A Lie Never Justifiable | Page 3

a prisoner of war in a Southern prison in
midsummer, or in a Northern prison in the dead of winter, in time of
active hostilities outside, can fully realize the heart-longings of a
soldier prisoner to find release from his sufferings in confinement, and
to be again at his post of duty at the front, or can understand how gladly
such a man would find a way, consistent with the right, to escape, at
any involved risk. But all can believe that plans of escape were in
frequent discussion among the restless Federal prisoners in Columbia,
of whom I was one.
A plan proposed to me by a fellow-officer seemed to offer peculiar
chances of success, and I gladly joined in it. But as its fuller details
were considered, I found that a probable contingency would involve the
telling of a lie to an enemy, or a failure of the whole plan. At this my
moral sense recoiled; and I expressed my unwillingness to tell a lie,
even to regain my personal liberty or to advantage my government by a
return to its army. This opened an earnest discussion of the question
whether there is such a thing as a "lie of necessity," or a justifiable lie.
My friend was a pure-minded man of principle, ready to die for his
convictions; and he looked at this question with a sincere desire to
know the right, and to conform to it. He argued that a condition of war

suspended ordinary social relations between the combatants, and that
the obligation of truth-speaking was one of the duties thus suspended. I,
on the other hand, felt that a lie was necessarily a sin against God, and
therefore was never justifiable.
My friend asked me whether I would hesitate to kill an enemy who was
on guard over me, or whom I met outside, if it were essential to our
escape. I replied that I would not hesitate to do so, any more than I
would hesitate at it if we were over against each other in battle. In time
of war the soldiers of both sides take the risks of a life-and-death
struggle; and now that we were unparoled prisoners it was our duty to
escape if we could do so, even at the risk of our lives or of the lives of
our captors, and it was their duty to prevent our escape at a similar risk.
My friend then asked me on what principle I could justify the taking of
a man's life as an enemy, and yet not feel justified in telling him a lie in
order to save his life and secure our liberty. How could it be claimed
that it was more of a sin to tell a lie to a man who had forfeited his
social rights, than to kill him. I confessed that I could not at that time
see the reason for the distinction, which my moral sense assured me
was a real one, and I asked time to think of it. Thus it was that I came
first to face a question of the ages, Is a lie ever justifiable? under
circumstances that involved more than life to me, and when I had a
strong inducement to see the force of reasons in favor of a "lie of
necessity."
In my careful study, at that time, of the principles involved in this
question, I came upon what seemed to me the conclusion of the whole
matter. God is the author of life. He who gives life has the right to take
it again. What God can do by himself, God can authorize another to do.
Human governments derive their just powers from God. The powers
that be are ordained of God. A human government acts for God in the
administering of justice, even to the extent of taking life. If a war
waged by a human government be righteous, the officers of that
government take life, in the prosecution of the war, as God's agents. In
the case then in question, we who were in prison as Federal officers
were representatives of our government, and would be justified in
taking the lives of enemies of our government who hindered us as
God's agents in the doing of our duty to God and to our government.
On the other hand, God, who can justly take life, cannot lie. A lie is

contrary to the very nature of God. "It is impossible for God to lie."[1]
And if God cannot lie, God cannot authorize another to lie. What is
unjustifiable in God's sight, is without a possibility of justification in
the universe. No personal or social emergency can justify a lie,
whatever may be its apparent gain, or whatever harm may seem to be
involved in a refusal