On Lying: A Moral Guide Based Upon Lombard’s Sentences. Part VI: Why Lies Are Always Sinful

Last updated on: March 11, 2009 at 4:00 am by Henry Karlson

On Lying: A Moral Guide Based Upon Lombard’s Sentences. Part VI: Why Lies Are Always Sinful 2009-03-11T04:00:16-05:00 Henry Karlson

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Part I

Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V

After defining what a lie is, Lombard goes on to explore why every kind of lie must be a sin, no matter how great a good a liar has in mind for their act.[1] As is not surprising, Lombard returns to his primary authority, Augustine, to explain, using a quote from the Enchiridion: “But every lie must be called a sin, because not only when a man knows the truth, but even when, as a man may be, he is mistaken and deceived, it is his duty to say what he thinks in his heart, whether it be true, or whether he only think it to be true. But every liar says the opposite of what he thinks in his heart, with purpose to deceive. Now it is evident that speech was given to man, not that men might therewith deceive one another, but that one man might make known his thoughts to another. To use speech, then, for the purpose of deception, and not for its appointed end, is a sin.”[2]

Words (and other similar symbols, which should be seen as intended by this discussion) are to be employed for a particular use. To use them contrary to that purpose is to go against their nature. Words are meant to communicate ideas, beliefs, feelings, experiences, between a speaker and their audience. While it would be rare, and unnecessary, for a speaker to be comprehensive when they speak, they should strive to be accurate. Words should be revelatory; willful deception strives to obscure, and therefore, abuses words and perverts them from their proper end.

But, then it might be asked, what about silence? Is it not trying to obscure the truth? While something might indeed by hidden by silence, that is beside the point; keeping silent cannot be said to be a lie, because one is disengaging oneself from the use of words, so there is nothing being abused. We should not expect an answer to every question we might ask. When one is silent or says they will not answer a particular question, normally, that act of silence reveals nothing. If one imposes meaning upon it, one has crossed a hermeneutical line, and what is proclaimed would be an argumentum ex silentio, a fallacy.[3] Needless to say, when one speaks, their speech should be taken as a whole. If a speaker discusses a notion of which they do not believe, they would not be lying, unless they suggested otherwise.[4] The example by which we should all look to for words is Jesus Christ, because he is the Word made flesh, whose life and deeds reveal the inner content of the Divine Life.[5] And yet, even with the Word, we find an affirmation of silence through Holy Saturday, revealing, if ever there were a doubt, that silence is complementary to words and not their abuse.

Words are meant to be used by someone to impart something of themselves to another, so that through that act of self-giving, caritas either can be formed or sustained. When one lies, one no longer is giving over oneself to another; instead, one is putting up a barrier through words instead using them for the communion they are meant to produce. Lies break apart the relationship between the speaker with their audience, which is why a lie must always be seen as a breach in caritas (and if it breaks caritas, it is a sin). Thus, even if a liar intends some possible good, and actually achieves it, they have either weakened or destroyed the bonds of communion between them and others, hurting both as a consequence of this.

We are expected to preserve caritas in our action; when we do something contrary to it, we sin. When our caritas is lacking, that lack needs to be dealt with and satisfaction made for it. Our lack of caritas towards one or more people cannot be justified by the good we want to achieve by our sin. Lombard reminds us once again of this fact by pointing to Augustine’s words against consequentialistic ethics, where, in the Enchiridion, he says adultery, even if it were done to save someone’s life, would be a sin.[6] While the ends do not justify the means, Augustine does think we can find someone’s desired ends to be laudable and their means to it pardonable, if the situation merited such understanding.[7]Would this not be the case when we find a person, trying to decide how to act, sees a selection of possibilities before them, of which none of them can be said without sin, and then acts out of prudence, doing what they think will produce the greatest good and the least amount of harm (making satisfaction for that harm when they can)?

Now, what Lombard next suggests seems to go against one of the theses we have had throughout this discussion: “a lie is not such only when it does harm.”[8] But his intent here is not to look to the full objective case, but to look to the narrow, directly perceived instant when one lies, and the intent involved in that act, where the liar intends no harm, and does not perceive any would be done. When this is the case, the deliberate act of deception would still be a lie, because one abuses words, and breaks the caritas which is needed. Ultimately, the lie would harm the people involved, even if that is not intended. But it must be admitted that the harm is often indirect, unintentional, and minor, making it hard to discover.

From what has been stated up to this point, Lombard has given us a basic outline as to why he believes lies are, why they are sinful, and why they are to be avoided. He has also broken them down so that we can understand the different ways by which we can lie. This, as he shows us next, can lead us to interpret Scripture Scripture better when it talks about lies. We do not have to assume, when Scripture talks about lies, that all kinds of lies are necessarily being discussed. Or, as, he points out, when the Psalmist writes, “Thou destroyest those who speak lies” (Ps. 5:6), and when Wisdom says, “a lying mouth destroys the soul” (Wisdom 1:11), we should not interpret them to mean all kinds of lies are implicated in these condemnations (proven by the fact that we do not see all who lie are destroyed). Thus, after citing the second, he says, “Nor does it seem that every lie is forbidden by this precept, nor is the amusing lie included in the above discussion,” showing us, perhaps surprisingly, the question of what is or is not a sin and the question of what we are permitted or not permitted to do are for him two different, though related, questions. Thus the Master of the Sentences, seeing the act of lying itself always sinful (an intrinsic evil), suggests the possibility that such an action might be permissible (“nor does it seem that every lie is forbidden“). Prudence explains why this must be the case.

Footnotes

[1] Peter Lombard, Sentences. Book III, dist XXXVIII, c5.
[2] St. Augustine*, Enchiridion*, c22.
[3] This, of course, is reflecting the issue through the rules of logic; in law, the rules might be, and often are, different. When the two contradict each other, the moral implication must follow through with the logical implication, though the legal implication must follow the laws of the land, such as the case with St Thomas More’s silence (more of which will be said later).
[4] This is needed to be stated so that any conversation about ideas would be possible, because, if we discuss the beliefs of others, we need to be able to state the position of another accurately, to see if we understand it, before taking it on and showing why we agree or disagree with it.
[5] “For this reason Jesus perfected revelation by fulfilling it through his whole work of making Himself present and manifesting Himself: through His words and deeds, His signs and wonders, but especially through His death and glorious resurrection from the dead and final sending of the Spirit of truth. Moreover He confirmed with divine testimony what revelation proclaimed, that God is with us to free us from the darkness of sin and death, and to raise us up to life eternal.” Dei Verbum, Vatican Translation, 4.
[6] See Part III, n7. “Nor are we to suppose that there is any lie that is not a sin, because it is sometimes possible, by telling a lie, to do service to another,” St. Augustine, Enchiridion, c22.
[7] “It cannot be denied that they have attained a very high standard of goodness who never lie except to save a man from injury; but in the case of men who have reached this standard, it is not the deceit, but their good intention, that is justly praised, and sometimes even rewarded. It is quite enough that the deception should be pardoned, without its being made an object of laudation, especially among the heirs of the new covenant, to whom it is said: Let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these comes of evil. And it is on account of this evil, which never ceases to creep in while we retain this mortal vesture, that the co-heirs of Christ themselves say, Forgive us our debts**,” St. Augustine*, Enchiridion*, c22.
[8] Peter Lombard, Sentences. Book III, dist XXXVIII, c5.

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