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  • From: Loren Rosson <rossoiii AT yahoo.com>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Paul's lies
  • Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 07:40:02 -0700 (PDT)


Rick Carr wrote:

> I can not agree with you when you say,
>
> "And to lie in the service of God
> himself -- as Paul claims he does in Rom
> 3:7…"
>
> Why must this statement be taken as an
> admission that Paul in fact lied?
> Moreover how can this statement be taken
> to suggest that it is something
> Paul is proud of or that it is somehow
> honorable to lie in the service of God.

Rick:

I'll grant you that my intepretation of Rom 3:7 is
debatable. The real point I was making is that many
forms of strategical lying are considered honorable in
collectivist ("group oriented") cultures. This is
because "truth" has more to do with appearances rather
than what someone really thinks. In various works
Context Group members like Bruce Malina and Dick
Rohrbaugh have contrasted Mediterranean collectivist
cultures and American individualistic cultures with
the following diagram.

Individualist: Collectivist:

Publicly defined self Publicly defined self
Privately defined self In-group defined self

In-group defined self Privately defined self

In individualist cultures like ours, the publicly
defined self is generally expected to coincide with
the privately defined self -- and the in-group self
recedes into the background. "To speak one way while
thinking another" is hypocrisy. But in collectivist
cultures like Jesus', the publicly defined self is
generally expected to coincide with the in-group
defined self -- and the privately defined self recedes
into the background. "To speak one way if it's not
what your friends want to hear" is dishonorable.

To be sure, Western people have socially acceptable
forms of lying -- as in cases of thanking someone for
an unappreciated gift or saying that someone's new
hairdew looks nice even if it looks ghastly. In these
cases the publicly defined self coincides with the
in-group defined self, rather than the privately
defined self. (The lie is told so as not to hurt
people's feelings.) But for the most part, Western
folk are raised to believe that lying is a bad thing.
But for collectivists lying is commonplace and (in
many cases) honorable. The key to remember is that
LYING IN ORDER TO (A) PRESERVE HARMONY AMONG FRIENDS,
OR (B) DECEIVE OR DEGRADE ENEMIES, are equally
honorable in collectivist cultures.

> I think it is better to understand Paul as saying,
> "even though I fail,
> God will not. He can even use my sin, my lies to
> bring about his glory."
> But this is far from suggesting that he thought his
> lies were acceptable to God.

I admit this is possible, because while the act of
lying itself is honorable, to be called a liar -- or
to become renowned as a liar -- can be very
dishonorable. Yet Paul was comfortable with slapping
such dishonorable labels on himself elsewhere (as with
"fool" in II Cor 11). So I'm inclined to see Paul as
acknowledging without shame that he lies "like
everyone" (Rom 3:4) in Rom 3:7.

Loren Rosson III
Nashua NH
rossoiii AT yahoo.com

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