What Would Happen if We Stopped Lying?

Some ideas on the power of truth-telling

I recently had the opportunity to preach an evening of reflection for a group of about 50 well-formed Catholic men. Since they already knew a great deal, I wanted to present to them an aspect of Catholic life that is, at the same time, practical and often overlooked. So I chose the 8^th Commandment. Both Deuteronomy 5:20 and Exodus 20,16 say: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” That is the same title the Catechism of the Catholic Church gives to the 8th Commandment, though we usually memorize it even more simply: “Thou shalt not lie.”

“Not to lie” is one of those principles of Catholic life that 1) we know very well and by heart; we’ve heard it preached to us since we were kids, and nevertheless 2) most of us probably don’t practice very well. And I think that is because we don’t sufficiently understand its importance, which in itself is a pity, since lying is one of the principal obstacles to our spiritual growth.

I arrived at these conclusions through a personal experience. About ten years ago, I was reading “12 Rules for Life: An Antidote for Chaos” by Jordan Peterson. Rule #8 is: “Tell the Truth – or at least don’t Lie.” It’s an awesome chapter from an excellent book. Anyway, after an introductory story, Peterson writes the following paragraph of his own experience: I had had a strange set of experiences a few years before embarking upon my clinical training. I found myself subject to some rather violent compulsions (none acted upon), and developed the conviction, in consequence, that I really knew rather little about who I was and what I was up to. So, I began paying much closer attention to what I was doing— and saying. The experience was disconcerting, to say the least. I soon came to realize that almost everything I said was untrue. I had motives for saying these things: I wanted to win arguments and gain status and impress people and get what I wanted. I was using language to bend and twist the world into delivering what I thought was necessary. But I was a fake. Realizing this, I started to practice only saying things that the internal voice would not object to. I started to practice telling the truth— or, at least, not lying. I soon learned that such a skill came in very handy when I didn’t know what to do. What should you do, when you don’t know what to do? Tell the truth.

That is just part of the chapter, of course, but I was very impressed after reading that chapter. I thought it was so convincing and impelling. So, I asked myself: “Do I lie?” I thought I never did. It was just so basic, something my parents had taught me as a boy, and I thought that I had assimilated it well enough. I was an honest guy, or so I thought. I didn’t even include the 8^th commandment in my conscience exams, or only very rarely in the most obvious cases. But when I started thinking about it and reflecting upon my actions and my preaching, what did I discover? To my great surprise, I discovered that I lied a lot more than I had expected. I would stretch the truth to make it funny, or more acceptable, or say something just because it was original and striking, something that would make me look good. I embellished and exaggerated. Sometimes – it’s almost embarrassing to say it now – I would tell a “little white lie” in a conversation or over the telephone to get out of a disagreeable situation. What I have discovered since then is that almost all my lies proceed from my vanity or my fear (two of my most detestable vices). But, to go back to the story, after reflecting on that chapter and what I had discovered about myself, I made the following three resolutions:

1. From now on, I will always tell the truth

2. From now on, I will only preach what I think is true.

3. From now on, I will include the 8^th commandment in my conscience exams before confession.

That is not as easy as it sounds. However, I worked on it (and continue to work on it!) and it became essential to me. It affected my conversations, writings, and preaching. Since I had to practice it every time I opened my mouth, I experienced it influencing all my relationships, including my relationship with God. I guess it was a new level of introspection, because in order not to lie, you have to be constantly aware of not only what you are saying, but also thinking, feeling, and praying. I was no longer allowed to lie to others, and, strangely enough, nor to myself or God! To seriously propose that to oneself is to set new guidelines on all of one’s rational and spiritual life.

Why is it so important to always tell the truth? We already stated how little consideration we give to it and how important it is to our spiritual lives. So I would like to answer that question with two brief sections. First, we will consider the surprising importance of our words or language in general for our spiritual lives, and then we will examine lying or truth-telling specifically.

1. The Importance of our Words in our Spiritual Life

What external faculty do we have that we don’t share with animals? We have thought, love, and free will, but these are internal. What about an external faculty? Though some might argue we have unique faculties such as “toolmaking”, the principal exterior faculty we have that differentiates us from animals is our language. Only man can speak; God has given us words to reveal the truth about ourselves and our world. For example, St. Thomas Aquinas explains that we, as rational and spiritual creatures, have an interior word that our rational mind conceives, and then the external word that we speak. Animals, he says, on the contrary, can communicate in some basic ways, but their inner word, so to speak, is instinct, not spiritual or rational. St. Augustine agrees, and goes so far as to write (De Doctrina Christiana, ii, 3): “Compared with words, all other signs are very few, for words have obtained the chief place among men for the purpose of expressing whatever the mind conceives.” Therefore, not only is the word or our language the principal spiritual tool we have to interact with the intelligent (spiritual) world around us, but it is also the principal symbol or sign we have for what is going on inside our souls. In short, our words reveal our soul.

So here is a first practical question we might add to our personal conscience exams: if my words are ignoble, full of the basest words we have in our language, or lies, what does that symbolize about what my soul is like? If I am cursing and banalizing and debasing in my words, St. Augustine would say that is the best sign of a cursing, banal, debased soul. And if I constantly lie, or lie very often, even if only in the little things, what does that say about my soul? The implication is that if I lie often, then my soul is a liar, and if my soul is a liar, how can I have an authentic relationship with others, or even with God?

The great importance of our use of words and language for our spiritual lives is, of course, linked to Christian theology’s reflection upon the importance of the word. When St. John proclaimed, “The Word became Flesh”, he revealed that somehow the speech of God, his internal word, his divine thought, became a man. All Christians now proclaim that Jesus Christ is God’s Word: He reflects the “soul of God” and reveals it to us. Now, if God used His Word to reveal Himself to us and save us, our “word” should imitate His as much as possible, and so our word takes upon itself a very hefty ethical weight. As God shared his being, his soul, with us through his Word, so also we share with others the richness, or the baseness, of our God-given soul. And the logical conclusion of this syllogism is the following: just as God’s Word reveals Himself to us and saves us, so, analogically speaking and in a lesser way, our words too reveal who we are and also can save us and sanctify us, or, to the contrary, condemn us. That is precisely what Jesus says in Matthew 12:36-37: “I tell you, on the day of judgment, people will render an account for every careless word they speak. By your words you will be acquitted, and by your words, you will be condemned”. So, how much importance should we give to our speech? How much importance do we give to it?

I think it is somewhat surprising that, considering its importance, our use of language is so flippant and unconscious; in fact, it is probably true that most of us don’t think about it at all. And, nevertheless, I have discovered, especially in spiritual direction with so many men, that our words do reflect what is going on in our hearts and minds. If your speech is ignoble, there is also a lot of ignominy going on in your soul. On the other hand, I have also discovered that if we can cleanse or ennoble our speech, the habitual use of those noble words makes them come back like a boomerang and slowly cleanses and ennobles our souls as well. Why? Probably because we are imitating God in his use of His Word, but also perhaps because we are practicing the same process we use to grow in any virtue. By practicing acts of charity, I become a more charitable person, and by practicing acts of detachment, I become a freer person. Does it not then follow that by speaking charitably, I will become a more charitable person, or, in our case, by always telling the truth, I will become a more truthful person? In Chapter 3 of St. James’ letter, he writes: “If anyone does not fall short in speech, he is a perfect man, able to bridle his whole body also.” Practically speaking, I think this is true.

2. The Importance of Truth-telling or Lying

The importance of truth-telling is one aspect of the general truth about our language, of which we have just spoken. However, I believe it is also the most critical aspect, and this belief is supported by Catholic tradition and thought. To begin with, besides the Eighth Commandment, the Bible repeatedly testifies to its importance. For example, in Ephesians 4:25 we read: “Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another,” or Psalm 15:-2 “O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill? He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart; who does not slander with his tongue.” We also see this in solid Catholic philosophy. Josef Pieper in his book “The Four Cardinal Virtues” writes: “Man attains to his authentic treasure and proper realization of himself when he sees the truth and does the truth.” For his part, St. Thomas Aquinas puts the same thought in more theological language: “The good of man, insofar as he is man, consists in his reason’s being perfected in the knowledge of the truth and his subordinated appetitive powers’ being ruled according to the directions of reason.” (Quaestio disputata de virtutibus in communi, 9) Of course, part of doing the truth – Pieper – and being ruled according to reason – Aquinas – is speaking the truth. But let us finish with perhaps the greatest of Christian writers about truth, St. Augustine, who writes in book 4 of the Confessions:

“My soul, at least now that you are wearied of deceptions… entrust to the truth whatever has come to you from the truth. You will lose nothing. The decayed parts of you will receive a new flowering, and all your sicknesses will be healed. All that is ebbing away from you will be given fresh form and renewed, bound tightly to you. They will not put you down in the place to which they descend, but still stand with you and will remain in the presence of the God who stands fast and abides.”

In a basic way, St. Augustine here answers our title’s question: “What Would Happen if We Stopped Lying?” Augustine’s answer: You will lose nothing. The decayed parts of you will receive a new flowering, and all your sicknesses will be healed. That is a great promise. It is based on fundamental classical and Catholic metaphysics. In the philosophical traditions of Plato and Aristotle through Aquinas, “transcendentals” are considered properties of being that transcend categories and apply to all that exists. In the Christian tradition, they are, thus, the attributes of God Himself. They are Unity (or being), Goodness, and Truth (some add Beauty as a fourth). Truth, thus, is one of the three transcendentals, those qualities of God that He alone possesses entirely, or is entirely, and that we can only weakly participate in. Augustine puts this philosophical thought in a more poetic language when he wrote, in his Confessions, this famous prayer:

Oh, Eternal truth, and true love, and beloved eternity: you are my God. (O aeterna veritas et vera caritas et cara aeternitas! Tu es Deus meus.)

Similarly, in his book “The Soliloquies,” he wrote: “I invoke You, O God, the Truth, in whom and from whom and through whom all things are true which anywhere are true.”

In simple words, God is Truth; without Him, there would be no truth, and by telling the truth, we participate in Him. What would happen if we stopped lying? There are many ways of answering that question, but the simplest would be: we would become more like God, who is truth itself, or more like Jesus Christ. St. John Henry Newman once wrote: “Better to fail in truth than to succeed in falsehood.” Jesus is the exemplar of that principle: he died for the truth, –failed for the truth– as he told Pilate while being condemned to death: Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” (John 19:37) If we stopped lying we would be so much more like Christ. And if we don’t? Pope Gregory the Great wrote: “The tongue, by speaking falsely, kills the soul. … If we lose truth, what remains?” (Moralia in Job, Bk. 22)

If telling the truth is so important, precisely what is “lying”? The Catechism, quoting St. Augustine, defines it this way 2482 "A lie consists in speaking a falsehood with the intention of deceiving." It then goes on to say: 2483 Lying is the most direct offense against the truth. To lie is to speak or act against the truth in order to lead into error someone who has the right to know the truth. By injuring man's relation to truth and to his neighbor, a lie offends against the fundamental relation of man and of his word to the Lord. Now, even in Catholic circles, there still exists a fair amount of debate and disagreement about the sin of lying. For example, St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas disagree to a certain extent: generally, St. Augustine held that all lying is intrinsically sinful, regardless of the intention or outcome, while St. Thomas distinguished between different types of lies: officious lies (told to help someone), jocose lies (said in jest), and malicious lies (told to harm). For example, in ST II, II, q. 110 and 111, St. Thomas confronts the fact that in Scripture, we do see people lie. (For example, Abraham when he told the Egyptians that his wife was his sister, and the midwives when they told the Egyptians that they were not helping the birth of Hebrew male children.) His arguments to justify this are various, but they turn around the fact that we are not obliged to disclose the truth to those who have no right to it, that some of the scripture must be interpreted mystically, and that even the people in scripture were not perfect. (For example, Thomas says that the midwives were good for fearing God and refusing to turn the children over to the Egyptians, but that still their lie “was not meritorious.”) But in brief, he also agreed with Augustine in that: “lying is directly and formally opposed to the virtue of truth” and “dissimulation is always a sin”. (ST II, II, q.111, 1)

When discussing these things, we can all probably think of the old example of whether I am allowed to lie to the Nazis when I am asked if I have Jews or priests hiding in my attic. Still, in this brief essay, we won’t concern ourselves with those academic or scholastic discussions (which today are, thanks be to God, very rare in the first place). Our task is more straightforward. What is it? God’s eighth commandment, “Thou Shalt not Lie,” or, as Peterson entitled his 8^th rule of life: “Tell the Truth, or at Least Don’t Lie.” The fact that God’s 8^th Commandment is Peterson’s 8^th rule helps me to remember both.

Before ending, one caveat. It is a reminder: telling the truth is not easy; it requires introspection, self-discipline, and, I think, above all, humility and trust in God. In my experience, most of my lies proceed from my vanity or fear. What is the antidote to that? Humility and trust in God. For if we are humble, we will not have to prop ourselves up (vanity) with lies, and if we trust in God, we won’t be afraid (fear) of telling the truth.

When preparing this talk, I was reminded of two literary examples that illustrate how vanity and fear can make it so difficult always to tell the truth. The first was a poem by C.S. Lewis, called “Posturing.” One of his biographers, Humphrey Carpenter, quotes it while opining that Lewis fought with the vice of vanity most of his life.

Because of endless pride
Reborn with endless error,
Each hour I look aside
Upon my secret mirror
Trying all postures there
To make my image fair.

That is just part of it, but if Carpenter was right, Lewis confessed that much of his life he struggled against “trying all postures there / to make my image fair.” Do we do that? This is the lying that comes from vanity.

Another example is from Dostoyevsky’s “The Possessed.” In it, Stepan Trofimovitch is an intellectual liberal who confesses near his death that he had spent almost his entire life in vanity, affectation, and hollow words. His lies weren't always falsehoods in content, but they were performative, never rooted in love of truth for its own sake, but only if it helped him. This is what he says:

“My friend, I’ve been telling lies all my life. Even when I told the truth, I never spoke for the sake of the truth, but always for my own sake. I knew it before, but I only see it now…. Oh, where are those friends whom I have insulted with my friendship all my life? … Perhaps I am telling lies now; no doubt I am telling lies now. The worst of it is that I believe myself when I am lying. The hardest thing in life is to live without telling lies … and without believing in one’s lies.” That is lying because of pride, and perhaps even more fundamentally, fear.

To end, here is my proposition for our future spiritual work: always tell the truth. Mark Twain once wittingly said, “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything,” and there is a lot of humorous wisdom in that. But to respond perhaps a bit more seriously to the original question of our title, “What Would Happen if We Stopped Lying,” let me propose some answers:

1. The most obvious: We would become more like God, who is truth itself, and we would gain a greater conformity to Christ, who said of himself: "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6). In that sense, every truthful act would become a form of imitation of Christ. Lying, conversely, would align us with "the father of lies" (John 8:44).

2. There would be a restoration of greater trust and social order, for example, in civil and political institutions (imagine if we could believe that our politicians or those who control such companies as Big Pharma didn’t lie!): we could begin to trust them again. The same goes for our marriages, friendships, and families.

3. We would gain freedom of thought and actions. Lies always blur moral clarity in our relationships with ourselves and others. If we stopped lying, we would be forced to face difficult truths about ourselves, our relationships, and the objective duties of our vocation. Freed from our vanity and fear, we would be free to be evangelizers and quasi-modern-day prophets. Solzhenitsyn emphasized this aspect in his 1974 essay “Live Not by Lies”, where he proposed “truth-telling as resistance,” and that tyrannies would collapse when the people stopped pretending their lies were true. Jesus said: "The truth will set you free." – John 8:32

4. Finally, we would recover the power, or perhaps even the sacramentality, of speech, as God intended it to be. As I’ve tried to state in this essay, in classical Catholic thought, speech is not neutral—it is a gift from God, meant for communion, confession, and praise. To stop lying would be to recover the sacramental dignity of words, so to speak, their moral weight and power. As Jesus said: "Let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything more comes from the evil one." – Matthew 5:37