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.
Dude, I just quoted some of the most important early Church fathers who back up the position. If you still can't understand the context where lying is permissible that's on you. Your logical argument is invalid because the second premise is false.
Every rule has exceptions to it. I can take pretty much any commandment and think about some exception where one would be justified to break it. What matters is intentionality and consequences. Since we can't comprehend every consequence of our actions because we're limited in knowledge, intentionality and spiritual discernment is paramount.
I agree with u/guywholikesDjtof2024 that permitting lying promotes confusion. The link I just posted demonstrates that the risk of discovery of intentional deception often creates a greater spiritual harm (lifelong distrust) than the harm that the deception intends to avoid. I also pointed out it's contradictory if the Orthodox actually taught "regulated deliberate deception is acceptable" and "deception is always a sin", because that would be doing evil that good may result.
I can take pretty much any commandment and think about some exception where one would be justified to break it.
You really fell down on that one when you had to admit:
I meant the 10 commandments.
So it's not only in the West where people minimize the moral law to the Ten. Instead the Sermon on the Mount maximizes the moral law to every spiritual application, and the Two Commandments (and all being like unto them) demonstrate that every moral principle is inherent in the ramifications of every command. They are all one and that is why they are consistent.
What matters is intentionality and consequences.
God controls consequences so we don't get to use that as determinative because it's not in our control (e.g. if our lie is caught leading to greater harm). The devil pleads intentionality on the road to hell. So what matters is rather Truth at all costs. Discernment only arises from commitment to Truth and nothing else. Not "truth and exceptions", not "truthiness".
God controls consequences so we don't get to use that as determinative because it's not in our control (e.g. if our lie is caught leading to greater harm). The devil pleads intentionality on the road to hell. So what matters is rather Truth at all costs. Discernment only arises from commitment to Truth and nothing else. Not "truth and exceptions", not "truthiness".
So you're not supposed to foresee the consequences of your actions and consider them before acting? Why were you given reason then - just follow the rules like an algorithm and you'd be fine, right? Do you realize that Scripture contains seemingly contradictory commandments if taken out of context and used as maxims? If you were to adhere to every commandment like a damn robot, you'd quickly run into absurdity. Prots get around this and cherry pick the commandments they like and pretend they should be applied without reasoning and nuance regardless of context.
I meant the 10 commandments. For example do you think you ought to honor your parents if they are complete degenerates who treat you and your family like trash for no good reason? You're supposed to apply discernment and not follow the commandments like a freaking robot. God endowed man with reason and we should use it appropriately.
And it's not invalid. Why do you believe they're not confusing?
You're making the positive claim - what makes them confusing? Give an example how any of the above is confusing? If you lie to a demon to save the life of some innocent man is that bringing confusion? You see, this is why commandments cant be taken as universal maxims but should be examined case by case with wisdom. This is Kant's categorical imperative level idiocy.
Of course, reason alone is not enough and we're not rationalists or pragmatists. If a person is spiritually mature, if he partakes in the divine sacraments and follows the teachings of the Church and the advice of his spiritual father, then it gets much easier to discern.
PS: On the funny side, my favorite command is "Thou shall not gang bang". On a more serious side, genocide is a modern concept. I mean, what constitutes a genocide? Did the Israelites genocide the neighboring nations when they settled down or did they just ask them nicely for their land?
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.
That's begging the question how do you determine what aggression is just. Scripture and Church history give examples of aggression being justified and God Himself engages in it (OT is full of it, but also Jesus whipping the crap out of the moneylenders).
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.
A liar? Gtfo dude. I don't base my position on vibes so don't give me that. Go collect Church fathers as if they're pokemons. What's your standard for discerning which father is reliable? Your personal judgment? Makes sense when you're your own Pope.
Btw no Church father teaches that lying is not a sin but that it could be justified under some circumstances. Same goes for killing. St. Paisios reiterates the patristic position.
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 do you, it's not as if your bound to any position. Tomorrow you may wake up with a different feeling and go off it. But if I were to use your standard and go off my feeling, I'd not trust a single word you write here. You give me a very slimy and deceitful vibe. I sense you're posing as something you're not.
That's begging the question how do you determine what aggression is just.
It's not begging the question, I explicitly told you that it's a long digression when we try to describe all the cases. Jesus wasn't said to use the whip on the moneylenders, he probably directed animals with it. No aggression is to be permitted and aggression is defined as threatening or initiating force against another's person or property. Lots of Christians have theologies that permit some aggressions, as you do with your permission of lying, but I believe they're inconsistent. Now, you may want to know about the regulations by which I permit a just war, such as a formal judgment of the serious aggression conducted by the other party, and an offer of terms of peace, a final unequivocal declaration of war, and the prohibition of war crimes. But I'm not sure you want to know, because the thrust is that you believe there is no absolute principle, and I say that both the general and the specific principles are absolute each in their own application and can be sufficiently stated in a few words in any particular case. So if you want to continue the question with specific cases, I'd be happy to hear your propositions and difficult passages.
I summarized your position that Chrysostom accepts deliberate deception with the less charitable "you tell me he's a liar". I don't see a need to modify that statement in its context. In the greater detail, I showed that you may be wrong (he may not accept deliberate deception) and that Chrysostom equivocates by admitting two meanings of the word "deceit", making him hard to pin down.
Go collect Church fathers as if they're pokemons.
As you do with Augustine and Origen. (I dislike Origen but I note that the Church did not condemn him and, out of respect for his other contributions, deliberately avoided using his name when anathematizing "monstrous apokatastasis", leaving the reader to decide the difference between monstrous and Biblical apokatastasis. So I interpret Origen in context, but you seem to dismiss him out of hand.)
What's your standard for discerning which father is reliable? Your personal judgment?
And what's your standard? A few other people's personal judgment? Your own Patriarch? Follow a multitude, but not to evil.
Btw no Church father teaches that lying is not a sin but that it could be justified under some circumstances.
But you said the fathers support the idea that "there is ever a time to deceive or mislead". You quoted Nazianzus, "It is necessary sometimes to deceive." How can there be a time for it, and it be necessary, if it is never justified? Get the semantics right please. There is no temptation except what is common to man and where God gives you a way out that you can bear up under it. If you say sin is necessary, you're in the Romans 3 loop of getting Paul's smackdown.
Please don't play the game of swapping murdering for killing. Murder is never justified. Do I need to call you out on your claim that all commands have exceptions?
You do you, it's not as if your bound to any position. Tomorrow you may wake up with a different feeling and go off it.
I tested all bonds and found only one would hold, my bond in Christ. I'm pretty confident that "No false testimony" will never admit of exception, but ultimately my confidence is that Christ will defend his word, not me. It's not in my power to protect myself against losing the truth, it's only in Christ's power and he has promised me I cannot slip from his hand. Feelings have nothing to do with it, they have been crucified. My unity of commitment has been vindicated by the fact that, having committed all to him, he continually gives light on any question that skeptics present to me, whether I had already learned the truth of the matter or whether I look into a new matter briefly. The consistency of all truth is his to uphold, not mine, and having taken my own hands off what is his responsibility, I've been freed up to enjoy his ever-growing manifestation of truth.
You begin to doubt me as I affirm commitment to rejecting all deception, even as you are the one stating leeway to permit deception in some way. Well, anyone is free to doubt, I can only appeal to Christ. I might point you to my five years of record here, or refer to my growing up in a covenantal church, learning about the Near East culture of the Bible so that I could understand the relationship of OT and NT, and my learning to be all things to all men to save some, with my one commitment to Jesus as Truth becoming my only motive. But if your position is that I'm wrong for using my judgment, even though everyone does so and you use your judgment to suspend your remaining judgment to the Church, and if you don't think you're using your judgment, I can only point out the illogic, as many ways as you permit me, and leave it there. You made an offhand comment that lying is sometimes justified, and you come full circle by discussing treating me as if I always were justifying lying, in every sentence. There's a reason why I do me as I do.
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.
Dude, I just quoted some of the most important early Church fathers who back up the position. If you still can't understand the context where lying is permissible that's on you. Your logical argument is invalid because the second premise is false.
Every rule has exceptions to it. I can take pretty much any commandment and think about some exception where one would be justified to break it. What matters is intentionality and consequences. Since we can't comprehend every consequence of our actions because we're limited in knowledge, intentionality and spiritual discernment is paramount.
So again, what about bestiality, adultrey, and those other sins I mentioned. Is there any point they magically become good?
I don't think so. Those are pretty straightforward. There are no examples in Scripture and Church tradition that provide exceptions.
I agree with u/guywholikesDjtof2024 that permitting lying promotes confusion. The link I just posted demonstrates that the risk of discovery of intentional deception often creates a greater spiritual harm (lifelong distrust) than the harm that the deception intends to avoid. I also pointed out it's contradictory if the Orthodox actually taught "regulated deliberate deception is acceptable" and "deception is always a sin", because that would be doing evil that good may result.
You really fell down on that one when you had to admit:
So it's not only in the West where people minimize the moral law to the Ten. Instead the Sermon on the Mount maximizes the moral law to every spiritual application, and the Two Commandments (and all being like unto them) demonstrate that every moral principle is inherent in the ramifications of every command. They are all one and that is why they are consistent.
God controls consequences so we don't get to use that as determinative because it's not in our control (e.g. if our lie is caught leading to greater harm). The devil pleads intentionality on the road to hell. So what matters is rather Truth at all costs. Discernment only arises from commitment to Truth and nothing else. Not "truth and exceptions", not "truthiness".
So you're not supposed to foresee the consequences of your actions and consider them before acting? Why were you given reason then - just follow the rules like an algorithm and you'd be fine, right? Do you realize that Scripture contains seemingly contradictory commandments if taken out of context and used as maxims? If you were to adhere to every commandment like a damn robot, you'd quickly run into absurdity. Prots get around this and cherry pick the commandments they like and pretend they should be applied without reasoning and nuance regardless of context.
Wow, just wow. Adutlery? P3d0philia? Bestiality? Homosxuality? Chattel slavery with whips? Gang banging? Genocide?
And it's not invalid. Why do you believe they're not confusing?
I meant the 10 commandments. For example do you think you ought to honor your parents if they are complete degenerates who treat you and your family like trash for no good reason? You're supposed to apply discernment and not follow the commandments like a freaking robot. God endowed man with reason and we should use it appropriately.
You're making the positive claim - what makes them confusing? Give an example how any of the above is confusing? If you lie to a demon to save the life of some innocent man is that bringing confusion? You see, this is why commandments cant be taken as universal maxims but should be examined case by case with wisdom. This is Kant's categorical imperative level idiocy.
Of course, reason alone is not enough and we're not rationalists or pragmatists. If a person is spiritually mature, if he partakes in the divine sacraments and follows the teachings of the Church and the advice of his spiritual father, then it gets much easier to discern.
PS: On the funny side, my favorite command is "Thou shall not gang bang". On a more serious side, genocide is a modern concept. I mean, what constitutes a genocide? Did the Israelites genocide the neighboring nations when they settled down or did they just ask them nicely for their land?
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.
That's begging the question how do you determine what aggression is just. Scripture and Church history give examples of aggression being justified and God Himself engages in it (OT is full of it, but also Jesus whipping the crap out of the moneylenders).
A liar? Gtfo dude. I don't base my position on vibes so don't give me that. Go collect Church fathers as if they're pokemons. What's your standard for discerning which father is reliable? Your personal judgment? Makes sense when you're your own Pope.
Btw no Church father teaches that lying is not a sin but that it could be justified under some circumstances. Same goes for killing. St. Paisios reiterates the patristic position.
You do you, it's not as if your bound to any position. Tomorrow you may wake up with a different feeling and go off it. But if I were to use your standard and go off my feeling, I'd not trust a single word you write here. You give me a very slimy and deceitful vibe. I sense you're posing as something you're not.
It's not begging the question, I explicitly told you that it's a long digression when we try to describe all the cases. Jesus wasn't said to use the whip on the moneylenders, he probably directed animals with it. No aggression is to be permitted and aggression is defined as threatening or initiating force against another's person or property. Lots of Christians have theologies that permit some aggressions, as you do with your permission of lying, but I believe they're inconsistent. Now, you may want to know about the regulations by which I permit a just war, such as a formal judgment of the serious aggression conducted by the other party, and an offer of terms of peace, a final unequivocal declaration of war, and the prohibition of war crimes. But I'm not sure you want to know, because the thrust is that you believe there is no absolute principle, and I say that both the general and the specific principles are absolute each in their own application and can be sufficiently stated in a few words in any particular case. So if you want to continue the question with specific cases, I'd be happy to hear your propositions and difficult passages.
I summarized your position that Chrysostom accepts deliberate deception with the less charitable "you tell me he's a liar". I don't see a need to modify that statement in its context. In the greater detail, I showed that you may be wrong (he may not accept deliberate deception) and that Chrysostom equivocates by admitting two meanings of the word "deceit", making him hard to pin down.
As you do with Augustine and Origen. (I dislike Origen but I note that the Church did not condemn him and, out of respect for his other contributions, deliberately avoided using his name when anathematizing "monstrous apokatastasis", leaving the reader to decide the difference between monstrous and Biblical apokatastasis. So I interpret Origen in context, but you seem to dismiss him out of hand.)
And what's your standard? A few other people's personal judgment? Your own Patriarch? Follow a multitude, but not to evil.
But you said the fathers support the idea that "there is ever a time to deceive or mislead". You quoted Nazianzus, "It is necessary sometimes to deceive." How can there be a time for it, and it be necessary, if it is never justified? Get the semantics right please. There is no temptation except what is common to man and where God gives you a way out that you can bear up under it. If you say sin is necessary, you're in the Romans 3 loop of getting Paul's smackdown.
Please don't play the game of swapping murdering for killing. Murder is never justified. Do I need to call you out on your claim that all commands have exceptions?
I tested all bonds and found only one would hold, my bond in Christ. I'm pretty confident that "No false testimony" will never admit of exception, but ultimately my confidence is that Christ will defend his word, not me. It's not in my power to protect myself against losing the truth, it's only in Christ's power and he has promised me I cannot slip from his hand. Feelings have nothing to do with it, they have been crucified. My unity of commitment has been vindicated by the fact that, having committed all to him, he continually gives light on any question that skeptics present to me, whether I had already learned the truth of the matter or whether I look into a new matter briefly. The consistency of all truth is his to uphold, not mine, and having taken my own hands off what is his responsibility, I've been freed up to enjoy his ever-growing manifestation of truth.
You begin to doubt me as I affirm commitment to rejecting all deception, even as you are the one stating leeway to permit deception in some way. Well, anyone is free to doubt, I can only appeal to Christ. I might point you to my five years of record here, or refer to my growing up in a covenantal church, learning about the Near East culture of the Bible so that I could understand the relationship of OT and NT, and my learning to be all things to all men to save some, with my one commitment to Jesus as Truth becoming my only motive. But if your position is that I'm wrong for using my judgment, even though everyone does so and you use your judgment to suspend your remaining judgment to the Church, and if you don't think you're using your judgment, I can only point out the illogic, as many ways as you permit me, and leave it there. You made an offhand comment that lying is sometimes justified, and you come full circle by discussing treating me as if I always were justifying lying, in every sentence. There's a reason why I do me as I do.