Lying, because it is an affront against the Truth, is intrinsically evil. Truth, Goodness, and Beauty are one; an attack on one is an attack against all, which is why lying can never, in any circumstance, be said to be a good. Any lie will be a sin, and will require penance. But this is not the whole of the story.
Sins are not of equal importance; there are two dimensions to any sin, the objective evil produced, and the subjective guilt implicated upon the one who sins. The objective evil in an act could be great while the doer themselves are implicated with little to no subjective guilt; or, in theory, one could have great subjective guilt based upon a small objective evil (for example, the object of one’s could be greater than the effect one produces, because one is prevented from achieving one’s aim, like a would-be killer who is stopped before achieving the kill). Obviously, this also means one could produce little objective evil and have little subjective guilt, or, worst of all, one could do some great objective evil, knowing what one is doing, and freely doing it, thus accruing great subjective guilt. Talking about evil, one must not misunderstand what is being discussed and think of it as a substance; if one thinks of pure evil as substantially existent, one would be embracing dualism, a heresy.[1] Saying an act is intrinsically evil is not saying a thing which is evil in being is produced, but that the act does not accord with the greater good expected out of the person who is acting. Evil is the grasping for and engaging of a good which is out of place; it is not holistic; it is the embrace of a relative good in the place where a real, objective good is expected.[2] Objective evil is accomplished when one’s willed end does not achieve a proper good, while an act is said to be intrinsically evil when, in whatever situation one can consider it, one will always do something less by performing that one ought to do. But this does not tell us the quality of the evil, and the context of the act can be the only basis for that.
This should lead us to our question, what is it that we mean for something to be a lie? To begin with a simple explanation, we can say the following: A lie comes out of the willful intent to hide the truth from someone else. An opinion, even if it is wrong, is not a lie, because it presents one’s view of a contingent reality. One can be mistaken in one’s opinion, state it, and not lie, because you will to say what you think to be the case. Moreover, even if one’s statement is accurate, it does not mean one is not committing a lie. One can will to deceive, and present something one thinks is false, only to find out later what one thought was false turned out to be what was true. Thus a lie does not necessarily relate to the accuracy of one’s statement, though it always relates to the intent behind one’s declarations.
Because a lie is intrinsically evil, and whenever one lies, one commits a sin, theologians have found it important to map out the boundaries of the lie, to determine when it is that one commits a lie and when one does not, and to determine what moral culpability is had with particular lies. The issue is not simple, for the category of the lie is a genus with many different species, each which must be considered in kind. Moreover, since Scripture indicates many situations in which it appears one person or another lied, theologians have found it important to discern if they did indeed lie, and what it says about the person who lied, especially if the person in question is otherwise presented as one of the exemplars of the faith.
Peter Lombard’s Sentences, because of the influence it had on the development of Christian doctrine, provides a good foundation for our discussion on lies, and so, in order to understand what it is to lie, and what it means if we lie, we will explore Lombard’s presentation on lying and consider the implications of what he said.[3]
Footnotes
[1] Existence is a good, and if existence is a good, then anything which exists, would share in the good of existence. If evil existed, it cannot as pure evil, because it partakes of a good. Evil should be seen as a parasite upon the good, making it less than it should be.
[2] This is how St Augustine understood we could will evil: the good within the evil makes us believe that it is something which we can will, but in the end, all we are doing is willing something which is a lesser good than we ought to will. “Therefore, when the will cleaves to the common and unchangeable good, it attains the great and foremost goods for human beings, even though the will itself is only an intermediate good. But when the will turns away from the unchangeable and common good towards its own private good, or toward external or inferior things, it sins,” St. Augustine, On Free Choice of the Will. Trans. Thomas Williams (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1993), 68.
[3] Lombard’s discussion on lying begins in Book III, Distinction XXXVII c6. The primary word being used, in various forms, is “mendacium,” which can either imply a lie or a falsehood. But, once he gets beyond the lie in itself, he discusses the lie in the context of error, through “erro,” which means “I wander astray” or “I error.” Finally, he looks at the grave situation where one lies under oath, using “periuro” which means “I commit perjury” or “I am giving a false oath.”
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