Truth and lies

We had been discussing The Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love, Augustine's brief exposition of the essential teachings of Christianity. One of the students was perplexed by the fact that in discussing evil Augustine used the example of lying.

Why, I wondered aloud to the class, would Augustine turn to lying? After all, he had written in other books about profound social evils and horrifying examples of injustice and suffering.

Another student said Augustine is surely wrong in stating that "it seems certain that every lie is a sin." The student cited a story that serves as one of modernity's favorite justifications for lying: What if you were in Nazi Germany and you were sheltering Jews in your home. The Nazis come to the door and ask if you are sheltering Jews. Should you lie or tell the truth?

The students began reflecting on what Augustine might say in response to that question. One student found it difficult to imagine that Augustine would he so hard-hearted as to insist on not lying over showing compassion to protect the Jews. Another student suggested that we get too uptight about "personal" morality like lying, when the really crucial issues have to do with systemic injustice.

Eventually, one of the quieter students in the class intervened. She asked, "Could it be that the problem is less in the questions than in ourselves? We like to talk about sheltering Jews from the Nazis, because we see ourselves as basically good people who occasionally tell lies for good--or at least harmless--reasons. But that really lets us off the hook too easily. Most of us find it all too easy to lie, and we don't even tend to notice how destructive our lying becomes."

Her comment was followed by a rather stunned silence. She was clearly on to something that had less to do with Augustine's argument than with our own lives. Or, better, she had suggested why Augustine's example of lying seemed to speak so clearly to our own lives.

I rephrased her insight: If we are basically truthful people, then we can afford to justify lying in the service of noble causes. Augustine's point, however, seems to challenge the fundamental premise: we are, he suggests, people who find it all too easy to lie.

This clearly made us uncomfortable. I offered a challenge: Would our entire class, professor included, agree that for one full week we would do our best not to tell a single lie to ourselves or anyone else? This would not mean that we would say every true thing we thought, I said, since being truthful can be used in destructive ways. Following this rule would likely mean that all of us would have to be quiet much more often as we discovered situations and relationships in which it is better not to speak than to utter statements that are not true.

None of us--myself included--was particularly interested in accepting the challenge. We thought it would require too much effort. One student noted, "It would also require us to begin rethinking the assumptions we make about our society and our relationships." That seemed more than any of us was ready to tackle.

Over the past few weeks I have thought a lot about that extraordinary class discussion. We have a president who has apparently found it easy to lie and be deceptive about his relationships with women. We have Monica Lewinsky on a tape-recorded conversation saying that lying is not difficult: "I've done it all my life." We have the independent counsel's office reportedly leaking stories about confidential testimony before the grand jury.

Does it really matter? Is lying primarily a matter of "personal" morality separable from larger social issues? Did Augustine overstate his case, both about the prevalence of lying in our lives and about its importance in discussions of good and evil?

Or could it be that we have become so used to lying that we now find it difficult to tell the truth? Do we know what it means to discern the truth in other people's comments? Do we have the courage to speak the truth, even when it is not to our advantage? Can we do the truth if we do not even know how to recognize it?

Within our churches, do we know what it means to speak the truth to one another, much less to do it in love? Or do we rest content with backstabbing gossip and passive-aggressive avoidance?

I have been impressed by the courageous and profoundly hopeful work of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The people of South Africa have committed themselves to learning to speak the truth to one another and to do so in a spirit not of vengeance but of reconciliation. is a daring experiment, ray of hope testifies that the darkness has not us.

The commission understands Augustine's point about the corrosive effects of lies and deceptions, particularly when they have been put in the service of such profound injustice. But it also understands the gospel's convictions that we are capable of learning to tell the truth--understood both as discernment and as speech--in the context of a struggle for reconciliation.