agree with most of what Alex says. It would help me to know if you agree with 
1) His view that it is moral for a protector of Jews in his attic to say to a Nazi seeking to kill the Jews in the attic, “There are no Jews in the attic” if when the protector says that he is trying to “speak the language of his interlocutor.”"

However, Alex's response did not address this issue, so in saying that I agreed with most of what he said, I implied nothing about my views on that.  I would point out that Alex's view (I do not know if he still holds it) is not precisely relevant either to the question of what lying is, or why it is wrong.  There are various questions about whether this or that utterance is a false assertion or not -- e.g., questions about a particular equivocation.  If Alex still holds that view, then we disagree about whether a particular asserrtion is a lie or not.


"2) His view that the final version of the Catechism is simply a stronger statement of the first version and not in significant conflict with it."

I think the earlier version of the Catechism is very misleading, and I believe this is why it was amended.  Whether or not this is so is a matter of history, and perhaps some day that history will be made public.  For now, it seems to me enough that the editio typica is meant to correct anything in need of correction, while maintaining everything sound from the initial draft.  So I don't see any special need to square the later with the earlier.

A more substantive disagreement exists over the reading of St. Thomas.  Janet writes: 

The fact that Aquinas thinks that true speech can be a lie, shows that it is not having a divided self that constitutes the essence of lying for Aquinas.

I agree with Janet on the following: if Aquinas thinks that whatever is always wrong with a lie can be found in a knowingly true assertion, then the divided self analysis will be deficient, since that analysis depends upon the intentional division between one's mind, and what is asserted contrary to that mind.  That is why it is important to determine whether a lie is assertion contra mentem, or deliberately deceptive signification.

Janet writes:

"Where we disagree is whether Aquinas holds that voluntarily and knowingly saying something true with the intent of deceiving is a lie. Chris cites precisely the passage that I believe supports my claim: “If, on the other hand, one utters' falsehood formally, through having the will to deceive, even if what one says be true, yet inasmuch as this is a voluntary and moral act, it contains falseness essentially and truth accidentally, and attains the specific nature of a lie.” Chris does not offer an interpretation of this portion of what Aquinas said; I 
can’t see how it says anything other than that the person who intends to deceive with true speech is lying."

I believed that I had offered an interpretation.  I held that in saying "If, on the other hand, one utters falsehood formally...", Aquinas was pointing back to his account of what is essential to the lie: "However, the essential notion of a lie is taken from formal falsehood, from the fact namely, that a person intends to say what is false.". So one could read this part of the sentence Janet relies on as saying "If, on the other hand, one intends to say what is false..."

Aqiunas concludes that such a person is guilty of the formailty of a lie, even if he speaks accidentally the truth.  Janet wishes to read this as saying that someone who speaks with the intention to deceive is guilty of uttering formal falsehood, even if they have spoken, knowingly, the truth; she relies on the phrase afterr the conditional, which is translated on the New Advent website and elsewhere as "through having the will to deceive..."

I interpreted that as simply giving the further purpose of one who, by virtue of their intention to assert falsely, was *already* guilty of formal falsehood.  Having looked at the Latin, and some other translations (including one from a web page of Tobias Hoffman, which I have copied below), I now think the case for my view is stronger, but that I was in error in thinking that Thomas was pointing to a further intention to deceive.  Thomas writes:

Si vero formaliter aliquis falsum dicat, habens voluntatem falsum dicendi, licet sit verum id quod dicitur, inquantum tamen huiusmodi actus est voluntarius et moralis, habet per se falsitatem, et per accidens veritatem

Hoffman uses the Benziger bros. translation, 1947:

If, on the other hand, one utters falsehood formally, through having the will to say something false, even if what one says be true, yet inasmuch as this is a voluntary and moral act, it contains falseness essentially and truth accidentally, and attains the specific nature of a lie.

Here, "haben voluntatem falsum dicendi" is translated "through having a will to say something false" --precisely what I take to be Aquinas's account of the essence of a lie.  So Aquinas here is simply glossing the conditional's antecedent, "If, on the other hand, one utters' falsehood formally..." by reiterating what it means to utter falsehood formally. 

Janet perhaps will say that because "falsum" would have been understood as involving deception by Latin speakers, the phrase is indeed best translated "through having a will to deceive...". This seems very strained to me but I leave it to others with better Latin than me to say.  However, my interpretation seems quite natural and plausible, and rules out the view that one who deliberately speaks the truth in orderto deceive lies. 

Dear Janet, Alex, Chris and others.
The verbiage of scholars. Oy! I feel sorry for your confessors.

Mr. Pruss, I found your CV on Baylor's website: https://bearspace.baylor.edu/Alexander_Pruss/www/cv.html, which answers the question on your age. I would still appreciate a comment on Jesus' not going/going to the feast, though.

EB, confessors were once trained to do what Janet, Chris, et al., are doing and much more. Your comment tells us much more about you than the nature or quality of this exchange.

"don't you think distinguishing between the words "lie" and "ruse" here might be making a distinction without a difference? Both label an attempt to deceive, don't they? For one to be permissible but the not the other would seem to run afoul of Christ's command to let our yes be yes and our no, no"

First of all, there might be a difference between two kinds of deceit: inducing false belief and providing misleading evidence. Bracketing that, the fact that two activities achieve the same end does not mean that the two activities are morally on par. Abstinence and contraception achieve the same goal of non-conception, but they differ morally. Likewise, sometimes one can eliminate a patient's pain by killing the patient or by giving a painkiller to the patient. Both achieve the same goal, but they differ morally.

I think the big difference is highlighted by this fact. If I deceived you by lying to you, normally you will have got to your false belief by trust in me, a trust I betrayed. Normally your implicit reasoning was "Alex told me this, and he's trustworthy in this matter, so it is so." (There are exceptional cases where my story about why lying is wrong needs tweaking, but the normal case is like this.) If I lied, I broke trust with you here. On the other hand, if I laid a false trail, you don't normally reason: "Alex's footprints lead left, and he's trustworthy in this matter, so he went left." Trust normally doesn't enter into it at all. It is just an evidence-based inference without my trustworthiness being an implicit or explicit premise. So there is no breaking of trust with you.

The "Yes yes, no no" passage, in context, is telling us that we should be so trustworthy that we have no need for oaths. This applies to both assertion and promise (actually, when we discussed the text in our Department's Bible study, it looked to at least some of us that it was more about promises than about assertions). But it doesn't apply to laying false trails, since trustworthiness doesn't enter in.

Here's another way to put it. In the Ten Commandments, we are told not to give false witness. The prohibition on lying is an expansion of that. When we lie, we give our witness to a falsehood, or at least to something we think is a falsehood. But in laying a trail, we give no witness.

This does not mean that non-assertoric deceit is always permitted. Quite the contrary. The human community is, inter alia (but not merely inter alia--this is one of the central features of the human community), bound together by a common pursuit of truth. It is permissible at times to hamper one's neighbor's pursuit of truth in some relatively unimportant respect (e.g., we shouldn't deliberately hamper our neighbor's pursuit of the truth in respect of God's will for him, etc.), but one needs to have a very good moral reason for doing so, and one needs to do it, as one needs to do everything, by morally appropriate means. And lying isn't one of these, as it is a betrayal of neighborliness.

As for going to the feast, this may very well be rather like when Jesus talks of destroying the temple and rebuilding it in three days. There are two temples--the temple built by human hands in Jerusalem and the temple of his body. But there is an important symbolic sense, one to which Jesus' preaching should have been making his listeners open, in which the two temples were connected, in that the temple built by human hands in which God symbolically dwelt was a prefiguration of Jesus' body in which the fullness of the Godhead dwelt. Similarly, every Old Testament feast was a prefiguration of the life of Jesus, and especially of his crucifixion and resurrection.

There is, thus, a oneness between the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem and the fulfillment of Jesus' ministry on the cross and in the resurrection, perhaps somewhat less obviously than in the case of Passover, but nonetheless in a real way. So Jesus is speaking of two feasts--the feast of Tabernacles that he sends his disciples to, and the feast at which he is sacrificed and glorified, whose time has not yet come. And Jesus indicates a non-literal sense to his words by using the mysterious phrase "my time is not yet fulfilled". Augustine comments on this phrase: "the time of My glory, is not yet come. That will be My feast day; not a day which passes and is gone, like holidays here: but one which remains for ever. Then will be festivity; joy without end, eternity without stain, sunshine without a cloud."

I am pretty sure that, especially given the Johannine context, something like this is the best reading of the text.

But even if a pedestrian reading were the right one--very unlikely!--there is no lie. On a pedestrian reading, Jesus could be saying: "Go to the feast. I am not going [now]. It's not time for me to go." The Greek doesn't have the "now" that I put in brackets, but it does have a present tense, and when one combines this with a pedestrian reading of "my time is not yet fulfilled" as "it's not time for me to go", there may even be a hint that he will go later, in his own time. As he did.

And, still sticking to pedestrian and I think incorrect readings, there need be no lie when one says that one won't do something and one then does it. It could just be an ordinary human change of mind. It is very unlikely that this be the right reading in a Johannine context, but then the best reading in a Johannine context is a non-pedestrian one.

Janet:

"It would be highly misleading for the Catechism to make such a statement if indeed it intended to express an absolute condemnation of speaking or acting against the truth."

Agreed. The draft version was not intending to express an absolute condemnation of speaking or acting against the truth. But neither was it intending to deny such a condemnation. It was simply silent on the question of whether everyone has a right to the truth as well as on the question whether it is permissible to engage in deceitful knowingly false assertion to someone who does not have a right to the truth. This is like the affirmation in the New Testament that Joseph did not know Mary until after she gave birth. The text is narrow: it tells us what happened prior to birth, but does not say anything either way what happened after she gave birth. (Protestants tend to take the passage to carry the message that they had marital relations after she gave birth, but as the Church Fathers point out, there are other texts with similar wording where such a message is missing. A famous example is where we are told that the Messianic king will rule "until all his enemies are put under his feet." The Fathers note that of course he will continue to rule after that, too.)


As for my disagreement with Chris, it is not a disagreement on morals, but on philosophy of language. On my view, Helga is expressing something like the proposition that no despicable subhumans worthy of death are on the premises when she says "No" to the Nazi. My justification for this view is that the salient meaning of the word "Jew" in the mouth of a Nazi who is looking to capture them is something like "despicable subhumans". Chris thinks, and a lot of people agree with him, that Helga is expressing the proposition that no Jews (in our ordinary sense of the word) are on the premises. We agree that it is not wrong to assert the proposition that no despicable subhumans worthy of death are on the premises and that it is wrong to assert the proposition that no Jews are on the premises. We simply disagree as to which of the two Helga's use of "No" involves. This is just like our disagreement with Aquinas. We agree that if jocose "lies" that neither deceive nor are intended to deceive are false assertions, then they're wrong, but I think, and I think Chris concurs, that Aquinas is wrong in thinking that they are false assertions.

(It's also probably not correct to think of my view as particularly lax. For in fact my view counts as lies things that on a more literalistic philosophy of language do not count as lies. Thus, the school teacher from Oxford, Alabama who says "I teach in Oxford" while speaking with a British accent and intending that the "in" be misunderstood as "at", is lying on my view, but not on a more literalistic view.)

@ Alexander R Pruss -

Thanks for your reply. It will give me something to think about prayerfully for a while.

Speaking of make believe tents, what's your take on the sect-like group Approved (tolerated?) by the Church here? Their presentation includes a video of an hour long talkgiven in an English church. It depicts the young adult audience as completely mesmerized by a talk that is okay, but nowhere near being profound enough to merit such robot trance like attention. The thing to me seemed like a scary misrepresentation, or in other words, like a big lie.

Thanks Don Roberto for this: "Lila made a real difference, with good intent, in what I consider a just war (how many abortions take place every year?), against what I can't help but see as the forces of evil (the person who could rend an innocent baby to shreds, virtually with their bare hands, is one who could be led into virtually any evil imaginable), showing forth lies a thousand times more damaging than any collateral damage her ‘misplaced tent’ may have caused to delicate sensibilities."

When the Nazi government chose to keep silent about certain atrocities being committed, and investigative reporters got wind of it, they chose not to report it, as they chose not to report Jewish professors being dismissed at universities, Jewish businesses being expropriated by Nazis and handed over to non-Jewish locals, and a host of other injustices. It seemed almost every non-Jewish citizen was in on a conspiracy of silence at some level at least with the local persecution of Jews. There was no doubt some Lila Roses in those days who more than likely ended up in one of the camps whom reporters also kept silent about. Most of popular media in America chooses to ignore the horror of the holocaust called abortion, especially concerning what is practiced in abortion mills daily. So we can argue all day whether Lila Rose is guilty of a venial sin, and if we decide she is, we can be equally certain it will not result in the closing of the gate to heaven.

I love holy warriors, and what Lila Rose shares in common with Janet Smith, no matter how much they might canonically disagree on Lila Rose's action, is that they are both holy warriors for whom I have nothing but gratitude.

Gil Costello says

“So we can argue all day whether Lila Rose is guilty of a venial sin...”

But the Holy Spirit, speaking in the Scriptures, says

“The mouth that lies slays the soul.” [Wisdom 1:11]

And again,

“You hate all who do wrong; you destroy those who tell lies.” [Psalm 5:5]

And yet again,

“"But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars – their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulphur. This is the second death." [Revelation 21:8]

Michael PS
Do you really want to tell God right after you depart this world that you preached that lying was not susceptible of parvity of matter.....kinda of like sex to the Thomists....never a venial sin. Do you really want to go there and complicate the particular judgement.
Stealing can be venial if the goods are trivial yet I Cor. 6:10 says thieves shall not possess the kingdom of God.

Michael PS,

Yes, but I have not been convinced that Lila Rose lied.

This has been thought-provoking and a stimulus for great soul-searching on the nature of what constitutes a lie, and I am particularly grateful for Janet Smith's contribution that opens up new theological territory that must be investigated in the tradition of persons like Hans Urs von Balthasar opening up new terrain in discerning the depths of what Jesus' descent into hell means for us in salvation history. If we are to defend those under assault by Satan's minions, we must be morally clear on how we move. The point I was trying to make is that regardless how this all concludes doctrinally, Lila Rose is not in my view in any danger of going to hell in her bold fight to save the slaughter of the innocents.

And after all this I'm supposed to know the answer?

Alex, I continue to be surprised at your reading of the first version of the Catechism. You say it is simply silent on the question of the morality of telling falsehoods to those who don’t deserve to know the truth and that the editio typica breaks that silence. If a parent told his children not to watch TV after 10 and found them watching TV at 9, I think he would be unreasonable to punish them for watching TV at 9. Could he reasonably say, he didn’t given any instruction about the permissibility of watching TV before 10? That he was simply silent about it?

Let's try some clever reading of the editio typica. It could be true to say that when the editio typica said, “To lie is to speak or act against the truth in order to lead someone into error” it was not ruling out the qualifier that one could permissibly tell falsehoods to those who do not deserve to know the truth. Someone could claim that such is a qualifier that any reasonable person could be expected to supply. Much as if I said “Don’t bury your brother.” And if it turns out your brother has died and you wish to bury him and you complained about my prohibition, I would say, "Bury him. Certainly you knew I meant 'if he is not dead.'”

Or the editio typica could be read to permit telling falsehoods to Nazis to deter them from killing Jews, because by doing so, one would not be leading them into error but into right action.

The clever could interpret the text in these ways. But prima facie they are not solid interpretations. They could be true, of course, but it is not likely.

I think anyone in possession of the first edition of the Catechism before the publication of the editio typica could not be blamed for speaking falsehoods to those who do not deserve to know the truth. Taken before some tribunal that accused the person of violating the teaching of the Catechism on lying, the person would rightly be acquitted. If a person did the same after the publication of the editio typica, that person would reasonably be judged to be in violation of the editio typica. The editio typica is not simply a stronger statement of the first version. Not as read reasonably.

Bill Bannon

How do you interpret St Augustine's words: "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?”


Now, as Pascal says, who cited these words against the Jesuit casuists f his day: “If the ancient Church was in error, the Church is fallen. If she should be in error to-day, it is not the same thing; for she has always the superior maxim of tradition from the hand of the ancient Church; and so this submission and this conformity to the ancient Church prevails and corrects all.”

@ Gil: “I love holy warriors, and what Lila Rose shares in common with Janet Smith, no matter how much they might canonically disagree on Lila Rose's action, is that they are both holy warriors for whom I have nothing but gratitude.”

Thank you Gil! I love being portrayed as a “holy warrior”!

Let me make this clear.

Just because my project is not to defend Lila Rose, does not mean I don’t think her actions are defensible. Defending her is simply not my project at this time. If I am right that some false speech/communicative behavior is moral, that would be a step to defending her action but only a step. I don’t want to get entangled in the project of defending her action since defending some false speech/communicative behavior is complicated and absorbing enough.

My project is:
1. To understand precisely WHY Aquinas condemned all false speech/communicative behavior. Even jocose falsehoods, false consoling and encouraging speech, and false speech designed to deter evil doers. And false communicative behavior as well as speech.
2. To understand just WHAT KIND of speech AND BEHAVIOR are covered under his condemnation.
3. To understand why some philosophers feel comfortable citing Aquinas as an ally for their complete condemnation of all falsehoods when they do not accept his conclusions, such as the impermissibility of jocose falsehoods. Do they reject his principles or simply the application of his principles? We both seem to think he is wrong in some respects.
4. More narrowly, I am trying to understand what are the positions of Pruss and Tollefsen. I am beginning to think they do not have the same view of the purpose of signification as Aquinas (nor do I); they do not locate the evil of false signification in the same place as Aquinas (I think I probably do); and they may not really agree with each other on the purpose of signification (I don’t know think I agree with Tollefsen; I may agree with Pruss).

As corollaries I find myself drawn into discussions:
1. of the position of Scripture on false speech/communicative behavior
a. my view: It supports some false speech/communicative behavior.
2. of the differences between the first version of the Catechism and the editio typica
a. my view: They say different things; I agree with the first version and not the editio typica.
3. whether or not the question of the morality of lying is still an open one in the Church
a. my view: Absolutely.

Another consideration in a hypothetical:

A pimp discovers to his chagrin that some of his workers are harboring children, a violation of a strict policy against having children, his experience having taught him well that workers with children are late and sometimes absent more often than workers who don't have children, which he interprets as stealing from him.

His remedy: upon discovering a worker has a child, he will take that child to a person he has hired to kill said children and dispose of their bodies.

A terrified worker notifies the police what is happening, but chooses to remain anonymous out of fear. Without any evidence, the police set up a sting operation, secretly employing one of the pimp's workers who’s looking to get out of the business, something the pimp will not allow with the threat of facial mutilation and even death. She poses as a worker who has a child (a "lie") and proceeds to secretly tape a conversation with the pimp and the child killer, and from what they say the police are able to make an arrest for conspiracy to commit murder.

The question: is the undercover agent a liar? If so, persons involved in many legal sting operations would be subject to eternal damnation in Michael PS's estimation, especially since they harbor no regret.

Is the undercover agent in fact a liar, or is she a person who acts, much as an actor on stage acts, representing the truth of the mothers and/or the babies who are too terrified or unable to speak the truth they would want spoken? In other words, is the agent speaking a representative truth, a truth that is being suppressed by liars, or is she lying?

I am suggesting that Lila Rose and friends represented truthfully two parties: 1) persons too terrified or unable, through confusion or lack of cognitive development, to speak their truth, and 2) persons with the satanic intention of murdering babies in the process of exploiting women.

In a staged play everyone plays their respective parts, each representing the truth of the character they are playing. Isn't this the essence of what is occurring in an ethically sound sting operation? Lila Rose and friends had no desire or intent to harm anyone, only to reveal the truth of a situation that the larger culture largely ignores, much as the larger culture in Nazi Germany ignored the persecution of Jews. Can their dramatic representation of a truth that most media outlets choose to ignore, and that legal authorities turn a blind eye towards (and in fact in many quarters make laws to protect the actions of satanic forces, making “legal” sting operations impossible) truly be construed as a lie, and Lila Rose as a liar?

What is the singular effect of the actions of a truth that has its origin in the Truth that is God? It sets persons free. And what is the singular effect of the actions of a lie, always originating from the lips of the Liar? It enslaves and murders.

When a person arrives at judgment and is asked, "When my brain was sucked from my skull and my body ripped from my mother's womb and torn to pieces and then chucked into a garbage can, where were you?", will the answer be, "I was discerning in depth the finer nuances of what constitutes lying, something I continued to do throughout my life; for, after all, you are a God of wrath who might tolerate or forgive any sin but that of lying. I could not risk being error in this one respect."

"So you burrowed deep with this talent of intellectual discernment and in the process condemned those who would in love and truth have saved me?"

"Yes...What else could I do?"

Michael PS
I read most of Augustine in my twenties but I noticed his mistakes when I read the Summa T which like you tried to preserve the ancient...Augustine, despite opposing contraception, saw small families as Christian and large families as Jewish ("The Good of Marriage"); saw women as a help to man only in procreation with other men being better helpers in all other things to men ( thankfully the NY Times didn't read the ST in which Aquinas cites that view and repeats it fondly twice); he and Aquinas followingly sheepishly erred on the Immaculate Conception because Aquinas bought Auggie's ancient view that enjoyed sex (Mary's parents) passes on original sin; and Aquinas followed him in seeing the asking (not the responding yes)
for the marriage debt sans willing procreation as venial sin.
You my good man may keep the ancient....which elements above proved to be incorrect in the view of the actual Church.

Why is Lying Wrong?

Let me review some of primary differences between Tollefsen and Pruss’ and my reading of Aquinas.


All of us acknowledge that the reason that Aquinas disapproves of false enunciative signification is that it involves saying something contrary to what is on one’s mind. And that view is in accord with what is perhaps Aquinas’ most straightforward definition of a lie in ST II-II 110:3: ad 4. “Now a lie is evil in respect of its genus, since it is an action bearing on undue matter. For as words [voces] are naturally signs of intellectual acts, it is unnatural and undue for anyone to signify by words [voce] something that is not in his mind.”

Tollefsen and Pruss understand the evil or disorder in “signifying something not on one’s mind” to lie in the fact that one divides one’s self; one says what one does not believe. I suspect they would rely heavily on this text to defend their position: “As stated above (109, 3; 110, 1), it belongs to the virtue of truth to show oneself outwardly by outward signs to be such as one is. Now outward signs are not only words, but also deeds. Accordingly just as it is contrary to truth to signify by words something different from that which is in one's mind, so also is it contrary to truth to employ signs of deeds or things to signify the contrary of what is in oneself, and this is what is properly denoted by dissimulation. Consequently dissimulation is properly a lie told by the signs of outward deeds. Now it matters not whether one lie in word or in any other way, as stated above (110, 1, Objection 2). Wherefore, since every lie is a sin, as stated above (Question 110, Article 3), it follows that also all dissimulation is a sin”. (ST II-II 111:1, resp). Aquinas is speaking of the person who presents himself by word or deed as other than what he is, of one who does not present the truth about himself, say, about his being a good or bad person. I am not certain what Tollefsen and Pruss mean by referring to some sort of “divided” self. But if by “divided” self is meant some sort of inauthenticity, some sort of failure to live in accord with one’s own principles, this is not what Aquinas has in mind in this passage. Aquinas refers to the “mind” not the “self”. Dissimulation is one instance of the kind of false/deceiving speech/communicative behavior that is a lie. It is speaking against one’s mind and thus against reality, not against one’s self.


I hope I have not misrepresented Tollefsen and Pruss’ understanding and reasons for their understanding. I welcome correction if I have done so.



I understand Aquinas’ position about the evil that defines lying differently; I understand Aquinas to be saying that the purpose of the mind is to grasp reality correctly; the purpose of enunciative signification is to convey the truth that one has on one’s mind faithfully to another. Not to do so is to engage in a deceptive act.




Let’s take a look at some of the passages that support the claim that the central reason Aquinas holds for disapproving of false speech/communicative behavior is that such speech or communicative behavior is deceptive. I believe he would have been surprised to hear that anyone thought otherwise.



Let us keep in mind that the Latin word translated in English as false is “falsum” which is a form of the word “fallere” which means “to deceive.” A Latin speaker would always understand “deceiving” when he encountered the word “falsum.” Aquinas always used words based on the verb fallere to refer to deception. We find the phrases “causa fallendi” (for the sake of deceiving) habens voluntatem fallendi” (having the will of deceiving); “intentio fallendi” (intention of deceiving); “cupiditas fallendi” (the desire of deceiving), “falsitas” or deception and “fallatur” (that someone may be deceived). Thus, it seems right to understand the adjective “falsum” to mean deceiving.



First let us note what is said in the Sed Contra to ST II-II 110:1.


Augustine says, in the book Contra mendacium, “No one doubts that he lies [mentiri] who speaks something false [enuntiat falsum] for the sake of deceiving [causa fallendi]. For this reason, the enunciation of something false put forth with the will of deceiving [cum voluntate ad fallendum], is manifestly a lie [mendacium].” But this is opposed to the truth. Therefore a lie [mendacium] is opposed to the truth.


In this sed contra, Aquinas cites Augustine as saying that a lie is something said “for the sake of deceiving” and “with the will of deceiving”. In his response, Aquinas accepts that definition but parses it in his usual way of employing three of Aristotle’s four causes; material, formal, and final (the unidentified efficient cause is the will of the agent): “If therefore these three things concur, namely, what is enunciated is false [quod falsum sit id quod enuntiatur], the will of enunciating what is false [voluntas falsum enuntiandi], and finally the intention to deceive [intentio fallendi], then there is falsity [falsitas] -- materially, since what is said is false [falsum], formally, on account of the will to tell a falsehood [voluntatem falsum dicendi], and effectively on account of the will of imparting falsity [voluntatem falsitatem imprimendi.]




The material cause is false/deceiving speech/communicative behavior; the formal cause (which identifies the essence of something), is the will to enunciate what is false or deceiving (this is the object or finis operis); the final or the “effective” cause (this is the end/purpose, or finis operantis) is intending to engage in false/deceiving speech/communicative behavior for the purpose of imparting falsehood or of deceiving.



In this article and elsewhere Aquinas generally refers to “voluntas” or the will in respect to the object of the act (finis operis), and “intentio” or intention in respect to the end of the act (finis operantis). But in the above definition he speaks of “voluntas” or will in respect both to the object and to the end. Previously in the same response he spoke of deception being intended both in respect to the object and the will: “The proper object of manifestation or enunciation is either the true or the false [falsum]. The intention of an inordinate will is able to be brought to bear on two things: one of which is that something false/deceiving may be enunciated [ut falsum enuntietur]; the other which is the proper effect of false/deceiving enunciation [effectus proprius falsae enuntiationis], that is that someone may be deceived [fallatur].” Here Aquinas is saying that the person who engages in false/deceiving speech/communicative behavior both intends deception as the object of his act (he usually speaks of this as “having the will to deceive) and may also have as his reason for doing so, that someone might be deceived (he usually speaks of this as intending to deceive). Later he makes it clear that the person engaging in false/deceiving speech/communicative behavior may do so for many ends/purposes besides the end/purpose of deception, such as for the sake of amusing or saving lives. So what is intended at the level of the object may not be the same as what is intended at the level of the end.



Aquinas clearly maintains that when one engages in false/deceiving speech/communicative behavior one is engaging in deceptive behavior – but one may not be doing so for the PURPOSE of deceiving. As we shall soon see, he thinks a deceiving action obtains its effect/purpose/finality only when it is done with the intent or PURPOSE of deceiving, but he also holds that it is a deceptive act already at the level of the object if it is enunciation that is contrary to the truth.



What does it mean to engage in false/deceiving signification for the PURPOSE of deception if the act is already deceptive by its very nature? I think “to lie for the sake of deceiving” refers to the telling of a lie because one wants deception to be a part of the end that one achieves. Aquinas identifies a number of lies that are especially pernicious (ST II-II 110:2 resp.); such as lies against God (false religious doctrine), or against men with the purpose of injuring them. He then goes on to speak of a kind of lie which can be independent of pernicious reasons or can accompany them. This he speaks of as the “mere lust of lying and deceiving” [sola mentiendi fallendique libidine]. He quotes Aristotle who spoke of the habitual liar as one who delights in lying [ipso mendacio gaudet.] The perfect lie is the lie that involves this desire to deceive since it brings a lie to the fullness of its being. Sometimes, the ends achieved by lying may be achieved by other methods, but the true liar, the habitual liar would not want to use honest means, because he delights in lying.




Earlier Aquinas spoke of the person who has the “cupiditas fallendi” or the “desire to deceive.” He was responding to Augustine who said “the sin of the liar [culpa mentientis] is in the desire to deceive [fallendi cupiditas]. (ST II-II 110, obj. 3) In his response to this objection, Aquinas says “The desire to deceive [cupiditas fallendi] belongs to the perfection of lying [perfectionem mendacii] not to its species, for no effect belongs to the species of its cause.” Aquinas holds that deception is essentially a part of the species of the act of lying (of the object, of the finis operis), but that the cupidiates of deceiving is not always present in a lie. Aquinas holds that one who engages in false/deceiving speech/communicative behavior wills to deceive but may not necessarily have the cupiditas/desire of deceiving. Again, all liars engage in deceptive speech, both those who lie for good reasons and those who lie for bad reasons. Those who lie for good reasons have the will to deceive at the level of the object but do not have the desire to deceive at the level of the end. Nor do all those who lie for bad reasons lie for the purpose of deceiving or because of the cupiditas/desire of deceiving. Some of those who engage in false/deceiving speech/communicative behavior for the sake of bad ends might even prefer to achieve those ends other than by deceiving. They have the will to deceive but they do not necessarily have the desire to deceive. The complete lie is one done with a desire to achieve whatever one’s ends are through deception. For instance, someone might be able to kill his enemy without lying about his enemy’s wife, but he prefers to accompany the killing of his enemy with a lie.



Let me note that Aquinas also seems to be making a distinction between the cupiditas/desire of deceiving and the libido/lust of deceiving. I think this distinction utilizes the term “cupiditas/desire” of deceiving to be the desire of deceiving that accompanies single acts and the term “libido/lust” of deceiving to be that desire for deceiving that has become a habit.



Further on this in this article Aquinas states: “That a person intends to cause another to have a false opinion [intendat falsitatem in opinione], by deceiving him [fallendo ipsum], does not belong to the species of lying, but to the perfection thereof, even as in the natural things, something acquires its species if it has its form, even though the form's effect be lacking; for instance as is clear when a heavy body is held up by force, lest it fall because of the exigency of its form. Therefore it is evident that lying is directly and formally opposed to the virtue of truth.”



I believe this passage is one that leads some to think that Aquinas did not think deception to be an essential feature of a lie. But I believe the passage makes sense only if deception is an essential feature of a lie. Here, again, Aquinas is saying that one does not need to have deceiving as his purpose (finis operantis) in order for his false/deceiving speech/communicative behavior to be deceptive. Deceptiveness is in a lie as a part of its object, as that which gives the act its species. Just a heavy thing is heavy whether or not it falls, false/deceiving speech/communicative behavior is deceptive whether or not it is done for the sake of deceiving. Heavy things are by their nature “falling things”. Sometimes force prevents them from perfecting that nature but that is their nature and their weight keeps them directed towards that end even if that end is forcibly thwarted. False/deceiving speech/communicative behavior is by its nature directed towards deception. False/deceiving speech/communicative behavior may not achieve its perfection because the agent does not make deceiving his purpose for engaging in false/deceiving speech/communicative behavior but essentially, if not effectively, it is deceptive speech.



Aquinas disapproves of any manifestation or signification that does not convey the truth. The reason it is wrong not to convey the truth is that 1) the powers of signification exist in order to convey the truth to others and 2) others deserve to know the truth. Not conveying the truth to others serves to deceive them. The one who freely and knowingly engages in false enunciative signification is by definition engaging in deceptive signification. And that is a lie and the agent is culpable for lying. When those lies do little harm and are done to achieve good, Aquinas considers them to be venial sins. When the agent lies because of the intent to “impart a falsehood” or because of the desire or lust for lying he has engaged in a “perfected” lie.



This reading of Aquinas informs all my interpretations. I shall piecemeal be replying to Tollefsen’s and Pruss’ responses to me.

Perfect lies and imperfect lies

Let me do all the above now by means of examples and with as little technical terminology as possible.

According to Aquinas:

1. The perfect lie:
a. Joe tells his sister Jill that their parents hate her. This is false: Joe knows it to be false. He tells Jill this so that she will commit suicide. He also wants her to believe that her parents hate her. [Joe has engaged in a deceptive act, for the sake of causing harm and for the purpose of deceiving. He has committed the perfect lie. He has lied and committed a mortal sin.]


2. Imperfect lies:
a. Kate calls her husband Kyle and tells him to come to their favorite restaurant because she has had a flat tire near it. She has not had a flat tire but is using this falsehood to get Kyle to come to the restaurant where she has arranged a surprise birthday party for him. [Kate has engaged in a deceptive act for the sake of surprising her husband. She has lied and committed a venial sin.]
b. Wolfgang tells the Nazi at the door that there are no Jews in his attic. This is false, and Wolfgang knows it to be false. [Wolfgang has engaged in a deceptive act for the sake of saving lives. He has lied and has committed a venial sin.]


3. Mixed lies:
a. Jack thinks it is not icy outside but tells his elderly mother, it is icy outside because he wants to deceive her; he wants her to run out, and fall down and kill herself (so he can inherit her money). But it fact it is no longer icy outside; it has warmed up since Jack last looked. Jack has said something true, although he didn’t mean to. Nonetheless, he is guilty of lying because he meant to say something false. [There is no material lie here, but there is a formal lie, since Jack wanted to say something false. (Sorry, I can’t avoid the technical terms here.)]
b. Duke Giovanni is standing on drawbridge, taunting his enemy Count Orlando. Duke Giovanni is boasting that tomorrow he will attack the northern tower of Orlando’s castle and smash it to smithereens. Duke Giovanni does, in fact, intend to attack the northern tower but he counts on Count Orlando not believing him, on Orlando thinking he is trying to deceive him. Giovanni is saying something he knows to be true but he intends to deceive Orlando. Although he has said something true, he has spoken with the intent to deceive and thus is morally guilty of lying. [Again, there is no material lie, but there is a formal lie, since Duke Giovanni intended to deceive through signification.]


The above may help us sort out the proper translation of a disputed text.


Tollefsen disagrees with my interpretation of this passage: “If, on the other hand, one utters falsehood formally, through having the will to say something false/deceiving [habens voluntatem falsum dicendi"], even if what one says be true, yet inasmuch as this is a voluntary and moral act, it contains falseness [falsitatem ] essentially and truth accidentally, and attains the specific nature of a lie.” (ST 110:1, resp.)


In Chris’ reading this refers to an instance where the agent does not intend to say something true; the agent mistakenly says something true, that he believes to be false. His sample case would be #3a above.


But I think it more plausible to read the passage with the understanding that the agent knows that what he is saying is true but intends to deceive with his true speech. Note that Aquinas speaks of the act as being a voluntary and moral act; moral acts require that the agent know what he is doing. If the agent is unaware that he is speaking the truth he cannot even be responsible for the accidental truthfulness of his action. And it is important to remember that the word “accidentally” does not mean “mistakenly”. It means that whatever truthfulness there is in the act does not define the act, is not a part of the essence of the act. The attempt at deception is what makes the act a lie.

And let us keep in mind that both the person who mistakenly says what is true in order to deceive, and the person who intentionally says what is true in order to deceive, have both, in Aquinas’ view, lied.


Another passage supports this reading. In the first reply in the same article Aquinas says, “We judge of a thing according to what is in it formally and essentially rather than according to what is in it materially and accidentally. Hence it is more in opposition to truth, considered as a moral virtue, to tell the truth with the intention of telling a falsehood [intendens dicere falsum] than to tell a falsehood with the intention of telling the truth [intendens dicere verum].” (ST II-II: 110:1, ad 1)


Here Aquinas is saying that the person who intends to say something false/deceiving even if he says something true is more in opposition to the truth than one who speaks a falsehood with the intent of speaking the truth. The essence of a falsehood, its formality, is in the falsity/deceptiveness of what is intended. It is the intent to engage in false/deceiving speech/communicative behavior that makes an action not in accord with the truth and thus a lie. My example 3.b above would fit this claim.


Here, again, I think Aquinas is speaking about speech/communicative behavior rather than about internal integrity.



The intent to speak something false is, I believe, in Aquinas’ view the intent to mislead another about reality. Thus the action is wrong.


(By the way, it is certainly true that the person who engages in false/deceiving speech/communicative behavior causes disorder to his soul. But this is not unique to the sin of lying; all sin causes disorder to the soul. That is what vice is; a disordered state of soul. So that fact that a liar causes his soul to be “divided” or disordered is not the defining evil of lying, it is the result that comes with all sin. But, again, I am not certain that it is the kind of dividedness to which Chris refers.)


I really appreciate that Christ made this acknowledgement: “I [Christopher] agree with Janet on the following: if Aquinas thinks that whatever is always wrong with a lie can be found in a knowingly true assertion, then the divided self analysis will be deficient, since that analysis depends upon the intentional division between one's mind, and what is asserted contrary to that mind.”


I believe I have shown conclusively that for Aquinas even a true statement can participate in the essential evil of the lie; the evil of wanting to deceive, to lead another into error about reality through using enunciative signification, false and true enunciative signification.

Re: the Catechism:


Chris says that “it seems to me enough that the editio typica is meant to correct anything in need of correction, while maintaining everything sound from the initial draft.” The question is WHAT KIND of correction is the change from the first edition of the CCC to the editio typica. Another question is what “sound” means. The letter issued by John Paul II with the editio typica says that there are no changes in doctrine from one edition to the other. So the “correction” from the first edition to the editio typica cannot be a change in doctrine. The first version cannot have had anything “unsound” in it. There is no doctrine on the matter of what constitutes a lie. That is a big point of contention between us.

Consider how differently the Catechism treats sexual sins from sins against the truth. Under the commandment against adultery, the Church informs us that the same principles that make adultery immoral, also make fornication, lust, masturbation, contraception, rape, pornography and homosexuality wrong. It is good that the Catechism spelled out the wrongness of such actions. Why doesn’t it provide a similar list about various forms of lying? Most people don’t seem to understand that jocose lies, social fictions, spying, sting operations, and wartime subterfuges are immoral, even those who claim that they follow Aquinas on the matter of the morality of false enunciative signification. I wonder what those who wrote the editio typica think about such actions. They certainly didn’t follow the Roman Catechism on these matters and that would have been simple to do. There certainly is a lack of clarity and a failure of pedagogy about the morality of all falsehoods in the editio typica.

Much thanks, Janet, on pursuing all these important questions on what constitutes lying and the moral implications in a time where moral relativism rules. It has been incredibly helpful, making me think more deeply about this important subject. I will make one final observation from my experience:

I never could quite get my mind around any absolute moral justification for killing an enemy who unjustly attacks the innocent with the intent of killing. I was and still am centered in Augustine's understanding, from “On Free Choice of the Will" (pp 105-106):

"Even some acts committed out of ignorance are condemned and judged to be worthy of correction...St. Paul says, 'I obtained your mercy because I acted in ignorance.' (1 Timothy 1:13) The Psalmist says, 'Remember not the sins of my youth and of my ignorance.' (Psalm 25:7) Even things done by necessity are to be condemned, as when someone wants to act rightly but cannot. This is what the following passages mean: 'I do not do the good that I will; but the evil that I hate, that I Romans 7:19) 'To will the good is present to me, but I find no way to do it.' (Romans 7:18) The flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh; for they war against each other, so that you do not do what you will.' (Galatians 5:17). All of these troubles have come upon human beings from the sentence of death. For if they were the result of our nature and not of our penalty, they would not be sins."

Much of what Augustine writes here concerns the mystery of sinning in Adam, that we are very much tied into the dynamic of the "penalty" of the sin we inherit, and as far as I can tell, we are absolutely freed from it only in Baptism and the confessional (and the absolute liberation from the dynamic of that "penalty" upon being baptized or receiving absolution is short-lived; indeed, if it lasts beyond a few seconds we are incredibly blessed).

As a child, at age 8 the responsibility fell on me to provide food for the family (we truly looked like holocaust victims in photos). One thing I would do was go to the butcher and ask for dog bones (in those days, early 50s, they were free) that I would use to make soup. And every time I lied, the butcher would not only give me dog bones, but ones with big chunks of meat on them (I would not realize until late in life that that was intentional on his part: he knew I didn't have a dog). Only once did I steal food, and when I confessed to a priest, my penance was to pray 5 Hail Mary’s. Again, it wasn't until late in life that I realized he didn't get upset and for my penance make sure I paid the store owner for the stolen meat. Yes, I lied and I stole, and in both cases I am now convinced it was a venial sin.

In the film "The Mission" there is an avowed religious, a former conquistador, who had lived by the sword, but after killing his younger brother in a sword fight, he collapses in a chronic regret. But through spiritual direction from a pacifist priest, he decides to enter the religious life, dedicating his life to working with natives in a foreign land. But when he learns of a military decision to commit genocide against those natives for commercial interests, he goes to his spiritual director and requests that he be allowed to employ his exceptional military skills to help the natives to defend themselves, but the priest refuses, and orders him not to engage in any combat whatsoever. Then one day, lying on his cot in deep sorrow about the impending massacre, a little native boy walks up to him and hands him the sword he had thrown away when he became a religious. He takes the sword and proceeds to help the natives defend themselves against extermination.

The pacifist priest and the religious in my view went straight to heaven in their martyrdom, although the religious no doubt committed a venial sin.

Gil
Aquinas held that clergy could not shed blood. That was ignored by one Renaissance Pope but in the 16th century, canon law (decretals) forbade it and may do so now. Your parish priest will know. So the superior in your film could well have been simply following canon law in the case you gave and the ex- conquistador may have been sinless if his conscience saw the situation as one demanding epikeia...the virtue whereby one may act outside the letter of
positive written Church or secular law (not outside natural or Divine law).

PS to Gil,
Go to the Summa Theologica online by Aquinas and find the Second Part of the Second Part...then question 66.... then article 7. It will tell you that there is no sin in stealing food under necessity either for yourself or for others because extreme need makes all things common. Aquinas' view begins at the emboldened words:
On the contrary.

bill,

Thanks for that. It's been many years since I saw the film, but I believe the ex-conquistador wasn’t a priest, but a religious. I could be mistaken, though.

I still have a lot of meditating to do on "we all sinned in Adam", which should preoccupy me as a single concern for my remaining days on earth.

Gil
I've not met one Catholic who knows the balancing passage which God placed in Sirach 10 so that people do not falsely exaggerate their sinfulness. Keep this one as coming from God for your balance:

Sirach 10:28 "My son, with humility have self-esteem; and give yourself the esteem you deserve."

Now...view that in light of St. John of the Cross who said that when a human frets, the devil can ADD or SUBTRACT....in their imagination to the truth of personal histories. And remember the Pauline passages in which Paul recounts his deeds and sufferings for Christ. It sounds like bragging to modern Catholics but Paul knew Sirach 10:28. I don't think some of the saints did know it.... the way they go on forever about their sin side.

Bill,

With all due respect, I arrived at my balance some time ago and have received the gift of joy. My explorations, though, are concerned with the mystery of evil. For example, a person pursuing holiness and discovering the virtue of detachment and how unbeknownst to the person it turns into indifference, a terrible and all-pervasive form of violence. The devil got a million tricks up his sleeve.

When I examine how I move in my will in opposition to God's, I do not beat up on myself: it simply humbles me and helps me not to judge others, for my time is better spent on how I fall in what I perceive as my goodness, while always relying confidently on God’s mercy. With more awareness comes more responsibility, beginning with the responsibility of acknowledging how oneself falls short of the glory of God. Guilt is good in this self-examination, but to camp out in that guilt is what Teresa of Avila called it: the devil whipping on you. I do understand and abide in this awareness, and central to this awareness is the understanding that one cannot progress on the path to the Godhead without simultaneously acknowledging the sins we commit and the sin endemic to Adam’s rebellion, that environment we move in in our responsibility to be in the world but not of it.

Gil,
Peace and Christmas.

Bill,

And peace be with you. And Merry Christmas! The miracle is that it is so very difficult to be anything but joyful at Christmastime, regardless what one believes, and regardless that we can't name him in public anymore!

Dear Drs. Smith, Pruss, and Tollefsen:

First, thanks SO much for this magnificent conversation that continues the necessary work on a subject still of much interest.

I would like to add an element that I think will be useful in helping come to terms with what has been one of the more vexing sidelights of the conversation--the CCC's teaching, particularly how it was amended in the Editio Typica.

Dr. Tollefsen said: ***"I think the earlier version of the Catechism is very misleading, and I believe this is why it was amended. Whether or not this is so is a matter of history, and perhaps some day that history will be made public. For now, it seems to me enough that the editio typica is meant to correct anything in need of correction, while maintaining everything sound from the initial draft. So I don't see any special need to square the later with the earlier."***

Here's the problem--the Holy See tells us that the earlier version was just as "sure" a "norm" as the amended Editio Typica. The Holy Father tells us the ET "repeats" what was in the first. So why the change in wording?

The simple truth is that, from one perspective, the language of the original version *was* "very misleading" as Dr. Tollefsen describes: the original language is that of the "minority" theological opinion and *not* the language of the "majority" theological view. The CCC's job is to, where the Magisterium is otherwise silent on a topic, utilize what is traditionally called "common teaching" (the common teaching of Catholic theology) in its instruction of the faithful. (That the teaching on lying now contained in the CCC *is* the "common teaching of Catholic theology" is demonstrable as late as 1967--in the "New Catholic Encylopedia")

The "common teaching" on lying is indeed the theological opinion(s) of Augustine/Aquinas (though Augustine is the one footnoted in the CCC).

So, by omitting the "minority" language of "right to the truth", which is *not* in the common teaching, the CCC authors merely ended up doing more accurately what they had set out to do in the first place--repeat the "common teaching" on lying as found in the theological work of the "majority".

There's really no mystery here, as I see it--nothing needing clearing up by the Magisterium at least. Catechisms utilize "common teaching" when necessary, and in the case of lying, it *is* necessary. But the original articulation of the teaching on lying actually gives a "tip of the cap" so to speak to the *minority* view, which is not customary in catechisms. So, it redacted that "right to the truth" language in order to conform strictly to the common teaching.

This act, however, is by no means a "settling" of teaching as yet unsettled by the Magisterium (which is where many have gotten confused, thinking that catechisms can change or "settle" teaching). Rather, it's an act that further enhances the integrity of the CCC *as* a catechism--not by adding any magisterial "weight" to the "common teaching" on lying, but by ensuring that the CCC expresses the common teaching as clearly and accurately as possible.

Once we "get" this fact, we can more quickly acknowledge that this truly *is* the stuff of theological debate, a debate that's continued for 2000 years or more, and that it's not about fidelity (or infidelity) to our Church's Magisterium. The Magiseterium permits *both* the majority and minority theological views on this subject.

The fact that the CCC repeats the common teaching--as all good catechisms should--should not be construed to mean that those holding a "minority" view on this topic are somehow rejecting "magisterial" teaching. The great thing about your current conversation is that I think we're closer than ever to moving from the issue of what's taught by the Magisterium toward a more pure analysis of the merits of the arguments on both sides of the longstanding theological conversation.

God bless!

Deacon Jim Russell

And then Jesus came upon his disciples and said, "What's this shit I've been hearing about a human sacrifice for sins!!? What kind of Neanderthal bullshit is that!!!? Blood sacrifice!!!!!!!!!!!? Listen, you can take that pile of Stone Age donkey shit and shove it straight up your goddamn asses!!!"--Jesus Christ, the Lost Gospel

http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/11/18
/jesus-appears-in-a-dog-butt/