Your interpretations aren't far-fetched ... it's just that they're adding a subtext to the story that would be interesting if true, and would be reasonable if the story didn't make sense by itself, but that is speculation, and an unnecessary addition to a story that makes perfect sense by itself, and which changes the meaning of the story.


The NKJV has "What is your servant, who is a mere dog, that he should do this great thing?" And a quick Web search for translation-comparison sites suggests that most other recent translations are similar. I've always interpreted this as doubting that he'd ever have the opportunity, not asserting his moral superiority. Note that everything Elisha said he would do was not unheard-of in war in the period.


I don't know how highly placed he was, other than being in more or less personal service to the king of Aram. But here he's been sent to the foreigner personally responsible for many of his master's losses in the recent war, whom Ben-Hadad is here treating as at least an equal if not a superior ... And in any case, we might be interpreting "was ashamed" too strongly. It might just mean something like "flushed". But, again, the unwavering stare of a prophet for who-knows-how-long might be enough to induce real shame. Perhaps (and here I speculate ... but this doesn't change what we can draw from the story one whit one way or the other, whether I'm right or not) Hazael had already started to think about how he could take political advantage of knowing that Ben-Hadad was going to die when others thought he would live.


My point was that it's hardly helpful to bring up your answer to the (still-not-settled) question that is the nominal subject of this thread as the linchpin of your argument for why we should ignore the most obvious reading of this particular story.


My take on the Sixth Commandment (or, rather, on the yet more ancient law that it re-promulgates) is that killing is a sin unless it is lawful.
It seems to me that "[an] actual sin" and "a symptom of our inherent sin nature" are two ways of saying the same thing ... so you need to at least expand further to establish a qualitative difference between killing and lying that necessarily makes the former sometimes lawful and the latter never lawful.

I will grant (playing devil's advocate against myself ...) that I'd be hard-pressed to find conclusive, clear, inarguable proof-texts that obedience to God sometimes might require lying, in contrast to the multitude that show God commanding his people to kill. But I wouldn't want to try to conclude anything from that absence, especially with passages---like the two stories about Elisha---that could be used as attempted-proof-texts but aren't clear either way.

Of course it is, but our country will end up there sooner than we all care to think. I and my family have already had to stand before an ethics committee, in this country, and defend my beautiful little brother's right to live. That no Doctor had a right to take his life from him. It is one of the most traumatic and horrific things a family can undergo. Our beliefs and our views were no longer 2 dimensional thoughts. We had to have the rubber hit the road, so to speak. We had to put the things we believed into action. And that is hard.

I said before, it is easy to sit here on a forum and debate this topic, and many others on here for that matter. But reality is very different. I have always been strongly pro-life. But when you have to take a stand and make other people see the value in life- when you have to be willing to do whatever it takes, no matter the cost, to defend that life- things become very different.

That’s why I think we have to use these situations when we talk about these kinds of subjects. We have to think in real life terms. Because those days will come. Either we will have to deal with them, or our children and our grandchildren will have to. And if we are not ready, we will fall.

I would say, if God convicts you that lying to save a life is wrong, then you should stand by Nollie. I admire Nollie not for telling the Nazis she was harboring a Jew. I admire her because she did not go against her convictions. And I think God rewarded her for that, not for telling the Nazis true information.

But I am strongly convicted, without a shadow of a doubt, that God would not chastise me for saving a life as Corrie did. Corrie's heart was pure, and I can imagine myself in her place. Every part of me would say to tell them the truth. To protect my own flesh. But I fully trust God will give me the strength to deny my flesh, my sin nature, and to say no, I was not harboring a Jew.

Like Phylis I've always held Corrie ten Boom in the highest regard.

Okay Airi, I think I get the nuances of what you're saying for the first time. So you believe that if the heart is right, the actions are not sinful even if they would usually be classified as sin purely on the basis of heart intent?

@Kingjon: *grins* I had better not say anything more, had I? But seriously, I appreciate your response and will ponder. I'll post in reply after I've given myself enough time to look at it freshly, maybe in a week or two...

Couldn't agree with that more.

Yes, that is exactly what I am saying.

Okay....

*echoes self to Kingjon* Perhaps a week... maybe two... a month?

Well, I think that, for myself, I couldn't not lie to save someone's life without sinning. Because I wouldn't really be trusting that God would take care of it. Maybe I should, but at the moment at least, I wouldn't. It would really be more of, well, hiding. I think that perhaps for Nollie to have lied would have been sinful, and would show a lack of trust in God, but for Corrie to not have lied would have been sinful, because it wouldn't have been done in complete trust, and would instead have been, well, a little cowardly.

Although I'm not really a fan of saying it's relative. But maybe it's like Paul's letter about eating meat sacrificed to idols and all, but with the people like Corrie actually in the place of 'the weaker brother'. Eh, I don't know.

A heart issue, yes.

I don't believe lying is relative. I believe the Bible shows us what makes the action of lying sinful, and what does not.

I do understand what you are saying, Airi, and I too value the incredible preciousness of human life. I'm not trying to downgrade that in any way. And of course, we need to understand what we believe to prepare for such situations.
I pretty much agree with you about lying and the motives of the heart, that you do not mean that lying is relative.
Anyway.... my brain is rather scrambled....

No, I do not believe lying is relative. *shakes head *

You're onto something there about the trust. There are many passages that say something can be a sin for one person and not another based on what they know and their faith. Notable is that passage of Paul's, in which he says that someone who doubts if eating something is right or not is condemned if he eats, because it is not done in faith. While at the same time, Paul, being convinced that all things are clean, is perfectly fine eating (or drinking) that same thing.

Rahab is even commended in Hebrews 11 for her faith, which led her to lie.

I know some of you have mentioned this...the only lying mentioned in the ten commandments is slanderous lying intended to hurt someone else.

The Bible does talk about lying quite generally at times, but after studying it, I come to the conclusion that there are two sorts of lies. The first is selfish or self-preserving, lying to cover up your own mistakes or sins. This is what is wrong. The other is used to combat evil (such as what Rahab did), to protect innocence, whether in defense of the lives of others or your own life. Just as intentional killing (murder) is not wrong when you're taking out an evil man who's holding a child hostage, telling a lie is not wrong when you're using it to protect a life. Actions that are wrong when used to protect a guilty conscience, hurt others, or bring gain to yourself can be right when used to protect innocence.

Yes. From the text:

It appears that Elisha was testing Hazael. A righteous man would have objected to lying to his master, and Hazael did not, thus revealing that he was evil. Elisha then wept because he knew the evil that Hazael was going to do.

This is an important distinction. From the Bible, it appears that a lie is what could perhaps be described as an absolute affirmation of an untruth, which is different than being misleading. Whether or not being misleading is acceptable depends on the heart of the person doing the misleading.

However, whether or not lying is always wrong is not addressed quite as clearly in the Bible. There are instances where people of God lie to protect innocent lives and the lies are not condemned, though nor is their lying ever directly commended. Since, as far as I know, the only places that the narrative could be seen to imply lying is acceptable are instances of protecting innocent lives, this probably means that even if lying is acceptable to protect innocent lives, there is no other acceptable reason for lying.

On the other hand, the Bible calls lying the language of the devil. We know God doesn't lie, and if we are to be imitators of God, should we ever lie?

I believe Rahab's commendation is close enough to directly commending a lie, because the whole thing she is commended for (hiding the spies) involved an outright lie, and the success of it hinged on that lie.

I currently have nothing say that hasn't already been said. But it's a fascinating conversation.

Actually, Batman, Rahab was commended for welcoming the spies, not for hiding them (which involved the lying).

That's what it says in Hebrews...and I would say that it would not have been 'welcoming' of her to tell the truth, therefore lying about where they were hidden was part of that welcome.

Also, in Joshua it says "...because she hid the messengers..." Part of hiding them was lying to the people who were looking for them.

Spying (except perhaps by hiding and using telescopes or something) is an inherently deceptive act, insofar as it relies at the very least on withholding information that would drastically alter others' reaction to you, and generally on outright lying about who you are and what your purpose is in the place you're going.

Did we already cover arguments for a moral difference between deception and lying per se?

That's a good point, Sam, and a problem I've been dealing with in one of my novels (in as much as one character is probably a spy). However, in the example of spying, I have come to the conclusion that Christians shouldn't be spies. Of course, this causes me to struggle with the example of Rahab and the spies (for the spies were Jews). After working through that, I believe that what the spies did was right, for they were a part of the Theocratic Government. However, Christians shouldn't do that now because they are no longer a part of an earthly government (Rom. 12:19, Rom. 13:4) and shouldn't behave like one.
Sorry for derailing the thread.

I'm totally on Matt's side. Rahab is a great wrench in the system.

Astronomer, are you a Divine Command Theorist? This is not an attack or a rhetorical question. I really need to know if I'm going to make sense to you. Also, sorry if you've already answered it in the other thread; I can't seem to recall whether you did or not.

In case you don't know what that means/weren't in the other thread/need reminding:

A Divine Command Theorist believes that the good is defined as "what God commands." Thus, what is morally right is what God commands, and it is right only because God commands it. Presumably, He could have commanded the opposite, and in that case it would have been right.

Essentially, yes. God created physics, but he himself is above physics. God created morality, but for this he took sides. God is inherently good and therefore that which he commands is good. In the Hebraic times, God commanded the Jews to do a lot of things which we might consider evil now, but a lot of the laws that happened back then were enacted because of their hard hearts. They had to be protected from evil or go astray. Now, God has shown us true morality: love for one another. God's command is to love Him and love one another. Therefore, as long as our intentions are pure, then our actions will be so as well. Therefore, as long as you love (seek the best for) the 'innocent' party and the 'evil' party, then lying is not a sin. The question is (and the answer probably varies depending on the occasion): is lying the best, loving response in such a situation.

OK. I'll need some time to think about my response to that. I don't agree with Divine Command Theory at all, but that may be another topic for another thread. This is a perpetual problem in discussions I participate in: We can't even begin to discuss X until we agree on Y, but we can't discuss Y here, so we go to another thread. Rinse and repeat.

I would say that if it's relevant to the subject at hand you should be fine discussing it in this topic, as long as you bring it back around to the subject of lying.

Hmm... I am very wary of this position because of how easy it can be seemingly abused. If you look at 2 Samuel 6, Uzzah was struck dead for trying to keep the Ark of the Covenant from falling. Right intentions? Yes. But God struck him dead because of his actions.

I believe that we need not only to have right intentions, but also to use the right way to accomplish those intentions. I don't think you're arguing this, but by the guidelines you set, one might be able to extrapolate that to an ends-justifies-the-means-type argument where if there are good intentions you can commit many sins to get there.

Getting back to the subject at point, I think there are very few cases where it is right to lie. Your solution, even in context, still seems a bit too abusable. With your criterion if "Is lying the best response in such a situation," that seems to allow a whole host of issues and open a large gate of making excuses for when it would be right to lie.

The only situations I see for being right to lie is if you are saving someone's life, and that's the only situation in the Bible that it appears to be allowed, and even then only under certain circumstances.

Sam Starrett, I'm confused. The only reason that lies are wrong is because God says truth is good. If God commanded us to lie, then truth would no longer be important and lies would not exist. The only reason adultery is wrong is because marriage is important. If God commanded adultery then marriage would not be important and therefore there would be no adultery.
This is why I am so hesitant to say lying is 'right,' because lies are a corrupting of truth, just as lust is a corruption of marriage. Perhaps my views of lies need to change...

Here's a question:
What other option is there other than divine command theory? That good is relative to the situation?

OK. That's Divine Command Theory. But I don't agree with it at all. The good is not defined as "God's commands," although the two largely coincide because God is all-good.



I think it's your view of meta-ethics that needs to change. But maybe your views of lying need to change as well. Are lies a corruption of the truth? Maybe, and as long as I'm taking this sort of semi-Aristotelian/Thomist line of reasoning, I may be forced to that conclusion, but one step at a time. Let's define a lie. I'll define it and you can object if you wish.

A lie is any statement made to another person with the intention to deceive, that is, to cause him to hold false beliefs.



Well, there's traditional Christian meta-ethics, which, if I understand them correctly is what I adhere to. The theory goes something like this:

1. Existence is good.

The Good is identical to Existence, to Being Itself. This is the ultimate reality, what an apple and a rock have in common. They both are; they exist by participation in Existence Itself, which is also the Good. It follows, then, that evil is not a real thing but a privation or failure, not a principle but a disorder.

2. Existence is God/God is Being Itself

Conveniently (no, it is not a coincidence), God is Being Itself. Thus, God is the Good. That being said, however, this is not Divine Command Theory. God's commands are good because they conform to a standard, and that standard is not themselves: it is rather the very nature of God. This is also why God must exist: because existence exists, and in fact, to ask whether existence exists is to ask a nonsense question, because it can only be asked by a being that exists, thus proving that existence exists.

3. God is thus the Good and the ground of all goodness, but not through His commands.

However, obeying God's commands is a way for us to align ourselves to become more like him, correct?

From what I see, the only reason you object to the Divine Command Theory is that you believe good is more than merely God's command. Good is God himself. Is that correct?

I agree with that definition of a lie. Still, in Corrie Ten Boom's situation, you would define what she did as lying (since it was intentionally deceiving the Germans). Is that correct?

More precisely, they weren't part of it, they were acting under the orders of a "theocratic government."

But many Christians are part of or under orders from governments ... not governments with God as their Head of State, admittedly, but Romans 13:4 explicitly says that governmental authority is God's authority (the Reformed tradition tends to understand that with an implicit qualifier of something like "while the governmental authority is not in rebellion to God," but that's not relevant to this question) and the government is the means by which God carries out the vengeance which he claims as his prerogative. What about them?

Romans 12:17-21
These verses are the context in which Paul talks about the government. This is the role of the church: Not repaying evil for evil, but living at peace with everyone. If someone hurts us, or others around us, then Paul says to not take revenge, but to leave room for God's vengeance. I think it's quite clear that since we cannot take revenge, the government became the carrier of that revenge. However, since we cannot take revenge, it seems logical to stay out of government.

As for Christians who are already in government, I would advise them to dig through the scriptures (if they haven't already done so) and reconsider whether their position is right and Godly. If they decide it is, then they should stay there. If they decide it isn't, then they should resign.

As for the Romans 13:4, Paul says a bit later why obedience is required. (Romans 13:5-7) It is for cleanliness of conscience and avoidance of punishment (for doing wrong). However, if Christians were to take the 'do not take revenge' to an extreme, then they would not even pay taxes (for that would contribute to the government's taking revenge). Paul says to give to the government that which you own (taxes, respect, honor, etc), but still to remain in obedience with Romans 12.