Do we live in a world of NECESSARY deceit and lies?

[Robert_Sock]

I’m sorry if I offended you, but you cannot reasonably apply any of your ideas to other people unless they agree with you that those theories are reasonable, or even theologically correct.

Nowhere am I asking people to shatter their belief system and accept my thoughts. They are only thoughts that anybody is free to accept or reject.

I honestly don’t know where my thoughts come from, but they exist within me, and I wanted to share them with fellow Catholics.

 

[dshix]

Nowhere am I asking people to shatter their belief system and accept my thoughts. They are only thoughts that anybody is free to accept or reject.

I honestly don’t know where my thoughts come from, but they exist within me, and I wanted to share them with fellow Catholics.

Fair enough.

 

[Robert_Sock]

Fair enough.

Thank you!

 

[R_C]

Are you inferring that we do not live in a fallen world?

No

Are you inferring that we do not live in a fallen world? What does it mean if not having Satan rule the world until we are saved?

Christ stated: “Now is the judgment of the world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.” Then He added after His glorious Resurrection: “All power is given to me in heaven and in earth.”

The apostle wrote: “…] his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things …] about the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever …] you have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet. Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control.” (Hebrews 1,2)

In Psalm 21 we find words that can be attributed to the Son inasmuch as He made reference to them on Calvary, and they make reference of Him on Calvary: “…] For the kingdom is the Lord’s; and he shall have dominion over the nations.”. The kingdom is, not “will be”.

Jerome, on the temptation of Satan to Christ, wrote: “arrogant and superb, he speaks with ostentation: he cannot give, in fact, all the kingdoms, for we know that many holy men have been made kings by God”.

Thomas Aquinas, in criticizing certain aspects of Manichaeism, wrote on the title “prince of the wold” that they rely on it to affirm that the adversary is the lord of the visible things, but he replied that this was “not because of a natural domain of his, but by usurpation, for mundane men, in despising the true Lord, subject themselves to him”.

But such power of subjection Satan cannot have it over those who are “reborn of water and Spirit” in Christ, for they are incorporated to His mystical body (1Cor 12, Eph 4) and Satan has lost all power and authority over Christ (John 14:30), the same Christ with whom Christians become one in the supernatural order. No doubt, Christians can lose that state of grace and fall under the power of the adversary, a prince without a principality, but all the while retaining the right, merited by Christ for them, to always appeal to the authority of Christ and return walking on the way of holiness.

But if Christians (who are not **of **the world but are **in **the world) can righteously call themselves servants of the Lord and have received authority over Satan himself (“in my name they will drive out demons”) how can Satan - that does have some power in the world - call himself “ruler of the world” (in which are also Christians) and at once be rebutted and driven away in the name (by the authority) of Christ, by those who would be his subjects? “how can anyone enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man?” For, “if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come to you”. Can a subject resist his legitimate ruler and drive him away? And yet the apostle James wrote: “resist the devil, and he will fly from you”.

 

[PolarGuy]

Yes, we live in a world where lies and deceit are necessary, and it is overly simplistic to believe otherwise IMHO.

Deceit is necessary for undercover police officers to impersonate criminals in order to perform police work. Civil law recognizes that police are allowed to lie to suspects as part of interrogating them, i.e., a policeman can lie to a suspect that another witness has placed the suspect at the crime scene, in order to elicit a confession if the suspect is guilty, and sometimes as a ploy to see what the suspect will say/do in response.

Deceit may be practiced in negotiations of legitimate business transactions. There is no moral turpitude present if I say, “my best price is $1000,” even if I may secretly be willing to pay up to $1200.

Lawyers are free to use exaggeration as a form of arguing their cases. They play up the strengths of their cases and downplay weaknesses. That may be a form of deception.

Deceit may be practiced in order to shield the innocent from those who would do them harm. When a known hoodlum shows up at my door, at night, drunk, and asks if my daughter is home, I am perfectly free to lie to him and say, “sorry, no,” even though she’s upstairs.

Deceit may be practiced simply to not be rude or to avoid hurting feelings. My aunt gives me a really awful cake. She asks if I like it. It’s awful. I tell her “it’s wonderful” just to avoid hurting her feelings.

I tell my daughter there is a Santa Claus.

People who think that none of the above are morally acceptable are, IMHO, going to make awful spouses and parents, and wonderful crime victims.

 

[Publisher]

If we do not speak truth, we cannot live in truth. Lies and deceit bind us to this world…“we are not of this world”

 

[PolarGuy]

Publisher, is it really so moral to “live in truth,” if doing so involves offering up my daughter to the drunk male caller? I’ll pass on that. Your statement sounds so nice, yet has little applicability to the real world.

 

[dshix]

Yes, we live in a world where lies and deceit are necessary, and it is overly simplistic to believe otherwise IMHO.

Deceit is necessary for undercover police officers to impersonate criminals in order to perform police work. Civil law recognizes that police are allowed to lie to suspects as part of interrogating them, i.e., a policeman can lie to a suspect that another witness has placed the suspect at the crime scene, in order to elicit a confession if the suspect is guilty, and sometimes as a ploy to see what the suspect will say/do in response.

Deceit may be practiced in negotiations of legitimate business transactions. There is no moral turpitude present if I say, “my best price is $1000,” even if I may secretly be willing to pay up to $1200.

Lawyers are free to use exaggeration as a form of arguing their cases. They play up the strengths of their cases and downplay weaknesses. That may be a form of deception.

Deceit may be practiced in order to shield the innocent from those who would do them harm. When a known hoodlum shows up at my door, at night, drunk, and asks if my daughter is home, I am perfectly free to lie to him and say, “sorry, no,” even though she’s upstairs.

Deceit may be practiced simply to not be rude or to avoid hurting feelings. My aunt gives me a really awful cake. She asks if I like it. It’s awful. I tell her “it’s wonderful” just to avoid hurting her feelings.

I tell my daughter there is a Santa Claus.

People who think that none of the above are morally acceptable are, IMHO, going to make awful spouses and parents, and wonderful crime victims.

You have made the same mistake as Robert Sock, that is, you have confused deceit with discretion.

In ALL of the cases that you named (the police interrogation one a bit less) these are examples of discretion, not deceit. The known hoodlum that shows up at your door has no right to the information that your daughter is home, therefore you have no obligation to tell him.

 

[dshix]

Publisher, is it really so moral to “live in truth,” if doing so involves offering up my daughter to the drunk male caller? I’ll pass on that. Your statement sounds so nice, yet has little applicability to the real world.

As I said before, this is confusing discretion with deceit.

 

[Inego_de_Loyola]

To those who say lies and deceit are never right, if you were protecting someone in WWII Germany and you were asked if you new the location of any Jews or other fugitive, would you lie and deceive the gestapo?

 

[dshix]

To those who say lies and deceit are never right, if you were protecting someone in WWII Germany and you were asked if you new the location of any Jews or other fugitive, would you lie and deceive the gestapo?

Ok… So you obviously haven’t read the thread. Try doing that before you post again.

 

[PolarGuy]

Unfortunately, claiming that there is a difference between deceit and discretion is totally unhelpful. If one makes that distinction, we can simply say, “all good lies are discretion and all bad lies are deceit.” Point is, the distinction reduces the question – are lies and deceit necessary? – into an absurdity that no one can question.

What you call discretion, I call allowable deceit/morally allowable lying. Since I contend some lying is allowable, we are saying the same thing.

 

[dshix]

Unfortunately, claiming that there is a difference between deceit and discretion is totally unhelpful. If one makes that distinction, we can simply say, “all good lies are discretion and all bad lies are deceit.” Point is, the distinction reduces the question – are lies and deceit necessary? – into an absurdity that no one can question.

What you call discretion, I call allowable deceit/morally allowable lying. Since I contend some lying is allowable, we are saying the same thing.

You are incorrect.

The distinction between deceit and discretion is this:

Discretion is the act of not revealing information which the inquirer has no right to, or who may do harm with the knowledge. Examples of these would be a beggar asking for money, or a Nazi stormtrooper asking if there are Jews kept in a home. In the first example, the inquirer has no right to the information, and in the second he may do harm with that knowledge.

Deceit is the act of withholding information or spreading false information in a case where the inquirer has a right to the information, in a case where the information is necessary for a good, to satisfy justice, or if the person being asked has bad intentions for withholding the information.

You may play around with definitions if you which, but doing so will neither help you nor anyone else.

 

[Robert_Sock]

You are incorrect.

The distinction between deceit and discretion is this:

Discretion is the act of not revealing information which the inquirer has no right to, or who may do harm with the knowledge. Examples of these would be a beggar asking for money, or a Nazi stormtrooper asking if there are Jews kept in a home. In the first example, the inquirer has no right to the information, and in the second he may do harm with that knowledge.

Deceit is the act of withholding information or spreading false information in a case where the inquirer has a right to the information, in a case where the information is necessary for a good, to satisfy justice, or if the person being asked has bad intentions for withholding the information.

You may play around with definitions if you which, but doing so will neither help you nor anyone else.

Do we have the right to know the covert operations of the government if it means that it’s a threat to national security?

 

[dshix]

Do we have the right to know the covert operations of the government if it means that it’s a threat to national security?

The government has the right to withhold intelligence operations knowledge from the public, to preserve that information from being handed to the wrong people.

 

[Robert_Sock]

The government has the right to withhold intelligence operations knowledge from the public, to preserve that information from being handed to the wrong people.

Am I talking about deceit or discretion? I never gave it much thought, but based on the definitions you provided I leaning toward discretion since I do not believe that the public have a right to know the covert operation of the government uses in controlling the population at large.

 

[dshix]

Am I talking about deceit or discretion? I never gave it much thought, but based on the definitions you provided I leaning toward discretion since I do not believe that the public have a right to know the covert operation of the government uses in controlling the population at large.

I believe you might actually be thinking of discretion.

The world by no means needs deceit, but there are many areas where discretion is very much needed.

 

[PolarGuy]

dshix, what you call “discretion” is precisely what has repeatedly been termed “lying” on various other threads on this board. I define “discretion” as “using good judgment.” It’s all in how you define the terms. My point is that you’ve simply made up definitions to support your point, which seems to be that “good lying is discretion and bad lying is deceit.”

 

[PolarGuy]

Look, dshix, we’re really saying the same thing, which is that hiding the truth is sometimes morally allowable.

 

[dshix]

dshix, what you call “discretion” is precisely what has repeatedly been termed “lying” on various other threads on this board. I define “discretion” as “using good judgment.” It’s all in how you define the terms. My point is that you’ve simply made up definitions to support your point, which seems to be that “good lying is discretion and bad lying is deceit.”

Look, dshix, we’re really saying the same thing, which is that hiding the truth is sometimes morally allowable.

Look, there is a distinction, so you can go on arguing with yourself if you want, but don’t bother trying to make me think that there is such a thing as a morally permissible sin. Either it’s a sin, and it shouldn’t be done (deceit) or it is not a sin, and can be done (discretion.) I didn’t make up these definitions, I took them from a textbook on Catholic Morality.

I’d suggest that the best way to save face is to simply admit that you didn’t know the difference. We all make mistakes.