Lying

Last night I watched a discussion on the SBS Insight program about Scripture in Schools versus the new Ethics classes which are being trialled as an alternative to Special Religious Education [the proper name for Scripture].

Part of the program showed some children in an ethics class talking about why people lie. They were given some interesting scenarios, but nobody admitted to the main reason that I lie. I'm wondering if I'm different from other people, or just an especially bad person.

The children talked about lying so that you wouldn't hurt someone else's feelings.

The main reasons I lie are to get myself out of trouble and because I'm trying to avoid feeling uncomfortable by saying something that another person or myself may find confronting.

Is anybody else like this?

I previously posted an article about lying, in which David Field adapts an article by John Frame.

Unfortunately the article was copied badly and the Bible references went widdershins. I hope to rectify this shortly.

In that article, it was argued that lying is sometimes the lesser of two evils and sometimes necessary.

But in a most interesting article in the ESV Study Bible, it is argued that since the Bible teaches us that God cannot lie, and that Jesus was sinless, we cannot imagine that he ever told a lie.

If Jesus was tempted in every way as we are, yet he didn't sin, it is unthinkable that he would have lied. If this is so, it is not right to argue that it is sometimes acceptable for Christians to lie.

Even if you accept the argument of the Field-Frame article, the reasons we usually lie [I think] are less than noble and it is usually done to save our own skin. [Unless of course I'm a one-off in this area. Some would argue I'm a one-off in many areas...]