there is no place for a lie in God's service; but according to the
inferences of Dr. Hodge, in the discussion of this question, there are
places where falsehoods spoken with intent to deceive are admissible
in God's sight and service. His whole treatment of this subject
reminds me of an incident in my army-prison life, where this question
as a question was first forced upon my attention. The Union prisoners,
in Columbia at that time, received their rations from the Confederate
authorities, and had them cooked in their own way, and at their own
expense, by an old colored woman whom they employed for the purpose.
Two of us had a dislike for onions in our stew, while the others were
well pleased with them. So we two agreed with old "Maggie," for a
small consideration, to prepare us a separate mess without onions. The
next day our mess came by itself. We took it, and began our meal with
peculiar satisfaction; but the first taste showed us an unmistakable
onion flavor in our stew. When old Maggie came again, we remonstrated
with her on her breach of engagement. "Bless your hearts, honeys," she
replied, "you must have _some_ onions in your stew!" She could not
comprehend the possibility of a beef stew without onions, even though
she had formally agreed to make it.
Dr. Hodge's premises in the discussion of the duty of truthfulness
rule out onions; but his inferences and conclusions have the odor and
the taste of onions. He stands on a safe platform to begin with; but
he is an unsafe guide when he walks away from it. His arguments in
this case are an illustration of his own declaration: "An adept in
logic may be a very poor reasoner."
Dr. Thornwell's "Discourses on Truth"[1] are a thorough treatment of
the obligation of veracity and the sin of lying. He is clear in his
definitions, marking the distinction between rightful concealment as
concealment, and concealment for the purpose of deception. "There are
things which men have a right to keep secret," he says, "and if a
prurient curiosity prompts others officiously to pry into them, there
is nothing criminal or dishonest in refusing to minister to such
a spirit. Our silence or evasive answers may have the effect of
misleading. That is not our fault, as it was not our design. Our
purpose was simply to leave the inquirer as nearly as possible in the
state of ignorance in which we found him: it was not to misinform him,
but not to inform him at all.
[Footnote 1: In Thornwell's _Collected Writings_, II., 451-613.]
"'Every man,' says Dr. Dick, 'has not a right to hear the truth when
he chooses to demand it. We are not bound to answer every question
which may be proposed to us. In such cases we may be silent, or we may
give as much information as we please, and suppress the rest. If the
person afterward discover that the information was partial, he has no
title to complain, because he had no right even to what he obtained;
and we are not guilty of a falsehood unless we made him believe, by
something which we said, that the information was complete.'" "The
_intention_ of the speaker, and the _effect_ consequent upon it, are
very different things."
Dr. Thornwell recognizes the fact that the moral sense of humanity
discerns the invariable superiority of truth over falsehood. "If we
place virtue in sentiment," he says, "there is nothing, according to
the confession of all mankind, more beautiful and lovely than truth,
more ugly and hateful than a lie. If we place it in calculations of
expediency, nothing, on the one hand, is more conspicuously useful
than truth and the confidence it inspires; nothing, on the other, more
disastrous than falsehood, treachery, and distrust. If there be then a
moral principle to which, in every form, humanity has given utterance,
it is the obligation of veracity." "No man ever tells a lie without a
certain degree of violence to his nature."
Dr. Thornwell bases this obligation of veracity on the nature of God,
and on the duty of man to conform to the image of God in which he was
created. "Jesus Christ commends himself to our confidence and love,"
he says, "on the ground of his being the truth;... and makes it the
glory of the Father that he is the God of truth, and the shame and
everlasting infamy of the prince of darkness that he is the father
of lies;" and he adds: "The mind cannot move in charity, nor rest in
Providence, unless it turn upon the poles of truth." "Every man is as
distinctly organized in reference to truth, as in reference to any
other purpose."
In Dr. Thornwell's view, it is not, as Dr. Paley would have it, that
"a lie is a breach of promise," because as between man and man "the
truth is expected," according to a tacit understanding. As Dr.
Thornwell sees it, "we are not bound by any other expectations of man
but those which we have authorized;" and he deems it "surprising
to what an extent this superficial theory of 'contract' has found
advocates among divines and moralists," as, for example, Dr. Robert
South, whom he quotes.[1] "If Dr. Paley had pushed his inquiries a
little farther," adds Thornwell, "he might have accounted for this
expectation [of truthfulness] which certainly exists, independently of
a promise, upon principles firmer and surer than any he has admitted
in the structure of his philosophy. He might have seen it in the
language of our nature proclaiming the will of our nature's God." The
moral sense of mankind demands veracity, and abhors falsehood.
[Footnote 1: Smith's _Sermon, on Falsehood and Lying_.]
Dr. Thornwell is clear as to the teachings of the Bible, in its
principles, and in the illustration of those principles in the sacred
narrative. The Bible as he sees it teaches the unvarying duty of
veracity, and the essential sinfulness of falsehood and deception. He
repudiates the idea that God, in any instance, approved deception, or
that Jesus Christ practiced it. "When our Saviour 'made as though he
would have gone farther,' he effectually questioned his disciples
as to the condition of their hearts in relation to the duties of
hospitality. The angels, in pretending that it was their purpose to
abide in the street all night, made the same experiment on Lot. This
species of simulation involves no falsehood; its design is not to
deceive, but to catechize and instruct. The whole action is to be
regarded as a sign by which a question is proposed, or the mind
excited to such a degree of curiosity and attention that lessons of
truth can be successfully imparted."
And so on through other Bible incidents. Dr. Thornwell has no
hesitation in distinguishing when concealment is right concealment,
and when concealment is wrong because intended to deceive.
Exposing the incorrectness of the claim, made by Dr. Paley, as by
others, that certain specific falsehoods are not lies, Dr. Thornwell
shows himself familiar with the discussion of this question of
the ages in all the centuries; and he moves on with his eye fixed
unerringly on the polar star of truth, in refreshing contrast with the
amiable wavering of Dr. Hodge's footsteps.
"Paley's law," he concludes, "would obviously be the destruction of
all confidence. How much nobler and safer is the doctrine of the
Scriptures, and of the unsophisticated language of man's moral
constitution, that truth is obligatory on its own account, and that he
who undertakes to signify to another, no matter in what form, and no
matter what may be the right in the case to know the truth, is bound
to signify according to the convictions of his own mind! He is not
always bound to speak, but whenever he does speak he is solemnly bound
to speak nothing but the truth. The universal application of this
principle would be the diffusion of universal confidence. It would
banish deceit and suspicion from the world, and restrict the use of
signs to their legitimate offices."
A later work on Christian Ethics, which acquires special prominence
through its place in "The International Theological Library," edited
by Drs. Briggs and Salmond, is by Dr. Newman Smyth. It shows signs of
strength in the premises assumed by the writer, in accordance with the
teachings of Scripture and of the best moral sense of mankind; and
signs of weakness in his processes of reasoning, and in his final
conclusion, according to the mental methods of those who have wavered
on this subject, from John Chrysostom to Richard Rothe and Charles
Hodge.
Dr. Smyth rightly bases Christian ethics on the nature and will of
God, as illustrated in the life and teachings of the divine-human Son
of God. "A thoroughly scientific ethics must not only be adequate
to the common moral sense of men, but prove true also to the moral
consciousness of the Son of man. No ethics has right to claim to be
thoroughly scientific, or to offer itself as the only science of
ethics possible to us in our present experience, until it has sought
to enter into the spirit of Christ, and has brought all its, analysis
and theories of man's moral life to the light of the luminous ethical
personality of Jesus Christ."[1]
[Footnote 1: Smyth's _Christian Ethics_, p. 6.]
In his general statement of "the duty of speaking the truth," Dr.
Smyth is also clear, sound, and emphatic.[1] "The law of truthfulness
is," he says, "a supreme inward law of thought." "The obligation of
veracity ... is an obligation which every man owes to himself. It is a
primal personal obligation. Kant was profoundly right when he regarded
falsehood as a forfeiture of personal worth, a destruction of personal
integrity.... Truthfulness is the self-consistency of character;
falsehood is a breaking up of the moral integrity. Inward truthfulness
is essential to moral growth and personal vigor, as it is necessary
to the live oak that it should be of one fiber and grain from root to
branch. What a flaw is in steel, what a foreign substance is in any
texture, that a falsehood is to the character,--a source of weakness,
a point where under strain it may break.... Truthfulness, then, is
due, first by the individual to himself as the obligation of personal
integrity. The unity of the personal life consists in it."
[Footnote 1: _Ibid_., pp. 386-389.]
And in addition to the obligation of veracity as a duty to one's self,
Dr. Smyth recognizes it as a duty to others. He says: "Truthfulness is
owed to society as essential to its integrity. It is the indispensable
bond of social life. Men can be members, one of another in a social
organism only as they live together in truth. Society would fall, to
pieces without credit; but credit rests on the general social virtue
of truthfulness.... The liar is rightly regarded as an enemy to
mankind. A lie is not only an affront against the person to whom it is
told, but it is an offense against humanity."
If Dr. Smyth had been content to leave this matter with the explicit
statement of the principles that are unvaryingly operative, he would
have done good service to the world, and his work could have been
commended as sound and trustworthy in this department of ethics; but
as soon as he begins to question and reason on the subject, he
begins to waver and grow confused; and in the end his inconclusive
conclusions are pitiably defective and reprehensible.[1]
[Footnote 1: Smyth's _Christian Ethics_, pp. 392-403]
In considering "the so-called lies of necessity," Dr. Smyth declares
with frankness: "Some moralists in their supreme regard for truth will
not admit that under any conceivable circumstances a lie can be
deemed necessary, not even to save life or to prevent a murderer from
accomplishing his fiendish purpose." And then over against this he
indicates his fatal confusion of mind and weakness of reasoning in
the suggestion: "But the sound human understanding, in spite of the
moralists, will prevaricate, and often with great vigor and success,
in such cases. Who is right,--Kant, or the common moral sense? Which
should be followed,--the philosophic morality, or the practice of
otherwise most truthful men?"
It is to be noted that, in these two declarations, Dr. Smyth puts
lying as if it were synonymous with prevarication; else there is no
reason for his giving the one as over against the other. And this
indicates a peculiar difficulty in the whole course of Dr. Smyth's
argument concerning the "so-called lie of necessity." He essays no
definition of the "lie." He draws no clear line of distinction between
a lie, a falsehood, a deceit, and a prevarication, or between a
justifiable concealment and an unjustifiable concealment; and in
his various illustrations of his position he uses these terms
indiscriminately, in such a way as to indicate that he knows no
essential difference between them, or that he does not care to
emphasize any difference.
If, in the instance given above, Dr. Smyth means that "the sound human
understanding, in spite of the moralists," will approve lying, or
falsifying with the intention to deceive, he ought to know that the
sound human understanding will not justify such a course, and that it
is unfair to intimate such a thing.[1] And when he asks, in connection
with this suggestion, "Who is right,--Kant, or the common moral sense?
Which should be followed, the philosophic morality, or the practice of
otherwise most truthful men?" his own preliminary assertions are his
conclusive answer. He says specifically, "Kant was profoundly right
when he regarded falsehood as a forfeiture of personal worth, a
destruction of personal integrity;" and the "common moral sense" of
humanity is with Kant in this thing, in accordance with Dr. Smyth's
primary view of the case, as over against the intimation of Dr.
Smyth's question. As to the suggested "practice of otherwise most
truthful men" in this thing,--if men who generally tell the truth,
lie, or speak falsely, or deceive, under certain circumstances, they
are much like men who are generally decent, but who occasionally,
under temptation, are unchaste or dishonest; they are better examples
in their uprightness than in their sinning.
[Footnote 1: See pp. 9-32, _supra_.]
It would seem, indeed, that, notwithstanding his sound basis of
principles, which recognizes the incompatibility of falsehood with
true manhood and with man's duty to his fellows, Dr. Smyth does not
carry with him in his argument the idea of the essential sinfulness of
a lie, and therefore he is continually inconsistent with himself. He
says, for example, in speaking of the suspension of social duties in
war time: "If the war is justifiable, the ethics of warfare come at
once into play. It would be absurd to say that it is right to kill
an enemy, but not to deceive him. Falsehood, it may be admitted, as
military strategy, is justifiable, if the war is righteous."
Here, again, is the interchange of the terms "deception" and
"falsehood." But unless this is an intentional jugglery of words,
which is not to be supposed, this means that it would be absurd to
say that it is right to kill an enemy, but not right to tell him a
falsehood. And nothing could more clearly show Dr. Smyth's error of
mind on this whole subject than this declaration. "Absurd" to claim
that while it is right to take a man's life in open warfare, in a just
cause, it would not be right to forfeit one's personal worth, and to
destroy one's personal integrity, which Dr. Smyth says are involved
in a falsehood! "Absurd" to claim that while God who is the author
of life can justify the taking of life, he cannot justify the sin of
lying! No, no, the absurdity of the case is not on _that_ side of the
line.
There is no consistency of argument on this subject in Dr. Smyth's
work. His premises are sound. His reasoning is confused and
inconsistent. "Not only in some cases of necessity is falsehood
permissible, but we may recognize a positive obligation of love to
the concealment of the truth," he says. Here again is that apparent
confounding of unjustifiable "falsehood" with perfectly proper
"concealment of truth." He continues: "Other duties which under such
circumstances have become paramount, may require the preservation of
one's own or another's life through a falsehood. Not only ought one
not to tell the truth under the supposed conditions, but, if the
principle assumed be sound, a good conscience may proceed to enforce a
positive obligation of untruthfulness.... There are occasions when the
interests of society and the highest motives of Christian love may
render it much more preferable to discharge the duty of self-defense
through the humanity of a successful falsehood, than by the barbarity
of a stunning blow or a pistol-shot. General benevolence demands that
the lesser evil, if possible, rather than the greater, should be
inflicted on another."
Just compare these conclusions of Dr. Smyth with his own premises.
"Truthfulness ... is an obligation which every man owes to himself.
It is a primal personal obligation.... Truthfulness is the
self-consistency of character; falsehood is a breaking up of the moral
integrity." "The liar is rightly regarded as an enemy to mankind. A
lie is not only an affront against the person to whom it is told, but
it is an offense against humanity." But what of all that? "There are
occasions when the interests of society and the highest motives of
Christian love may render it much more preferable to discharge the
duty of self-defense through the humanity of a successful falsehood,
than by the barbarity of a stunning blow or a pistol-shot. General
benevolence demands that the lesser evil, if possible, rather than the
greater, should be inflicted on another." Better break up one's
moral integrity, and fail in one's primal personal obligation to
himself,--better become an enemy of mankind, and commit an offense
against humanity,--than defend one's self against an outlaw by the
barbarity of a stunning blow or a bullet!
Would any one suppose from his premises that Dr. Smyth looked upon
personal truthfulness as a minor virtue, and upon falsehood as a
lesser vice? Does he seem in those premises to put veracity below
chastity, and falsehood below personal impurity? Yet is he to be
understood as intimating, in this phase of his argument, that
unchastity, or dishonesty, or any other vice than falsehood, is to be
preferred, in practice, over a stunning blow or a fatal bullet against
a would-be murderer?[1] The looseness of Dr. Smyth's logic, as
indicated in this reasoning on the subject of veracity, would in its
tendency be destructive to the safeguards of personal virtue and of
social purity; and his arguments for the lie of exigency are similar
to those which are put forward in excuse for common sins against
chastity, by the free-and-easy defenders of a lax standard in such
matters. "Some moralists," says the average young man of the world,
"in their extreme regard for personal purity, will not admit that any
act of unchastity is necessary, even to protect one's health, or as an
act of love. But the men of virility and strong feeling will let down
occasionally at this point, in spite of the moralists. Which should be
followed,--the philosophic morality, or the practice of many otherwise
decent and very respectable men?"
[Footnote 1: See Augustine's words on this point, quoted at p. 100,
_supra_.]
Confounding, as always, a wise and right concealment of truth with
actual falsehood, Dr. Smyth says of the duty of a teacher in the
matter of imparting truth to a pupil according to the measure of the
pupil's ability to receive it: "An occasional friendly use of truth
as a crash towel may be wholesome; but ordinarily there is a more
excellent way." _That_ is a counting of truth precious, with a
vengeance!
Dr. Smyth seems inclined to accept in the main the conclusions,
on this whole subject, of Rothe, but without Rothe's measure of
consistency in the argument. Rothe starts wrong, and of course ends
wrong. Dr. Smyth, like Dr. Hodge, starts right and ends wrong. No
sorer condemnation of Dr. Smyth's position can be made, than by the
simple presentation of his own review of his own argument, when he
says: "To sum up, then, what has been said concerning the so-called
lies of necessity, the principle to be applied with wisdom is simply
this: give the truth always to those who in the bonds of humanity
have the right to the truth; conceal it or falsify it only when it is
unmistakably evident that the human right to the truth from others
has been forfeited, or temporarily is held in abeyance by sickness,
weakness, or some criminal intent: do not in any case prevaricate,
unless you can tell the necessary falsehood deliberately and
positively, from principle, with a good conscience void of offense
toward men, and sincere in the sight of God." What says the moral
sense of humanity to such a position as that?
As over against the erroneous claim, made by Richard Rothe, and Newman
Smyth, and others, that the "moral sense" of mankind is at
variance with the demands of "rigid moralists," in regard to the
unjustifiableness of falsehood, it is of interest to note the
testimony of strong thinkers, who have written on this subject with
the fullest freedom, from the standpoint of speculative philosophy,
rather than of exclusively Christian ethics. For example, James
Martineau, while a Christian philosopher, discusses the question of
veracity as a philosopher, rather than as a Christian, in his "Types
of Ethical Theory;"[1] and he insists that "veracity is strictly
natural, that is, it is implied in the very nature which leads us to
intercommunion in speech."
[Footnote 1: Martineau's _Types of Ethical Theory_, II., 255-265.]
As he sees it, a man is treacherous to himself who speaks falsely at
any time to any one, and the man's moral sense recoils from his
action accordingly. Dr. Martineau says: "It is perhaps, the peculiar
_treachery_ of this process which fixes upon falsehood a stamp of
_meanness_ quite exceptional; and renders it impossible, I think, to
yield to its inducements, even in cases supposed to be venial, without
a disgust little distinguishable from compunction. This must have been
Kant's feeling when he said: 'A lie is the abandonment, or, as it
were, the annihilation of the dignity of man.'"
Dr. Martineau is not so rigid a moralist but that he is ready to agree
with those easy-going theologians who find a place for exceptional
falsehoods in their reasoning; yet he is so true a man in his moral
instincts that his nature recoils from the results of such reasoning.
"After all," he says, "there is something in this problem which
refuses to be thus laid to rest; and in treating it, it is hardly
possible to escape the uneasiness of a certain moral inconsequence. If
we consult the casuist of Common Sense he usually tells us that, in
theory, Veracity can have no exceptions; but that, in practice, he is
brought face to face with at least a few; and he cheerfully accepts a
dispensation, when required, at the hands of Necessity.
"I confess rather to an inverse experience. The theoretic reasons for
certain limits to the rule of veracity appear to me unanswerable; nor
can I condemn any one who acts in accordance with them. Yet when I
place myself in a like position, at one of the crises demanding a
deliberate lie, an unutterable repugnance returns upon me, and makes
the theory seem shameful. If brought to the test, I should probably
act rather as I think than as I feel,[1] without, however, being able
to escape the stab of an instant compunction and the secret wound of a
long humiliation. Is this the mere weakness of superstition? It may be
so. But may it not also spring from an ineradicable sense of a common
humanity, still leaving social ties to even social aliens, and, in
the presence of an imperishable fraternal unity, forbidding to the
individual of the moment the proud right of spiritual ostracism?..."
[Footnote 1: No, a man who feels like that would be true in the hour
of temptation. His doubt of himself is only the tremulousness of true
courage.]
"How could I ever face the soul I had deceived, when perhaps our
relations are reversed, and he meets my sins, not with self-protective
repulse, but with winning love? And if with thoughts like these there
also blends that inward reverence for reality which clings to the very
essence of human reason, and renders it incredible, _à priori_,
that falsehood should become an implement of good, it is perhaps
intelligible how there may be an irremediable discrepancy between the
dioptric certainty of the understanding and the immediate insight of
the conscience: not all the rays of spiritual truth are refrangible;
some there are beyond the intellectual spectrum, that wake invisible
response, and tremble in the dark."