Authorized Ethical Deception?
“Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment” (John 7:24).
Several comments have been made over the past few years about a paper written by Mac Deaver, which he titled, “Ethical Deception.” The copy in front of this writer indicates nothing about when, or if, it was published. It consists of five typewritten pages (single-spaced) with nothing but the title and author at the beginning and no further information at the end. Many refer to this topic as “Biblical Ethical Deceit,” but he never uses that phraseology. He does talk about “authorized deception.” On page 2 of the document, Mac uses it twice, and on page 5 he uses it again. Thus, it shall be referred to as “Authorized Ethical Deception” (AED).
Mac has currently taken several positions that are contrary to what the Scriptures teach on the subject of the new birth, Holy Spirit baptism, spiritual gifts, and related matters. These errors are most troubling and cannot be successfully defended, but his advocacy of the AED doctrine is also questionable. On page one of the document, Mac makes certain that everyone knows that he is not trying to justify lying. He cites Revelation 21:8 and 22:15 to demonstrate that lying is clearly condemned. He lists certain events, such as Rahab lying about the spies, as occasions when lies were told. But is AED different from or the same as lying?
Definition
The first objection many would make is that he is arguing for deception, period. Interestingly, while Mac provides a definition for lying, he fails to include one for deception. Webster’s Second International Dictionary does not spend much room on the word deceive, but they have a lot to say about the word deceit: “Act of deceiving, as by falsification, concealment, or cheating.” The dictionary goes on to cite Amos 8:5: “Falsifying the balances by deceit.” That is part one of the first definition provided; the second part adds more substance to the definition:
An attempt to deceive or lead into error; any declaration, artifice, or practice, which misleads another, or causes him to believe what is false; a wily device; a trick, fraud (679).
Some synonyms are then provided: “Imposture, trickery, double dealing, dissimulation, craft, artifice, treachery, subtleness, wiliness, cunning, sophistry, intrigue, tergiversation.” Does the child of God really want to be associated with some of these definitions and synonyms? For that reason (and more that will be presented later), perhaps deception is not the best word to use when trying to explain certain events that occurred in the Bible—even though Deaver tried to distinguish between ethical and unethical deception.
The document under review is correct when it says we are not obligated to tell all that we know in many situations but that there are also times when it is necessary to speak the truth regardless of the consequences. He does not mention Jesus, but our Lord is the perfect example. Jesus remained silent during His trial. He felt no obligation to defend Himself against those who had already determined to kill Him at all costs. Only when the high priest adjured Him to speak did He say anything, and then (of course) He spoke the truth (Mark 14:60-62).
We all have conversations on a daily basis in which we have more information than we are willing to impart. We may know something about someone’s past that we keep to ourselves, so long as it does not put anyone in jeopardy. We might have been given confidential information about someone’s health; we have no obligation to act as the town crier. Others are not obligated to know everything we do (and would just as soon not know anyway). Even if we are asked a specific question, we always reserve the right to answer, “I’m not at liberty to say,” or, “I think it would be better not to comment on that right now.”
But if an answer is required, we are under obligation to give a truthful one. The withholding of information (concealment) may be a definition of deceit, but it is not necessarily so; concealment may be a matter of privilege (choosing not to tell), but deceit is intentionally misleading someone. In other words, if God withholds information from us regarding a mystery to be revealed later, that is concealment, but not deceit. If He withheld a vital part of the plan of salvation so that we remained lost, that would be capricious and deceitful (if we thought we had all we needed).
Situation Ethics?
Before he gets into the heart of his position, Deaver also makes it clear that he is not trying to support the false doctrine of “situation ethics,” which Joseph Fletcher popularized back in the 60s. This doctrine follows the Machiavellian principle that “the end justifies the means.” Fletcher taught that it was all right to lie if one was seeking a good result. He would use Rahab’s lying about where the spies were in order to save their lives as justifiable. To most people, such a lie in that situation makes sense, and it did work out well for all concerned. But it could have equally proven to be disastrous—if someone had testified, “I know for certain that the spies did not leave the city,” and a subsequent search discovered them on the roof of Rahab’s house. Then all three of them could have been put to death. The result of an action does not prove that it was either right or wrong. God gave us ethics to determine that.
Deaver does examine properly an incident involving what David once did in eating the showbread and His disciples plucking grain on the Sabbath day. He correctly shows that Jesus was not arguing for situation ethics; He was turning their own logic back upon them (2). Jesus did not justify David in his sin, nor did He in any way support Fletcher’s errors.
1 Samuel 16:1-5
Allegedly, this one passage of Scripture proves AED (2). Therefore, it is replicated below:
Then the Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and go; I am sending you to Jesse the Bethlehemite. For I have provided Myself a king among his sons (1 Sam. 16:1).
And Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears it, he will kill me.” And the Lord said, “Take a heifer with you, and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord’” (v. 2).
“Then invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do; you shall anoint for Me the one I name for you” (v. 3).
So Samuel did what the Lord said, and went to Bethlehem. And the elders of the town trembled at his coming, and said, “Do you come peaceably?” (v. 4).
And he said, “Peaceably; I have come to the sacrifice of the Lord. Sanctify yourselves, and come with me to the sacrifice.” Then he sanctified Jesse and his sons, and invited them to the sacrifice (v. 5).
These are the words of the passage, but it is Deaver’s interpretation of the text that is “slanted.” He says that “a deception was enacted” and that “the real purpose for Samuel’s trip was assigned by the assignment of a secondary purpose, a sacrifice” (2). He then adds that “God used the sacrifice to deceive Saul.” One could put this kind of “spin” on the situation, but there is another way to look at it.
Did God know the plan from the start, or did He improvise as He went along? When Samuel asked, “How can I go?” did God have to stop and say, “Oh! I hadn’t thought of that. Hmm, let’s see, what can we do?” Or did God have it planned the whole time that Samuel would do the anointing in conjunction with the sacrifice? God, being omniscient, always knows what the alternatives are and what He intends to do. He often states something to see what the reaction is, such as suggesting that he will annihilate Israel and build a greater nation from Moses (Num. 14:11-12).
Second, as it related to 1 Samuel 16:1-5, He addressed Samuel on the basis of his mourning for King Saul’s disobedience and let him in on the rest of the plan only when he objected to Saul’s likely reaction. God could just have easily spoken to Samuel in this way: “I want you to go to Bethlehem and offer a sacrifice.” Samuel might have responded by asking: “How will that do any good or change anything?” The Lord may have answered, “While you are there engaged in that task, I want you to anoint a new king.” “Oh, I see,” the prophet says, as the entire plan dawns on him.
Third, as it turns out, Saul did not ask Samuel why he was going. However, the people of Bethlehem did. Samuel withheld part of his purpose because the people did not need to know it. This is concealment but not to anyone’s detriment. However, if Samuel had said the same thing to Saul, would not his purpose have been to deceive him? The reason for saying the very same words to two different individuals or two groups of people may differ. In one case, the hearer(s) may not need to know; in another instance, they are intentionally misled.
Fourth, God headed off the potential conflict. Samuel takes a heifer for the sacrifice, and Saul does not think to ask him, “Are you going somewhere to anoint a king?” One might say that through God’s providence Samuel did not need to speak to King Saul. Therefore, Deaver’s claim that “this one single passage of Scripture” proves “Authorized Ethical Deceit,” the fact is that, properly viewed, it does not.
Other Alleged Instances
The two situations of Abraham and Sarah with Pharaoh and the king of Gerar deserve an article all to themselves. In the remaining space of this one, Mac’s other examples will be considered from his next-to-last paragraph. He calls Israel’s battle plan against Ai the “divine ‘ambush’” and refers to it as “a case of military deception” (5). When a nation is at war, normal rules of conduct do not apply, such as “Love thy neighbor.” Combatants take whatever they find from a dead enemy soldier (money, a watch, a ring); they do not make any effort to mail his possessions back to his loved ones. Nor does an army send messages to an enemy stronghold, saying, “We’re going to show up with 5,000 men at 7:00 A.M. We will be attacking the south gate with a battering ram. Please be ready to engage us in battle.”
The men of Ai should have considered that Israel’s drawing back was a ploy to get them out of the city. They jumped to a conclusion that proved to be costly to them. The point is that the ethics of war are different than those by which we normally operate. The Geneva Convention was established so that some standards yet remain even then. The conclusion of the matter, however, is that it is inappropriate to use as daily principles by which we live those that would be different in a time of war.
Another instance that Deaver cites concerns Elisha in 2 Kings 6:8-23. The text says that Elisha kept warning the King of Israel about where the Syrians would attack him; thus, he kept escaping. The king of Syria grew frustrated and thought he had a traitor in his midst. One of his servants informed him that it was Elisha the prophet who was telling the king of Israel what he said in private. Having heard that Elisha was in Dothan, he sent horses and chariots to surround the city, which they did.
The next morning, Elisha’s servant arose, and when he went out, he saw the city surrounded with horses and chariots. Elisha allayed his fears by praying that his eyes might be opened: they were, and he saw that the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. As the Syrians descended from the mountains and came down to the city, Elisha prayed that they be struck with blindness, which some commentators think was only partial, since they were able to make the march to Samaria (12 miles away).
Elisha spoke to the army, saying, “This is not the way, nor is this the city. Follow me, and I will bring you to the man whom you seek.” The Pulpit Commentary has no problem saying that Elisha made “an untruthful statement” (agreeing with Keil), and they seek to justify the alleged lie: “In the morality of the time, and, indeed, in the morality of all times up to the present, it has been held to be justifiable to deceive the public enemy” (5:2:122). Really? Is that the best that can be done with the text? So Elisha just lied and God had no problem working miracles through him? Hmm.
The Syrians had been sent to Dothan to capture Elisha. Why? Because he had been warning the king of Israel where the Syrians were going to be. They wanted to do battle against the king and his army, but Elisha, through his advice, had kept them from finding the king. The next logical move was to find and capture Elisha; then he would no longer be able to alert the Israelite king of the Syrians’ movements. So they found Elisha, but in answer to his prayer God struck them with blindness.
When Elisha addressed them, he was not speaking of himself or lying about what city he was in; he was referring to their main objective—finding the king of Israel in order to fight with him. He had been the elusive one. Dothan was not the city where the king of Israel was, nor was the prophet the one they truly sought. Elisha would lead them to the man they wanted. And he did!
When their eyes were opened, they saw the king of Israel—the one they had been trying to find for so long. They had finally achieved their main goal. The only problem was that they were inside the city of Samaria, which was not their preferred battleground, to be certain. Elisha had not lied; he gave them what they wanted—the right city and the right king. However, it was not the basis upon which they had wanted to meet him. Did Elisha lead them there to be slaughtered? No, although the king was ecstatically in favor of the notion (v. 21).
Elisha insisted that they be treated as prisoners, given a meal, and then be released (v. 22). No doubt this was one day of confusion in the life of these soldiers. They had thought to conquer Elisha, but he captured them. They may have thought they could force him to tell the king of Israel’s whereabouts, but he took them to him. Then they had cause to fear for their lives, but they were fed and let go. What a day of bizarre twists! What they learned was that Elisha’s God had more power than theirs and that it did not pay to try to intimidate Him. Readers of the Old Testament should learn a lesson, also, that there is no reason to ascribe lying to a prophet of God when at least one other reasonable explanation exists for the recorded events.
The Last Paragraph
Mac chose to close his five-page justification of AED by using an illustration. He asks: “Is it ever ethically right for a preacher to hide his sermon outline in his Bible while preaching, hoping that the audience will not know he uses one?” This writer would not know since he has always used copious notes when preaching and never tried to hide them. Some preachers have sermon outlines written on the blank pages of their Bible. Deaver has two problems here. First, he accuses all preachers who carry such outlines as being dishonest in their motives, which is an assumption, not a fact. Second, even if it were true, it is the tu quoque fallacy of logic. All that this Latin phrase means is: “Likewise you” or “you, too.” In other words, “I’m guilty, but you are, too.” The application would be: “Elisha was guilty of lying, but you are, too. We all use Authorized Ethical Deceit.” No, all of us do not.