“Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour” Ex.20:16”
The general scope of the Nineth Commandment is to enjoin the virtue of TRUTH, as represented, according to the usual method of the Decalogue, under the capital duty of fidelity in bearing witness. The precept of the Nineth Commandment requires the maintaining and promoting of truth, especially between man and man, and of our own and our neighbour’s good name in bearing witness. It forbids whatsoever is prejudicial to truth, or injurious to our own or our neighbour’s good name.
The duty of veracity is founded on the nature and importance of God’s will enjoining truth by which we express or assert anything conformably to our belief of the real state of the thing spoken of. All the practical concerns of man’s life are with the real state of things, events and circumstances. Fictitious information are, to us, naught or worse than naught, they may lead us into fatal mistake, they cannot be the grounds of any beneficial or successful action. On the real state of the market, depends the merchants profit. On the real power of the medicine, depends the physician’s success and the sick man’s restoration. On the real nature of the vegetable laws depends the records of the farmer’s toil. In every conceivable concern of man is its truth, the communication which is in accordance with reality, that is useful. Accordingly our Maker has endued us with a mental appetite of which truth is the natural food.
Any statement on which we cannot rely gives no pleasure. True, another faculty than the understanding, the fancy finds its appropriate pleasure in fiction. But here also, a tribute is paid to the truth, for in order that the fictitious may give any pleasure to the fancy, even it, must be truth like.
A liar is an enemy of God and man, considering the effect of his vice on the confidence of man. The intercourse of human business is a countless series of implied engagements, therefore, unless we can trust the fidelity of others who interact with us, everything including government would grind to a halt, because the drive and powers of every head whose subordinates cannot be relied on would be limited to only his own presence.
Without truth man would be reduced to a solitary miserable savage “whose hand would be against every man and every man’s hand against him” for savagery is simply sin of lying. Not only is veracity a virtue, but truth is, in a certain sense, the condition of all other virtues. Hence in many Bible passages, truth is almost synonymous with righteousness. The “man who doeth truth” is the man that does his duty. The good man is “he that speaketh the truth in his heart”. To “execute the judgment of truth” is to execute righteous judgment. This language is profoundly accurate.
The motive of every act which has moral quality must be a reasonable one; and truth is the appointed light of understating. No man does a truly virtuous act unless he has an intelligent reason for doing it. And all the inducements to right actions are in the truth, but all the inducements to wrong actions are false. Philosophically, error and sin are kindred evils, as truth and holiness are handmaid and mistress. Truth is the instrument by which the Holy Ghost sanctifies the soul. (John 17:17). Thus truth is affirmed to be of the most exalted value and means of redemption for a ruined world. Truth is as beneficent as falsehood is mischievous. The former is the guide into heaven, the later leads to hell.
Since man is limited to the sphere of philosophy and natural theology, he finds the obligation to truth in the fundamental facts which reveal the will of the Creator as it is impressed on the constitution of the soul. The obligation to speak the truth is anchored on the law of nature as the fundamental datum of conscience, a command of God impressed on the moral structure of the soul. Thus the obligation is universal. When we pass from philosophy to revelation, we find still, broader and deeper foundation for the obligation to truth in the nature of that God “who cannot lie” who is the “God of truth”, his precepts are the sure and sufficient rule of our duty. He has told us that “every liar is abomination in His sight” and has required us to speak the truth to one another.
Every right habit of action implies a right disposition of will. This general law emphasizes convincingly, the great fact, often overlooked in ethical discussions of this duty: that there is a virtue of truthfulness that supports the practice of veracity, and its source which every man must possess. This is the love of truth for its own sake. The virtue is not a habit qualifying the actions and words, but an active principle qualifying the will itself. Just as in other acts of moral acts, the act is moral simply because of the active principle which is regulative thereof. No more is needed than to state the truth. And this truth dissolves, at a touch, the vain assertion that the intelligence acts by its necessary logical laws and therefore irresponsibly to the conscience. On the contrary the intelligence acts always under strict responsibility to the conscience; and man is responsible for his mental beliefs.
The sin of slander or backbiting, where the assertions of evil in our neighbour are false, its malignity is great, as it assails him in a point very dear to him – his good name – and is usually attended with vile adjuncts of secrecy and treachery. (Jas. 3:6,7). It is not always well understood that it is often a sin to repeat true accusations against our neighbour. However, there is time when the cause of virtue demands that ill-conduct shall be denounced. And under such occasions, the virtuous man should not be afraid to speak out. But it is a sin against the erring neighbour to give unnecessary currency and emphasis to his faults. “Charity rejoiceth not in iniquity”. The fact that the neighbour has truly sinned does not place him outside the pale of charity, nor does it entitle us to inflict on him any unnecessary injury or pain.
Moreover, the recital of evil, true or false, has a natural tendency to familiarize the soul with it, to defile the memory and imagination, and to habituate the mind and conscience to wrong. It is especially to the young, a real misfortune to have to hear of that which is morally foul. This mischief should never be causelessly inflicted by detailing sins, no matter how true, without necessity.
Violations of the prohibitions of this commandment are as grievous as those of other correlative precepts of the Decalogue. The Bible in Proverbs 6:16 includes bearing false witness with its twin evil of sowing discord among brethren as among the seven vices God hates most. And the 5th verse of the 19th chapter of Proverbs declares that “a false witness shall not be unpunished and he that speaketh lies shall not escape” This is repeated in the 9th verse. In chapter 25 verse 18, the preacher says “A man that bears false witness against his neighbour is a maul and a sword, and sharp arrow”. A maul was a war club that crushed in the heads or smashed the bones and bruised the flesh of its victims. Some attacks made upon a man’s reputation are crude and simply, like the maul, crush the victim down in ruin. Others inflict deep cut with sharp words which incapacitate and often destroy like the sword. One other favorite weapon of the malinger of his fellows, is the arrow. Sped from distance, it pierces the heart and saps the will to struggle against covert enmity of the archer, who often disguises as a friend. Such attacks violet the Six Commandment as well as the Nineth.
The Nineth Commandment finds expansions in a number of other passages of the Bible such as Ex. 23:1 which forbids calumny and slander, and in the last half of the verse prohibits joining others in spreading this mischief. Though the word “witness” in this passage, as in many others, implies that the law is concerned primarily with the conduct in courts, it is not limited to that. Lev. 19:11 warns against stealing and dealing falsely and lying to one another. Stealing, and falsifying are kindred sins. The later is often necessary for the former (see Lev. 6:2). There are many ways of stealing, as well as, lying. God desires truth in the inward parts (Ps.51:6), and anything that savors of craftiness or hypocrisy is an abomination to God. (see Eph. 4:14; 1 Tim. 4:2). Deut. 5:20 is a reaffirmation of Ex. 20:16.
MORAL DECEPTION
The Theory of Moral or Righteous Deception hold that there are intentional deceptions which are not breaches of the Nineth Commandment, and are innocent in the sight of God. These include cases of where the persons deceived are adjudged to have no right or have forfeited the right to know; and where the result of the deception was righteous and beneficial; as when a robber or murderer is misled away from his victim by an innocent deception; or where a defensive army deceives an invader by stratagems. The argument in support of the foregoing chiefly include: that the parties deceived, in each instance, being engaged in a wicked design, have no rights to the benefits of veracity as between man and man: that the common conscience of mankind approves the adroit use of such stratagems by good men as commanders of armies, and would count otherwise, as morbid conscience and insane disposition not to apply such defence stratagem: that many instances are recorded of Bible-Saint like Abraham, Moses, Joshua etc., who effectively applied concealment and stratagems, for instance Joshua 8:3.
Against the foregoing is the principle of “No lie is of the truth” which postulates that it is a man’s privilege to keep silence or apply concealment where and when no right exists to demand information of him. This principle asserts that in no case can a man intentionally produce a deception, without the sin of lying.
This is based generally on the principle, that the opposite license proceeds upon a utilitarian theory – which is not on all fours in this instance, because no finite mind can correctly or accurately judge the whole utility or harmfulness of a given statement and its ulterior consequences as no practical basis or rule of obligation would be left at all. As in the case of Joshua 8:2, God Himself authorized a designed deception for the purpose of punishing the guilty. As His authorizing Joshua to exterminate the Amorites proves that all killing is not murder, so does His authorizing him to deceive them, prove that not all deception is lying. This right to deceive is only morally applicable in extreme circumstances where life is maliciously assailed or threatened.
The plea in such a case is that the assailant not only has no right to any consideration on ground of moral precepts, but also is out of the category of beings to whom truth is relevant, for the time. He is not a rational man, but a brute. As an outlaw for the time being, he has no right to truth, having forfeited his right to existence. And on the principle of the greater including the less, he is, ‘pro tempore’, in the category of a beast of prey. However, the moment he is disabled from aggression, or turns to a better mind, his right to truth is restored, as do his claims to charity and forbearance. Similarly, while a good man may righteously deceive an invading army with stratagem, the moment a flag of truce is raised, or the enemy disabled and captured, he is bound to act towards the aggressor with perfect sincerity as towards his bosom friend. Not to do so would violet the principal injunction of Christianity “ye have heard that it hath been said thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you “love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you” (Matt. 5:43-44; Luke 6:27-29).
In this passage, Christ seems to be saying “the law says love your neighbour, but I say, love even your enemies” the Greek word “Agapao” rendered love means to extend the love to those who donot love us. It describes love from the standpoint of respect and esteem, adding principle to feeling in such a way that principle controls feeling. It brings out the higher powers of the mind and intelligence combined with selflessness. The “agape” of the NT is almost exclusively confined to the Bible, and is love in its highest and truest form (referred to in John 15:13). It implies reverence to God and respect to fellow man. It is a divine principle of thought and action that modifies the character, governs the impulses, controls the passion and ennobles the affections. To “agapan” (love) one’s bitterest enemy is to treat him with respect and courtesy and to regard him as God regards him. According to ancient manuscripts Christ simply said “love your enemy, pray for them that persecute you”.
