Summary: <p>I explore Augustine's case against lying. </p><p><br></p><ul> <li><strong>A huge thanks to Seth White for the awesome music!</strong></li> <li> <strong>Thanks to Palmtoptiger17 for the beautiful logo:</strong> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/palmtoptiger17/">https://www.instagram.com/palmtoptiger17/</a> </li> <li> <strong>Discord Discussion Board:</strong> <a href="https://disboard.org/server/474580298630430751">https://disboard.org/server/474580298630430751</a> </li> <li> <strong>Facebook Page:</strong> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thewayfourth/?modal=admin_todo_tour">https://www.facebook.com/thewayfourth/?modal=admin_todo_tour</a> </li> <li> <strong>YouTube:</strong> https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTd3KlRte86eG9U40ncZ4XA?view_as=subscriber</li> <li> <strong>Instagram: </strong>https://www.instagram.com/theway4th/ </li> <li> <strong>The Historic Faith Courses:</strong> <a href="https://thehistoricfaith.com/">https://thehistoricfaith.com/</a> </li> <li> <strong>Spotify Playlist:</strong> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4VSvC0SJYwku2U0awRaNAu?si=3ad0b2fbed2e4864</li> </ul><p><br></p><ul> <li> <strong>Against Lying:</strong> https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1313.htm</li> <li> <strong>On Lying:</strong> https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1312.htm</li> <li> <strong>Previous episode on lying:</strong> https://thefourthway.transistor.fm/episodes/consequentialism-the-moral-conundrum-of-lying-to-save-lives</li> </ul><p><strong>Quotes:</strong></p><p>1: Of lies are many sorts, which indeed all, universally, we ought to<br>hate. For there is no lie that is not contrary to truth. For, as light<br>and darkness, piety and impiety, justice and iniquity, sin and<br>right-doing, health and weakness, life and death, so are truth and a<br>lie contrary the one to the other. Whence by how much we love the<br>former, by so much ought we to hate the latter. Yet in truth there be<br>some lies which to believe does no harm: although even by such sort of<br>lie to wish to deceive, is hurtful to him that tells it, not to him<br>that believes it.</p><p><strong>2: </strong>Some man will say, So then any thief whatever is to be accounted<br>equal with that thief who steals with will of mercy? Who would say<br>this? But of these two it does not follow that any is good, because<br>one is worse. He is worse who steals through coveting, than he who<br>steals through pity: but if all theft be sin, from all theft we must<br>abstain. For who can say that people may sin, even though one sin be<br>damnable, another venial? But now we are asking, if a man shall do<br>this or that, who will not sin or will sin? Not, who will sin more<br>heavily or lightly.</p><p><strong>3. </strong>Apostle Peter had that in his heart which he had on his lips when<br>he denied Christ? Surely in that denial he held the truth within and<br>uttered the lie without. Why then did he wash away with tears the<br>denial which he uttered with his mouth, if that sufficed for salvation<br>that with the heart he believed? Why, speaking the truth in his heart,<br>did he punish with so bitter weeping the lie which he brought forth<br>with his mouth, unless because he saw it to be a great and deadly<br>evil, that while with his heart he believed unto righteousness, with<br>his mouth he made not confession unto salvation?</p><p><strong>4. </strong>Why then do we not rout out heretics, in order to their being<br>caught, by the flesh committing lasciviousness in adultery, and yet<br>think right to rout them out by a mouth committing fornication in<br>blasphemy? For either it will be lawful to defend both the one and the<br>other with equal reason, that these things be therefore said to be not<br>unjust, because they were done with intention of finding out the<br>unjust: or if sound doctrine wills not even for the sake of finding<br>out heretics that we should have to do with unchaste women, albeit<br>only in body, not in mind, assuredly not even for the sake of finding<br>out heretics wills it that by us, albeit only in voice not in mind,<br>either unclean heresy were preached, or the chaste Catholic Church<br>blasphemed.</p><p><strong>5. </strong>But he who says that some lies are just, must be judged to say no<br>other than that some sins are just, and therefore some things are just<br>which are unjust: than which what can be more absurd? For whence is a<br>thing a sin, but for that it is contrary to justice? Be it said then<br>that some sins are great, some small, because it is true; and let us<br>not listen to the Stoics who maintain all to be equal: but to say that<br>some sins are unjust, some just, what else is it than to say that<br>there be some unjust, some just iniquities?</p><p><strong>6. </strong>commit not thou a great crime thine own, while thou dreadest a<br>greater crime of other men, for be the difference as great as thou<br>wilt between thine own and that of others, this will be thine own,</p><p><strong>7. </strong>e36For if a lewd woman crave of you the gratification of her lust,<br>and, when you consent not, she perturbed with the fierceness of her<br>love should die, will chastity also be a murderer? Or, truly, because<br>we read, We are a sweet savor of Christ in every place, both in them<br>which are saved and in them which perish; to the one, indeed, a savor<br>of life unto life, to others a savor of death unto death; shall we<br>pronounce even the savor of Christ to be a murderer? But, for that we,<br>being men, are in questions and contradictions of this sort for the<br>most part overcome or wearied out by our feeling as men, for that very<br>reason has the Apostle also presently subjoined, And who is sufficient<br>for these things?</p><p><strong>8. </strong>m37 (context of telling a lie to a man on death bed about his son who<br>died): Nay more: for these persons who are so enamored of this life,<br>that they hesitate not to prefer it to truth, that a man may not die,<br>say rather, that a man who must some time die may die somewhat later,<br>would have us not only to lie, but even to swear fasely; to wit, that,<br>lest the vain health of man should somewhat more quickly pass away, we<br>should take the name of the Lord our God in vain! And there are among<br>them learned men who even fix rules, and set bounds when it is a duty,<br>when not a duty, to commit perjury!</p><p><br></p> <strong>Thanks to our monthly supporters</strong> <ul> <li>Philip Does</li> <li>Laverne Miller</li> <li>Jesse Killion</li> </ul> <strong> <a href="https://www.patreon.com/thefourthway" rel="payment" title="★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★">★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★</a> </strong>
