The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Lying and Hiding the Truth Prudently

Episode Date: January 26, 2024

Is it always wrong to lie? Why is the truth so important? Jeff Cavins addresses these questions in today’s podcast. Looking at Church teaching and Scripture, Jeff explains the harm of dishonesty, the goodness of truth, and why, at times, it is right to hide the truth. Snippet from the Show Truthfulness guards what should be kept private. Email us with comments or questions at [e-mail]. Text “jeffcavins” to 33-777 to subscribe and get Jeff’s shownotes delivered straight to your email! Or visit ascensionpress.com/thejeffcavinsshow for full shownotes!

Welcome to the Jeff Kaven show, where we talk about the Bible, discipleship, and evangelization, putting it all together and living as activated disciples. This is episode 360, lying and hiding the truth prudently. Welcome to the show again this week, my friend. Wow. I have really been looking forward all week to getting in touch. with you and talking with you about a topic that I hear frequently. And people ask questions about it frequently. And it's a subject that doesn't necessarily have the exact black and white answer that people are hoping for. But it is the question of lying, telling the truth and lying. Are we as Christians called on to tell the truth? All the truth. And nothing but the truth. so help us God. Are we called to even tell the truth if it's going to mean the death of a family

or an individual? I wanted to just spend some time talking about this. I've been gathering some notes in scripture and the catechism and a few articles that I've been reading. So I thought today we'll just kind of chill and listen to some things about this topic. And that's why I call lying and hiding the truth prudently. We're going to get into St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas as well. By the way, if you do want some of the quotes, or all the quotes, I should say, from the show, it's easy to do. We'll give you the show notes for every single show.

And all you have to do is text my name. Jeff Kavins, one word, Jeff Kavins, text it to the number 33777. Quite biblical, 3377, you'll be on the list. And again, I said this last week, I believe if you somehow are not receiving that on a weekly basis, then sign up again. You know, glitches can happen. So deep in the woods of Minnesota, we got snow now. We didn't have snow for the longest time, but coming up in a day or so, the high will be about one below. And so it's cold and deep in the woods and the ice is frozen.

And now the deer are coming out right around dusk. It's really a beautiful time. And every day I can go out and see these tracks and down the trails into the woods. It's a lot of fun. Okay, so when we grow up, what's one of the first things that we learned to say to somebody else? We learn liar, liar pants on fire. It's one of the earliest sayings that we learned. We play games where telling a lie is part of the strategy, you know, to win.

You can say three truthful things and make up one thing and people have to figure out. know, which one is the lie? There are specialists who work in law enforcement who literally specialize in signs of lying, you know, when you're under oath, or they can look at your body language, your facial expressions. And to ensure that the truth is told in court, what are people asked to do these days? At least they were in the good old days, they were asked to do what? Place their hand on a Bible and repeat that they promised to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So help them God. In most countries, there are consequences for lying under oath. So what is a lie? How do we define a lie? Well, a lie is an untruthful assertion. The speaker intends to

cause belief in the truth of a statement that the speaker believes to be false. Hence, a lie involves an intention to deceive. The speaker also implicitly assures or promises the hear that the statement that is made is true. And I say the statement that is spoken, but we could also say written as well, because the place where we see so many lies today is on not just the, you know, the speech stage or the stump, but it's online as well. Now the catechism puts it this way in paragraph 2482. It'll be in the notes. A lie consists in speaking of falsehood with the intention of deceiving. The Lord denounces lying as the work, get this now, as the work of the devil. Now that is a powerful thing to digest, is that when we lie, when we speak a falsehood

with the intention of deceiving, we are actually entering into the work of the enemy whose cash is lying. live in a society where we can't always trust what is being said, be it at work or the news or politicians, accusations on the evening news. That's a big one. The result is that we feel like, well, if you're like me, you feel like the foundations that we have relied on are shaky and seriously compromised or in some areas of life. They are gone. They're just simply gone. there is a sliding scale of emotional consequences due to the solemn nature of confidence between individuals. For example, the confidence between husbands and their wives has huge ramifications when

the truth is breached by a lie. Certain positions in society, such as the president or, what would another one be the doctors or police officers, maybe educators. They carry a stricter standard when it comes to telling the truth. Kind of like what James says when he says that teachers will be held to a stricter judgment. And I think that we hold certain positions in society as being more solemn, more serious, and when they lie, it's louder. Now, on one side of all that we know to be true is God.

And God is described as a covenant keeping God, a God who, who cares deeply for his people. He cares deeply about truth. In fact, he is truth. When God sent his son, Jesus, how did he describe himself? He was described as the way, the truth, and the life. Now, when you think about that, since God is truth, all that he says and all that he does is truth as well. I mean, you can't have Jesus being truth and then speaking lies.

He speaks truth. He lives truth. His word is truth. And this is what makes the Bible so singularly unique, right? It is the word of God. Therefore, it is without error or what we would call in theology inerrant. I'm holding in my hands a well-worn great adventure Bible right now. And I can look down at this Bible and I can tell you this is truth.

This is truth. Why? Because the author is truth, Jesus Christ. Now, the opposite side of truth is a lie and there is a father of lies, the devil. The devil's name is Lucifer and as a result of envy, the book of wisdom tells us he rebelled against God and took one third of the angels with him. Did you know that? One third of the angels went with them. They're better known as demons today. Now, the devil is all that God is not. He is a liar. a deceiver, an opposer to all that is truthful. It is Satan who introduces lying as a new currency, a new currency to gain what we want. You want status, you may be able to use this currency of lying. You want acknowledgement? You want possessions, titles, power. You want power. Lying might be one of your, one of your movements.

moves you on influence and ultimately happiness? Well, lying, lying is extreme self-centeredness. That's what lying is. It's extreme self-centeredness. And by the way, it's destructive. It is. It's destructive. And the devil strives to convince us that good is evil and evil is good. And you know what? Many people believe it. You say, well, how could people believe that? Well, that's the deception of the enemy. And lies can be very convincing and very deceptive. It was the influence of the devil that brought down our first parents, Adam and Eve. The result of the fall of our first parents was that they landed us in a state of death

and substantially changed the entire makeup of our being. The fall is what introduced us into an area that we would call concupiscence. Our decision-making mechanism, the will that we have, is weakened. And our reasoning abilities are cloudy now. And we are now the subjects of concupiscence. So concupiscence is a distorted self-interest. We think that we are important. Disordered self-centeredness is, I believe, the way that St. Thomas defines it.

the catechism says in paragraph 2468 truth as uprightness in human action and speech is called truthfulness sincerity or candor truth or truthfulness is the virtue which consists in showing oneself true in deeds and truthful in words and in guarding against duplicity disimulation and hypocrisy so the truth is that we and this is so important before we go to break listen to this The truth is that we are not created to lie. We are not created to lie. We may think we can get by with it. We think that it's not going to have an effect on us.

We think that it's not going to have an effect on our family or society. But we're deceiving ourselves. You see, a lie detector, which are used in court cases around the country, or to get a job, a lie detector can record a change, the smallest change, in your blood pressure. Heartbeats, sweat, and eye twitching when a person lies. In a sense, get this, the body, and I've never taken a lie detector test, but I studied them a little bit, and I've talked to a few people who have. In a sense, the body is responding to lying in a very negative way, and it's very difficult

to hide. The high blood pressure, the rapid heartbeat, the sweating of the hands, the body are all signs that lying has consequences and those consequences are not good. Life becomes disintegrated, torn apart by lies. So I want to take a break when I come back. I want to talk about the life of a disciple today. And what are some of the guidelines that we should live by when it comes to lying and telling the truth? You're listening to the Jeff Kaven show. Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz. I want to let you know. about an exciting announcement that could revolutionize the way you listen to the Bible in the

year and the catechism in the year. Ascension has released a new Bible and catechism app called the Ascension app. Now, here's what you get. In this app, you get the entire text of the Great Adventure Bible. Just incredible. You also get the entire text of the catechism of the Catholic Church, as long with the Catechism in a year podcast and the Bible in your podcast and transcripts for each episode. If you're like, I'm tired of listening to that guy, I just want to read it. There's complete transcripts from each and every episode. episode. One thing that makes this app incredibly unique is that it includes special features that make connections between the Bible and the Catechism so crystal clear through color-coded

references and all these links. The hyperlinks are amazing. I tried it out and I'm like, oh my gosh, it kind of has changed the way I read through the Catechism, kind of changed the way I read through the Bible. These features will help you navigate the Bible and Catechism even more seamlessly so you can get more out of your experience. Also, the app provides almost 1,000 answers to Bible questions. The people who listen to the Bible in the year, they wrote in their questions. Almost a thousand answers. And those answers come in the form of audio clips, video clips, as well as resources excerpted from some of Ascans' published works. If you want to download this app for free, super simple. Just go to the app store in search

for Ascension app. I am telling you, if learning about the Bible and the catechism is important to you, then this app will change your life. Welcome back. We're talking about lying today. And hiding the truth prudently, we'll get to that in just a moment, we've been talking about how damaging lying is to us in our bodies, in our emotions, and it certainly is to our spirit as well. In our relationship, not only with our family, colleagues at work, but our relationship with God is very weakened when we persist in a life of lying. You know, as a modern day disciple of Jesus, we really become more like Jesus every single

day. We speak and we act like him, who is the truth. And so we could say that to follow Christ is to follow truth in all that we do and say, to walk with Jesus throughout the day is to walk with truth. And to veer from that truth is to veer from Christ. It is to be walking with him throughout the mall and then suddenly you stretch the truth. You tell a lie. You are putting yourself further away from the truth. So there's some things that we can learn. Number one, we are different than all other people on earth as Christians in that we have been changed by the grace of God. Now, we have become new people. And as new people in Christ, we are clothed in Christ. In other words, that's a way of saying that we're living our lives with Christ in mind.

and we're living our lives with the mind of God, as it says in Romans chapter 12, we do have the mind of Christ. And so as Christians, we are different than people who don't have that check in their life. They don't have that foundation in their life. They don't clothe themselves with truth every single day. So as disciples, we continue to walk in freedom. Why? Because we choose to walk in truth. As it says in Galatians 5-1, it was for freedom that Christ set us free.

Therefore, do not return to a yoke of bondage. A yoke of bondage comes by lying, not telling the truth about ourselves or about other people or about reality. And I got to tell you, my friend, there is a lot. I will say that again, there is a lot of lying in our culture today when it comes to describing who we are. There are just lies that float around society. So to Jesus' disciples, the catechism says in paragraph 2466, to his disciples, Jesus teaches the unconditional love of truth. Let what you say be simply yes or no. You see, it is the truth that sets men free just as lies leave a man shackled, bound in pain, misery, and unhappiness.

The church teaches that once we come to know the truth, then we are obligated. to walk in it and allow it to direct the whole of our lives. Something people don't really realize is that when you come to know the truth, then that truth comes with an obligation to walk in it. So once you start reading Jesus and listening to his words, there's also hooked on to that an invitation to walk in it, no, an obligation to walk in it. And we as Christians have put on a new life. The catechism teaches, I quote,

Christ's disciples have put on the new man, created after the likeness of God and true righteousness and holiness. So by putting away falsehood, they are to put away all malice and guile and insincerity, and envy, and all slander. You'll catch those truths in paragraph 2475 of the catechism. The second thing I would say is this, truth holds society together. And it holds us as a people of God together as well. St. Thomas once said, and you can read about this in the Catechism, I believe it's paragraph 2469. I'll put this in the show notes for you. St. Thomas once said, men could not live with one another if there were not mutual confidence that they were being truthful to one another. We couldn't live with one another. You see what's happening

in society today? We're having a heck of a time living together. Heck of a time living together. heck of a time living together because there's not the mutual confidence that what is being spoken is truthful. So it is the virtue of truth that gives others their just do them. Truthfulness pays attention to what should be expressed and what ought to remain kept a secret. That's what truthfulness does. Truthfulness guards what should be kept a secret. Not all things should be said, all things should be declared from the rooftop. Not all things should be put on the web. There is a time to talk and a time to keep quiet. Paragraph 2469 talks about this injustice as a matter of honor. One man owes it to another to manifest the truth, but we also

have an obligation to keep quiet those things that would hurt someone and we do that intentionally. the catechism goes on and says truth has uprightness in human action and speech is called truthfulness sincerity or candor truth or truthfulness is the virtue which consists in showing oneself true in deeds and truthful words that's how we express it we express truth in deeds and words and so you can lie with your body christopher west talks about this a lot in the theology of the body He does a phenomenal job of it. As a student of John Paul II, there is a language to the body. Are you telling a lie with your body?

Are you telling a lie with words, deeds? Wow. Get a hold of his teaching. It's fantastic. So I'll just say that again. Truth as uprightness in human action and speech is called truthfulness. And truthfulness is the virtue which consists in showing oneself true in deeds and truthful in words and in guarding against duplicity, disimulation or hypocrisy.

Number three, to think about this, number three, truth is expressed by walking in the light and rejecting the darkness. When we walk in truth as Christians, we make a choice to walk in the light. The church teaches us that the disciple of Christ consents to live in the truth. It's a beautiful phrase, isn't it? You as a Christian consent to live in the truth. that is, in the simplicity of a life in conformity with the Lord's example, abiding in his truth. So if we say we have fellowship with him, this is what John says in his letter, his first letter,

if we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, guess what? We lie, we lie, and do not live according to the truth. I'll say it again. I'll put it in layman's language here. If you or I say that I have fellowship with Jesus, but I walk in darkness, I lie, you lie. And the truth is not within us. It just isn't. So that's an important thing to remember is that we express the truth by walking in the light and what we say we do.

Number four, as Christians, we don't lie. we don't lie as lying makes us false witnesses to Christ who is the truth when we lie we say something about Jesus we say something about our relationship with Jesus and we usually are met with comments like I thought you were a Christian I cannot believe you said that wrote that did that I thought you were a Christian and see society will hold us up to that standard there's somewhere in natural law there's got to be this idea that that this is expected of us. And when we step over the line and walk in darkness and false lies, the world sees it.

So we as Christians do not need to, we, listen, we don't, and Jesus taught this, we don't need to prop up our words with oaths as though swearing by something or someone is going to make us more truthful. Our words simply put, communicate truth. That's it. our words are truth we don't have to say i swear by the planet mercury i swear by the king's throne i swear by no we don't do that we don't swear by god at all we don't even allow that in our family when the girls were growing up why we don't need to prop up our word you just tell the truth

and the truth will set you free contained in the truth are happiness and peace not to mention that you will sleep better. You want some spiritual melatonin? Well, tell the truth. Walk in truth. Being a false witness and perjury when it is made publicly is a statement contrary to the truth. And it takes on a particular gravity in the world today. And it's taken seriously by the church.

In court, it becomes false witness. When it is under oath, it is perjury. Acts such as these contribute to condemnation. the church tells us, condemnation of the innocent exoneration of the guilty, or the increased punishment of the accused. They gravely promise the exercise of justice and the fairness of judicial decisions. Kind of a lot of heavy stuff right there. I'll just give it to you in the notes. Paragraph 2476. Okay, number five, truth walks hand in hand with prudence. Now, this is the question that a lot of people have.

as Christians we cannot cause harm to others by withholding the truth neither can we communicate the truth about someone's failings and faults or secrets to someone who does not know them as it will result in injury to that person could end up in death falling back on hay it's the truth isn't it i just said the truth about the guy yeah but you destroyed the man truth walks in prudence. Columny, who, by remarks contrary to the truth, harms the reputation of others and gives occasion for false judgments concerning them. Every person has a right to a good name. And just because something is true doesn't mean that we have the right to use it as a club to beat the reputation out of someone. But what about lying? Boasting. Bragging is a form of lying. Boasting or bragging.

is an offense against truth, the Categism teaches us. So is irony aimed at disparaging someone by malicious caricaturing some aspect of his behavior? Now, in comedy, people do this all the time, don't they? They will become a caricature of somebody. But what the church is teaching us here is that is it aimed at disparaging someone? If it is, it's against the truth. I believe you can have comedy and even use this type of caricature in a, in a positive way, in a loving way, not to disparage somebody, which some people do, and it's not advisable, whether it be in Hollywood or politics, a lie consists in speaking of falsehood with the intention of deceiving. See, if you're intending to deceive someone by boasting about what you did or bragging about

something you think you did, well, that's, that's the way. that's against the truth, right? And the Lord denounces lying as the work of the devil. You're under the influence of a father called the devil. You don't want to be there. So when we talk about lying, paragraph 2483 says that lying is the most direct offense against the truth and to lie is to speak or act against the truth in order to lead someone into error. Now, there are lies and there are lies. Okay. The church teaches us in paragraph 2484 that the gravity of a lie is measured against the nature of the truth. It deforms the circumstances, the intentions of the one who lies, and the harm suffered by its victims. So you can lie about someone and the consequences may be relatively small. But you can also lie about someone and the results are not small. they are very very big family destroying individuals are destroyed companies are destroyed because of a lie

and if a lion itself only constitutes a venial sin well then it becomes mortal when it does grave injury to the virtues of justice and charity towards other people so it's a very very serious thing by its very nature lying is to be condemned in every way it is a profanation of speech Whereas the purpose of speech is to communicate known truth to others. Very powerful, powerful stuff. The catechism goes on and says, since it violates the virtue of truthfulness, a lie does real violence to another.

It affects his ability to know, which is a condition of every judgment and decision. It contains the seed of discord and all consequent evils. lying is destructive it is destructive of society it undermines truth among men and tears apart the fabric of social relationships welcome to america my friend now i wanted to get to this these last couple points are incredibly important very very important when we talk about lying we got to remember that there's the right to the communication of the truth and that is not unconditional. The right to

to the communication of the truth is not unconditional. In other words you don't have a right to communicate the truth unconditionally. The classic question always pops up in this discussion. Here it is

if the Nazis came to my door and asked if there were Jews in the house could I lie to save their life? Now a couple of articles here. One is from Ascension's own Matt Dunn. I'll put it in the show notes. He wrote a good article on this question. He asks, what does this mean?

And he says, put simply, not everyone has a right to have the truth communicated to them. In other words, if a hypothetical Nazi asks, if there are Jewish neighbors in my house, I could say with good conscience, I have not brought anyone into my house, even if my wife or children did sneak them in. I know the truth. I don't have to reveal it. That is not immoral. The act of not sharing the truth is not inherently sinful. Yay, good job, Matt.

Paragraph 2488 says the right to the communication of the truth is not unconditional. Everyone must conform his life to the gospel precept of fraternal love. Oh, say that again. Everyone must conform his life to the gospel precepts of fraternal love. This requires us in concrete situations to judge whether or not it is appropriate to reveal the truth to someone who asks for it. It is better to be silent. It is better to be silent than to tell the truth if it means the safety or the privacy of others. Again, the catechism, paragraph 2489, charity and respect for the truth should dictate the response to every request for information or communication.

Say it again, charity and respect for the truth should dictate the response to every request for information or communion. Now, you can't take that and start to adopt that in just not telling people the truth. We're talking here about a hypothetical situation with Nazis coming to the door. Life and death is in your power at that point. The good and safety of others respect for privacy and the common good are sufficient reasons for being silent about what ought. not to be known or making use of discrete language. That's the catechism, okay? So the catechism talks about that and also tells us that the duty to avoid scandal

often commands strict discretion. No one is bound to reveal, oh, you've got to get this. No one is bound to reveal the truth to someone who does not have the right to know it. So getting back to the question of lying to save a Jewish family during the Holocaust Jeffrey Mears has a marvelous article called Is Lying Ever Right? I'll put the link in the show notes. He mentions that St. Augustine wrote the first extensive treatise on lying. In it, he cites the case of a holy bishop, Firmus of Thagasta,

who wished to protect a man who had sought refuge with him. The bishop was so careful of the truth that rather than lying to the imperial officers who pursued the fugitive, he told them frankly that he would not reveal the man's location. Firmus maintained this resolve, even under torture, with the result that he was eventually brought before the emperor himself, but the emperor was so impressed with the bishop's virtue that he both praised the bishop and pardoned the fugitive. Augustine tells this story to provide a saintly witness for his argument that lying is always morally wrong, regardless of the circumstances, and to note that God is perfectly capable of extricating from trouble those who stand fast in the truth.

His treatise has been widely cited ever since, and his viewpoint was endorsed by no less saintly a scholar than Thomas Aquinas. In the monumental Summa, Thomas states, the same position. Listen to this. Therefore, it is not lawful to tell a lie in order to deliver another from any danger whatever. Nevertheless, it is lawful to hide the truth prudently by keeping it back, as Augustine says. So we don't lie, but hiding the truth prudently for the greater good could save a life. I hope this has been somewhat helpful for you this week and talking about lying and hiding the truth prudently as St. Augustine and St. Thomas talk about. And just remember

that we are witnesses of Christ and we do tell the truth and we live the truth. And the truth is more than just saying something. It's the way we live. And our body has a truth as well. the theology of the body. And I would, again, I would point you in the direction of Christopher West to go deeper with that. Christopher, if you're listening, yay, you do a great job. You are a real pillar in that area in the church. Let me pray for you, my friend. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Lord Jesus, we love you so much.

We do. We love you. We thank you, Lord. You are the truth. You're the way, the truth in the life. We are your disciples. You have created us to be like. you to walk like you and speak like you you have shared your messionic yoke with us and lord i ask you to

help us to search our hearts do we need to go to confession about anything and get right with you as regarding the truth we we ask you lord to give us strength going forward that we would be bold and courageous and even if we're in trouble for speaking truth and and we need to speak the truth we know that, Lord, you have the strength to deliver us. We love you, Jesus. We love you. And we pray that we will truly, truly reflect you to this culture. In Jesus' name, amen.

Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Love you. That's the truth. And I look forward to talking to you next week.