Pints With Aquinas - BONUS: Is Lying Always Wrong? Fr Gregory Pine Vs. Dr. Janet Smith

Episode Date: March 10, 2021

Dr. Janet Smith and Fr. Gregory Pine will debate the morality of lying.   Join my email list and get my FREE ebook! https://pintswithaquinas.com/understanding-thomas/ SPONSORS Hallow: http://hallow.app/mattfradd  STRIVE: https://www.strive21.com/ Catholic Chemistry: https://www.catholicchemistry.com/   GIVING Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mattfradd This show (and all the plans we have in store) wouldn't be possible without you. I can't thank those of you who support me enough. Seriously! Thanks for essentially being a co-producer coproducer of the show.   LINKS Website: https://pintswithaquinas.com/ Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/matt-fradd FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/   SOCIAL Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PintsWithAquinas Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattfradd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pints_w_aquinas   MY BOOKS Does God Exist: https://www.amazon.com/Does-God-Exist-Socratic-Dialogue-ebook/dp/B081ZGYJW3/ref=sr_1_9?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586377974&sr=8-9 Marian Consecration With Aquinas: https://www.amazon.com/Marian-Consecration-Aquinas-Growing-Closer-ebook/dp/B083XRQMTF/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586379026&sr=8-4 The Porn Myth: https://www.ignatius.com/The-Porn-Myth-P1985.aspx   CONTACT Book me to speak: https://www.mattfradd.com/speakerrequestform

Hello, hello, and welcome to Pints with Aquinas. My name is Matt Fradd, and I'm super glad to have you here today. If you are new to the channel, we like to discuss the Catholic faith through a Thomistic lens. Do us a favor, click subscribe and that bell button, and that way Google will be forced to let you know whenever we put out a new video. Think of it as making Google evangelize. It's a great idea. a new video, think of it as making Google evangelize. It's a great idea. Today, of course, we have Dr. Janet Smith and Father Gregory Pine, who will be debating whether or not it is ever okay to lie. Before we do that, though, I want to say thank you to one of our sponsors, and that is Halo. Halo is an excellent Catholic prayer app that will help you to pray. It is the number one

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their sleep stories, their Lectio Divinas, they lead you in the rosary, daily gospel reflections. I've used it, my wife used it, and it's actually really good. hallo.com slash mattfradd. hallo.com slash mattfradd. Okay, without any further ado, let's bring up Dr. Janet and Father Pine. Lovely to have you with us.

Thank you. Thanks so much. Yeah, you got it. Before we get underway, would each of you take a minute? By the way, I just got to say, I'm just super jazzed about this debate. Dr. Janet Smith, I mean, that talk you gave on contraception 800 years ago changed my life. It changed how I thought about moral law, the teleology of moral acts. And I'm just thrilled to have you on the show. I'm a big fan of you and Father Pine, of course, yourself.

It's just lovely to have the two of you in dialogue. Before we get underway, now that I've got that out of the way, I'm like fangirling. If we could have maybe Dr. Janet and then Father Pine just tell us a little bit about who you are. Right. Well, I am the famous Janet Smith who produced this tape years ago, Contraception, Why Not? And it was becoming less controversial in my life. So I needed to find some more controversial topics. I'm speaking a lot on gender identity these days, which is another very controversial topic, transgenderism. And then also the question of lying. I sort of want on my tombstone the woman who convinced people to stop contraception and to feel comfortable about telling some falsehoods.

That's my goal. Not quite. Anyway, I've been a professor for many years, first at Notre Dame, University of Dallas, finally Notre Dame. I've written my most polished essay on this is in First Things in 2011 called Fig Leaves and Falsehoods. I've received a couple responses since then, and I hope soon to, this is sort of reactivating my desire to respond to those. One's in Nova et Vedra edition, one of them in 2000. It had to be after probably 2012.

So anyway, it's a new topic of interest, and I may call 10 years new, but something I'm interested in getting the philosophical establishment to take another look at. Thank you. Is that good enough? That's great. Father Pine. Hello. My name is Father Gregory Pine.

I'm a doctoral candidate at the University of Freiburg in Switzerland, where I'm studying Christology, specifically soteriology, so how does the Lord Jesus Christ save? specifically soteriology, so how does the Lord Jesus Christ save? Previously, I served at the Thomistic Institute in Washington, D.C., and other things of interest are few. I contribute to a podcast called God's Blending with four other Dominican friars, which is weekly, half hour, fun, I think, so you can check that out. That's it. Excellent. Thank you. Right. Well, here's what we're going to do. We're going to give 15 minutes each for opening statements, just so we know, you know, what each means by lying and just kind of let each person lay out their case. So Father Pine will begin with 15 minutes, then Dr. Janet Smith. After that, we'll have about a

30 to 45 minute discussion. After that, we're going to take a time of Q&A. If you want to make sure your question's read, make sure you add it as a super chat or over on Patreon. And after that, we'll do closing statements of about five minutes each. All right, so let me just throw this up here, Father Pine. And whenever you are ready, we can begin. Perfect. Let's do it. Whenever you are ready, we can begin.

Perfect. Let's do it. So for an opening statement, rather than giving fully formed arguments and playing them out to their, I don't know, fullest or final term, I thought we could just do a kind of quick vocab and grammar study. So just kind of go through the tradition, talk briefly about what St. Thomas Aquinas has to say in receiving the kind of scriptural and Augustinian testimony on the matter, because I think that'll set up the subsequent discussion in such a way that everyone has a feel, you know, all those viewing or all those listening have a feel for what's at stake. So here we go. Truth and lie. The basic principle is a biblical one. Thou shall not bear false witness. And obviously everything here is downstream of that. So it's about an interpretation of that mandate, right? Of that commandment and how it touches us concretely, particularly in

our lives. So I'm going to kind of pick up Augustinian things and scriptural things along the way, but mostly follow what St. Thomas Aquinas has to say, because I am a Thomistic hack. So, St. Thomas has his treatment of lying in the Treatise on Justice. So, you recall three big parts to the Summa. The first is mostly about God and creation. The second, mostly about the moral life. And the third, mostly about Christ and the sacraments. So this falls within the moral life broadly conceived, and then specifically those virtues by which we ourselves are perfected on the way back to God. And he treats it as a potential

part of justice. He treats the virtue of truth as a potential part of justice. And for him, it's like a virtue of civility. That's not his language, but it's maybe language subsequently attributed to him by like Father Romanus Cesario, for instance. So there are a handful of these kind of baby virtues, these potential parts of justice, like liberality or gratitude or vindication or amicability, which really build up social discourse. So the types of things without which our social lives tend to break up or tend to even collapse. So you would typically think about them in light of the common good and what you owe to the common good. So what we're talking about with respect to truth is

we're talking about what is due. What is due to another human being? So then, what is truth? How does St. Thomas understand truth? Basically, we seek by the virtue of truth to ensure that our externals, so words and deeds included, are duly ordered in relation to something as sign to thing verified. For those listening at home, you're like, wow, great, totally clear, excellent, wonderful definition. So the idea being, okay, so externals, words and deeds, what you say or what you do is duly ordered. Okay. So it should adequately, or it should proportionately reflect what? To something as sign to things signified. So basically what you say and what you do should be an appropriate sign of what it is that you mean to communicate. And St. Thomas gives two main reasons as to why this is the case. He says, first, it's the natural orientation of

such acts to be ordered in this way. Basically, and here we can just talk in terms of speech acts. Basically, when you use your voice, you can use it for a variety of reasons. You can encourage people. You can make a joke, right? You can issue a command. But typically when you use it after the manner of an assertion, like I am an American, right? You're taking a subject and you're joining that subject to a predicate and you mean to use it in such a way that you convey what is, or you convey what you think. So this is the natural orientation of this type of speech act. And again, the logic can be extended to deeds as well. So that's the first of the two main reasons why St. Thomas says we should be truthful. The second is that they occupy this important

place vis-a-vis the common good. And what St. Thomas understands by the common good isn't just like a collection of things that we can all kind of cash out on. For him, the common good is this network of relationships. It's a whole of order. So it includes family, it includes polity, it includes church, and each has its own particular common good, but those common goods are hierarchically ordered. So the one conduces to the next. And effectively what we are trying to do in seeking the common good is seeking to promote a good, a transcendent good, which is widely diffusive, right? One in which we all participate by virtue of our humanity, one in which we are all one into which we are all born. And he thinks that one of the kind of fundaments, one of the foundation stones of this type

of common good is truthfulness, because he says if we don't traffic in true communication, then we cannot build basically beyond that. Okay, so then he passes on to a description, after having to discuss the virtue of truth, he passes on to a description of lying, and he says that lying is to be condemned as contrary to the virtue of truth and thereby sinful. All right, so you set up a moral kind of standard, the operative habit that perfects us, right, with regard to the common good, and then lying is discussed as inimical to it. So what is a lie? St. Thomas says, you say what you think to be false so as to deceive someone else. And you typically hear in conversations along these lines those two elements, both of which are identified.

So you say something that you know to be false, and you say it so as to deceive. Two main reasons he thinks why this is sinful, and it maps on to the two main reasons why we should be truthful. So it's against the natural orientation of such acts. He says it's unnatural, and it's undue. Basically, the reason that we were given the faculties we were given so as to communicate as we do or so as to communicate as we ought are transgressed by an act of lying. So you have this voice for communicating the truth for doing a variety of things, right? We said like telling jokes, giving exhortation, this, that, and the other thing. But when you make assertions, you do so with the intention. I mean, the actual

faculty itself kind of has inbuilt the intention to communicate the truth, and when one lies, he or she transgresses the nature of that faculty. And then the second being that it undermines the common good. So it sows seeds of distrust, it sows seeds of, yeah, potential rancor, disharmony in the common good, and makes it difficult to achieve those ends towards which the polity of the church, whomever is ordered. St. Thomas thinks that lies, and here he's following the Augustinian tradition, that lies are always evil. He says they're evil from their genus since they bear on undue matter, which is effectively the language of an intrinsically evil act.

So an intrinsically evil act being the type of thing which cannot be used for any reason, because it cannot be ordered to a good end. So St. Thomas thinks that in order for an act to be good, all of its aspects have to be good. So the object on which it bears, the intention for which it is done, and the circumstances that surround it, all of them have to be good. If just one of those things is evil, then it vitiates the whole act. And in the case of lying, the object is always evil. So whatever act it is part of, right, will always thereby be evil. So it cannot be licitly used to a good end. And here he's drawing on scripture, right? He quotes a lot. There's one particular passage from Proverbs that St. Augustine picks up a lot. He quotes the Eighth Commandment. In this regard, he quotes a variety of texts, and he does so wisely, not just like proof texting, like he's just mining the scriptures so that way he can beat his points over the heads of his opponents.

up this question just to kind of treat it on its own, but then also at a point in the church's life when certain of his Christians were trying to infiltrate a heretical sect in order to bring it down, as it were, and he's like, no, you can't deceive people even if it's for this end. And this would be the type of teaching which is enunciated in these terms in the Catechism of the Council of Trent, and then Dr. Smith has brought to our attention in her article that she mentioned that there is some ambiguity in the present Catechism. So I think that'll probably come up in conversation. So I will leave it till then. The next thing is for, as far as distinctions go, there are three main types of lies that you hear described in these conversations, what are called the malicious or the mischievous lie, which is a lie that's told to hurt someone.

And this would be the most grave type. Then there are jocose lies, which would be the types of lies which are told for amusement. To be clear, St. Augustine, in just like the second paragraph of his first treatise on lying, he says, you know, when you tell a joke and that joke contains some untruth, but it's within the context of a joke, people understand it within that genre. So Jaco's lies here aren't, it's not just like telling jokes, but it'd be the type of potentially hurtful deception in pursuing some amusement, which is thereby sinful. And then the last is officious lies. And this is where things really get exciting, where things really heat up, because these are the types of lies that one would tell so as to help someone. Okay, so St. Thomas identifies these as least grave.

So we also introduce the language of mortal and venial sins. Typically, malicious lies are described as mortal. Often, jocose and officious lies are described as venial. But you can't parse it just that way way because circumstances and ends can shape the character of the act in such a way as to make some more or less grave. But typically an officious lie told for a good reason would be counted as venial. So the big question is whether officious lies can be told in grave circumstances. So I think about my role here as kind of bumping and setting, and Dr. Smith will spike and then we'll subsequently go from there. Okay. So I'm just going to set up the question as it's often posed. So we typically put it in the most

urgent terms. So the setting being Second World War, let's say that you are a Dutchman and let's say that you are harboring Jews, whether in your basement or in your attic or behind one of your walls, and a Knox, excuse me, a Nazi Knox, those are two distinct words, a Nazi knocks at your door and says, do you have any Jews? Okay. So some have argued that you ought to say, yes, you know, there are Jews here. Some have argued that you ought not. You should say, no, there are no Jews here. Some have argued other things. What's not always clear in the argumentation is whether it's morally praiseworthy or it's morally blameworthy or if it's somewhere in between or whether this counts as a lie, whether this doesn't count as a lie, whether lies are always bad, whether they're not always bad. So it's like the waters are kind of muddy around this point. So I don't want to overgeneralize in a way that's unhelpful,

but I just kind of want to try to get to the heart of the matter. So ambiguity acknowledged, not sufficiently addressed. That is my fault. I'm now moving on. So the principle that's at stake here is you oughtn't do evil that good may come. Okay. So St. Augustine, he quotes this text and he, well, he basically says, ought we to kill the body, excuse me, ought we to kill the soul to save a body? All right. So, so St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas would both say in this circumstance that lying is sinful. All right. And as a result of which one ought not lie because there's not a place within their moral system, which tolerates sin or which would encourage sin, even if the outcome of it would be of great benefit for those who do. So, St. Augustine says, or quotes this passage from Proverbs, the mouth that lies slays

the soul, all right? So, when trying to evaluate this question, I think it's most helpful just to say it's a venial sin, okay? It's a venial sin, all right? So, it's this particular thing, it would not be a mortal sin, it's a venial sin, and if a venial sin, then that should color our evaluation of the act, okay? So, St. Thomas understands venial sins typically as sins analogically so-called. So, in his understanding, you know, he takes from St. Augustine's definition that his sin is any thought, word, or deed contrary to the eternal law, all right? And mortal sins would be the types of sins whereby one takes as his or her end something other than God, and as a result of which sunders that relationship with God. Venial sins, he says, are not sins like this, okay? So they do not amount to a sundering of one's relationship with God, and as a result of which, they don't fill out the full definition of sin as it's often described.

So venial sins are less grave, obviously, and they don't kill the life of charity, though they may dispose to further sin, and they may retard one's progress in the good life. they may retard one's progress in the good life. Okay. So I think a helpful analogy is if you think of yourself as in a car on your way to a destination, say that destination is heaven, a mortal sin is like a car wreck, a venial sin is like a detour. Okay. So it's a suboptimal way. It's an unpropitious way to be about your life. Okay. That might even be a little bit of a light description of it, but it's somewhat helpful. So that we should reject mortal sin is obvious. But what we do by rejecting venial sin is extend the logic whereby we reject mortal sin into every nook and cranny of human life. Okay. So St. Augustine and St. Thomas were both aware of parallel circumstances which would have arisen in the context of the scriptures.

And so they had to contend with them because these dark passages would have been an occasion for some confusion or confoundment. So I think maybe just bring some of this up and that'll probably bring us to the end of our time. So when thinking about Old Testament examples of sin, you can think about Sarah lying to the angels about whether or not she had laughed, which is an incredible passage, or Abraham's lying to Abimelech about whether or not he and Sarah were brother and sister or husband and wife, Jacob lying to Isaac about whether or not he were Jacob or whether or not he were Esau. The big one that comes up often is the Hebrew midwives. Why? Well, because they are told by Pharaoh to abort the children or to kill the children born of Hebrew mothers, and they don't, and they lie to Pharaoh and say that they did,

and then they come in for blessing. So it seems like they are blessed on account of the fact that they lied. But St. Augustine and St. Thomas' typical read of this passage is that they are blessed for their goodwill. They are blessed for their charity. They are not blessed on account of their lie. So I think that that gives us a helpful way by which to evaluate the Gestapo question, is that one who would lie would be exhibiting goodwill or love, but that that is a disjunct moral act from the act of lying. So there are two things going on. The one is praiseworthy and the one is blameworthy,

and as a result of which should not be encouraged because we shouldn't change the moral taxonomy so as to fit a situation which can be accounted for in another way. And I think that's it. Okay. Thank you very much, Father Pine and Dr. Janet Smith Whenever you begin I'll click the timer Alright, well that was awesome That you managed to get all that in

In just 15 minutes I don't know that I'm going to be able to do the same here But very clear and comprehensive Treatment of a complicated topic. Again, the joy here is that both of us are seeking the truth. I mean, I certainly want to win. I know you want to win. A lot of our seats a little bit happier, but on the other hand, we need to get at the truth. And so if I get defeated, I hope that means the truth wins. So I want to point out first to most Catholics that it's very odd that this is not a settled question in the church. All these centuries,

and we don't have a definitive dogmatic definition on the question of whether it's always wrong to tell a falsehood. And even John Henry Newman said, yeah, it's not subtle. And he said, Catholics are free to make their own judgment on this. It doesn't mean I can just suddenly say, well, I think lying is okay, and I can lie to my boss about why I left work. But again, the question of the Nazis at the door is a perfect, difficult example. it's a perfect difficult example. And there's Boniface Ramsey has written an article in 1985 on two traditions online in deception in the ancient church. So both of them are arguing that this has been a, it still is, it was, has been, and still is a perplexed question in the church, which to some extent suggests to me that the answer that some falsehoods

are permissible is in fact the right one, because it's easy to say it's intrinsically evil and just shut the door, but it leaves all these unanswered questions that virtually none of us are happy at living with, saying yes, there are Jews in my attic, or remaining quiet in such a way that they can only assume. Saying there are no Jews in my attic and saying that's a venial sin still says it's okay to sin in order to achieve good. If it's intrinsically evil, even if it's a venial intrinsic evil, you're still saying it's okay to do evil to achieve good. I say you're not doing evil when you say that. I say you're doing good. I'll explain that somewhat as we go along.

But just let me suggest that the catechism itself has been, as Father said, it's actually contradictory, it seems, at least on the surface, on this topic. In the 1992 version, a lot of people don't know there were two versions, but the church did this kind of strange thing as they floated a first version of the catechism, got some of the kinks worked out, and then issued a final version. So in 1992, the definition of lying is this. 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. When I saw that, I literally went berserk. I just thought, right, right, this is it. This is it. Finally, we have the clear and right definition of lying. There are people who don't have the right to know the truth, such as Nazis at the door. And so even though I want to lead them into error, I'm actually leading them into a different kind of truth, the truth that the Jews deserve to live.

And I'm assuming that if they ever come to their senses and become decent human beings, they will actually thank me for doing that. They won't say, you lied to me. I can't trust you anymore. They'll say, oh, you're a very trustworthy person. You're the kind of person that will defend the innocent that evil people are trying to kill. That's the person I want at my front door if I'm hiding in the attic. Not one who thinks that any falsification is immoral. And strangely enough, the final and authoritative version of the catechism said, to lie is to speak or act against the truth in order to leave someone into error. Hard stop.

Well, it leaves out the right to know the truth. So I'm thinking, oh, my gosh, what happened here? I sort of know what happened. Historically speaking, it's not important. But does it mean that we no longer, for those five years, it was okay for us to lead into error someone who didn't have the right to know the truth, no articles written, nothing as if there weren't a change. Well, if there weren't a change, the first one means you can never lead anyone into truth, which it actually says you can. You can imply, certainly, and it's a hard logical implication, it's not just a fanciful inference, who has the right to know the truth. That person you have to

tell the truth to, the one that doesn't, you don't have to tell the truth to, Ken, if there are gravely important issues. So the church is at odds with itself on this question. I'm not going to do much with the biblical things that may come up later. Certainly the Bible, the Ten Commandments, we hear don't bear false witness. Jewish people take that very literally. It's false witness in a courtroom. You can't tell. The Jewish ethical tradition actually says you must lie on some occasions to save innocent life. And they don't think they're breaking the commandment. Of course, we have the commandment that says murder, killing is always wrong. In bad translation, it should be murder is always wrong, right? You can never take an innocent human life.

You can never lie to someone who deserves to know the truth. So you have to be very precise in these definitions. And we have to say, I mean, the record of the church in this record is pretty remarkable. A lot of the saints engaged in a lot of, not just deception, but false signification. Father Chizik, when he went to Russia, claimed he was a married man, right? That's how he got in. If he'd said he was a priest, he wouldn't be allowed in. He snuck in to minister to those who were in the gulags, right? Pius XII, read the book Church of Spies. Pius XII was a fantastic spy from very early on, right? He had a whole network of spies in and out of Nazi Germany, and spies can't do their work without a lot of false signification, right? Never. So you don't see the church talking

about the immorality of spying, or the immorality of police work, or the immorality of spying or the immorality of police work or the immorality of military engagement, sending out false signals or even, you know, lying about we're attacking at nine when they're really attacking at eight, right? We do it all the time. And you don't find this in the commandments when it gives subcategories of actions that are wrong, that are instances of the primary action that's wrong, right? And I want to claim everybody does it almost every day. I'm sure, well, when Father is, and he has been, I'm sure when he's an active priest or a faculty member, people come to your office all the time. Are you busy? Now, you might be dreadfully busy, but of course, what you say is, no, I'm not busy.

And then come on in, sit down. And again, if later the person found out that you were dreadfully busy, they wouldn't think you were a lying, untrustworthy person. They'd largely think that you're very generous, that you're willing to make them feel comfortable. Not to say I'm extremely busy, but if your concern is important, come on, sit down, I'll talk to you. Instead, we don't know if their concern is important. We might ask and say, come back later for that busy. But more often than not, we all say, no, I'm not busy, come on, sit down. Anybody who deals with, say, people who have dementia find it's very hard not to tell lies. And it might even be necessary.

If a widow cries every time she hears her husband's dead, as if she heard it for the first time, and she says, when is dad coming home tonight? And if you were to say he's not coming home, he's dead. She just grieves like she is grieving for the first time. Or you just say, oh, he's at the Elks. He'll be back later. You'll probably be in bed, but he'll be back. And you say, that's the kind thing to do. And I want to say the reason is much the same reason that Father says, Augustine says, Jokos lies are okay. We know the context. In the context, we know the kind of speech act that's being engaged in.

There are speech acts which are assertion of the truth to someone who deserves to know the truth. Then you can't tell falsehoods. But there's many other acts in which the purpose of the act is not to convey the truth, the literal factual truth about this situation. Please come in, sit down. I'm not busy. Dad's at the Elks. He'll come home later. All right. It's the context of the act that tells you what is the purpose of this speech act. of this speech act. Now, what is fascinating to me, again, is how much philosophers try to get around the statement that always telling falsehoods is an intrinsically evil act. Father did one, which again, I find suspect that it's just a venial sin. And if it's a venial sin, you ought

to do it more or less, Or do you want to say you ought not to do it? If there's Nazis at the door saying, are there Jews in your attic? Should I or should I not say there are no Jews in my attic? Or say, no, I'll never do evil to achieve good. Therefore, I won't do it. Oh, it's just a venial sin. Say, but I was told not to do venial sins either. No sinning. It doesn't say it's okay to do venial sins sometime if the consequences are good enough. Never commit mortal sins. That's not the teaching. The teaching is never sin. in that situation. If it tells me I should say there are no Jews in my attic, then it tells me it's okay to commit at least venial sins in pursuit of a great good. Others have this strange idea of mental reservations. One of my best friends, Monica Miller, one of the most upright people I know, just beautiful pro-lifer. She always thinks

it's okay to have a mental reservation. I can say, no, there are no Jews in my attic, and I'm thinking in my head for you to kill, right? There are Jews that aren't allowed to be killed in my attic, but in my head, I'm saying none to be killed. And that's, that's bizarre. You know, the words that you say are intended to deceive the person. Thomas Aquinas says, even if you speak the truth with the intention to deceive, that is immoral. Even if you speak the truth with the intention to deceive, that is immoral. All right. And then people, other people depend upon exceeding cleverness. There's a story about Athanasius being chased by people who want to kill him. And when they found him, they said, do you know where Athanasius is? And he says, he's nearby. You know, well, nearby meaning I'm him. That's very clever. I don't think it's a lie. But for people to be that clever at every instance where there's great harm will be done if you tell the truth, you can't depend upon cleverness.

And so I want to say it's really remarkable for people to realize, again, that it is an open question. In our time, there are people like Christopher Kayser, Hadley Arcus, Peter Kreeft, myself, who think that there are times when it's actually an obligation to say the false things. There are no Jews in my attic. And Peter Kreeft says you should even tell a false, you should tell a big one. You should say, of course, there's no Jews in my attic. The man would say, I hate Jews. I was at the demonstration last week. Didn't you see me? Let me show you my Nazi flag in my closet. This is what I took last week down to the demonstration. So they walk off. And my argument is that, I mean, I love Thomas Aquinas. My argument is that, I mean, I love Thomas Aquinas. And I was a third order Dominican at one time, and he's my go-to guy for just about everything. But I think he's got, I hate to say it, I think he's got this one wrong. And I think he has what is called a prelaps, what I want to call a prelapsarian understanding of the function of speech. Before the fall, there would have been no murder, no self-defense, all right? There would

have been no robbery. There would have been no stealing. There would have been no falsehoods because you're absolutely transparent. There's no reason to tell a falsehood. But after the fall, even though it says do not kill, we're allowed to kill in self-defense. It means that do not murder. It says do not steal. Well, but you're allowed to take goods if it's necessary for living that belong to another. And it says don't bear false witness. But I want to say in a pro-slapsarian world, there's no longer this harmony. Not everybody is owed the truth, all right? Not everybody is owed a continuation of their life if they're intending to kill other innocent human beings. So I want to say we have a clear understanding of the

permissibility of certain acts that wouldn't be permissible if you're doing the very pure moral code that God gave us. But in the fallen world, even in the Old Testament, he allowed divorce because of our hardness of heart. Boom. And so you have these different modes of behavior that are permitted in this world. Father stressed two things for the reason that Thomas Aquinas said that telling all falsehoods are wrong, is sinful. One is trust. As I said earlier, I think it breaks trust to think that people won't tell falsehoods for you and won't protect you.

The person who's a pacifist, I mean, you know, I kind of like a pacifist, but I don't want my police officer to be a pacifist. I don't want my soldier to be a pacifist, all right? to be a pacifist. I don't want my soldier to be a pacifist, right? And also, but Thomas's primary reason is a metaphysical one. It's the purpose or teleology of, as he said, the speech act, that we are meant to, the words in our mind are meant to correspond to reality, and we are meant to convey to others the words in our mind. I think that's in a pre-lapsarian world. In a post-lapsarian world, yes. To someone who deserves to know the truth, absolutely. But there are many people, and it's even as a matter of deserving. Dementia patients, yeah, I want to say they don't deserve the truth. It's cruel, right? So you don't

do a cruel thing. You don't do it. It's not a debitum. It's what you don't owe. You owe something to the dementia patient. And what you owe them is comfort, not the truth that their husband has died. Thank you. Thank you so much, Dr. Smith. This is just a fascinating discussion. I just want everybody to know the comments are amazing. This person says, I am blown away. I am leaning towards Father Pine's position, but I really want Dr. Smith to be right.

Somebody else said, we need more female philosophers. This woman's amazing. And so this has just been a great discussion so far. I want to move into a time where the two of you can just chat. Obviously, you are both respectful people, so there won't need to be much moderation. Maybe you guys can question each other and just see if you can get some clarification on maybe some confusion. But before we do that, I just want to make sure that we're both working, we're all working with the same definition of lying, because I know that's going

to be really important. And so Father defined lying as saying what you think to be false, so as to deceive. Dr. Smith, is that your definition? No, I go with the definition of the 1992 Catechism. 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. That's section 1990, no, 2483. And Matt, I do want to say, I think this, I mean, I'm glad people are having such a good one, but this is kind of epic, you know, in its own little modest way here. This is an epic thing, and this is really the kind of discussion I want to see happen. It's the only way we're going to get to the truth is really pound out these issues. And I appreciate the care that

Father Pine took with his preparation. I think it was very, it's a good termistic thoroughness. It's great. Excellent. Well, I'm going to step back here and just let the two of you ask each other questions. So whoever wants to begin, go for it. I guess I want to ask Father if he thinks it's okay to commit venial sins. Intentionally. I don't.

Right. So, yeah, that's great. That's a good clarificatory point. I guess the reason I brought that up is for reasons of taxonomy, not for reasons. So I would see that as pertinent for an after-the-fact evaluation of conscience, for instance, to say that there are two acts that transpired. One is an act of goodwill, whereby the Hebrew midwives wanted to preserve the lives of those who fell into their care. And then there's another act of lying. But because lying is

intrinsically evil, it can admit the further end of the goodwill or the love that they exhibited of the goodwill or the love that they exhibited for the children whom they helped to birth. And as a result of which we would distinguish them, right? So because it's an intrinsically evil act, it cannot be chosen. It cannot be done for a good end. And as a result of which you have two distinct things. So I think that the reason I bring that up is for the taxonomy purpose, that it helps you to see why we have the moral intuition that what is done here is a praiseworthy thing, because you have one act which exhibits great charity and great love, but that we're uncomfortable with it because there's another act present which is sinful. And as a result of which, one can never counsel that someone do sin, right? For the reason that St. Paul gives,

you know, you can never do evil, that good may come. So I bring that up for evaluation as a way of kind of making sense of our moral intuitions rather than giving encouragement to venial sin. But I think that there is a kind of tendency in the modern Catholic mind to just heap all sin in the same pile and say that it's all bad, It all should be avoided. It is all bad. It should all be avoided, but there are differences based on the object and then based on the reason for which. And so I think that I bring that up as a way by which to help kind of sort out how we feel about it. But I mean, yeah, that's good. That's a very clear answer. It's clear that that's honestly what you were doing. But I also think it makes it clear that you think people ought not to say there are no Jews in my attic and that it would be wrong to do that. saved the eight Jews who are hiding there should go to confession or at least do an act of confession. And the person who didn't say anything and the Jews were killed, that person is going to

have the consolation that they didn't sin in order to achieve good, even though eight Jews have died. I think that goes against all of our moral intuitions. Peter Kreef says, and I think he's right, he says, everybody knows it's moral to say to Nazis at the door, there are no Jews in my attic. And in fact, look, here's my Nazi flag that I have in my closet. And that people who say you shouldn't do that, he says, are in grip of a theory. And I think that's unfortunately true. You've got an apodictic a priori that all falsehoods are wrong. And don't realize the nuancing that that requires. And the first edition of the catechism does the proper nuancing. It says that any decent human has a really visceral desire not to tell a falsehood. Our first motivations are to tell the truth.

If anybody asks us something, we want to tell the truth. Unless you grew up in New York City, where I've understood that's not the case. Or say in Czechoslovakia under communism. They learned never to tell anybody where they were going. Where are you going? They never say I'm going to the grocery store. if they're going to the grocery store. Say, I'm going to the library. Because they think they're being followed or tracked or whatever. And it takes them decades to learn how to tell the truth again after they've been under a regime.

But in, say, a peaceful country, in a decent country, people exchange the truth. And when people don't, we are disappointed and we feel betrayed in a way. And we don't trust them. On the other hand, we all want to say to the Jew, Nazi who comes to the door, we all want to say we quickly overcome that desire to exchange the truth and to say, no, there are no Jews in my attic. And we have a conatural sense, I think, that this is the moral thing to do. We don't need to be instructed on that. The most decent people want to do that, except those who have an a priori apodictic theory that they're in a grip of, that says I can never tell the falsehood. I'd be lying if I told these Nazis. I could kill them.

I could take out my gun and shoot them to defend the Jews in my attic. I could smash their car. I could take the spark plugs out. I could do all sorts of things, but I couldn't tell them there are no Jews in my attic. That doesn't work in my mind, in the mind of almost everybody. All right. I'm about to talk for too long, so feel free to cut me off at any point. No, no, no. I'm a big blatherer, so you just got to get me. So, all right. A couple of things with regard to the points as you enunciate them.

The first is, I don't think, one, I think that we shouldn't play the game. Because I think that what you have set before you is a false dichotomization of reality. because I think that what you have set before you is a false dichotomization of reality. Either you tell a lie and save the Jews, or you tell the truth and kill them. And I think that that false dichotomization is what leads to the types of conclusions you draw subsequently, because I think that that works in a mathematically certain universe, but I don't think that it works in the universe in which we live. Because one, I don't think that we should play the game as it's assigned to us by the Nazis. Because social discourse has broken down to such an extent that like you said, you don't have to just lie, tell a fib. You have to like go overboard and say

how much delight you would take in finding Jews in the basement of the neighboring house and how you would drag them into the street and dot, dot, dot, things get harrowing quickly. And I think an appropriate response to a query of that sort is to say, what I say doesn't matter to you because you want to come into my house and search it. So I would love to stand up to you, but it seems like in the current dispensation, that's not going to happen. So either you're going to come into my house or you're not, what I say doesn't, it just doesn't matter, right? So don't try to pull me into your evil deed because it's like, should I lie so that what, you don't have to commit an evil?

And so I think that I want to like kind of break the argumentation out of the dichotomization that it currently occupies. And you hear in a lot of conversations that people are too dumb or people are just not adroit enough to come up with evasions of this sort. But I think that that, you know, we've lamented the state of catechesis for the past, whatever, 60 years in the church. And I think that there's something that we could kind of help cultivate by cultivating the virtue of prudence. The other thing that I think about this moral universe, which I want to kind of shift out of its current dimension, is the idea that we are responsible for consequences in a kind of one-to-one way. So I don't think that we are to think in those terms as if the fruit of our actions were

just the results. And this isn't just like a kind of pious throwaway point. We're called to be faithful, not successful. But I think that we need to be cognizant of the fact that we operate within the context of the Lord's providence. So a couple of stories. One, St. Augustine tells a story about a former bishop of Tagaste who was questioned about whether or not he was harboring Christians during one of the persecutions. I think it was the Valerian persecution. And he said, I know where they are, but I will not tell you. He suffered greatly and was persecuted by the Roman tribune, I think. But eventually the tribune was converted by his perseverance and then subsequently relented. Another story that's told is in Corrie Ten Boom's The Hiding Place, where her sister Noli, who's like a kind of saint of that book, a beautiful

woman, she is asked whether her companion is a Jew. She says yes. And both she and her friend understand why. She says, I do not think that I could defend you basically by lying. And then the girl is, she had the confidence that the girl would be freed and she was shortly thereafter. Now, I don't think that we live in a Pollyanna universe. And I don't think that we can kind of like, you know, skip un-nuancedly from moral choice to moral choice. But I don't think that we should think about it in terms of outcomes assessments in the same way. I don't think that that's reason to be irresponsible, but I just want to kind of move it more into the zone of prudence and this idea of like,

okay, I'm posed with these terms, but I don't accept these terms because I don't want to be made to abide by them. Third and final point, I'll stop. I think that the reason that our moral intuitions kick in so acutely at this stage is because it's someone else who suffers, right? If it were us, it was like, are you a Jew? Are you hiding? It would be a different kind of moral evaluation, but we feel it more acutely because it's someone else over whom we exercise a certain responsibility. And I think that this is what's most neuralgic about it. But I read somewhere, I've forgotten where it's quoted, but I want to take it out of the consideration of Nazis and Jews and just talk about it in terms of apostasy, for instance. So if you've read the book Silence by Shusako Endo, one of the most nefarious,

devious tactics that the Japanese employed to get the Jesuits to renounce was by torturing other people. And in response to situations like this, Harawa says that if you really believe it, you need to be willing to let others suffer for it. And I think that this isn't directly addressing your concern because you're not saying that it's a sin. And so I want to be clear about that. This is not addressed particularly to you, but kind of the wider conversation. So I think that we lack something of that. And I think we've seen how this has taken effect in our lives just in the past year with COVID. There's a great paralysis that is set in, not because we ourselves are

afraid of getting sick, but we're afraid of getting other people sick. And as a result of which, it's kind of like vitiated our ordinary exercise of prudence, and we feel ourselves utterly incapable of being bold, being courageous, being magnanimous, right? Because our hearts are built for such things. But because it might negatively affect other people, we feel ourselves paralyzed. And I think that there's something of that that's also going on in this situation. that that's also going on in this situation. Yes, thank you. Again, I think it's too easy to talk about a false dichotomization. I mean, there are some times where it's really true, it's either this or that, all right? And there are many times where there's a third option, but many times there isn't a third option. You're a Jew and you're trying to leave Germany

and Pius XII has arranged for you to have a false passport and even a false baptismal secret. Those are lies, right? Now you're going through the checkpoint and they want to see your passport and they even want to see a baptismal certificate. And you say, I will never lie. I will not show him this false baptismal secret given to me by a pope. I will not give this false passport arranged for me by a pope. And that seems to me to be absurd that you wouldn't do that. And you'd say, no, I can trust the pope. I can trust the pope to know that this is moral.

Not on all points do I trust all Popes. But the Popes did this. And the saints did this. You know, Father Cizek said, I am a married man. Oh, well, it's an equivocation. He means he's married to the church as a bride. He didn't mean that. And you didn't expect him to mean that.

He meant, at the moment, I want you to think that I have a real wife somewhere. All right? That's what I want you to think. I think that, again, in the military, if you can get your opponent to believe falsely about when you're going to attack, that's an extremely important thing to do. And if you do it by sending someone behind the troops that says, oh, I managed to get by there the other day. You think they're attacking at noon, but I'm telling you they're attacking at nine in the morning. Get ready for it. Or the other way around. You think they're whatever, but you're going to be attacked at a time that you're unprepared. So I'm telling you

that. And you're saying you shouldn't do that. And I want to say there's all sorts of deliberate falsifications precisely because of context. When you say that it's okay to make a joke and say something, at least momentarily, you expect the person to think it's true, even if just for a nanosecond, because that's where the humor is. All right. You expect them. You you are leading them into error to get a laugh. All right. And and for a nanosecond, you expect them to believe. I one time telling my students that the bishop took me to the airport. I was speaking to him and I said, the bishop drove me back to the airport.

I said, it's because the pope wasn't available. You know, and for a minute, they're just, ha, ha, ha. But that little minute, all right, that nanosecond. So if in context, it's okay to say a falsehood for a laugh, why isn't it okay in context to say a falsehood to save the life of Jews? And you said that the reason I'm lying is so that you don't commit an evil. I want to say a falsehood to save the life of Jews. And you said that the reason I'm lying is so that you don't commit an evil. I want to say, no, that's a benefit that you don't get to get evil, but I'm doing it to save these lives. And I'm doing it because in context, you don't have a right to know the truth. And it just seems to me there's an amazing contradiction between those who think that it's okay to tell a falsehood to get a laugh And it's not okay to tell a falsehood to save lives. How do you how do you um?

How do you how do you resolve that? sure So starting with the definition of lie The the one that I used and I know that we're at odds about that, but yeah, we can pick that up. The idea of communicating something contramentum, right, for the purpose of deception. So when you joke, you're not actually communicating contrary to your mind, because what you've conceived in your mind is a joke, and you're not telling it to deceive, you're telling it to delight. your mind is a joke, and you're not telling it to deceive, you're telling it to delight. So in the sense that, for instance, God knows change, but God himself does not change.

So God provides for the dispensation of his providence in a way that's pedagogical. So he leads his people from Old Testament sacraments through Christ to New Testament sacraments, it doesn't mean that the former are a deception. They are temporary. They are suited for a time, and they lead to fullness. And I think that what you have with a joke is that type of thing. It's a kind of temporal dispensation that is meant to cause a kind of humorous release. Whereas with respect to you know, a kind of humorous release. Whereas with respect to, you know, telling a lie to save a human being, there you're, you know, telling something contramentum for the purpose of deception. And I think that maybe where our big point of disagreement comes with respect to the definitions is this idea of the truth to which another has a right. And I think that I would

tend to say that everyone has a right to the truth, period, because I would worry about what would result. I mean, I think that in a principled way, because I think that's part of what it means to be a human being is to engage in this type of discourse. But also, as you play it out in its cultural and social setting, you see what it leads to. And so you give the examples that are used in warfare. And the thing that's common about all those examples is that things have devolved to such a state where men are pitched on other sides of a battlefield and they're killing each other. But I think that when you look at the history of Christendom, there were certain prudential kind of things put in place to ensure that war would not devolve to the present state in which we find it,

like the truth of God or the peace of God and things like that. There were certain things that were sacred. And I think that the telling of truth is one of those sacred things that ought to be employed. And just because you cannot ensure that the other side will be so engaged, that might mean that there's a kind of pedagogy or that there's a kind of development needs to take place. But I think that we should be moving to that because I think that what we're talking about there are not good practices. I think that what we're talking about there are structures of sin. And just because it's, you know, it's done widely, I think is lamentable. It's not normative. So I think that what I say as a result of the current social setting and cultural setting, it sounds naive, right? It sounds Pollyanna-ish. It sounds like somebody who got his selective service card, filed it in a drawer, and has never seen it since, and then just skipped off merrily to the seminary and doesn't think about the defense of his life, his livelihood, his family, because I don't, okay? But I think that I ought to, and I ought to more. But I think

that at the principle level, this is the type of tension that we kind of find ourselves in, but it doesn't serve as an adequate justification or rationalization for the type of kind of broad ranging acceptance of lying. I guess I might have one to volley back. And I think that this is just like a helpful clarification for sussing out some of the points of your argument. So I think that you're saying that in the circumstances that once described, the Gestapo question, telling a deliberate falsehood is not a lie and is not sinful because it is told to one who has no right to the truth. And I think that the next question that arises is, okay, what about apostasy, for instance? So, like, what if someone says, you know, in this contrived moral universe, if, you know, like, do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? If yes, I kill Jews. If no, I don't kill Jews. So what is it about that act? I'm, you know, like we'd say, no, we wouldn't do that.

So what is it about that act that's different? Because like, formally speaking, it's a lie because you're like, I do believe in Jesus and I love him. And I will say this thing out loud so as to avoid the suffering of others. How is that distinct from saying there are no Jews in my basement? Okay. Thank you. All right. First of all, yeah, those, I've got at least, I think I've got three points that you made there that I want to respond to. One is that you say the difference between a Jokos lie and lying to the Jews is that I don't intend to deceive, but I do. I intend to deceive for that nanosecond. And that's what the word false, false actually comes from faleri, to deceive. That's the core meaning there. That's why even telling the truth with the purpose to deceive is wrong because I'm trying, I'm engaging in a speech act,

but the purpose of my speech act, even though I'm telling the truth is to deceive. All right. And so I don't think you can say that I'm intending to deceive when a Nazi's at the door and I'm not intending to see when I'm telling a joke, I want it to be dissipated quickly. And I want the person quickly to realize I wasn't telling the truth. And that's why I get a laugh out of it. Just a quick clarification. I apologize for interrupting. I just wanted to say that I don't think that a joke is a lie.

I don't think that it's a jocose lie. I think a jocose lie would be something like, let's say, you know, you went to Steubenville. And let's say that one of your friends, like, was really know-it-all-all-y and like wanted to be part of every club. And you're like, we're going to get this friend. We're going to make up a joking secret society and drop hints about it and try to get her all interested in being initiated into this thing. And it's like a it's like a kind of farce that goes on for a few days. So I don't think that the type of joke like a pun or something like I don't think that that's a lie or I don't think that these types of. a pun or something like, I don't think that that's a lie. Or I don't think that these types of- If I said I dye my hair gray because I'm really a hot blonde and I don't want to get all these dates,

oh, you laughed, right? It's a good joke, right? It's a lie, right? I don't dye my hair gray. This is my natural beauty. So I don't think that that's a lie. I'll stop interrupting. Why is it not a lie? I'm saying something contrary to truth with the intention of getting a laugh out of you, which means you start to say, that's ridiculous. Okay, but there's a little bit of deceit in there. There is deceit in there. I'm not telling the truth. It's something contrary to fact. It's something actually contrary to what's in my mind. In my mind, I know I don't dye my hair blonde. I mean gray. And so anyway, whether or not, I don't know what you call it when you say I say something contrary to the truth. That's a key element in it. And it doesn't change it because I only wanted to see for a nanosecond to get a laugh out of you. There's nothing that says that. It's because of context.

And the context is a harmless one. I want to say, why is it okay? Again, why is it okay for me? Okay, that gets to the next one about it, getting out of control. That once I allow people to do this, they're just going to tell falsehoods all over the place. that once I allow people to do this, they're just going to tell falsehoods all over the place. Well, that's partly why we don't do a lot of teaching, say, of high school students that if you don't have something that's essential to your well-being, it's okay to take it from someone else who maybe even has an excess, for instance, because what they're going to think is essential

to their well-being is a new pair of Nikes or something. All right. It could get out of control. All right. So we don't go around telling kids that so much. All right. But everybody knows that if you're a starving, if you have a starving family, you're the father of the family, you're walking by a field and there's all these apples on the ground and you know this farmer has excess apples. apples on the ground. And you know this farmer has excess apples. He doesn't need those apples. And it even says no trespassing. But it's moral for you. In fact, it's obligatory for you to go into that field and take those apples for your children. Now, are you going to tell me that I have now encouraged teenagers to go steal Nikes from sporting goods store? No. We have, or you say self-defense is okay. It's okay to kill someone who's threatening your life.

Oh boy, that means, I mean, we have guns and people, guy looked at me the wrong way. I thought he was going to kill me. So I shot him. Uh-oh, I've unleashed lawlessness. I say, no, we have to keep saying no. This, you have to be honest. You have to be accurate about what the situation is. You just can't make things up. So any time that we sort

of say, okay, it's all right to break into a house to save someone, all of a sudden you have people breaking in for all sorts of reasons. Well, no, we have to, as you say, be prudent. We have to get the facts of the matter. And if someone says, well, I thought I was, I thought, I mean, self-defense is okay, all right. And that person looked at me in such a mean way. I'm sure that any minute now, I'm sure they had a knife on them and I'm sure they're going to kill me. You say, no, you have to verify everything. You can't just go around throwing out these principles. And then the final one is the most challenging one, is the question of apostasy. And that seems to me to be the one that, again, when we get to the

bottom of the rest of these questions, that's the one to ask. All right. I am inclined to think you have to always tell the truth about your relationship to Jesus, right? Because that's their fundamental reality. That's your fundamental who I am, whether dad's at the Elks or dad is dead. That's not a part of my fundamental reality. All right. Now, but it may be true. It may be true that the Nazis so much doesn't deserve to know the truth. He doesn't deserve to know the truth about my relationship with Jesus either. I don't know. That's something I really want to see people work out. But we can't get there from here because we haven't yet decided whether you can tell a falsehood to someone who doesn't deserve to know the truth. Again, Chizik, I suspect that if Chizik was asked,

are you a believer in Jesus, he would have said no because he wanted to get into Russia to serve people who needed communion. And so would he be wrong to do that? Again, and I'm one of these persons that does think that sometimes we're called a heroic acts. Some people are that other people aren't. And it's you, you, this A is okay. And B is okay. In principle, what you're called to do, particularly to do in this situation.

You know, for a priest in a time when, as you say, in Japan, in silence, if the laity are going around testifying to their faith and the priest is not, say, please don't tell the truth. We want you. You hear our confessions. You give us the blessed sacrament. So it seems to me any priest would be tremendously torn in that situation, not to cooperate with the evil doers, but if he could continue to sneak around and hear people's confessions and give them communion, they might say, Father, I'll stand up to these guys, but you, I don't know. I mean, that's the sort of thing I really think it's difficult to sort, not that the initial question isn't difficult enough, but then you get to apostasy. If you said, again, swear on a Bible, something, I never want to say a falsehood then,

but I could be persuaded otherwise, is what I want to say. falsehood then but i i could be persuaded otherwise is what i want to say my instincts are to never do it but i'm not saying i'm not persuadable for some of the arguments i've given so how are we doing matt yeah this this is how are we fantastic. Do you mind if I... Yeah, we are at about that time. Can I throw out a couple of thoughts, questions? I hope you'll say yes. And I hope you'll mean it. I'm ready. Okay, so a couple of things. Dr. Smith, you talked about Aquinas and Augustine having

a prelapsarian view. I think that the idea being that the sort of moral system as it pertains to lying would work in a time where there's no murder or adultery or thievery and this sort of thing. But we don't live in that time anymore. But I wonder if someone could make a similar argument about contraception. I wonder if someone could make a similar argument about contraception. Prior to the fall, we lived in a world without STDs. Children wouldn't be born unwanted and these sorts of things, but things are a little more complicated now.

What would you say to that? It's a good question. Sharp person out there. Used to trapping people, Socratic method of a lundus. I got one for Father Pine, too. Oh, there you go. Yeah, it's a good question. I would say that, again, before the fall, there would have been absolutely no need for natural family planning.

All right? There would have been no, I mean, I think Aquinas talks about this. I'm not sure, but somebody does. That your appetites would be so measured that, honestly, you'd only have sex during the time when conception could happen. And that'd be the only time you'd want to. And there actually would be conception every time you had sex because that's the purpose of the sexual act. But that God has given us these periods, almost anticipating the fall, as maybe he did, and that now things like natural family planning are permitted. You're not doing anything against the purpose of the act, but you are not intending to have a baby every time you have sex. Augustine

was confused about these things, and this is one of the things that we had to correct Augustine about, all right, because he was too prelapsarian about these matters. And it even was sinful to experience pleasure, because it's always excess pleasure during the sexual acts. Aquinas didn't think that. Aquinas thought it was measured for the nature of the act, actually, to have an ecstatic pleasure. So I want to say it's a good question, but I think that it's clear, like, contraception is like killing the innocent. I mean, it's not killing the innocent, but it's something that ought never to be done. Contraception is a direct attack on the purpose of the sexual act. But natural family planning is not. It's an accommodation that we make to the fact that we're in a post-lapsarian world where we want to have sex even though it's not a good idea to have a child

or you're not intending to have a child. Good question. Is there anything I can add on that as well? Please. Thanks. So it's a good question. Is there anything I can add on that as well? Please.

Thanks. So I think I agree with the logic that you deploy in the question. So I think that there's a parallel between contraception and lying pre and post fall. And I don't think that the comparison with self-defense and the reappropriation of property is apropos. Why? Okay, here we go. So before the fall stuff, okay, original justice, so mind subordinated to God by grace, lower powers to higher powers by integral nature,

body to soul, you know, by these associated gifts of immortality, impassibility, and then the material universe to the human person by a kind of resonance of that interior perfection. So then with original sin, you lose that state of original justice. So St. Thomas says that original sin is a privation of those gifts that would have obtained before the fall, namely grace, integral nature, and then the associated privileges of immortality and impassibility. But he's adamant that the fall does not change human nature. He describes wounds, right? So ignorance in the mind, malice in the will, and then weakness and concupiscence in the passions. But he says that these do not fundamentally change the nature. It's just that each tends to its end

without sufficient coordination with the others. So it's good that one desires food, drink, sex, but it's better that one desire them subject to the rule of reason, and we lose that subordination with the fall. So St. Thomas says that, like, in the garden, Adam and Eve would have had plenary virtue, but there would have been certain virtues that they didn't exercise because they didn't yet have matter for it. So like penitence, for instance, they would have had the virtue of penitence, but they wouldn't have had sins to repent of. And I think that's basically what you have with self-defense and with reappropriation of property. soul of others next, your body next, the body of others next, and that self-defense would have been legitimate within this dispensation that you are to prefer your own life to that of an aggressor, and that you could deploy proportionate force in so doing, even lethal. But there's no matter for

it in the garden. But after the fall, there is now matter, and so that practice which would not have occurred now has occasion. So too with property. Principles are already present. Everything belongs to God by right on account of the fact that it's his. And that goods are for the common good, right? Principally to God, who is the common good of the whole universe. But also, you know, we have this idea of the universal destination of goods. So goods are to be proportioned in such a way as to reflect that common good. Private property is not a post-lapsarian

thing. It's a kind of application or determination of the natural law, St. Thomas says. It's part of the positive law. And he says that it's never the case that we own things in the way that God owns things. We can procure and dispense them, right? We can use them, but we don't have the rights over them that God does. And so this issue that Dr. Smith brings up of superfluous goods, they're returned, right, to the common good by this universal destination of goods when it's a moment of grave necessity for another human being. But that doesn't fundamentally change, you know, like the law on stealing. It remains evil to steal.

This is just not an instance of stealing because of the way in which this reappropriation pertains to the common good. So, too, it's like with self-defense. It's not that it legitimizes murder. It's just it was a murder before and it's not murder now. are against nature. They are so before the fall, and they remain so after the fall, I think would be the argument that people kind of working within this paradigm would give, and that that provides the parallel that you kind of trot out with contraception. Dr. Smith, do you want to give a quick response to that, or shall I ask Father a question? Oh, I want to say that's an awesome response. Again, it's, it's, it's Thomistic precision and thoroughness at its awesome best. So that's a great challenge. But I want to say that, when you say, you know, again, murder is, that killing and self-defense is not murder. is that killing in self-defense is not murder.

It is killing, right? It is taking a human life, which we do with only the greatest of regret, right? And there would have been no such thing before the fall, right? No such thing. And the reason it's permitted is because we are in a post-lapsarian world. The protection of life has a different, what do you want to call it, level or something. I'm not getting exactly the right word I want. But we should all be pro-life. We should

all be defending human life. We should all be trying to save life. But sometimes you have to take life to save life. And that seems like some people think that we have to be against all killing if we're going to be pro-life. We don't think so. And I think it's the same thing to be pro-truth, but not against all falsehoods. That sometimes they serve, just as in taking life serves life, so does telling some falsehoods serves truth. Here's my question for Father Pine. Thank you, Dr. Smith. If somebody came to you in your parish, I know you're not in a parish, but a parishioner comes up to you after Holy Mass, and he tells you that he is an undercover police officer, and because of his work, he was able to save the lives of 20 female sex slaves.

It sounds like you would say that his intention was good, the circumstances are good, but what he's done is an intrinsically evil thing. Is that right? And how do we reconcile that truth with our intuition that he just did a heroic thing? Yeah. So I would say to draw the distinction between two acts, right? One motivated by goodwill, which eventuates in a good end, and one that's sinful and is the means by which that good result comes about. And so I don't think that we should be involved in activity like that. I know, again, it sounds naive and Pollyanna-ish, but I think that we've kind of gotten ourselves to the point where it's unimaginable that we would have a type of society in which we didn't need to resort to these types of means because things are as bad as they are.

And I'm not saying that there's some golden age laid up in the past where things were better. I think that that golden age is the Garden of Eden. I think that we're on our way back towards something of the golden age of heaven. But I think that we're on our way back towards something of the golden age of heaven. But I think that we should push back. And for reasons that would be similar to the types of reasons you would give against like cooperation with evil. Right. Because you can do the moral taxonomy as to what's permitted, you know, like remote material and what's not permitted, like proximate material and formal and things like that. But if you're involved with evil on the reg, it's going to start to chip away.

And this is one of the arguments that St. Augustine gives. He says, lying, it produces a double-heartedness in the human being. When people expand on this argument, they say that it has a real negative effect on integrity in the sense that you become two people, the one that you project and then the one that you are. And that's not just with respect to those who are sex traffickers. I think it also ends up having reverberations in your life with your friends and with your family, with yourself and with your God. And so I think that, yeah, the church has not pronounced on these things. So I don't want to be like holier than the Pope and say, not a chance in the world. There's no wiggle room uh but i think that the logic of the argument leads to this type

of conclusion but i don't want to be like overly severe in a way that would sound swaggering and confident because i'm not because there's just like a lot of matter a lot of contingency and a lot of weirdness that goes on and i don't want to say like this is clear and anyone who doesn't see it as clear as bad um i myself like yeah it's just it's it's just a really tough tough tough dicey question and i think the reason that our moral intuitions are so charged is because like you said there's 20 people they were sex slaves and it's it's the good of another person for whom we ourselves feel responsible whereas like again if it were just me you know not being sold into sex slavery please god but if it were just me, you know, not being sold into sex slavery, please God. But if it were like my life, there were compromised, easier decision to make,

he says, as if he were a courageous human being. You know, you never know how that actually happens until it happens. Right. So I think for these reasons, yes, I would say those things. Dr. Smith, did you want to respond? Just quickly. I mean, I would say anytime, I mean, I think soldiers who are authorized and are rightly involved of killing of the enemy, that is most likely going to, at least for a period of time, have a negative impact on them. They're going to be jumpy. They're going to be more ready to kill, right? We see that when they come home, post-traumatic stress syndrome. But to say that they shouldn't do that,

not be willing to accept that possible consequence, it would be to be this sort of too pure. Say, I can't take those apples under the tree to feed my children because I might get used to taking things. And I don't want to sully my character in that way. And you know, it might happen. It might happen that if you start taking the apples, then you start taking more. You might say, he's got a couple of cars here. I could hotwire one of these cars and take it. Okay, it could happen. It's not implausible. And it is possible that if I start telling falsehoods in order to save Jews, I might go be more willing to tell them in the future. But again, that's what we need to guard against.

That's the kind of virtue that you're talking about, is to, if we ever have to do that, if this person that's engaged in saving women from trafficking has had to tell lies to get into the, women from trafficking has had to tell lies to get into the, say, I too am a trafficker. I want to buy these women. And I give to him whatever, how much money he wants. And I take them. I'm pretending to be a sex trafficker. I'm telling lies because I say I'm buying them too. I'm a sexual trafficker. I want him to do that. And later I want him to, you know, go and sit in front of the Blessed Sacrament and say, I hope you're proud of me. And I hope God is saying, oh, I'm extremely proud of you. Well, I'm worried about becoming a liar. No, don't worry about that. Or just be excessively careful, as we say, as Aristotle says, bend the stick the other way for a while so that you can correct that part of your being. But what you did is great.

And thank you. So I think these are not just, I think these are actions that God will give people medals for. When they show up at the door of heaven, God's going to say, you are the one that saved all those women? Come on in. And he's not going to say, you know, you never, you shouldn't have said that. You should never have said that you're a sexual trafficker and paid all that money for that woman. I don't think he's going to say that. I think these are heroes. Thank you. Okay. So what I'd like to do now, for those who are watching, we're gonna just take a short break for about a minute or two, and then we're gonna take some Q&A from y'all here in the chat.

So this has just been a fantastic discussion. People have been saying in the chat, and I agree with them, it feels to me like whoever spoke last, I'm like, yeah. Finding this very difficult. I want the last word then, please. Well, I think you'll get it, won't you?

Yeah. Okay, so before we go any further, though, I want to say Catholic chemistry. I used to work at Catholic Answers, and a co-worker of mine's name was Chuck Gallucci, and he really wanted to start an excellent Catholic dating site, and he did just that. It's called Catholic Chemistry. If you click the link in the description below, check it out these guys are fantastic if you are single and you desire a relationship you desire to be married go over to Catholic chemistry comm and set up an account these are the first guys who had

video chat embedded into the website so you might meet quote-unquote somebody online through this website you don't have to give them your number or anything like that. You can just set up a time to chat right there on the website. A lot of people I know, by a lot, I should say three, have met their future spouses. So was that a lie? I don't think. Maybe an exaggeration so I can sell their product. Hmm, I'm conflicted. But there was about three people I know who have met their future spouse on this and did actually get married. So go check them out. Great group.

And people who are serious about being Catholic. People who aren't just Catholic by name. Catholicchemistry.com. Catholicchemistry.com. Okay. Right. Well, we're going to take some questions here in the live stream. And we'll begin here with Bia. Thanks for your super chat.

Let me put you both up on screen. Matt, if you're talking right now, I can't hear you. I am so sorry. I appreciate you telling me. This person says, both seem to accept a perverted faculty framing. Lying perverts the end of speech. Contraceptives pervert the end of sex. Where do each draw the line as to when using something outside its evident end is good or bad? its evident end is good or bad. Do you want to start, Father Pine? Sure.

Right, so that's a great and well-informed question. I think the basic idea is that there is a basic purpose for which and that there are other reasons for which, but that you can use a thing beyond its reason, like praetorationum, but that you oughtn't use a thing against its reason like praetorationum but that you oughtn't use a thing against its reason contra rationum um so like uh i mean the ones that this comes up most often in discussions of sexual ethics uh so that's uh that like in in the context of a married life right that uh procreation is for the sake of, I mean,

excuse me, sexual intercourse is for the sake of procreation and education of children. So in the current magisterium, it's sometimes described as that there are two ends of marriage. So there's the mutual support of the spouses and the procreation and education of the children. And in conversations, you often hear those ends coordinated. So you'll sometimes hear the mutual support of the spouses described as like the formal cause of marriage. It's what gives it shape. And then you'll hear the procreation and education of children described as the final cause of marriage. It's that to which it is ordered or directed. So there's this idea that sexual intercourse and one sex organs ought to be used for that reason. And that if they are used contrary to that reason,

as a result of which they are being used in a way that's sinful. So this would be the grounds for like fornication, for instance, is against the good. And this is like not an argument that we would typically think of. The fornication is against this end of marriage because typically results of the child like doesn't know his father. And as a result of which isn't raised in the context of an ordinary family life. I think a lot of people have in their mind like fornication is bad is because sex is bad, but that's not actually the argument that's given by St. Thomas Aquinas. He says it's like, it's for the children. Right. And, you know, also you could use similar arguments as to why

contraception, as to why, you know, like forms of, you know, like sodomy, for instance, would not be good. So I think that with respect to the use of the speech faculty, right? So with respect to talking, are there a variety of uses for it? Yes. And St. Thomas acknowledges this. And he says, we speak in a variety of genres. And so for him, it's a genre issue. So there's like the genre of pleasantries, or there is the genre of jokes, or they're the genre of moral exhortation. There's a variety of ways in which we interact with other human beings when using speech. But he is specifically here concerned with assertion. So when one asserts, one is communicating what is secundamentum, what is according to mind. So if you use that contrary

to the nature of speech as deployed in assertion, so if you were to say something contrary to the nature of speech as, you know, deployed in assertion. So if you were to say something contrary to your mind for the purpose of deception, then it would be against the faculty. So he allows for some polyvalence to the use of a faculty, provided that one does not use that faculty contra naturum, right, or contra rationem in the specific context. Dr. Smith. the specific context. Dr. Smith. Yes, I think that I actually answered the question before, but I'll take another stab at it. Again, I don't think the question causes a problem for Father Pine, because he does agree that the faculty of speech is for conveying the truth, and you shouldn't violate that, just as you shouldn't violate the purpose of sex, which you would if you were using contraception. So I think it doesn't really

create a problem for Father Pine. But again, he's used a couple words here that I want to build on a bit, and then move to my other point, but this is the newer sort of point. I've said this too as well. Genre and context again. There's speech that is in a different genre or in a different context. Thomas actually struggles with the question whether it's okay to be an actor on the stage because you come out and basically you're conveying that I'm Hamlet. That's who I am. And you make all sorts of assertions as Hamlet. And you're intending people to believe that you're Hamlet. But in context, we know this is not who this person is.

And we suspend, as we call our disbelief or whatever, and we go along with it. But we don't later say, you know, you just lied for the last two and a half hours. You were pretending to be Hamlet. So, and again, with the Joko's speech, if you want to call it, there's deception involved, but context tells us that it's okay. And I would say context tells us that it's okay to say to Nazis at your door, there are no Jews in my attic. And again, one of my signs for when falsehood is permissible is that the decent human being thanks you for that. Later says, I'm glad you told me that falsehood. It was the right thing to do.

Again, you were keeping me from doing something terribly evil. Now, that's not my first and foremost reason. Okay, so that's one answer. The other answer is, again, as I said before, in a prelapsing world, Adam and Eve would only have had sex when they desired to have a baby and they would have only had sex at a woman's peak fertility. And evidently the egg would have already been there and would be, again, it wouldn't be the 45% chance we have now on a day of peak fertility, but it would have been 100%. They would have had sex only when they desired to have a child, and it would have been successful, right? In a post-lapsarian world, everything fell,

the body fell as well, and things are imperfect. We have these desires that sometimes we can separate the desire for union from the desire for procreation. And the church tells us it's all right to act upon the desire for union with the other. And this isn't just physical union. Again, it's committing your whole life to the other person. It's saying, I want to become one with you, meaning I want to go forward in my life with you to make decisions together, etc. And it's permissible to seek that

end, an affirmation of that end. The sexual act is a kind of an affirmation of this commitment that you've made to each other. And you can do it at a time where there's absolutely no possibility of conception, none. Now, I understand Adam and Eve wouldn't have done that, right? Maybe that's wrong. But let's, for the sake of the discussion, allow that it's right. But we're allowed to. We're allowed to have sex even at a time when conception is not possible. But we're not allowed to work against contraception, because that's an essential portion of the sexual act, of the purpose of the sexual act. So you can, as Father said, you can seek another end, one of the other polyvalent ends, the many values that something has. You can seek one of those values apart from the other as long as you're not violating the other.

Is it right, I mean you said that in a pre-lapsarian world Adam and Eve would have only had sex when they would have had a baby or it was right to have a baby. So does that mean that the second end of the kind of marital act, namely the mutual comfort, is a result of the fall? That's the only reason it's legitimate? I'm going down a bit of a rabbit trail here. It's not mutual comfort. I mean, that's considered to be one of the many secondary ends. But the idea, comfort certainly is an affirmation, et cetera,

but really it seals the covenant. It keeps sealing the covenant. Again, you don't have to do that in, it means I'm yours and yours alone, all right? And I am giving of myself totally to you, all right? And I'm giving my whole life to you. This is something I do with you and you only, and it's a great, incredible, physical manifestation of our spiritual union. We are together as man and wife, two have become one. We physically do so right now, But what is very important is that physical becoming one indicates my complete commitment to you. My life is yours. And I put myself in your hands, if you will, in your in your life. So comfort comes from that, and Adam and Eve wouldn't have needed comfort.

I mean, they're not full of anxiety or self-doubt or low self-image or anything. They don't need that. And so— So would you say then that Thomas doesn't have a sort of prelapsarian view of sex as he does with lying? Because in the Summa, when he addresses the marital debt, he says that the wife can demand the marital debt if she has an unnatural flow, knowing that she's, I know, believe it or not, so that she's incapable of pregnancy. He says that she can demand the debt then. There's a very sweetness there. He actually talks about that males are obviously more willing to be aggressive about having sex than females,

that males are obviously more willing to be aggressive about having sex than females, and that the male should be very attentive to the female, that if she seems to have desires, that she's not willing to sort of make a demand, that he anticipate that demand for her. Adam and Eve wouldn't have had these problems, all right? They wouldn't have had it. Thomas, I mean, Don Paul II says there was complete intersubjective, subjective harmony. They knew what each other were thinking. They knew each other for feeling. So now a lot of sex is for the sort of like overcoming tensions, you know, kind of at odds. But this is something that only the two of us can do together.

It's greatly consoling. We share this huge pleasure. And then afterwards, the differences seem not so important. Very true. As the one married man in this conversation. Very true. Or married person. Okay, so I want to move on.

We've got a lot of questions. And I wonder if it would be okay if I could ask you both to maybe keep your answer and response to about two minutes or thereabouts. Why? Why? I'll do what you want. I don't give a crap. Here we go. Zach Beckman.

We know Zach Beckman, don't we? Both or all of us know Zach here. Zach says, would Dr. Smith grant, and let me put this up here so we can see your lovely faces here. Would Dr. Smith grant, and let me put this up here so we can see your lovely faces here. Would Dr. Smith grant that certain circumstances can change the species of acts, and this is the case with stealing to eat or killing for defense? Oh, yes, of course. I mean, I've written a lot about this. I've written several articles on Thomas's understanding of how you determine the object of the moral act. And there's a word that more and

more of us are finding useful is calling a specifying feature. I mean, you have a physical act or even material not in the form of stuff, but meaning the matter as opposed to the form, but just say, say killing. I mean, killing of itself is morally indifferent. You don't know whether an act of killing or moral or not, unless you have a specifying feature. Killing an innocent human being is directly intentionally killing an innocent human being is always evil. Killing in self-defense can be good and even obligatory. So yes, of course, that's true, that there's a specifying feature. And I think the catechism has offered a very important specifying feature in respect to telling a falsehood, that it's morally permissible when it's done to someone who does not deserve to know the truth. So I want to

say making false assertions to someone who deserves to know the truth is intrinsically evil. That's one specifying feature. When you have a specifying feature that the person does not deserve to know the truth, and you can't willy-nilly tell falsehoods to people who don't deserve to know the truth. It has to be something that pertains to some good that's being sought. I can say that you're a Nazi, so I can lie to you about how much these apples cost. I can charge you $10 instead of $5. No one's saying that, all right? So yes, there is such a thing as a specifying feature that can change the species or determine the species of an act.

And he talks about it, too, about like an act of stealing. That's wrong. Something that rightfully belongs to another. Stealing a chalice from a church is sacrilege. So it puts it into another species entirely. It's still an act of stealing. puts it into another species entirely. It's still an act of stealing,

but the purpose for which you're doing the act of stealing now becomes the overriding species in which it's put. Father Puan? Right, so I think that in those two particular cases, you have different acts, and it's not necessarily like the circumstance that changes it, but the circumstance, it actually weighs into the object. So in the case of killing for self-defense, it's what you're doing is you're defending your life by deploying lethal force. So you're able to deploy proportionate force in order to defend your life. And if it is your judgment, or if it is the case that only lethal force can secure that end,

then you are justified in so doing. So the object of that act is the defense of one's life by the deploying of lethal force. It's not, I'm going to kill this guy. Let's see what happens. Hopefully I'll be safe. And then with respect to taking something for, you know, the sustenance of whatever, for bodily integrity. Again, it's people own things in ordinary circumstances. And the ownership that they have, though, is kind of on loan to use somewhat unhelpfully vague speech. But St. Thomas basically has the idea that we are given to procure and dispense goods for a threefold reason. He says, like, if we weren't to do it, we'd have the tragedy of the common, so people would always shirk their responsibilities. He says it leads to good order and that it also leads to peace within the polity. And so it's good for all these things. But all of these reasons are subordinated to the common good, which itself is principled, of principled consideration. So if you are starving, somebody else has superfluous goods,

those are returned to common use, as it were, because of this idea of the universal destination of goods, which is ceded right under the common good. So what you have there is not an act of stealing. So the moral object of it is not taking something which is not yours or which belongs to another. You're taking something from the common good and appropriating it to yourself because such is the nature or such is the orientation of that act. So it's not like you can turn a sin into a good deed. It's that sometimes things which might look from the outside like sins are in fact good deeds because of the interior logic of the act. Oh yeah, sorry, you froze for a second. I kept another two minutes. oh yeah sorry you froze for a second i kept it under two minutes no that was uh okay so let me let me time thing if you want us under two minutes put the little no no no i mean you guys are great i just i just think yeah we got so many questions i don't want to uh

yeah but some of them are already repetitive mad come on well here get with the program all right here's a question that I have. I felt pretty convinced by Dr. Smith's – I keep calling you Dr. Smith because I want people to know that you're fantastic and educated. I should just call you Janet at this point. Some people get suspended if you use doctor these days, just if you're not a medical doctor. I never used it. I always liked professor, but I'm not employed now, so I don't know if it's legitimate to say I'm retired. So if I call myself professor, I'm like, oh, my God. If Dr. Jill Biden is a doctor, you're a doctor.

Well, just call me wise. Oh, wise. The wise Janet said something that I felt convicted of, right? And so I just want maybe both of you to flesh this out a bit, because it sounded to me like Father Pine, you know, just to remind people that the definition you're working from is a lie is when you say what you think to be false so as to deceive. And you made the distinction that there are different contexts. And so if somebody said, well, when somebody acts in a play, they're doing this, that doesn't feel very convincing to me because I know what I'm a part of when I walk into a theater and sit down, right? But I agree with Janet that if I tell you a joke, you don't know the context right up front. In fact, if you did, it wouldn't be funny.

The reason it's funny is precisely because you were deceived and then realized that you were deceived. I mean, that's what makes it funny in certain jokes. Just want to throw that out there because personally, I found that pretty compelling. I don't know if you both want to respond to that, Father Pine, and then Janet. Sure. Yeah, I don't know that I have like a well-worked-out philosophy of humor, but I think that what's operative in humor is, I give you, I have faith in you can come up with one very, very quickly right now on the spot. Let's go next week with the more worked out one that that would be beautiful.

That'd be great. Um, okay. So I think that what's operative in humor, I think you can describe it as deception, but I think what, what like formally is going on there is a kind of quick bringing together of seeming contrasts. So Dr. Smith appealed to the blonde bombshell and then said, I dye my hair gray to keep off potential suitors. So she made a contrast between, uh, like a supposed state and her present state to show one that she doesn't take herself too seriously and to put those in her immediate

company at ease, uh, to show two that she's witty, not because she's showing off saying like, look at me, I'm hilarious. But in the sense, like it, it sets the tone of discourse. It's like, you know, um, here's this guy over here this punk kid he might be taking himself seriously let's get things loosened up from the get-go so that way he doesn't get all red in the face and bent out of shape um so but but like what's operative it is is just the kind of quick contrasting that that causes a humorous release so i don't i didn't feel like i was being deceived. I didn't experience that

as deception. I experienced that as lighthearted, good-natured, even charitable and generous. And it was just like, I'm going to make this somewhat self-deprecatory and hilarious contrasting comment so as to bring about these aforementioned results. But that was a little different from her joke about the bishop drove me to the airport because the Pope wasn't available. Because in her joke about dyeing her hair, you knew right away, because of her age or whatever, that—am I treading on crap? Oh, shut up. You knew right away that that was a joke. It was totally implausible that there would be men at the door if I had blonde hair.

Is that what you're saying, Ben? Listen, let's Let's just... I'm just going to go and... Yeah, you guys are great. I'd be a whole lot better with that than you did. Take it from us. No, no. But okay, whether it's offensive or not, frankly, I don't care. It's true. You knew as soon as she made that joke

that she was doing that. Whereas if she says the bishop drove me to the airport, you don't know that right away. So for that joke to work, it is necessary that you be deceived for that nanosecond. Right. So I – oh, sorry. If you go first. No, no.

Go ahead. I'll give you all the – I was going to say – I love watching you think on your feet. It's so – Think of beauty i i think certain speech acts take time and i don't think that we can divide them up into um like unintelligible units uh so i think that that what you have there is one speech act which sets up and concludes so like for instance at the consecration i say this is my

body all right so like things are happening but like at what precise point but i think that if you kind of get into the nitty-gritty details and say like this is my my my my you know like things get weird really weird right it's just one speech act i said this is my body i intended what the church intends and i had apt matter it became the eucharist don't get crazy and i think that what you have with the joke is one speech act unit, in effect, and I think that it can't be treated at a subatomic particle level or things kind of get crazy. Yeah, that was pretty good thinking on his feet there.

What do you think, Janet? Particles, nanoseconds, it's just awesome. But let me talk about context again. If I say to the Nazi, there are no Jews in my attic, and then he finds out that there were, he's probably going to say to me, but you lied to me. But he's not surprised. And it's not really lying that bothers him. It's the fact he didn't get the Jews. All right.

Same thing if you go through a checkpoint with a false passport given to you by the pope and a false baptismal certificate made possible because of the pope. And you're Chizik and you say, I'm a married man. And then later you're the evil people that are dealing with you found out that you lied. Yeah, they're going to say you lied. You gave me a false passport. But that's not what really makes them mad. What's mad is you successfully escaped their evil plans. And people understand that context. You know, if the people next door were killed by some horrible intruder, drug-induced madman who kills everybody, and your kids say, Dad, could that ever happen to us?

You know, my guess is you're going kids say, Dad, could that ever happen to us? You know, my guess is you're going to say, no, honey, we're taking, we've got so much protection around here and we're going to move. We're going to move, Dad. Well, make sure it never happens. But, you know, and then later when they grow up, they don't say, Dad, at the time you told us it could never happen, but you knew it could have. But they don't say that, you lied to me. Instead, they say, thanks, dad. Or let's say you're a divorced woman, and you've got these kids, and their father is extremely neglectful, and doesn't seem to have any interest in them. And they say things, God, dad doesn't seem to love me. He seems to love the new kids better, and his new wife better.

And you believe that's true, that he does. But you say, no, he really does love you. He just doesn't know how to show it. Someday, I hope your dad will figure out that he really needs to show you that he loves you. But you don't say, no, he's forgotten about you, kid. He'll love you anymore. And you might not think he's ever going to, you don't think that deep down he loves them. You think he's a rat, and the chances of him coming around is very slim. But you're going to assure them as if it's probably going to happen one of these days. You know, kid, just hold on. Your dad will grow up, and I know he really loves you.

Deep down, I know he loves you. Now, you may believe that, and that would be nice, and you may think it's true, and that would be nice. But you would say that. I think you'd say that even if you didn't believe it at all. Give up on him, kid. He's gone. He's far gone. And then later you find out,

Mom, I knew that you knew he was far gone, and I knew that you knew he was just a lout. But thanks for saying that. It really got me through a lot. That's one possible response. I mean, maybe it's a difficult thing to base the objectivity of an action on how someone may respond at some point, because I guess we don't really know. Here's a question that kind of gets to something similar. I think based on both of your definitions of lying, if we take either, it's still wrong to lie to your children about Santa Claus, despite what they may.

And I want to see your point here. Despite what they might one day say. I've had some people react, you know, it really opened my imagination and helped me to think mythically. I have others just speaking to a guy last night and it was like, it was really traumatic for him. He asked his mother in the face, you know, directly, is it true or not? And she says, she said, it's true. And he's actually still dealing with that that might sound a bit dramatic but that's his story so i guess my first question is do you agree that it's wrong to tell a deliberate lie as opposed to allowing your child to believe something false that's one thing but to talk your child into believing in father christmas

is that a lie and two i guess my second point is just that we actually don't really know how someone's going to respond. And so maybe it's not a good idea to base, to decide whether lying is right or wrong based on what might happen. So with each of those, so with that, with, you know, like the Santa Claus question, I think that my position leads me to say that you shouldn't tell your kids that Santa Claus exists. And like my parents didn't tell us that Santa Claus existed. We had like traditions revolving around St. Nicholas, but Santa Claus was never part of the thing. And I don't remember my parents saying like, don't tell the other kids. It was just like, yeah, you get presents. You don't get presents from Santa Claus because why would you?

So, I mean, did the tooth fairy exist? Yeah. Did the Easter Bunny kind of in a vague way? Sure. But yeah, I think that that is the logic of my position. But I think that to your second point with how do you know the results of those things? I think that with Dr. Smith's first example with Christians, false passports, telling lies and things like that, I think that it can be a real counter witness. And this is why I think it's good to come back to the point that everyone has a right to the truth, because the connection between everyone having a right to the truth and the possibility of the salvation of their soul is very strong, right? Like if you start rationalizing, telling them

untruths, I think you lose out on opportunities for their conversion. And I think that the moral integrity and the refusal to lie can serve as an excellent witness for the conversion of one's captors. Does that sound un-nuanced, naive, and Pollyanna-ish? Absolutely. But I think there's something real to it. And with respect to the example of Father Chizik, it's fascinating. Like he told a lie about being a married man, but we don't celebrate him because he was successful in his ministry. He was captured shortly after infiltrating the country. We celebrate him because he suffered well, because he suffered beautifully in times of incredibly difficult solitary confinement. So I don't think we celebrate him as a liar because he was a bad liar and he got found out quickly. We celebrate him as one

who gives incredible testimony and witness to the conformity that one's soul can have to the suffering Christ, and this abandonment to divine providence in real time. And so, yeah, I'm concerned about that. I'm concerned about the moral integrity, the witness value of Christians testifying always and everywhere to the truth. Okay. And just real quick, Dr. Janet, the reason I said I think under your definition of lying we shouldn't be lying to our kids about Santa Claus either is surely our children look to us to tell them the basic truth of reality, so they have a right to know it. Right. But what's your opinion on that?

In a big sense and then the smaller sense to Santa Claus, everyone has a right to the truth. To a certain extent, sometimes we forfeit our rights, right? Everybody has a right to the truth. To a certain extent, sometimes we forfeit our rights, right? Everybody has the right to free movement. But when they've stolen something or killed someone, we put them in jail, right? Are we violating their right to free movement? Are we violating their right to associate with their loved ones? No. We say you still have that right deep in the actuality of your being, but you don't have the right to operate on that deeper right that you have in your being. All right. And so that everybody has a right to life, right? But you can kill in self defense. So to say that I have the right to truth means in certain contexts you have the right to truth. All right. The Nazi at the door does not have the right to truth. Right. Now, what about your kids in Santa Claus? I'm sorry for that man that is still so destroyed by having been told as a child

that Santa Claus exists. It seems to me a little unbalanced in that personality that can't get past that. We do imaginative things all the time, even the elf on the shelf. We're sort of thinking the kids think that he got there himself, all right? And then he gets over here, and the next night he gets over there, and that there's a tooth fairy that puts money under the pillow. And when the kid puts on the cape, he becomes Superman, and everybody pretends like he's Superman for the while he has the cape on. So we deal in imaginative activities with children a lot. All right. And I think it's one of the valuable things for kids to learn that there's an imaginative world in which we participate and then there's the real world. And to think that they could no longer trust their parents because their parents said,

Santa Claus put these under the tree. That kid needs some further education. You know, it's not like I can never trust you again, because you told me that there was a Santa Claus. You said, Oh, my gosh, kid. Really? You don't trust me anything? You don't told me that there was a Santa Claus. You said, oh my gosh, kid, really? You don't trust me anything? You don't trust me that I'm really married to your father or that you're a kid and you're not adopted because I told you there was a Santa Claus? I'm sorry.

I mean, I can understand if parents don't want to do it, if they cause them a problem, but those who want to, it seems to me it's a household that's probably filled with a lot of beautiful imaginative activity, which is marvelous for people. Yeah, I can't get on board with that. I just think that there's a difference between allowing your child to participate in something imaginary and going along with it in the sense of reacting to his reactions. But I think that's something very different to your child looking at you and saying,

Dad, honestly, is Santa Claus real or not? And me saying, of course he is. This just seems to me to be an awful thing for a parent. I really hope I'm wrong because I know parents who do this with their kids. I'm not certain you have to go to the extent that you work your hardest to convince them that it's true but if we're going to use the analogy of nazis if we're going to go to the extent with that in order to show that lying isn't necessarily wrong i feel like we need to go to the extent here if the kid is really intent upon it you have a sense that he won't trust you if you tell him. But if they start,

I mean, there's kids that would like to believe it longer, all right? They would like to believe that Santa Claus is true longer. They doubt it right now, and they're beginning to think it's not true. Someone at school told them it wasn't true. But they sort of want to still believe it. And so it's wink, wink, kid, yeah, around here, around here, Santa Claus is real, all right? And so the kids, oh, great, around here, I can still believe. All right? And so the kids, oh, great. Around here, I can still believe it. So it doesn't mean you say, listen, kid, I'll swear on the Bible that Santa Claus is real. No. Who would do that?

But you judge that how old is the kid, what does he really want out of this, et cetera. There's ways of dealing. Okay. Let me ask one final question, and then we'll move into our closing statements. And this will be directed to Father Pine, and then Janet, you can respond. And I understand that Aquinas, you say, said that the Bible praises these people who were deceptive, not for their deception, but for something else. And sometimes that makes sense to me. But then I see some other examples where it's really not that clear.

other examples where it's really not that clear. One example that's been brought up in the live chat is in John chapter 7, where Jesus says he's not going to go up to the Feast of Booths because his time had not come, and then he went up secretly. Is this not an example of Jesus lying, since it's not as if Jesus probably didn't know what he was about to do, given that he's God? as if Jesus probably didn't know what he was about to do, given that he's God. Yeah. So, I mean, the ones that involve the Lord are obviously the hardest cases, because whereas with others we can say, yeah, they lied, whereas with the Lord we're like, no, that can't happen.

And so this comes up, and I think St. Augustine actually brings it up in his first treatise on lying, Contra Mendatium, and what he says is we can make a variety of moves. One, we can distinguish between the two acts as we did before. And the other main move is to say that this is figurative. So with respect to like the example of Isaac and his two sons, Jacob and Esau, says what you have is a deliberate deception and he comes in for a blessing. But he says that this is figurative speech. And he says that where we see lying praised in the

old testament it's in it's in a prophetic context and so i think that and while i don't remember the exact context of his treatment of this particular passage i think that what you have there is a prophetic context in which the lord is um doing something as a sign act for um like testificatory purposes. That's a stupid word. And it's like the Lord is making a prophetic sign. So this is figurative. So the Lord has a plan.

That plan accounts for all of his movements. He does not change that plan. The Lord also signifies by his deeds and in signifying by his deeds, he communicates a deeper truth. And yeah, as to how it like particularly cashes out in the conversations that he had with the disciples before and after, I don't know. Right. But as to why he went up secretly. Yeah, again, that's a that's a tough and I imagine controverted issue and among like the fathers of the church.

But I just haven't read it that closely. Cool. Thank you. Yes. like the fathers of the church, but I just haven't read it that closely. Cool. Thank you. Yes. A lot of us are listening to Michael Schmitz's Year of the Bible, and he makes it very clear.

There are lots of immoral activity in the Old Testament that God lets people get away with. He doesn't slap them down for some... I mean, Abraham is saying that Sarah was his sister with the intent of allowing someone else to have sex with her, right? Come on, Abraham, all right? But, you know, Michael says, you know, we didn't have all the graces then that we have now. And it was, again, he allowed divorce because of the hardness of heart, right? So the Old Testament is kind of off limits, it seems to me, for some things. So it seems like Rahab, and lying to the Hebrew spies, it's clearly a good thing that she did.

It wasn't just an Old Testament thing she got away with. It was like the Jews are at the door. The spies are at the door. They're trying to get these good guys. I'm telling them I haven't seen them. I left. I don't know where they went, Right? Falsehoods, falsehoods, falsehoods. Jesus says, I'm not going up today. I'm not going up to Jerusalem. Now, Aquinas and others say that, well, I don't know if Aquinas says this, but certainly many biblical commentators say he meant I'm not going up publicly. I'm not going up publicly. It's sort of a mental reservation.

I'm saving that part of it. But it's clear to me that he intended the disciples to be deceived. And even if he spoke some sort of truth with mental reservation, he's saying something, and I think he's saying a falsehood. I think he's telling him something that's not true. And I don't think he's sin sinning because i don't think all falsehoods are sins i don't think jesus sinned i do think he said something that was contrary to the truth right maybe for signification maybe for all sorts of good purposes um but it that's what he did they didn't deserve to know that truth at the moment it would have been too chaotic uh in the situation later in It would have been too chaotic in the situation. Later, we're told on the road to Emmaus that he indicates to those he's walking with that he's going further on, and then he stays for dinner.

He turns back. Does that mean he changed his mind? He was going to go, but then he wasn't? Or does he deceive them with his movement, signification? His movement indicates that he's going on so i i think that um there's uh and i think my explanation if we're going to use the occam razor type thing it you don't have to go and twist into knots about things you have to say well it's signification it's this it's that you say no no no it's signification, it's this, it's that. You say, no, no, no. It's a falsehood.

It's clearly a falsehood. It's clearly meant them to believe it was a falsehood. And so there are some times when falsehoods are okay. I got one more question before we get into closing statements, if that's okay. Because this is something that I've actually learned. I mean, I've learned a lot, but this is one thing that really struck me. I used to think, okay, so how do you kind of follow Aquinas but not get the Jews killed? And so in my mind, I was like, okay, so you could say something like, I don't have any bloody cockroaches in my basement. And I thought, well, maybe that's a way of getting around it. But Dr. Janet said that according to Aquinas, you can't even tell a truth with the intention of deceiving.

So according, if she's right, Father, then that's off limits as well. So it feels like I've got very few options at that point. So St. Thomas' article, or excuse me, his question on lying is only like four articles long. It's short, and then a lot of the distinctions that are adduced in the subsequent tradition are like kind of a way of playing out the logic. So one of those is broad and strict mental reservations. And it's generally accepted in the manual tradition that broad mental reservations would be permissible in certain circumstances. But with respect to that particular question, I don't recall having encountered St.

Thomas weighing in on whether or not it is permissible to say a truth so as to deceive. I know that he says that if you think something false and you actually say what is materially true with the intent of deceiving, that qualifies as a lie. But you can tell people true things. And one of the things that is sometimes cited in this regard is the story of St. Athanasius, who is being chased down by persecutors, and they ask, like, have you seen Athanasius? And he says, he's not far from you, right? So this would be an example of a broad mental reservation in the sense you say something true, but, you know, like, how you interpret that, it's all you, baby. And then just one final thought about the Lord's actions with respect to going up to Jerusalem. The one thing I did encounter and I forgot and I remember is that going up to Jerusalem is a public event of worship,

which corresponds to like the songs of praise that you read in Psalm 120 and following these psalms of ascents. So it would have been conducted after the manner of a public pilgrimage, which, you know, something like you would see in Luke 2, when the Lord is lost to his parents for three days. And so, I think some people have interpreted in the sense that the Lord does not want to go up again, like you said, in a public way. And then the other thing that I want to say is, we don't want to make the Lord's divine knowledge such that he is not in genuine exchange with other people. So, the Lord has divine knowledge, obviously, but he has knowledge of the beatific vision.

He has the infused knowledge of the prophets and he has acquired knowledge. So the Lord is in real engagement. So like it says, I want to say in Mark, when the Lord is walking on the sea, he meant as if to pass them by, right? Which is a terrifying thing because they're like in this storm toss boat

and the Lord's just trotting out on the sea. He's like, let's go. And then they see him and they're like, hey, what are you doing over there? He's like, gosh, I guess I'll save you. Right. So the Lord is in real exchanges. And that doesn't signify that he is lying. It signifies that the Lord can be moved by other people. And that type of scriptural language is attributed to him. So the Lord has acquired knowledge, which is to say he has a real agent intellect. I'm lying. Like the Lord learns from things in a certain sense or he exhibits the

type of knowledge at the time in his life when it is appropriate to do so um so i think that that that's another helpful principle for thinking through some of these passages janet did you want to respond to that or no okay all right this has been just fantastic and i want to thank you both for just thinking this through really well and your civility and just kind of your intellectual modesty. There were a few times where both of you at different points were like, I don't know, I have to think more about that. And I think that's really impressive.

Okay, so since you went first, Father, your five minutes. Sorry, let me just throw this up on the screen here. Whenever you want to start, I'll click the start timer. Okay. Right. So I think that the big point to which I'd like to return and then maybe weave in a couple more things is to say that our acts are subject to God's providence, right? And that by prudence, we do in our lives what God does in the world by providence, right? So we try to orchestrate our actions in such a way God does in the world by providence, right? So we try to

orchestrate our actions in such a way that they conduce to a good end, right? That they conduce to the glory of God and the salvation of souls. Our soul first, because that's the one for which we're primarily responsible, and the souls of others insofar as they fall under our care. And I think that it can be a temptation to get overly concerned with outcomes assessments or good consequences or success. And when we begin to think in these terms, I think that it can subtly take our moral reasoning somewhat wide of the mark. So Father Lawrence Dewan, who is a Dominican in the Canadian province, who is one of the kindest and smartest men that I've ever met in my whole life. kindest and smartest man that I've ever met in my whole life. He wrote an article about lying and he says, speaking to this idea that we have to manage the consequences or that we primarily are responsible for consequences. He says, it arises from a conception of the moral agent

as much more an engineer of reality than a cooperator with the author of reality. It acknowledges certain given ends or goals of life, but sees less than it should of the givenness of nature and natures. And so I think that, yeah, just to kind of return the conversation to this idea of fidelity, that we're responsible to the Lord and that we give him the praise, the honor, the glory of upright speech or an upright signification of words and deeds. And I think that it's demanding of us because it requires of us that we trust in God, that all things will work to the good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose. And I don't think it's overly rigorous or overly fastidious to be concerned

that one not sin. I don't think that the purpose of life is to not sin. I think that the purpose of life is to glorify God and save one's soul. And I think that that should be done by big and bold and magnanimous things. And I don't think that lying falls in among those big and bold and magnanimous things. I think it's the type of thing that doesn't fit, doesn't correspond with a life lived, you know, virtuously and well. So I think that basically everyone has a right to know the truth because I think that truth is one of our most basic goods. Not in the sense that the new natural lawyers would say basic goods, like these seven basic goods that don't necessarily have a theological orientation, but in the sense that it's the type of good that gets so close to who we are as human beings that it's inextricable from our nature.

So like Dr. Smith said, we can be deprived of freedom of movement. We can even be deprived of our life. But I do not think that we should ever be deprived of our access to the truth whereby we can be more deeply converted, fall more deeply in love with God, and ultimately be drawn to him in life eternal. And I think that we owe that to others and that we can never be arbiters over whether or not they are deserving thereof. The other thing is that with respect to our own giving of it, right, I think that it demands of us a kind of moral integrity. I think that double speech eventually leads to double heartedness. And I don't want to drive like a big slippery slope argument because I think that those are usually intellectually irresponsible and sometimes overblown.

But I think that there's a real concern here. And I think that this is the type of prophetic concern that people saw with respect to the threat of contraception, right? So St. John Paul II, in the Theology of the Body, he talks about this nuptial meaning of the body, the nuptial language of the body. The body speaks a certain language, and if we begin to speak with the body in other language, then we fall readily into a kind of double-heartedness, a double-mindedness. And I think so, too, with the expression of our faculty of speech or with our performance of deeds. So I think that lying threatens to compromise our integrity in a way that will lead us farther and farther away from the center of God's will at which we want to abide. And I think that if our moral intuitions sometimes differ from this, well, I think that sometimes our

moral intuitions are wrong. And I think that when we realize that our moral intuitions are sometimes stretched to their limit, then we should look to the saints and we should trust to them. I think it's an error to say that St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas make an a priori apodictic claim about lies, because I think that, you know, before they are theologians, they are lovers of God. They are saints. And we honor them first because they gave testimony to the fact that God was, you know, alive in their hearts and working out by the virtue of the grace given a truly glorious thing, a thing of sanctity, which is worthy of our veneration and on which we can draw for intercession. So I think that we should appeal to the intuitions of the saints of St. Augustine and of St. Thomas Aquinas, or St. Dominic Savio, who said, death but not sin, or St. John Henry Newman, who said that we should prefer the destruction of the entire material universe to the commission of a single sin.

So with that, I ask your indulgence for seven more seconds. Thanks so much. Thank you, Father Pine. Janet, whenever you're ready. Yeah, one of the big differences here is that he's a young man and I'm an old woman. He still has energy after all this. I'm kind of fading fast here. But let me, this talk as if what we're doing is outcome assessment and looking for success seems to

me a misrepresentation of what's going on. I'm sorry. The guy that's standing has a bunch of starving kids and he's standing beside a field with apples and he says, I'm not going to take these because it's wrong to take something that belongs to another. I'm just going to let God provide. I'm going to say God did provide. He put you beside a field with apples.

You've got a theory. You've got a theory that taking something that belongs to another is wrong. The commandment says thou shalt not steal. You don't understand, though, that this isn't stealing. His father says there's this universal destination of goods, all right? Take those apples. Don't be an idiot. Oh, no, no. God will provide. All right. He did provide. He gave you apples, right? Same thing as you see someone being an innocent person being killed. And you say, I know I could stop that person. I'm a big guy. I could knock him over and maybe he would even die if I did this. In fact, I think he would. And he said, but I don't want to be violent. I don't want to kill. The commandment says don't kill. And he said, no, no, he doesn't mean you can't kill him.

You can kill him. He said, no, no, God will provide. God will stop this in some way. And even if he doesn't, even if the person dies, that's okay. That's in God's will. I think that's not good thinking. All right? You're not, I mean, I don't think you can sin to achieve good.

I don't think saying some falsehood is sinning. And I think sometimes our moral intuitions are right. Yes, sometimes they're wrong, but sometimes they're right. And that virtually everyone I know, except someone in grip of a theory, thinks I should say there are no Jews in my attic or something equivalent. It's a very solid and good moral intuition. Just let's take those apples. Big guy knocked that guy over. But wait a minute, I have to go talk to a Thomist to find out whether or not

there's some category like universal destination of goods that says I can take the apples. I was taught from the time I was little, don't steal. It's almost like the parent who says, you have to come home at 11. That's the rule around this house. You don't come home at 11, you're in big trouble. And then the kid comes home at 11. And then you find out that he was at a place where there were, there was a car accident, and there were all these people dying, and he should have stayed to help them bind up their wounds, etc. He said, but I couldn't, I had to be home at 11. And you go, kid, said, but I couldn't. I had to be home at 11. And you go, kid, oh my gosh, we need to talk.

I would have, there'd be no problem if you're not coming home at 11. Again, and when you show up at the doors and God says, what did you do when those Jews were, the Nazis were at the door? I said, there were no Jews there. And I didn't do it to protect myself. As a matter of fact, I think if they found out I was harboring Jews, I'm going to get killed. And it was a heroic act. It's not a sniffingly cowardly act to say there are no Jews in my attic. And the sniffing coward was, yeah, there are Jews in my attic. Let me lead you. I mean, Chris Tolleson, I said, you lead them up there to find the Jews.

And then you walk with him all the way to the train where they're going to be put on the train to the concentration camp, trying to convince them that they shouldn't be killing Jews and that you take me with you and that my good example will convert them. That is Pollyanna-ish, right? You're not living in the real world. And they might be convinced more. Who knows what the effect that has? The fact that I said there's no Jews in my attic and later they found out there were, and they realized I was willing to do that for Jews, that might convert them. Who the heck knows what's going to convert a person? So I think that's, that's, again, it's just, it's, it's misrepresenting the consequences. You don't do it because the consequences are good or bad.

You do it because this person doesn't deserve to know the truth. And I don't give money to anybody who wants money from me. All right. They don't deserve my property. I don't turn over children again. Anyway, I'm repeating myself. But all I want to say is I really thank Matt for setting this up. I really appreciate Father Pine's contribution. It was immense. I'm so glad I didn't have to cover those things that

he did in his instructional way because it would have taken me, he did in three minutes what it would have taken me 15. So the efficiency there was just awesome. And I do think he has made the best possible case that can be made for his position. I don't know I've made the best possible one for mine, but I think we've given people something to think about. And it seems to me very much that that's what was the intent here. So thank you, Matt. Thank. Thank you Janet. Thank you Father Pine. Yeah thank you everybody for watching. I hope you enjoyed today's debate. Please let us know in the comment section below what you thought, why you thought it. Do us a favor and subscribe. Click that bell button as well so Google will have to notify you. They can't lie. It's an algorithm thing. It's like

mechanical. They have to let you know every time we put out a new episode. God bless you. សូវាប់បានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបា Teksting av Nicolai Winther សូវាប់បានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបា Thank you.