It worked for the midwives in Egypt.
I bet Moses was grateful.
You can’t possibly know that. ** If ** the potential victim believes the the answer to the question, “are you alone” is anything short of “I’m with someone” even if its a stone cold lie and that lie decreases the chance of rape or assault, you have no business risking another’s safety or life with this advice. None. At. All.
Respectfully, this isn’t advice, it’s Church teaching (it’s really Divine Law, but I’ll haggle over that later.) Lying is objectively wrong. Full stop. Now let me clarify, I didn’t mean to imply that no good ever comes of lying. That’s not always true. BUT my point is is that this is how the rationalization for doing wrong starts. “If I do this wrong, then this good will happen.” that’s the problem. You don’t know that and have no control over the ends. Like abother said, if he is truly stalking you, “he will know your every move and know that you are lying which will likely only enrage him anyway.” See? What do you do when you can’t see all the ends? You do what is right and avoid doing wrong, It’s the one thing we do have control over. And as others have pointed out, there are a whole lot of things that can be done instead of lying.
As I’ve said elsewhere. Duress can mitigate your culpability for doing wrong. If I was in a bad situation and tempted to do an objective wrong, yeah, I’d likely cave, depending on the mercy of God to understand that. However, it’s still wrong and no amount of rationalization can make it right.
So: The church allows one to kill in self-defense, but we
Self-defense is not objectively wrong. Lying is. For instance I can’t slip drugs in my stalker’s food, take him home, tie him up, shoot him and say it was self-defense. That’s murder which is objectively wrong.
Yeah. I’d advise my wife to lie to a potential rapist if she thought it might save her and keep our daughter from being raised without a mother. In fact, I’d tell her to do whatever it takes to avoid a rape, regardless of what happens to the rapist. Call it an exercise in self-defense. Intrinsic evil or not. As a father and a husband, I don’t see how I could do less.
Respectfully, you are not even interacting with my points anymore. You are merely ratcheting up the scenario which you think justifies doing wrong. What of it? Since we are concocting fantasy scenarios, let’s put it this way, what is your advice to a loved one if the rapist says, “Deny Christ and I’ll leave you alone.”?
I fact, I’ve implicitly acknowledged your points, and the authority behind them, and I still dissent. Perhaps my conscience is still unformed properly.
Your response is too slippery. My point concerned an
That point occurred to me too. Legitimate SD can involve killing, and if we look at it this way, a lie is is preferred lesser means of SD because no life is taken.
I think you did, but I’ll let that pass since what follows is much better. I won’t propose to judge how well your conscience is formed.
Well yeah, you are. We went from stalker to potential rapist with the implication that the rapist is right on the point of attack and a lie will stop it.
Thanks for your candor. I rest my case because you have basically admitted that life (or even still, life without suffering) is more important than Christ. That Our Lord is pretty ok, but when the going gets tough, you gotta do what you gotta do.
It is my earnest hope that God would give me the strength to choose Him over dodging whatever ill-wind blows my way. But I can’t when under no duress and in full command of my will tell people it is ok to do wrong as long as the circumstances are dire enough. It ain’t true. Many of us, myself included, may fail when the trial comes, but I will likely assure failure if I hold to the notion that God doesn’t care about justice and right and wrong at the outset.
The problem I think is that some people under the impression that I mean that God can’t or won’t forgive a wrongdoing. Not true. He can. My problem here is that there seems to be the belief that because God can forgive, that means wrongs are not really wrong and that it is ok to go ahead and do wrong if stuff gets bad. This is plain ol’ heresy of consequentialism–the worldly philosophy held by amost everyone–atheists, ultraconservatives, Lefty Moonbats, Muslims, Hottentots. If that is so, what’s the point of being Catholic? Our Lord told the woman about to be stoned, “Go and sin no more.” He didn’t say, “Go and sin no more. But if you are really hard up, go ahead and sin, and what exactly is this sin stuff anyway?”You know, I love reading these forums.
I think I’m a over-scrupulous,ultra-conservative Catholic until I check out some of the responses online & then I feel balanced-out.
I disagree. The hypothesis is not unreasonable, especially because it may subjectively appear that way from the point of view of the victim. There is no way of knowing whether or not any defense tactic would work, and so I would leave the assessment to the person on the spot with the most to lose. If she thought it would work, then lie.
I admit to being adverse to martyrdom. I said nothing about life without suffering, which I’ve seen and lived through possibly more than others. So be careful on how you characterize my reticence. Don’t go all Donatist here.
You don’t know either.
How did you prepare that? steamed with a little garlic and cashews or what?
I’ll drop the scenario point since we are not getting anywhere and it really doesn’t bear on my main point.
Again, lying is objectively wrong. Meaning no circumstance can justify it.
I was referring to being raped. Assuming the person wasn’t also killed, that is what I meant by suffering.
It’s not the reticence that is at issue. It’s the telling people do anything, even if it is wrong, to survive. Even to the point of denying Christ. You are saying it’s ok. I’m saying it’s not.
???
That only proves my point further. If I say, “Oh well, it doesn’t matter if I do wrong in small thing”. Why would I suddenly say it matters in a big? And we are back to the only thing I am really interesting in establishing: lying is objectively wrong (which one can read about in the CCC starting at section 2475.) and can never be a legitimately chosen act.
Ok, but what does that have to do with the truth that lying is objectively wrong?
I would suggest that she could have chosen to submit willingly to her rapist’s sexual demands, in which case she might very well have survived. Was she wrong to say no and resist? That’s what some here seem to be suggesting.
I agree that it would likely not be mortal sin, but would caution against the thinking that as long as it’s just venial, or calculating that it would be venal, it’s ok.