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resource for specialists in the religions of South Asia, though undergraduates with a significant background in the area may well find it of valuable use. The excellent index and comprehensive bibliography make it eminently useful as a tool for further research.
doi:10.1093/jaarel/lfj075 Advance Access publication April 21, 2006

Stuart Ray Sarbacker Northwestern University

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Lying: An Augustinian Theology of Duplicity. By Paul J. Griffiths. Brazos Press, 2004. 254 pages. $18.99.
Even for theologians of his time, Augustines exceptionless ban on lying was one of his most controversial positions. Paul J. Griffiths acknowledges that Augustines view has never been accepted by many Christians or nonChristians and is particularly at odds with contemporary culture. Against this historical backdrop, Griffiths comparative philosophical study seeks to reclaim the peculiarly Christian boldness of Augustines universal ban and to place it at the heart of an Augustinian grammar of sin, confession, and grace. Both the books structure and the rhetoric present Augustines work in stark clarity. This is helpful in illuminating certain texts that do not garner much attention among present-day theologians. The authors overriding aim for systematic lucidity, however, sometimes muscles Augustines 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 authors 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 Augustines 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 speakers 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

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from nothing by and for the speaker (93). As with all sins, the prideful resolve that motivates lying ruptures ones relationship with God and thereby disrupts a graced world of ordered being, goodness, and love. Griffiths concludes that because Augustines 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 participates in what it represents, and because it does so it can displace the gaze from itself to that in which it participates . . . [S]peech is a gift, something with which we are filled and by means of which we participate in the truth that is not ours (80, 89). To speak truly, then, involves a conscious surrendering and decentering of speech from the autonomous speaker. Only when one learns to disown the compelling potency of speech, does it become possible to enact and gratefully imitate the image of God. Speech is especially powerful in mirroring the incarnational and triune character of Gods being. As Griffiths explains, the internal and external dimensions of memory, intelligence, and will, which are brought into creative relation through speech, have an aesthetic and dramatic capacity to embody Gods truth and goodness. The image [of God] must in principle be discernible in every aspect of our being, and this means that it must be discernible in the means by which we form thoughts and bring them to utterance . . . A full understanding of how words and thoughts are related in us requires and is to be derived from an understanding of the divine trinity (79). Although I applaud Griffiths for having highlighted the giftedness of speech, I fault him for his restricted exegesis of Augustines work. This is evident in Griffiths limited discussion of sin, which excludes any reflection on the implications of original sin. He writes: Along the gloomily winding paths opened by this line of thought I shall not follow him . . . [A] sufficiently full understanding of sins grammar can be had without doing so (58). I question whether Griffiths declines to consider original sin because, as he tries to argue, it is not central to Augustines grammar of sin or because it obscures Griffiths artificially streamlined analysis of intentionality. A more striking sign of this too-narrow

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interpretation is Griffiths inattention to incoherencies in Augustines thought. Nowhere does Griffiths press Augustine about being a moral absolutist on the subject of lying, while not being a moral absolutist on other issues that pertain to social goods and protections. The most challenging questions about coherence arise from Augustines discussions of life-and-death matters, such as war and the moral hazards of judging death-penalty cases. If Augustine applies moral distinctions to differentiate between killing to defend ones own life (which he condemns) and killing to preserve the innocent life of a neighbor or, more broadly, to preserve civilized order (which he condones), then why can no similar social justice distinctions be applied in cases of lying? As Griffiths admits, the answer to such social justice dilemmas is plain to other leading theologians: The answer seems obvious: the lie should be told. Aquinas would say so: it would be a venial sin. Newman would say so: it would be a lie for just cause. Cassian and Chrystostom and Jerome would say so without a moments thought . . . Only Augustine would accept the terms and ban the lie. The consistent Augustinian cannot lie to save innocent life, whether one or a million; he cannot lie to comfort the sad, preserve public order, prevent physical suffering, or even to prevent apostasy or blasphemy (230). But Griffiths does not pursue the simple question of why, according to Augustine, one can kill, destroying the divine gift of human life, to accomplish some of these very ends? Are acts of lying graver offenses than acts of violence and the intentional taking of life? In my view, Griffiths spends far too much time prosecuting theologians on whether they are adequately absolutist to call themselves consistent Augustinians and far too little time examining how consistent is Augustine himself. There are numerous political instances where Augustine speaks of the necessary risks of morally dirtying ones hands to preserve social goods. Paradoxically, Griffiths single-minded effort to keep Augustine within absolutist confines leads him, in the end, to a non-Augustinian sectarian conclusion. Because of the presence of lying in contemporary society, Griffiths argues that a community of truth would be a community that could not easily act as advocate for or supporter of a late-capitalist democracy . . . If this is so . . . then Augustinian Christians cannot seek and assume elected office in such a democracy (229). Although Augustine was highly critical of Roman culture and politics, he did not advocate that Christians withdraw from political positions to safeguard their ethical purity. Augustine was well aware of the moral perils of governing. Yet he repeatedly affirmed the need for Christians to remain engaged in political environments complicated by morally confusing circumstances, intentions, and ends. In the majority of his work, especially his mature work, Augustine cannot be rendered as an absolutist or a political purist. This needs to be attended to not only to ensure a fair reading of Augustine but also to develop an adequate analysis of lying in relation to other ethical values and its possible ramifications for the moral life as a whole.
doi:10.1093/jaarel/lfj076 Advance Access publication April 19, 2006

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J. Joyce Schuld Cornell University