As promised, I wanted to bring to the blog the discussion I had with my fellow OCCA colleagues at dinner last Wednesday night in Budapest. It started innocently enough as a conversation down at my end of the table with Chris. :) We were commenting on a portion of a book we both have been reading by Os Guiness, entitled Time For Truth.
The thesis of Dr. Guiness's book is that the contemporary embrace of moral relativity, combined with the simultaneous exclusion of absolute truth, by the proponents of postmodern is unrealistic, even dangerous. In his introductory chapter, he outlines six expectations he assumes with this little book. And it was in that opening section that the point of controversy arose. (Originally, I was simply going to include the actual sentence which proved to be the catalyst for our discussion. I have decided, however, to provide a larger portion of that section of his opening chapter in order to ensure that I accurately portray his overriding point, as well as, provide greater clarity for your consideration of this critical issue. My apologies in advance for this lengthier approach. :) Dr. Guiness writes,
Fifth, I will argue that the issue of turth has a far deeper moral and political seriousness than it receives now. In each generation the price of lying is pegged to the price of truth, which means that both are held cheaply today. I am not arguing the absolutist position that lying is always wrong, for in a world like ours it is sometimes essential. There are numerous "morally permissable lies"--in the opening chapters of Exodus, for example, the Hebrew midwives lie to Pharoah to save their baby boys from death. As Winston Churchill said after the Tehran Conference in 1943 about Allied secrecy over plans to invade Europe, "Truth is so precious that she must be attended by a bodyguard of lies."
But it is another thing altogether to void the difference between truth and lying. And it is another thing still to see lying only as a minor problem, a "utility sin" in the sense that boasting is lying in the service of pride, slander is lying in the service of envy, and so on. The latter point may be true as far as it goes, but it is not the whole story. And it becomes pernicious when people go from there to trivialize lying as a form of social and semantic gamesmanship of no consequence. (Editorial note: I couldn't help but think of Survivor here.)
"You shall not bear false witness," the ninth commandment thundered from Sinai. From beginning to end, the Bible declares that God detests lying and that deception is a major root of evil in the world. Defined as "an attempt to deceive without the other's consent," a lie is a fundamental breach of the human contract to speak the truth. Thus, to treat lying, falsehood, evasiveness, mendacity, and carelessness with words as only minor problems--whimsies with words--hands a dangerous alibi to the powerful and creates a postmodern sanctuary that the unscrupulous have already exploited (witness the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal) and are certain to take advantage of even further. As Walter Lippman wrote, "There can be no liberty for a community that lacks the means by which to detect lies." (pp. 16-17)
As you can see above, I've highlighted the specific sentence that prompted the initial discussion between Chris and me. Dr. Guiness's overarching point in this passage is the danger of trivializing lying, with which I would wholely agree. But the fundamental question Chris and I put to the rest of the group concerned whether or not Christians should take an absolutist position concerning lying. We asked them, "Is it every okay to lie?" Granted, this question has different considerations depending one's theological convictions. And given the nature of our particular group, our discussion of this basic question was evaluated through the grid of a Christian (and presumably, a biblical) perspective. So, the variation of this question for us was basically, "From God's perspective, is it ever 'morally permissable' to lie?"
As I've mentioned previously, the diversity of backgrounds and experiences in our OCCA group (from business to pastoral ministry to covert military operations) made for a very "spirited" discussion. :) No, we didn't pull out the boxing gloves and "throw down" right there on the sidewalk. But in a group like that, with sharp minds and lack of intimidation concerning controversial issues, it was a very thought-provoking and personally challenging discussion for many of us.
I know that many of you here at The Daily Detour are coming from very different philosophical and theological perspectives. So your consideration of this issue will understandably be filtered through your respective lenses. But I would be interested to hear what you think about this question. I won't tip my hand just yet, but will wait weigh after you all have had a chance to engage with this. If it's anything like our usual respectful discussions here, it should bring some good food for thought. Cheers!