Dist. 38, Art. 1, Q. 1
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/3/d/38/q/bon-sent-III-d38-a1-q1
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### Article unique. *On lying.*

### Question I. *Whether it is essential to a lie to be false.*

Concerning the first point one proceeds thus and asks whether it is essential to a lie to be false. And that it is, it seems:

1. *First*, through the definition of a lie which Augustine sets down in the book *On Lying*: « A lie, he says, is a false signification of the voice with the intention of deceiving »: if therefore the definition and the parts of the definition are essential to what is defined: therefore it is essential to a lie to be false.

2. Likewise, this same thing seems [to follow] through what Augustine says, *Against Lying*: « As light is opposed to darkness, so truth is opposed to a lie »; but darkness, speaking essentially, is the privation of light: therefore a lie is the privation of truth. But the privation of truth is falsity: therefore, from the first, it is essential to a lie itself to be false.

3. Likewise, as being truthful and being lying stand with respect to a *man*, so they stand with respect to *speech*; but these two are incompossible in the same man at one and the same time, namely his being truthful and lying: therefore they will likewise be incompossible in *discourse*: therefore it is impossible that the same discourse be at once true and lying. If therefore a lie cannot coexist with truth, it seems that it has falsity inseparably annexed to itself.

4. Likewise, every truth, as such, is from the first Truth; but no lie is from the first Truth: therefore no lie is true. And it is true, or false: therefore it is essential to a lie itself to be false.

**On the contrary:** 1. Augustine in the book *On Lying* says that « he lies who says what is true, which he thinks to be false »; but he who lies utters a lie: therefore someone, by saying what is true, makes a lie: not every lie, therefore, is necessarily false.

2. Likewise, just as speech is at variance with intention when one denies what he knows, so too it is at variance when he affirms what he is ignorant of and what he doubts; but it is possible for someone to affirm some truth about which he doubts; let it be posited, then, since it is possible; but in such an affirmation the speech is at variance with the intention of the speaker: therefore there is a fault and a sin there. But it is none other than the sin of a lie: therefore it seems that something can at once be true, and yet nonetheless be a lie.

3. Likewise, if the intention is right, the whole is right: therefore if the intention is lying, the whole is lying; but someone can say a true utterance with the intention of lying: therefore it is possible that someone, by saying what is true, be lying. But he is lying only in that utterance: therefore it is possible that a true utterance be a lie.

4. Likewise, as sin stands to goodness, so a lie stands to truth; but he who does some good work with a bad intention commits a sin:

therefore likewise he who says what is true with the intention of deceiving incurs a lie: therefore the same as before. If you should say, according as the Master seems to say in the text, that it is possible for someone to say what is true and to lie, but it is not possible that any utterance be at once true and a lie; it seems to be « an opposition in the adjunct »: because, as the sinner stands to sin, so the liar stands to a lie; but every sinner commits a sin: therefore every liar utters a lie: therefore if the truth of the utterance is not repugnant to the act of lying, it is not repugnant to the very account of a lie.

### Conclusion.

> Although the intention of deceiving alone suffices for someone to be said to lie, nevertheless for the complete account of a lie a twofold falsity is required, namely with respect to the intention and to the thing.

**I respond:** For the understanding of what has been said it must be noted that an utterance outwardly brought forth is compared to the intention of the speaker and to the *thing signified* itself; and according to this that utterance obtains the account of a twofold falsity, or truth. For by comparison to the thing the speech is called true, but by comparison to the intention of the speaker it is called truthful. So too falsity is twofold with respect to speech. For by comparison to the thing, namely when there is no adequation of the thing and the speech, the speech is called false; but by comparison to the intention of the speaker, when there is no adequation of the speech and the intention, the speech is called fallacious or lying.

Since therefore a lie names the utterance itself by comparison to the thing and to the speaker himself; hence it is that for the complete account of a lie a twofold falsity concurs: one by comparison to the thing, and the other by comparison to the intention of the speaker. And Augustine touches upon this twofold falsity in the definition of a lie, when he says: « A lie is a false signification of the voice with the intention of deceiving ». Now the first falsity holds in the lie itself the account of the *material*; but the second the account of the *formal*, and from that second [falsity] one is denominated a liar. On account of this twofold comparison, therefore, which the lie itself implies from the account of its name, it is necessary that for its complete account the aforesaid twofold difference of falsity concur. — But *to lie* names an act by comparison to the speaker himself. Hence for someone to be said to lie, the falsity that arises from the discord of the voice and the intention suffices; and this is plain from the very definition of the word, because *to lie is to go against the mind*. Now against his mind goes not only he who knowingly says what is false, but also he who says what is true which he thinks to be false. Hence less is implied when we say that someone *lies* than when we say that someone *utters a lie*. For although the intention of deceiving suffices for someone to be said to lie; nevertheless it does not suffice for the full account of a lie, according as the Master says in the text, and is manifestly apparent from Augustine's own description and from the reasons brought forward to the first part.

1. To that indeed which is objected to the contrary, that he lies who says what is true which he thinks to be false; the response is now plain: because more is required for the perfect account of a lie than for someone to be said to lie.

2. To that which is objected, that just as speech is at variance with intention in him who asserts what is false, so too in him who asserts what is doubtful and uncertain; it must be said that although there is there a likeness as regards the discord of *intention*, nevertheless there is an unlikeness as regards the discord of *speech and thing*, because, when what is false is knowingly asserted, the speech is at variance not only with the *intention*, but is also at variance with the *thing*; and therefore it does not follow that, if in the assertion of a known falsehood there is a lie, there should be on this account [a lie] in the assertion of an uncertain truth, except *in a qualified sense*.

3. To that which is objected, that a right intention rectifies the whole, and an oblique one falsifies the whole; it must be said that although an oblique intention falsifies the whole utterance, nevertheless it does not falsify it according to *every respect*, but according to the respect which it has to the *speaker*; and that respect does not suffice for the account of a lie, as has been touched upon.

4. To that which is objected, that he who does a good thing with a bad intention commits a sin, therefore etc.; it must be said that a good thing done with a bad intention is not *absolutely* a sin, but a sin *to him* who does it, just as, when someone gives alms out of vainglory, *to give alms* is not a sin, but [it is a sin] *to him* who does this with a bad intention. So too in the matter at hand it can be granted. And therefore from this it is not had that truth coexists with that which is a lie *absolutely*, but only with that which is a lie *in a qualified sense* or *to someone*. — In another way too it could be said that it is not similar: because sin

names the privation of *goodness*; but goodness names an ordering to an end, which indeed has being by means of a right *intention*: and therefore, the right intention being removed, since the ordering perishes absolutely, something will *absolutely* be judged to be a sin. But a lie names the privation of *truth*, which indeed consists not only in the comparison of the speech itself to the *intention*, but also to the *thing* itself.

And through this is plain the response to that which it objects consequently, that whoever sins commits a sin: therefore he who lies likewise commits a lie. For it is not similar, as has now been seen. Yet granting that that conclusion were granted, that this man by lying commits a lie, it would nevertheless not follow that it be a lie *in itself*; rather there is there [a lie] *in a qualified way* and not *absolutely*, as has been explained before. Hence only that utterance in which there is falsity by comparison to the *thing* and the *intention* is a lie *absolutely* and *completely*. But that in which there is falsity only by comparison to the *intention* is a lie *to someone* and *less completely*. But that in which there is falsity by comparison to the *thing* only is a lie *in a qualified sense* and *least completely*. Hence nearly all the foregoing reasons, and likewise the similar ones, fail in their procedure [by arguing] *in a qualified sense* and *absolutely*.