Can Truth Telling Be Sin?

[Homer]

There was much discussion some time back about whether there could be situations where it was not sinful to tell a lie. Rahab is the classical biblical example of deceiving and being blessed for doing so. (Deceiving is the dictionary definition for lying.)

James 2:25
New American Standard Bible 1995
25 In the same way, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way?

Paidion and I took the hierarchical position that there is a hierarchy of moral laws and in some cases they conflict, i.e. saving a life (love) and truth telling. Love is the higher obligation so in rare cases telling a lie to save someone from murder, etc., is not a sin.

I recently found at my favorite bookstore, St Vincent DePaul Thrift, an old, excellent copy of "Christian Ethics" by Newman Smyth, International Theological Library, 1892. In chapter 3, "Duties Towards Others as Moral Ends" I was surprised to find a discussion concerning whether truth telling could ever be a sin. I had never thought of this. Smyth cited the following case:

An officer in our civil war was once taken captive during a confused fight in a piece of woods. The lines on both sides had become very much entangled during the engagement. The squad of Confederates into whose hands the officer had fallen were separated from their command, and did not know in which direction through the thick underbrush they should seek for their own lines. The Union officer heard them saying to one another, "ask the Yankee; he will lie, and we will go in the opposite direction." So he told them the truth, and by means of the truth which he knew would be received as a falsehood by his captors, he deceived them, leading them straight into his own command, and they became his prisoners.

Should he have told them a falsehood for the sake of giving them the truth? Are some (any) so called "white lies" not sin?

[Otherness]

Greetings Homer,

Just this morning I read something dealing with this very "issue." Here is the link :

https://www.liveaction.org/news/born-21 ... BJPozPle1A

Near the end of the piece there is a short account of someone doing this very thing : telling a lie for the love of another life.

[Homer]

Otherness,

Thanks for your response and the link. Very interesting story; my wife and I are very much opposed to abortion.

[TK]

It would seem lying for an immoral reason is always sin, but otherwise may not be.

[Homer]

But can truth telling be sin if it results in harm or death to another?

[TK]

I remember when I was a kid we had a book by Fritz Ridenour (I think) that was essentially a critique of Joseph Fletcher’s situational ethics. I’m actually kind of shocked I can remember that being as I have not seen that book in over 45 years. I remember looking at it because of the illustrations.

But one of the examples in the book was where a woman barges into someone’s home and asks to be hid from a maniac trying to kill her. The homeowner hides the woman then moments later the knife wielding madman barges into the house and the homeowner says “I cannot tell a lie- she is hiding in the closet.”

In my view the homeowner has sinned heinously. The Ten Boom’s would not have delivered up the Jews they were hiding if they were asked if they harbored any.

I don’t think I could be convinced that the person in the hypothetical was not sinning by telling the truth or the Ten Booms were sinning by lying to Nazis.