“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour”, “You shall not lie to one another”, “Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight” (Ex. 20:16, Lv. 19:11, Ps 101:7, Prov. 6:16-19, 12:22, Mt. 15:18-20, Jn. 8:44, Eph. 4:25, Col. 3:9-10, Rev. 21:8). The biblical teaching is clear that God’s people shall not lie and shall not deceive. We are here not to discuss this fact, but to discuss that whether there is biblical warrant for exceptions, in which not telling the truth is allowed. Someone may argue the legitimacy of even discussing this question since the Scripture forbids lying. But it is not that simple and a more nuanced discussion cannot be dismissed quickly. For example, the Bible is clear that “You shall not murder”, “Whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death” (Gen. 9:6, Ex. 20:13, Lv. 24:17), but the Bible does not outlaw all forms of taking a man’s life.
First, we reiterate that we are only discussing about the legitimacy of exceptions in extreme conditions (elaborated later), not about whether a Christian shall deny his faith before man in order to survive, or deceive for worldly gain. It is easy to throw stones on those who see a legitimacy of such exceptions, but this can be a necessary and edifying discussion within biblical orthodoxy. I am not saying both sides are right, but the other side may help us see some blind spots, or at least prevent us from going too far in our position.
The majority opinion within the biblical orthodoxy is that there should be no exceptions. Christians should tell truth in all circumstances. The classic exposition of this position came from Augustine: “Of lies are many sorts, which indeed all, universally, we ought to hate. For there is no lie that is not contrary to the truth.”. For the often-asked cases of Hebrew midwives and Rahab, Augustine said, “God did good to…, this was not because they lied, but because they were merciful to God’s people. That therefore which was rewarded in them was, not their deceit, but their benevolence; benignity of mind, not iniquity of lying.”, “God has those good things memorably honored, this evil thing mercifully overlooked.”. He then made a distinction between “a sin with purpose of hurting” and “a sin with purpose of helping”, but both were sins. As of the alternative option for these people, Augustine suggested: for the midwives they would have chosen to die “to be in eternal felicity after enduring of death for most innocent truth”; for Rahab, she would have said, “I know here they are; but I fear God, I will not betray them”. (Above quotes from Against Lying, 4, 32-34).
He was not unaware of the commonly mentioned scenarios, “Suppose a man should take refuge with you, who by your lie might be saved from death, would you not tell it? If a sick man should ask a question which it is not expedient that he should know, and might be more grievously afflicted even by your returning him no answer, will you venture either to tell the truth to the destruction of the man’s life, or rather to hold your peace, than by a virtuous and merciful lie to be serviceable to his weak health? By these and such like arguments they think they most plentifully prove, that if occasion of doing good require, we may sometimes tell a lie.” (On Lying, 5) He also discussed the issue of telling lies to sustain a severely diseased person (Against Lying, 36).
John Murray (Principles of Conduct) was of the same position. He exegeted several key passages where lying seemed to be allowed if not commended. In the case of Rahab, he also separated the approval of faith from the approval of lying, and the key was “the end does not justify the means”. For Hebrew midwives to Pharoh, Samuel to Saul, and Elisha to Syrians, he tried to show that there was no lying involved at all (even if there were, lying was not endorsed by Scripture). He made a distinction between lying and withholding truth from those who had no claim on it. The latter was just and he used it to explain the military stratagem of Joshua when attacking Ai, although he emphasized right before this, that “truthfulness is concerned not only with words, but also with other forms of signification”. However, one may ask whether this withholding/concealment of truth is lying, because this concealment is definitely to deceive and to do harm to the other party. In Murray’s analysis, deception is not incompatible with lying. Lying is tampering the truth, not necessarily withholding part of truth. Similar to what Augustine proposed above, he suggested Rahab could have remained silent or refused to tell where the spies were hidden.
Vern Poythress (in reply to John Frame, Why Lying is Always Wrong, in WTJ) echoed the above voices. When discussing the modern example of Nazis questioning you whether you have hidden the Jews, Poythress proposed that: 1) one may just tell Nazis that I have and the Jews are hidden right under the table (he cited a real example); 2) share the gospel, insistently divert the conversation to the gospel. In analyzing key biblical passages, Poythress also repeated what Murray said: refraining from telling everything is not a sin. He made a distinction between verbal action and non-verbal action: non-verbal action has to be interpreted; but verbal action is more straightforward. Thus deceptive maneuver in war or sports is allowed since you cannot dictate how others interpret your actions. Poythress basically agreed with Murray that deception is allowed and certain forms of deception are not lying at all.
I think this indicates one of main weaknesses of the classic position. One may deceive but should not deceive with words (the two are not “morally equivalent” in Poythress’s words). Is this a biblical distinction? Is telling the truth compatible with deceiving with non-verbal actions? If lying is deviation from truth (at least knowingly), making a special case for non-verbal deception is only a game of words. Withholding truth is to deceive, to mislead, to do harm in these cases. This motive cannot be separated from the act. Another weakness of the classic position is that no one is perfectly consistent. Everyone makes a distinction of some sorts; the question is where to draw the line. Although many have argued in principle that Christians should only speak truth, no one is ready to spell out this principle consistently in application, including and especially in cases with an enemy.
Some prominent theologians attempted to draw the line in a different place. Hodge pointed out the “obligation” to speak the truth: “there must be an intention to deceive when we are expected and bound to speak the truth. That is there are circumstances in which a man is not bound to speak the truth, and therefore there are cases in which speaking or intimating what is not true is not a lie” (Systematic Theology, 3:441-443) [he also mentioned that Augustine “makes every intentional deception, no matter what the object or what the circumstances, to be sinful”. 3:444] Hodge’s view deviated from the classic position and raised the awareness of obligation in the ethical discussion, while most proponents of the classic position made telling the truth a more or less abstract concept.
Meredith Kline offered another solution (The Intrusion and the Decalogue), the intrusion ethics. He spoke of events of eschatological “intrusion” in history when a special type of ethics is commanded or needed: intrusion of judgment and intrusion of salvation. He used this to explain many difficult passages, such as the offering of Issac, the conquest of Cannan, and marriage of Hosea. Talking about Rahab: “by faith she united herself to the cause of the Theocracy and so played her part as an agent of the typical Judgment, denying to the obstinate foes of God that respect for their authority which was their due under Common Grace.”. Kline was akin to Hodge here: Rahab originally “owed obedience to the civil authorities of Jericho”, but as she believed God, her obligation turned to God and His people. Thus she was not in sin since she had no obligation to the king of Jericho.
John Frame (The Doctrine of Christian Life, 834-840) developed his views along this line, though he found Kline’s “intrusion” unnecessary. He pointed out that, “the requirement to tell the truth is conditioned on a relationship, that of ‘neighbour’”, “so we have no obligation to tell the truth to people who, for example, seek innocent life”. Therefore, his definition of lie was “a word or act that intentionally deceives a neighbor in order to hurt him”. So there are “neighbor ethics” and “enemy ethics”. This is not to argue that we should always treat them in the opposite way, but that we should know there is a distinction in our relationship with and our “obligation” to these two groups.
The classic position tends to speak God’s commandments in an abstract manner, universal but lacking sufficient nuances. In some circumstances, a Christian is required to avoid telling a lie to an enemy even when he knows this will harm an innocent life. The proponents may say that you are assuming too much here (the charge of playing God). But are we really assuming too much when we know the purpose of the Nazi search is to kill the Jew? In their proposal, yes, you are telling a truth to the Nazis, but what about your obligation to this Jew? Are we saying that we have no obligation to this Jew because we have an obligation to the Nazi? Yes, we are before God. Do you before God have obligation to this Jew? Does God place us in a situation that whatever we choose is always sin?
We must acknowledge and admire their desire to honor God’s commandments in whatever cost. The question is that, is it a cost commanded by God. Is it a burden imposed by man? The most fundamental mistake of the classic position is probably that they do not see the commandments of God as a divinely defined and unified system. They are not a collection of statutes in parallel. There are orders and priorities in this organic unity. The relationship amongst them is not mechanical but organic. For example, we are commanded to honor civil leaders, but we do not honor them without conditions as we have a higher obligation to God (Act. 5:29). The bread of Presence was for priests only, but when David and his men were desperately hungry, they took the bread without sinning (Mt. 12:4). Similarly, when a Nazi officer is thirsty, we should offer him water to drink (loving an enemy); but when he comes to search for a Jew we have hidden, we have a higher obligation to God and to this Jew.
We should also understand the concern of the classic position that they worry people will sin in order that good may come. This is a legitimate concern. To address this concern is not to make a blank, abstract statement, not to lay unnecessary burdens on people’s conscience, but to appreciate the biblical system that restrains the abuse and regulates the use. Of course, this would not be easy. We need godly character, godly wisdom, and godly insights to understand and apply God’s Word. But we should not adopt a simplistic solution.
