Marrying Truth and Faith

Did God lie?

Created:

|

Updated:

Created:

Updated:

The Bible contains many verses that describes God as one who doesn’t lie, including:

  • God’s proclamation: Numbers 23:19; Isaiah 46:11; Ezekiel 12:25, 12:28; John 17:17;
  • Man’s worship, proclamation or praise: 1 Samuel 15:29; 2 Samuel 7:28; Psalm 33:4, 105:8-11, 119:140, 119:160, 145:13; Isaiah 31:2; John 1:14; Titus 1:2; Hebrews 6:17-18; 1 John 5:6-11

This entry examines the claim that God does not lie by analyzing counterarguments.

What does it mean to lie?

A person lies when he intentionally communicates something that he believes to be false.

These scenarios count as lying:

  • White lies: saying something you know is false to avoid hurting someone’s feelings
  • Trivial or harmless lies: saying something you know is false for a benign reason, such as preserving a surprise or avoiding confusion.
  • “True” lies: saying something you believe to be false but turns out to be true

These scenarios do not qualify as lying:

  • Mistaken Belief: saying something you believe to be true but which turns out to be false.
  • Miscommunication: attempting to be truthful but being misunderstood due to unclear or ambiguous language.
  • Intentionally misleading, without lying: present information in a way that causes others to draw false conclusions.
    (for example: omission, ambiguity or misdirection)

Lying can manifest as a result of three mechanisms: fabrication, exaggeration, and understatement.

  • Fabrication: making up information entirely with no basis in reality.
  • Exaggeration: overstating or amplifying details to make a situation or fact more extreme/severe than it is.
  • Understatement: minimizing or downplaying details to make a situation or fact less extreme/severe than it is.

Context matters

Not all exaggerations or understatements are intended to deceive. They can serve rhetorical, emotional, or ironic purposes.

For example, the statement “I’ve been waiting here for hours” may simply express frustration rather than being a literal claim. However, if said with the intent to communicate that literally, it would be a lie.

Similarly, allegorical or fictional content, such as stories and poetry, is not meant to be taken literally and should not be categorized as lying.

What does it mean that God lied?

For this analysis, we assume that God is omniscient (all-knowing, including knowledge of the future) and omnipotent (all-powerful).

God lies if He expresses something false

Unlike humans, it is not possible for God to have a mistaken belief since He is omniscient. Therefore, if God states something false, it must be intentional.

God lies if He did not fulfill his promise

A human may break a promise due to unforeseen circumstances, a change of mind, or lack of ability. However, if God makes a promise, He already knows whether He will fulfill it.

Therefore, if a divine promise is unfulfilled, then God must have knowingly made a false statement, in other words, lie. This aligns with passages such as Numbers 23:19 and Isaiah 46:11, which affirm that God does not break His promises.

To be clear, a promise could be conditional—for example, if we remain faithful, God would do XX. If the condition is unmet, God is not required to fulfill the promise, and this would not constitute lying.

Approach to evaluate if God did lie

From above, it is established that God lies if he expresses something false or if he did not fulfill his promise.

To analyze whether such instances exist, two main approaches will be used:

  1. Internal critique: cross-examine within the Bible
  2. External critique: compare the Bible against what we know outside of the Bible

Internal Critique

Internal critique examines the Bible to look for (or defend) instances where it is recorded that:

  • God expresses both A and not A in different parts of the Bible.
  • God promises A but later does not fulfill it.

Internal critique is considered to be more robust, or powerful, as it does not rely on the reliability of the external factors or standards.

Assumptions:

  • Any statement from the Bible that is interpreted as coming from God, is taken to be from God
  • Any statement from the Bible that is narrative-theme, is taken to be from God, i.e., it accurately describes what happened

External Critique

External critique examines the Bible to look for (or defend) instances where it is recorded that:

  • God expresses A in the Bible but something external to the Bible expresses not A
  • God promises A in the Bible but something external to the Bible tells us that the promise is not fulfilled
  • *God expresses or promise A in the bible but some statement within the Bible that may not necessarily be from God expresses or promise not A

*Some parts of the Bible contain statements made by humans, whose reliability may not be on the same level as God’s words or narrative accounts. For classification purposes, such human statements are considered “external” when they contradict divine or narrative claims.

The strength of the external critique depends on the strength of the argument leading to the contradictory conclusion. Additionally, external critique may not be convincing to people who prioritizes knowledge from the Bible over other sources.

For example, scientific findings on the order of creation differ from a literal interpretation of Genesis. However, someone who strongly believes in God’s omnipotence might argue that:

  • God created the world to appear as science describes it.
  • Scientific understanding is flawed.

Despite its limitations, external critique will be considered in this analysis.

List of evaluations

Evaluations will be categorized by the strength of the argument after considering possible defenses.

  • in favor of God lying: defense largely fail to address the core argument
  • not in favor of God lying: defense largely address the core argument
  • inconclusive (mainly for external critiques) : defense address the core argument, but unsatisfactorily

Evaluations in favor of God lying

Old Testament

New Testament

to be added

Evaluations not in favor of God lying or inconclusive

This is WIP, currently at Genesis

Old Testament

Genesis
Exodus
Leviticus

Numbers
Deuteronomy
Joshua

Judges

Ruth

1 Samuel

2 Samuel

1 Kings

2 Kings

1 Chronicles
2 Chronicles

Ezra

Nehemiah

Esther

Job

Psalms

Proverbs

Ecclesiastes

Song of Solomon

Isaiah

Jeremiah

Lamentations

Ezekiel

Daniel

Hosea

Joel

Amos

Obadiah

Jonah

Micah

Nahum

Habakkuk

Zephaniah

Haggai

Zechariah

Malachi

New Testament

Matthew

Mark

Luke
John

Acts

Romans

1 Corinthians

2 Corinthians

Galatians

Ephesians

Philippians

Colossians
1 Thessalonians

2 Thessalonians

1 Timothy
2 Timothy

Titus

Philemon

Hebrews

James

1 Peter

2 Peter

1 John
2 John

3 John

Jude

Revelation

Evaluations to work on

Other sources / references on these evaluations

  • Archer, Gleason Leonard. Encyclopedia of Bible difficulties. Zondervan Publishing House, 1982.
  • Noort, Ben van. “Contradicting Bible Contradictions | Answering Bible Contradictions.” https://www.contradictingbiblecontradictions.com/.
  • Defending Inerrancy. “Answering Bible Difficulties,” https://defendinginerrancy.com/bible-difficulties/.
  • Skepticsannotatedbible. https://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/.