Chapter XVII — Our own opinion is proposed. Amphibology is licit, which, whether by force of words, or of circumstances, admits a double sense, both intelligible to the hearer. Not all truths can always be concealed by amphibologies. The error of very many more recent writers on this matter is exposed. Various rules are assigned for full understanding of the question, and for practice

I. It was most easy to refute the opinions of others; but it is most difficult to define certain limits, within which amphibology may be restrained. To disapprove all amphibologies, and to approve them all, is nearly equally dangerous. This, then, is the labor, this is the task: that the extremes both of lying, and of the violation of fidelity given, be avoided, and that external amphibologies be distinguished from sheerly mental restrictions. Among the innumerable authors who have written on this subject, very few have hit the mark. For the defenders of mental restrictions — Sánchez, Sayr, Tamburini, Lessius, and also very many defenders of restrictions which they call not purely mental — uphold these as licit in almost all the actions of civil life in which some cause of concealing truth occurs, as will be plain to anyone reading them. Others proceed by the opposite extreme path: they condemn every use of amphibologies; between equivocal words, or equivocal speech, whether internal or external, and mental restriction, they distinguish nothing, but mix all together, and generate the greatest confusion for readers. We shall avoid the extremes of both opinions. And so that we may pave the way for the opinion which we reckon true, we must first premise those things which are certain among all.

II. First, it is beyond controversy that restrictions of mind which, the circumstances inspected, and absolutely, rest within the mind, and can in no way be perceived by the hearer, are proscribed by the Church as lies. And, although some write that it is forbidden to use the same only continuously ("in every respect"), we nonetheless reprove this as altogether false, and proscribed.

III. Second, it is certain that some locution can be false in itself, and become true from the circumstances of the question. Suppose, for instance, a Confessor should ask Titius, confessing his sins, whether he has committed fornication, theft, and other sins; and he responds that he has by no means committed those sins — the response is true, although he may sometime have committed those sins, and have confessed the same. Because, from the circumstance of external and real confession, in which alone the sins committed, and not yet confessed, are disclosed, according to common understanding, the question concerns only these sins committed since the last confession. Wherefore Titius, responding that he has not committed these same sins, responds to the Confessor's mind. Similarly, if Peter, asked by a servant, anxiously seeking his master through the streets and squares, whether he has seen him, responds that he has not seen him — although yesterday, and at another time, he saw him a thousand times — the response is true: because, from the anxious and solicitous external circumstance of the inquiry, this question appears to concern the seeing of his master here and now, so that from the response he can grasp where he may now be found. And, if Peter should respond to the servant that he saw his master yesterday, the servant would think himself mocked. These things, however, are true according to the common understanding of all, and consequently licit. Very many more recent writers, however, err in this: that they infer a universal rule from these peculiar cases, as we shall now explain.

IV. An amphibological locution is that which admits various senses, and each of those who speak it can be understood in one sense; yet the one who hears it can also perceive that it can be understood otherwise by the same speaker; or at least he can advert that the speech is ambiguous; and thus he can press the respondent with other questions, to disclose the truth. For example, when Abraham said that Sarah was his sister: if Pharaoh had adverted to that word "sister," he would have understood it to be an equivocal word, and that others too, from the father's side, are called sisters, though from a brother, or nephew, on another side; and by this path he could have proceeded to compel Abraham to manifest the truth, which would have been manifestable without sin.

V. Finally, it is certain that it is never licit to use amphibology without a just cause (this all confess), when the speaker uses an amphibological speech in a sense which he trusts will not be perceived by the hearer. For if he uses amphibology in that sense which he foresees and expects to be understood by the hearer, then it is not properly amphibology; for he speaks, and responds, to the mind, and according to the intention, of the questioner: since one who believes it speaks candidly and sincerely, and no suspicion of sin can arise. These things premised, that opinion which seems to us true is proposed.

VI. It is licit to use an amphibological locution, or equivocation, which, either by force of words, or by reason of circumstances, admits, according to common understanding, several senses, intelligible by the hearer, so as to conceal truth; but this amphibology is not always at hand, nor does it always suffice for concealing truth, especially when the questioner urges that we speak without equivocation; therefore secrets which cannot be revealed without sin must be concealed by another way.

VII. This our opinion consists of a twofold member. The first contains nothing peculiar... , nor do I see how it can be denied by anyone. For it stands established, both from the examples adduced, and from several to be adduced from Scripture itself, that this equivocation is licit which admits, from the hearer, several senses intelligible either by force of the words, or by reason of the circumstances: because such a locution really has these various senses, according to the common understanding of men, although not every hearer always adverts to the sense which the speaker intends — which happens from that same hearer's inattentiveness, or dullness. When, however, from justice, or charity, a crime, or a secret, or some other deed must be concealed, and one takes up an amphibological locution, or equivocal words, it cannot be defined by us, nor any certain rule prescribed, but each one ought to consult his own conscience, and act with regard to the rules of truth. Thus Sotus teaches (Bk. On Secrecy, sect. member 3, q. 3, concl. 7): "Meanwhile, however, if someone should ask by which amphibologies a wretched man could protect himself, we cannot collect them individually; but each, according to his own skill and prudence, will be able to devise them."

VIII. The second member of our opinion regards, and declares, the principal point, and, I might almost say, the sole one, of the present question. This is opposed to the common doctrine of more recent writers, who, as we have said above, because they wish always to couple together the guardianship of the seal, and the preservation of life, wish also always, and for the concealment of any truth of some moment whatsoever, that amphibological locutions be at hand, by which truth may be concealed. Nor do they infer that an external amphibology can licitly be employed from the nature of the peculiar deed itself, which really admits equivocation; but they establish, absolutely, that any deed, or crime, and any matter whatsoever, admits external equivocations, by this very fact that truth ought not to be manifested — as if truth, by its own nature, admitted concealment and communication, whenever it ought not to be manifested. We, on the contrary, say that some deeds, or words, under such circumstances of questioning, are sometimes made of double capacity, or which can have several senses; and then we affirm it licit, urgent just cause pressing, to conceal truth by the benefit of an amphibological locution, intelligible by the hearer, if he attends to it. Examples will make the matter manifest. Abraham could licitly conceal his marriage by amphibology; because really Sarah was his sister, not from his mother, but from his father — which consanguinity, among the Hebrews, sufficed for the true appellation of sister. But if they had not been joined by such a bond of consanguinity, Abraham could by no means have concealed the marriage by such amphibology, so as to compel him to manifest the truth by this path. Christ said: "I go not up to this festival day" — for indeed there were several feast days, and the first was more celebrated, and solemn, to which Christ was invited: he sincerely responded that he would not go up to that solemn feast, since his own time had not yet come; but he kept silent about his own hidden ascent, to be made after other days, when his time would already have been fulfilled. When a Priest who is at the same time a Confessor is asked whether he knows a homicide, or another crime, to have been perpetrated, he sincerely and truly responds that he is ignorant of it, although he heard it in confession: because, according to the common understanding of all Christians, he is not asked as a Confessor, but as other men are. Fr. Domenico Sotus explains all this in fewer words — who, as my own opinion holds, treated this controversy more successfully than all other Theologians, and approached, by his doctrine in this matter, nearer to the Church's mind. He says, then (On Secrecy, sect. member 3, q. 3, concl. 7): "If there are no words at hand, by which, through an equivocation received in men's use, a crime can be concealed without a lie, one must lie, before he perjures himself... The sayings of the Saints tend to this: that they forbid responses through words which can make no true sense, according to the signification received in use — since these could by no reason be excused from being a lie."

IX. The difference which exists between our own opinion, and that of more recent writers, is more clearly explained. More recent writers, as we have seen, infer that restrictions are not purely mental not from the nature of the deed, nor from circumstances really coming from without, but from causes, or from the harm which, they say, affects the manifestation of truth itself, and consequently that truth follows. Examples will make the matter manifest. An adulterous wife loses her life, if she confesses adultery to her husband, dagger drawn, attacking her. They say that the adulterous woman can use amphibology, or twofold knowledge, communicable and incommunicable, or words signifying nothing, so as to escape death. Our opinion, with St. Augustine, asserts the opposite. For the causes which oblige one to conceal truth are altogether disparate from the speech itself; and therefore they are wrongly adduced, as if they were external circumstances, by force of which a sense retained in the mind becomes external. For if this were true, there would be no purely mental restrictions: since the authors of them defended them only for grave causes; and yet none of them said that these causes constitute those restrictions external. This invention the writers devised (which must be greatly noted) after the condemned propositions. For, so as to decline the pontifical censures, they began to call sheerly mental restrictions not sheerly mental, but external. And if you ask them why they are called external, they answer, because here and now the manifestation of truth induces grave harm, violates either justice, or charity. It is easy for them, however, to gloss this doctrine, otherwise false, with a specious color. For, as we have noted in explaining our own opinion, some external restrictions really are given, not on account of causes of concealing truth, but which affect the very speech, and the deed which falls under the locution — as is clear in the Confessor, whose personal dignity is truly an external circumstance, which determines the locution; and this is nearly the only occasion of error for more recent writers, who, from one peculiar case — namely, that of the Confessor, to whom the highest consideration supplied a similar equivocal word — infer a universal rule, by which they establish that all truths, and all secrets, are to be concealed by amphibological speech, no consideration having been made of whether the deed, or crime to be concealed, admits, or does not admit, an amphibological, and truly external, speech; and in the response of Abraham, and of Christ the Lord, they consider only the solemnity of the first feast, so as to conceal the marriage of the sister. But from this principle they infer, as if they were to say, "in grave matter, lies are not lies, purely mental restrictions are not purely mental," and this recoils back onto them. For just as the ancient defenders of lying used to excuse the locution of Rahab denying that guests were found in her house, and of the adulteress denying that she committed adultery, and of the son denying that his father is at home, so as to avoid death — so these excuse this same entirely locution, without any external addition, holding this difference nonetheless: that the ancients, in defending lies, were sincere, calling lies lies, but worthy of pardon, because uttered on account of necessity; these, however, wish that necessity brings it about that this locution is not a lie, but an external amphibology, on the ground that sometimes real amphibological locutions really are given, as is established by the examples adduced. It pleases me to confirm what has been said by the authority of the most celebrated Caramuel, who, in his Fundamental Theology, Vol. II, n. 805, says: "To me," he says, "there occurs a matter contrary to mental restrictions of the least piety, or sincerity, that they are not necessary. For if they are contained within necessary terms, all that they themselves promise, similarly conforming circumstances will supply. But if they are said such that they are also to be admitted where signifying circumstances are lacking, I confess to myself that their authors, and defenders, ruin human society, and that a way is opened, most pestilentially, to every perjury. And the whole difference will be in this: that what was called mental restriction yesterday is today called security, and safety." So perspicuous is this, so luminous, that it could not, with any cavil, be implicated. For Caramuel himself, who was not able, in relaxing the evangelical and natural law, to bear the palm over vice, seasoning it with the color of virtue and sugaring poison, could not close his eyes to so manifest a truth. What were once lies, after purely mental restrictions, and what were once purely mental restrictions, are now called external restrictions.

X. From what we have said, various rules for practice are elicited. The first is: If the deed which falls under discourse does not admit, by its own nature, equivocal words, which, according to common understanding, admit various senses, absolutely intelligible by the hearer, it is in no way licit for the respondent, from the necessity of concealing truth, to use these locutions: "I do not know that deed, so as to be manifestable"; "I did not do it," understanding, "so as to reveal it to you"; or, "I do not know it," understanding "universally, or by communicable knowledge"; "I do not have money," understanding "to give you," although he has much, lest a grave inconvenience follow. All these locutions, which the Probabilists establish are to be employed for concealing truth, are absolutely purely mental restrictions condemned by the Church, or are sheer, pure lies.

XI. Second rule. Sometimes the deed upon which the question falls admits an amphibological locution, either because the respondent person bears the office of a double person, as a Confessor, a Prince's secretary, etc., of whom more below, which are really external circumstances; or because the peculiar condition of the deed itself... supplies an equivocal word, and then, grave cause impelling, amphibology is licit.

XII. Third rule. Amphibological locutions, though sometimes sufficient for concealing some truth offered to questioners, or to those to whom it matters little to know it, are nonetheless often inept for concealing truth of great moment, from crafty and shifty questioners, who can detect the equivocation, and reduce the respondent to straits, so that he must respond precisely. What, then, must be done in such a case? I shall declare below.

XIII. Fourth rule. When a sharp questioner detects an equivocal, or amphibological, response, and urges the respondent to respond precisely, and candidly, so that he omit amphibologies, and all restrictions, the respondent cannot use reflex amphibology unto infinity, as very many more recent writers teach; but he ought to repel the unjust questioner in another way, to be explained below.

XIV. Fifth rule. From the preceding rule it is most clearly established that these aforesaid more recent writers teach so many purely mental restrictions, and consequently lies. For so far is it from being the case that their amphibological locution is external, that it is so internal that the hearer can by no conceivable way detect, by force of such a locution, the sense of the speaker. For here he so restricts and encloses within his mind his own sense, that he swears without using any equivocation — as more recent Probabilists commonly teach, with Sánchez (Bk. III, ch. 6).

XV. Sixth rule. When someone uses amphibology in a sense which he trusts will not be perceived by the hearer, which nonetheless he would perceive if he attended, he does not intend deception of him, but the concealment of truth, which he is bound to guard; the deception of the hearer, however, he only permits.

XVI. Seventh rule. So that you may have all the causes necessary for the licit use of external amphibology clearly perceived, I set before your eyes those reduced to four heads. First, that a just, and most grave cause presses. Second, that the respondent is not bound, from justice, or religion, or obedience, to disclose the truth nakedly; but has the right to conceal it. Third, that the concealment of truth so profits the speaker, that it harms no one. Fourth, that the words, by their own force, or by force of circumstances, betray the sense of the speaker, intelligible by the hearer, if he wishes to attend.

XVII. Eighth rule. From what has thus far been said, it is clear that this is not a question of name, while the reasons are impugned by which more recent writers defend amphibological locutions. For, if it is admitted that words are deprived of signification by the commonwealth's consent; or that the use of communicable and incommunicable knowledge is licit, any grave and urgent cause pressing, with respect to all persons and deeds — a general rule is already established: that it is always licit to conceal truth, by the medium of amphibology, or equivocation, on account of a grave matter, whatever is related, or concealed, grave cause pressing. This comes back to the same as saying that amphibologies are licit, whether the deed itself, or the circumstance, admits them or not. This, however, I assert has been condemned by the Church. Therefore we admit amphibologies where really either the circumstance is truly external of the person, or of the deed, or the deed itself supplies equivocal words, and enters into the speech itself; and the amphibology is, moreover, such that it can be detected by a sharp hearer. This, however, does not so frequently occur. That is, rather, merely a matter of name, which the Supreme Pontiff condemns — that these mental restrictions, which very many, even after Innocent XI, defend, must be called either lies, or mental restrictions. For mental restrictions, for most grave causes of life, honor, and family goods to be preserved, he condemned as lies. Let them see, then, how they can escape the pontifical censure, who write that mental restrictions are prohibited in daily use ("in every respect"), not for grave causes.

XVIII. Ninth rule. Since this question is subject to many circumstances, no general, and precise, rule can be established which can be accommodated to all cases. We have certainly striven to set the state of the question, and the opinion of more recent writers, in its own light, and to prescribe rules as precise as could be done. Nonetheless, much remains still to be declared, which we shall explain individually in the following dissertation, in which we shall resolve very many cases pertaining to this matter.