April
11
1)
By St. Thomas Aquinas, is a
statement at variance with the mind. This definition is more accurate than
most others which are current. Thus a recent authority defines a lie as a false statement made with
the intention of deceiving. But it is possible to lie without making a false statement and
without any intention of deceiving.
2)
By St. Augustine and St. Thomas, Catholic divines and ethical writers commonly
make a distinction between (1) injurious, or hurtful, (2) officious, and (3)
jocose lies. Jocose lies are told for the purpose of affording amusement. Of
course what is said merely and obviously in joke cannot be a lie: in order to
have any malice in it, what is said must be naturally capable of deceiving
others and must be said with the intention of saying what is false. An officious, or
white, lie is such that it does nobody any injury: it is a lie of excuse, or a
lie told to benefit somebody. An injurious lie is one which does harm.
3)
By Aristotle, in his Ethics,
seems to hold that it is never allowable to tell a lie, while Plato, in his Republic,
is more accommodating; he allows doctors and statesmen to
lie occasionally for the good of their patients and for the common weal. Modern
philosophers are
divided in the same way. Kant
allowed a lie under no circumstance.
4)
By Fathers of the Christian
Church, Origen
quotes Plato and
approves of his doctrine
on this point (Stromata, VI). He says that a man who is under the necessity of
lying should diligently consider the matter so as not to exceed. He should gulp
the lie as a sick man does his medicine. He should be guided by the example of
Judith, Esther, and Jacob. If he exceed, he will be judged the enemy of Him who
said, "I am the Truth." St. John Chrysostom held
that it is lawful to deceive others for their benefit, and Cassian taught that
we may sometimes lie as we take medicine, driven to it by sheer necessity.
5)
The absolute malice of
lying is also shown from the evil consequences which
it has for society.
These are evident enough in lies which injuriously affect the rights and reputations of
others. But mutual confidence, intercourse, and friendship, which are of such
great importance for society,
suffer much even from officious and jocose lying.
6)
According to the common
teaching of St. Thomas
and other divines, the hurtful lie is a mortal sin, but merely officious
and jocose lies are of their own nature venial.
7) St. Augustine, however, took the opposite side, and wrote
two short treatises to prove that it is never lawful to tell a lie. His
doctrine on this point has generally been followed in the Western Church, and
it has been defended as the common opinion by the Schoolmen and by modern
divines.
8) Lying is opposed to the virtue of truth or veracity. Truth
consists in a correspondence between the thing signified and the signification
of it. Man has the power as a reasonable and social being of manifesting his
thoughts to his fellow-men. Right order demands that in doing this he should be truthful.