Quote:
Originally Posted by Freedom
According the the Bible, I think that a lie can potentially be any sort of untruth. That part is not entirely clear. Notice though, that my reply was regarding a statement that you made: "The Bible technically does not say "do not lie." It says do not bear false witness. That is a specific kind of lie." I was primarily reacting to that statement. I do not see where the Bible limits the scope of lying to only bearing false witness. Maybe within the context of the 10 commandments yes, but that was not the context of the discussion that was taking place beforehand.
Like I posted yesterday, I see the intention to deceive as the main type of lie that Bible is concerned with. Christians shouldn't be actively seeking to deceive others.
This is why I stated yesterday that there is a lot of grey area. Yes, we should be judicious with our words, but even that can backfire sometimes. For that reason I would not be so quick to assume that a lie is justified by someone's inability to handle the truth. There are times that the truth is needed despite the possibility that it might hurt someones feelings. There are other times when the truth could be used with ill motives, such as if a man were to purposely call his wife fat.
If the truth is used to provoke a negative reaction, then yes, it is wrong. It is wrong based on the motive. In your example, the use of the partial truth or a lie is almost always justified. But in other examples, the opposite might be true. Examples all have their limitations.
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All good reasons that it is difficult to define a lie that is prohibited in absolute terms.
My suggestion was not to say that we are free beyond when we are "on the stand." But short of that, there is a lot of grey and there is reason to be judicious. While not necessarily on point, there is a place where we are advised to be cunning as serpents (I think that is stated correctly). But it would appear that there evidently are times when being less than forthcoming is actually encouraged.
And while I do not believe in a post-modern kind of truth, there is a lot in which the answer is not as absolute as we often think, but is contextual. Just like the issue of judging. We are told in one context not to judge and in another to judge.