if a man comes to kill your friend you actually have a duty to lie to him and save your friend (supposing fighting is not an option).
Many have weighed in differently on the issue, which is why I gave the note. Perhaps you have a magisterial citation about my duty to tell lies as if one man can compel another man's testimony. I appeal to Is. 54:16-17 that no entrapment to lie can succeed:
Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the waster to destroy. No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD.
Further, no command can contradict another, so if you are faced with an apparent contradiction it is your own failure of discernment, Matt. 22:39-40:
And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
You and I denounce Origen, and yet the introduction into Christianity of the thought that Christians have a "right of reserve" to not tell the whole truth is Origenism.
Further, no command can contradict another, so if you are faced with an apparent contradiction it is your own failure of discernment
That's false. I can easily refute you by saying you should defend your family (or country) with lethal force if necessary. In this case the command not to kill is contradicted by the command to love and serve your family. Choosing not to kill in this instance could actually be sinful.
You and I denounce Origen, and yet the introduction into Christianity of the thought that Christians have a "right of reserve" to not tell the whole truth is Origenism.
Not at all. You hold the Augustinian position which is the basis for the western Church. But the Eastern fathers agree concealment of truth and even deception is permissible in certain situations (pastoral flexibility) - precisely what Athanasius did in your anecdote.
In this case the command not to kill is contradicted by the command to love and serve your family.
The command is not to murder (though it's often translated kill, but this is clarified by the context of executions). The contradiction is not in the intent but in falsely resolving the ambiguity in English. Killing in self-defense is specifically separated from murder in the case example of a night break-in (Ex. 22:2). That separation is not a contradiction but a different case that has a different law; canons of construction allow the general case to be stated in one place and the uncovered specific cases in another place. Reading and resolving the whole Torah is very enlightening about this detail of noncontradiction!
So you reject Augustine, who I understand counts as Orthodox, and affirm a doctrine I've traced only to Origen. I agree there is a time not to tell the whole truth if deception isn't involved, but that time expires when one is asked to testify the whole truth. I don't agree there is ever a time to deceive or mislead and I asked you indirectly who says so. On OrthodoxWiki the only relevant topic I get is prelest. It's an understandable intramural debate that has no polemic in it, so I appreciate your taking the time to engage it.
The command is not to murder (though it's often translated kill, but this is clarified by the context of executions). The contradiction is not in the intent but in falsely resolving the ambiguity in English. Killing in self-defense is specifically separated from murder in the case example of a night break-in (Ex. 22:2).
Fair enough, I agree about the distinction between killing and murder (unjustified killing). But it's not just in self-defense, because God commands Israel to attack and slaughter other nations too, so aggression is also justified.
I can give other examples where commands can contradict one another and where a person has to discern what the righteous action is.
So you reject Augustine, who I understand counts as Orthodox
Individual saints and Church fathers aren't infallible. St. Augustine held a host of problematic beliefs like filioque, inherent guilt, infants going to hell, predestination, abstracted essential Trinitarian model, lack of essence/energies distinction, emphasized institutionalization which led to papalism. He worked in Latin and didn't have access to the Greek fathers which led him to his errors. The Orthodox Church has canonized him but doesn't consider him an authoritative father and he's not part of the dogmatic consensus.
and affirm a doctrine I've traced only to Origen.
No, the position of pastoral flexibility and economic consideration is what St. John Chrysostom and other Eastern fathers held.
I agree there is a time not to tell the whole truth if deception isn't involved, but that time expires when one is asked to testify the whole truth. I don't agree there is ever a time to deceive or mislead and I asked you indirectly who says so.
Sure. Here's Chrysostom:
“For as physicians, though they know many remedies, yet do not employ them all indiscriminately, but according to the condition of the patient, sometimes even deceiving him for his benefit, so must we also act.”
On the Priesthood, Book I
“It is not the same thing to speak falsely with intent to harm, and to do so to save another from danger.”
Homilies on Genesis (Homily 44)
Basil:
“The truth is not to be told at all times, nor to all persons, nor in all circumstances.”
Letter 8 (to Caesaria)
St. Gregory of Nazianzus:
“It is necessary sometimes to deceive in order to benefit, as physicians do with their patients.”
Oration 40 (On Holy Baptism), §45
St. Ambrose:
“What of deception in war? Is it blameworthy when it brings about victory without bloodshed?”
De Officiis Ministrorum, Book I, ch. 30
So in this case Origen is correct since he goes along with the consensus. Remember that just because someone was condemned, it doesn't mean everything he teaches is wrong and vice-versa - someone being canonized doesn't make him infallible. Origenism refers to his condemned heretical teachings and not to everything he ever wrote.
On OrthodoxWiki the only relevant topic I get is prelest.
I don't care about what OrthodoxWiki says as if it's some authoritative source. This has nothing to do with prelest.
I've never been able to dredge up support for Chrysostom, having the same feelings about him as you have about Augustine, and now you tell me he's a liar too. Not surprising. I'm comfortable with my selection of fathers. But that goes back to how one knows for sure, because your having a good selection isn't the only way to do it .... Ooh, you also exempt OrthodoxWiki even though it's been tested by true believers, interesting selectivity ....
I am appreciative of your links. Basil letter 8 to Caesarea does not contain the text quoted, and your source does not appear in search; the text appears to be an anon proverb, and does not speak of deception but of silence anyway, so we can exclude that.
To Ambrose, I do (because of just-war doctrine) admit of the use of subtlety in wartime but I do not count this as deception. The reason is that in a declared war, you have forthrightly told the enemy that you are treating him as dead to you and that you have no further relations with him. If it then happens that the enemy reads your communications and misleads himself, that's his own fault, you weren't speaking to him. If your army knows full well what it's doing but roleplays something else knowing that the enemy may easily draw a wrong conclusion, that's part of his status as an enemy that you told him about honestly. Relations are not restored except by ratified treaty (oath) appealing to something outside ourselves. So I don't call it deception in war. If someone's declared war against me and then requests parley or waves a white flag, that is a signal but cannot be trusted or confirmed until it is tested, so I had better still be on my guard; to use such a symbol and then to recant it would be deception in war and would be a war crime, but my part if I were deceived is also blameworthy, because the official comms were total war. Again, the command is about false testimony, not about impressions people get who you have excluded from your communication; the NT application is similar, Col. 3:9. The idea that laws may contradict each other is ultimately harmful to the principle of law in the first place, but the idea that case laws like just-war doctrine are about specific situations that have different or mixed characteristics compared to general situations is self-consistent and is how all statutory construction works (as Paul teaches by example).
So that leaves Chrysostom and Nazianzus, for which my reflexive answer is to exclude them as being the outliers. But, not having the depths of study on all the fathers, I realize that may be incomplete. A search shows that, yes, they got it from Origen and Clement of Alexandria (Migne 9:475-477), who gave Christianity the "therapeutic lie" that Chrysostom and Nazianzus invoke. Chrysostom's defense is stated to be "trying to apologize to his dear friend Basil, due to a similar deception that he committed against him", which is a rather telling detail. But the actual case Chrysostom gives is a doctor who allowed a patient to think that a medication was actually wine, apparently without actual lying. Though he extends this hypothetically to other cases and invokes Michal's statement in 1 Sam. 19:14 (not a formal lie), his comparing it to stagecraft (which is advertised as storytelling and therefore honest) indicates that we need not necessarily treat him as countenancing direct, intentional deception. (But I'm being charitable to him.) Therefore I consider myself free to interpret that the deception these fathers reject is that which involves material falsehood and not the use of means by which a goal is achieved without violating a person's right to consent or to be sufficiently informed. If the doctor is asked if the drink contains medication, he should answer truthfully, but if the doctor knows that the patient will drink that which smells like wine without questioning it then his accomplishing his goal by that route is by silence, not by deception.
The link shows that Tristam Engelhardt 2000 regards Orthodox ethics as teaching that deliberate deception to protect a soul from spiritual harm, via pure, exclusive good purpose, is both acceptable and yet a sin. I am free to reject such a contradictory reading of the fathers, and to regard Paisios of Mount Athos as normative rather than in tension with others (Christodoulos Ageloglou 1998 p. 140):
It is a sin for someone to lie. When he lies for a good cause, i.e. to save someone else, then it is half a sin, because the lie is for the benefit of his fellow man and not for himself. However, it is also considered a sin; therefore, we should keep it in mind, and not fall into the habit of telling lies for insignificant things.
Chrysostom also equivocates (admits contradictory definitions) on the position of reading him as hard in favor of deliberate deception:
Great is the power of deceit; only it must not be applied with a treacherous intention. Or rather, it is not right to call such action deceit, but good management and tact and skill enough to find many ways through an impasse, and to correct the faults of the spirit.
TLDR: I respect it's a hard case and church opinions differ, including interpretations of the interpretations. I remain subject to my own conscience that I do not permit deception at all even as I am not always called to tell everyone everything. You remain subject to your own conscience, even as you act like your conscience is identical with some construct that you describe as the church's conscience, but which you select from as if Augustine can be dismissed. Therefore ultimately we come back to the issue of individual judgment that is responsible to judge communal judgment. Follow a multitude, but not to evil.
Many have weighed in differently on the issue, which is why I gave the note. Perhaps you have a magisterial citation about my duty to tell lies as if one man can compel another man's testimony. I appeal to Is. 54:16-17 that no entrapment to lie can succeed:
Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the waster to destroy. No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD.
Further, no command can contradict another, so if you are faced with an apparent contradiction it is your own failure of discernment, Matt. 22:39-40:
And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
You and I denounce Origen, and yet the introduction into Christianity of the thought that Christians have a "right of reserve" to not tell the whole truth is Origenism.
That's false. I can easily refute you by saying you should defend your family (or country) with lethal force if necessary. In this case the command not to kill is contradicted by the command to love and serve your family. Choosing not to kill in this instance could actually be sinful.
Not at all. You hold the Augustinian position which is the basis for the western Church. But the Eastern fathers agree concealment of truth and even deception is permissible in certain situations (pastoral flexibility) - precisely what Athanasius did in your anecdote.
The command is not to murder (though it's often translated kill, but this is clarified by the context of executions). The contradiction is not in the intent but in falsely resolving the ambiguity in English. Killing in self-defense is specifically separated from murder in the case example of a night break-in (Ex. 22:2). That separation is not a contradiction but a different case that has a different law; canons of construction allow the general case to be stated in one place and the uncovered specific cases in another place. Reading and resolving the whole Torah is very enlightening about this detail of noncontradiction!
So you reject Augustine, who I understand counts as Orthodox, and affirm a doctrine I've traced only to Origen. I agree there is a time not to tell the whole truth if deception isn't involved, but that time expires when one is asked to testify the whole truth. I don't agree there is ever a time to deceive or mislead and I asked you indirectly who says so. On OrthodoxWiki the only relevant topic I get is prelest. It's an understandable intramural debate that has no polemic in it, so I appreciate your taking the time to engage it.
Fair enough, I agree about the distinction between killing and murder (unjustified killing). But it's not just in self-defense, because God commands Israel to attack and slaughter other nations too, so aggression is also justified.
I can give other examples where commands can contradict one another and where a person has to discern what the righteous action is.
Individual saints and Church fathers aren't infallible. St. Augustine held a host of problematic beliefs like filioque, inherent guilt, infants going to hell, predestination, abstracted essential Trinitarian model, lack of essence/energies distinction, emphasized institutionalization which led to papalism. He worked in Latin and didn't have access to the Greek fathers which led him to his errors. The Orthodox Church has canonized him but doesn't consider him an authoritative father and he's not part of the dogmatic consensus.
No, the position of pastoral flexibility and economic consideration is what St. John Chrysostom and other Eastern fathers held.
Sure. Here's Chrysostom:
Basil:
St. Gregory of Nazianzus:
St. Ambrose:
So in this case Origen is correct since he goes along with the consensus. Remember that just because someone was condemned, it doesn't mean everything he teaches is wrong and vice-versa - someone being canonized doesn't make him infallible. Origenism refers to his condemned heretical teachings and not to everything he ever wrote.
I don't care about what OrthodoxWiki says as if it's some authoritative source. This has nothing to do with prelest.
God is not the Author of confusion. This doctrine you've taught about "permissible lying" promotes confusion. Therefore it is wrong.
I don't believe so, I use just-war doctrine.
I've never been able to dredge up support for Chrysostom, having the same feelings about him as you have about Augustine, and now you tell me he's a liar too. Not surprising. I'm comfortable with my selection of fathers. But that goes back to how one knows for sure, because your having a good selection isn't the only way to do it .... Ooh, you also exempt OrthodoxWiki even though it's been tested by true believers, interesting selectivity ....
I am appreciative of your links. Basil letter 8 to Caesarea does not contain the text quoted, and your source does not appear in search; the text appears to be an anon proverb, and does not speak of deception but of silence anyway, so we can exclude that.
To Ambrose, I do (because of just-war doctrine) admit of the use of subtlety in wartime but I do not count this as deception. The reason is that in a declared war, you have forthrightly told the enemy that you are treating him as dead to you and that you have no further relations with him. If it then happens that the enemy reads your communications and misleads himself, that's his own fault, you weren't speaking to him. If your army knows full well what it's doing but roleplays something else knowing that the enemy may easily draw a wrong conclusion, that's part of his status as an enemy that you told him about honestly. Relations are not restored except by ratified treaty (oath) appealing to something outside ourselves. So I don't call it deception in war. If someone's declared war against me and then requests parley or waves a white flag, that is a signal but cannot be trusted or confirmed until it is tested, so I had better still be on my guard; to use such a symbol and then to recant it would be deception in war and would be a war crime, but my part if I were deceived is also blameworthy, because the official comms were total war. Again, the command is about false testimony, not about impressions people get who you have excluded from your communication; the NT application is similar, Col. 3:9. The idea that laws may contradict each other is ultimately harmful to the principle of law in the first place, but the idea that case laws like just-war doctrine are about specific situations that have different or mixed characteristics compared to general situations is self-consistent and is how all statutory construction works (as Paul teaches by example).
So that leaves Chrysostom and Nazianzus, for which my reflexive answer is to exclude them as being the outliers. But, not having the depths of study on all the fathers, I realize that may be incomplete. A search shows that, yes, they got it from Origen and Clement of Alexandria (Migne 9:475-477), who gave Christianity the "therapeutic lie" that Chrysostom and Nazianzus invoke. Chrysostom's defense is stated to be "trying to apologize to his dear friend Basil, due to a similar deception that he committed against him", which is a rather telling detail. But the actual case Chrysostom gives is a doctor who allowed a patient to think that a medication was actually wine, apparently without actual lying. Though he extends this hypothetically to other cases and invokes Michal's statement in 1 Sam. 19:14 (not a formal lie), his comparing it to stagecraft (which is advertised as storytelling and therefore honest) indicates that we need not necessarily treat him as countenancing direct, intentional deception. (But I'm being charitable to him.) Therefore I consider myself free to interpret that the deception these fathers reject is that which involves material falsehood and not the use of means by which a goal is achieved without violating a person's right to consent or to be sufficiently informed. If the doctor is asked if the drink contains medication, he should answer truthfully, but if the doctor knows that the patient will drink that which smells like wine without questioning it then his accomplishing his goal by that route is by silence, not by deception.
The link shows that Tristam Engelhardt 2000 regards Orthodox ethics as teaching that deliberate deception to protect a soul from spiritual harm, via pure, exclusive good purpose, is both acceptable and yet a sin. I am free to reject such a contradictory reading of the fathers, and to regard Paisios of Mount Athos as normative rather than in tension with others (Christodoulos Ageloglou 1998 p. 140):
Chrysostom also equivocates (admits contradictory definitions) on the position of reading him as hard in favor of deliberate deception:
TLDR: I respect it's a hard case and church opinions differ, including interpretations of the interpretations. I remain subject to my own conscience that I do not permit deception at all even as I am not always called to tell everyone everything. You remain subject to your own conscience, even as you act like your conscience is identical with some construct that you describe as the church's conscience, but which you select from as if Augustine can be dismissed. Therefore ultimately we come back to the issue of individual judgment that is responsible to judge communal judgment. Follow a multitude, but not to evil.