I. To the Question

A. A Lie is a Sin

12. In this question the conclusion that a lie is a sin is commonly held by everyone.

13. They are persuaded by Augustine’s reasoning in his book Against Lying, “It is stupid to believe him who is permitted to lie.” But there are many people we must believe, otherwise a joint human life sharing thoughts and affections of mind would be abolished. Therefore, we must believe people, and it is not permitted to lie.

14. But the reason for this is set down in different ways by different people.

For some say [William of Auxerre] that for this reason a lie is necessarily a sin because it necessarily turns one away from God, who is truth, and a lie is against truth.

15. But against this is that a lie does not immediately oppose the first truth but the truth of some thing that the speaker is lying about. Therefore, just as malice opposed to some created good does not necessarily turn one away from the first uncreated good, so neither does a falsity opposed to any truth not pertaining toAdopting the reading from Q ‘impertinenti’ and not the ‘in particulari’ of the Vatican editors. ¹⁰ the first truth turn one away from the first truth.

16. In another way it is said [Aquinas] that an act is called good or bad from its object in the genus of morals, and a genus is taken from something potential, and therefore is it potential with respect to its differences. But the first thing through which an act is constituted in the genus of morals (so that it can then be further determined through its circumstances as through differences) is the object. For over and above the goodness of nature, which an act has from its quiddity, the first thing that determines it so that it is quasi-potentially and materially moral, is the object. So as to the issue at hand, it is said that an act bad in its genus can never be good, for no additional circumstance can take away the malice that it has per se from the object, for every other circumstance presupposes the object. But lying is an act bad in its genus, because it concerns matter disagreeing with the act. For the matter agreeing with an act of speaking should be true or believed, and ‘being true’ is opposite matter in the case of a lie.

17. Against this:

The matter for speaking when one believes everything one says is false is not more undue or illicit than ‘a man innocent and useful to the republic’ is illicit matter for killing. But when these latter conditions are in place on the part of such illicit matter (namely a man), killing such a man can become licit, namely if God revokes the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ (as was said in d.37 n.13). And not only licit but meritorious, namely if God commands one to kill, as Abraham was commanded to kill Isaac. Therefore, by similarity or by the argument ‘a minori’, speaking words one believes to be false can become licit if the commandment is revoked that seems to be about not deceiving one’s neighbor. For the commandment about not lying is not more binding than the commandment about not killing; for it is a lesser evil to take a true opinion away from one’s neighbor, or occasionally to generate in him a false opinion, than to take from him his bodily life; indeed, there is hardly any comparison between the two.

18. There is a confirmation, that if lying necessarily got its malice from the fact that it concerns the sort of matter it does, then lying is not prohibited by a commandment of the second table, because in the second table only things bad to one’s neighbors are prohibited. But, according to you in this opinion, lying is not only bad because it harms one’s neighbor, for then (as argued [n.17]) it would be a lesser evil than killing, and it would be possible, or more possible, for it, like killing, not to have the idea of evil. So it would be against a commandment of the first table. But this does not seem probable, because lying does not immediately turn one away from God, just as neither does the opposite act [sc. telling the truth] immediately have God for object (when speaking of some indifferent truth).

19. Further, if someone who says ‘he is running’ were deceived and believed it to be true, his act of speaking concerns the same matter as it would if he were not deceived and believes it to be false. But when he is deceived and believes what he says to be true he does not sin. So there is no malice there from the object that the act concerns.This criticism does not apply to Aquinas’ way of understanding the object of an act of lying, since for him the object includes the intention to say other than what one thinks. Scotus seems to hold, nn.20-21, that this way of understanding the object of an act conflates two different things. ¹¹

20. In a third way it is said [Bonaventure] that ‘lying’ in its very idea states a bad intention, because it states an intention to deceive. So although some acts, which do not include an evil intention, could sometimes be good from some good circumstance, yet an act that includes in itself an evil intention can never be good because it formally includes an evil ‘willing’. So it is in the issue at hand.

21. This view can be expounded as follows. Although a positive act and malice are not something per se one, either in fact or in concept, yet a name can be imposed on it that does not signify only the act or only the deformity of the act but the whole thing at once. It is like the name ‘adultery’ which is imposed to signify not only the natural act of intercourse but the deformity of its being with another’s wife. And the name ‘theft’ is not only imposed to signify the receiving of something but also to signify the taking of what belongs to another against the will of the owner, and of any superior owner there may be. Such totalities, which are introduced by such names, do not seem able to be good, but what the substrate is of them can be without the relevant deformity (namely an act of intercourse or of receiving something). So it is in the issue at hand. Although the speaking of such and such words, whatever they signify or do not signify, could be without sin, yet the speaking of them with knowledge of the opposite, and consequently with the intention of deceiving, cannot be without sin, for this includes the substrate act along with the circumstances necessarily accompanying or deforming the act. The assumption is plain, because the words ‘I do not know him’ and ‘I will be a liar like you’ were spoken by Christ [John 8.55] but not assertively. Besides any Latin words whatever and however false can be pronounced by a Greek without sin.

B. What Sort of Sin a Lie is

1. About the Three Kinds of Lies

22. Second we must note what sort of sin a lie is.

And although lies are distinguished in many ways, yet for the present purpose a triple distinction suffices, namely into pernicious, useful, and jocose lies.

23. A pernicious lie is one that harms or is harmful of itself to the one I lie to or lie about. And if it harms him as to the Christian religion, namely as to faith or morals etc., then it is a mortal sin. But if it harms him as to his bodily life, or not preserving his conjugal fidelity, or taking away his children or persons in any way connected with him, or as to other temporal goods, then as the lie causes him more or less harm (which is to be weighed by the good it takes away), then it is counted as more or less serious. And generally every such lie, whereby one deliberately asserts what one does not know or what one knows the opposite of, is a mortal sin. For this is simply prohibited by the commandment, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor” [Exodus 20.16]. And ‘witness’ is not precisely what is given in court, but is when anyone deliberately asserts something he does not know or whose opposite he does know. Whoever therefore has the intention to deceive someone to whom he is speaking or about whom he is speaking and says the opposite of what he knows to be true, and by thus speaking harms him to whom or about whom he is speaking, then he gives false testimony against his neighbor. But whether not doing so deliberately counts as an excuse will be touched in d.39 nn.13-21.

24. A useful lie is when it is useful for someone and harmful to no one.

25. A jocose lie is to tell stories about what everyone who hears knows is not true and not told as true. For the hearers are not deceived and the speaker does not intend to deceive, nor is his speech of itself deceptive because it is not such as to be naturally believed by the hearers. Rather it is known to be said without making any opinion as to its truth. The like holds if a jocose lie is when someone does intend to deceive by joking, so that the one deceived really is deceived, but not in anything that inflicts any great harm on him, and those too are joking who know he is deceived. And lastly he can be himself joking in the way that Augustine says of Joseph’s lie, who did truly want to deceive his brothers in the words ‘you are spies etc.’ [n.4], and yet he himself, who knew the truth, could be joking about their deception and about the fear that the deceived were running into. And the others, if any knew, could themselves also at last be joking when they perceived that the thing was not seriously said.

2. Opinions of Others

26. About the last two, namely the useful and jocose lie [nn.24-25], it is commonly admitted that neither of them is a mortal sin in the case of imperfect men, because neither is per se against charity, nor even against anything that is of itself necessarily required for the state of those persons.

27. But in the case of perfect men both lies are said by some to be mortal sins, because the authority of these men is taken away so that they are not believed, and in this they make their state to be cheapened and even harm their hearers because of the scandal.

28. An argument against this [n.27] is that no circumstance makes what in one person is a venial sin to be in another a mortal sin unless one of the persons is necessarily obligated to what the other is not obligated to. But a perfect man does not obligate himself to keeping truth in his words, either by a vow or an oath, more than any other Christian does. Therefore the circumstance of the person (because the person is not specially obligated) does not change a venial sin into a mortal sin.

3. Scotus’ own Opinion

29. Here one can reply by drawing a distinction, that some perfect persons are in the state of exercising perfection (as prelates), others are in the state of acquiring perfection (as religious).

a. About Persons in the State of Exercising Perfection

30. One can concede about the first that, when they are performing acts that belong to them by reason of such state of perfection (as teaching, judging, preaching), both sorts of lies [sc. useful and jocose] would be a mortal sin in their case, for they take away the authority and usefulness of the doctrine being preached, according to the remark of Augustine, based on three letters to Jerome [Letters 26 ch.3 nn.3-4, 40 ch.3 n.3, 82 ch.2 n.21], “If lies, however jocose, had been introduced in the Sacred Scriptures, nothing of solidity would remain in them.” For instance, if a prelate while preaching introduced a jocose lie, nothing of solidity remains in his teaching. For anyone can be in doubt about anything said by him as he can be in doubt about anyone else. Or the reason the hearer would not assent to the jocose lie would be a like reason not to assent to anything else that was said. And thus the authority of the teachers of the Church in their teaching will perish, and also their utility for the people listening. The same for solemn judgment or solemn teaching. And I mean this, that the lie is not perceived as said apart from the act of judging or teaching. For while someone is sitting in judgment it is possible to mix some scam in it, which from the manner of speaking is known not to belong to the judgment.

31. It seems, however, that a single jocose or useful lie does not impede the authority of a judge or teacher, but such a lie often repeated or the custom of thus lying does. But then, since according to the laws [Gregory IX Decrees I tit.6 ch.34] ‘a twice repeated act introduces a custom’, it follows that the second act is a mortal sin and not the first, although however the second is altogether like the first (as it seems) in all its circumstances.

32. Whatever may be true of one or several such lies in teaching and judging, at least in other acts it would not be a mortal sin, once the idea of scandal is removed.

b. About Persons in a State of Acquiring Perfection

33. If we speak of him who has the state of acquiring perfection, not of exercising it, something else seems it needs to be said. Such a person does not seem to be obligated more than others to anything that belongs to perfection, but only to what he has vowed. For he has not taken up the state of pastoral care, and so not an act pertaining to his person. Such a one, therefore, if he is not exercising a work of perfection (of which sort are teaching, preaching, and the like) does not seem to sin mortally in telling a useful or jocose lie more than any other Christian, save perhaps because of scandal. For the imperfect can be scandalized more by a lie from such a person than from a common person.

34. But deeds cannot be judged as to what they are from a scandal that does or does not accompany them

For generally, according to the evangelical law, all scandals whatever of the weak are to be avoided, according to Matthew 18.7, “Woe to the man through whom scandals come.” But the scandals taken by the Pharisees, not given to them, are not to be avoided, according to the words of the Savior in Matthew 15.12-14: when the disciples said that the Pharisees were scandalized when they heard Christ’s word, Christ replied, “Let them alone, for they are blind and leaders of the blind.” Whether then it is a question of deeds indifferent in themselves, of which sort is eating meat (about which the Apostle says I Corinthians 8.13, “If my brother is scandalized, I will not eat meat for ever”), or of deeds that have some malice, namely venial malice, yet naturally give occasion or cause of scandal to the weak who are present, these are to be avoided because of the scandal. But we cannot thereby judge what sort of sin it is from the nature of the deed in itself.

35. But as to what belongs to the nature of a jocose or useful lie in deeds said in the second way [sc. without accompanying scandal, n.34], it does not seem that someone in the state of acquiring perfection [nn.29, 33] is obligated by his profession to avoid them for any reason or severity of the precept more than any other Christian. However if right reason dictate that a single act of his or a frequent act is a scandal to the hearers, although a like act in another would not be a scandal, he is bound by charity or the salvation of his neighbor to avoid the scandal; just as in a moment of flight during time of suffering a pastor is bound sometimes not to flee, according to John 10.12-13, “A hireling, who is not the shepherd, sees the wolf coming and flees etc.” Augustine treats the matter well in

Epistle 228 to Honoratus (see Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet 15 q.16). But someone else, who is in the state of acquiring perfection and is not a pastor, is not bound of necessity not to flee if he can do otherwise. But he is bound not to scandalize his neighbor by fleeing, and sometimes his flight would be scandalous when the flight of the weak would not be scandalous. For neighbors would judge, from his flight, that because such a person, who has chosen so strict a life, does not expose his life to defend the faith, life should not be exposed even for this cause, and that such a one does not think well of the faith.