top of page
Search
Writer's pictureThe Church of St. John-Fulton The Long Winded

A Proposed Solution to Lying in Dire Circumstances

Updated: Nov 19, 2022

To the delima of Nazis looking for Jew in your house, of which at this time we will suppose there are Jews in the house that are hidden by you; my solution would be to speak with hidden truth.


Depriving someone of a good is not an necessarily an evil. For example to withhold alcohol from the alcoholic is not evil but a good. To say "no" to the alcoholic when he asks for a drink is to deprive him of a good. For God created all things good, and yet further the Psalmist says God gave wine to warm man’s heart. Yet withholding the good from this man is love. This is because the alcoholic would use the good he is give to his own destruction.


So it is to withholding the good of knowledge from the Nazi. By denying the Nazi clarity of truth, and not blatantly pointing out the hidden Jews, you keep both the Jew and the Nazi from destruction.


Yet I do not believe lying is the correct means for subdifuge, for I do not believe our Lord would lie, but he would withhold knowledge.


My suggestion would be to speak in hidden truths as our Lord did for this is the most certain way to defeat darkness, “and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it”.  But what is the light? “In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” Jesus himself was life and light; as he himself attest to this, ”I am the way the truth and the life“. Thus, to imitate Christ in truth is the best way to deceive darkness. “He dwells in unapproachable light” (1 Tim6:16).


Further more, we can grow in holiness in this act because we will be imitating our Lord as this is what our Lord did when he spoke, “destroy this temple and I will build it in three days.” Jesus did not speak with clarity here though he did speak in truth. So we too can share in our Lords life by imitating him and say, when the Nazi comes, “the only people in my house are my family” and this would be true for all are our brother’s and sisters until death sorts us out good and evil.


And thus we can protect the good of life, and preserve ourselves from the sin of lying. But most importantly, we can imitate our Lord and turn a potential moral delima to an occasion of growing in grace by becoming more conformed to Christ.

11 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Mary in the Moon

In darkness’ beauty she hangs there surely singing to me in silent song Her light she gives, a gentle touch, a hand upon the head A...

Jesus as Shepherd and Gate

From an exposition on John by Saint Thomas Aquinas, priest (Cap. 10, lect 3) The remnant of Israel shall be led to pasture. They shall...

Mary Immaculate Mother

Theology only makes sense when God is its center. Take for example the Immaculate Conception. Mary receiving this gift through her own...

Comments


bottom of page