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  • Lying: An Augustinian Theology of Duplicity
  • Joyce Schuld
Lying: An Augustinian Theology of Duplicity. By Paul J. Griffiths. Brazos Press, 2004. 254 pages. $18.99.

Even for theologians of his time, Augustine's exceptionless ban on lying was one of his most controversial positions. Paul J. Griffiths acknowledges that Augustine's view has never been accepted by many Christians or non-Christians and is particularly at odds with contemporary culture. Against this historical backdrop, Griffiths' comparative philosophical study seeks to reclaim the "peculiarly Christian" boldness of Augustine's universal ban and to place it at the heart of an Augustinian grammar of sin, confession, and grace. Both the book's structure and the rhetoric present Augustine's work in stark clarity. This is helpful in illuminating certain texts that do not garner much attention among present-day theologians. The author's overriding aim for systematic lucidity, however, sometimes muscles Augustine's thought into an artificial coherence, leaving the reader with a one-dimensional figure, who is not adequately questioned about possible inconsistencies or significant shifts in his perspective over time. Readers should also be aware that Griffiths provides an unremittingly charitable reading. Indeed, Griffiths is less critical of Augustine than Augustine is of himself. Still, there is much to learn from his analysis. As long as readers keep in mind the author's lack of critical distance, they can benefit from his interpretation of particular Augustinian and non-Augustinian texts.

The first half of the book weaves into a larger ontological whole Augustine's proscription against lying, which he voices in two compact ethical treatises. The second half offers nine "Augustinian readings" of thinkers who present moral distinctions that differentiate various acts of lying, according to circumstances, ends, and intentions. Griffiths draws on opposing views to hone his commentary on Augustine. Setting Augustine sharply apart from other leading theologians and philosophers, he presses these differences to reassert his claims about the necessary connection between Christian presuppositions and an absolute prohibition against lying. At the center of Griffiths' analysis is the pure gift of speech. After narrowing his definition of lying to verbal acts of duplicity that intentionally contradict the speaker's mind, he examines it as an inevitably selfish appropriation of what is not ours to command. "Speech is a gift given, and a condition of its use is that it is received as such. But the lie is a use of speech that rejects precisely this condition by attempting, incoherently, to own speech as if it had been created [End Page 546] from nothing by and for the speaker" (93). As with all sins, the prideful resolve that motivates lying ruptures one's relationship with God and thereby disrupts a graced world of ordered being, goodness, and love. Griffiths concludes that because "Augustine's exceptionless ban on the lie is simply an instance of his exceptionless ban on sin in general," it should make no difference to moral analysis whether lying brings about socially bad or good effects, whether it is motivated by hatred or compassion and mercy, and whether it is employed to damage human life or as a last resort to preserve it (93). "The repudiation of the gift is the same in all sins (and a fortiori in all lies), and in this fundamental sense there is no hierarchy of sin . . . Even in the hard cases, the evil-doer at the door seeking to kill your innocent children, the rapist in the street seeking to rape your beloved, [Augustine] says that the lie is not and cannot be justified" (95, 99). Every act of lying therefore, no matter its intention or end, provides us with a paradigm of sin.

If speech is understood as a pure gift, then speech used well is always a celebratory and humbling act of devotion. "The true antonym of mendacium, for Augustine, is adoratio, or its close cousin, confessio; and the fundamental reason for banning the lie without exception is that when we speak duplicitously, we exclude the possibility of adoration" (85). Speech is humanly valuable, from this perspective, because it provides opportunities to partake in what Griffiths describes as "the icon" of the being of God. "An icon...

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