Coming down to the present century, perhaps the most prominent and influential defender of the “lie of necessity,” or of limitations to the law of veracity, is Richard Rothe; therefore it is important to give special attention to his opinions and arguments on this subject.  Rothe was a man of great ability, of lovely spirit, and of pervasive personal influence; and as a consequence his opinions carry special weight with his numerous pupils and followers.

Kurtz[1] characterizes Rothe as “one of the most profound thinkers of the century, equaled by none of his contemporaries in the grasp, depth, and originality of his speculation,” and his “Theological Ethics” as “a work which in depth, originality, and conclusiveness of reasoning, is almost unapproached.”  And in the opinion of Lichtenberger,[2] Rothe “is unquestionably the most distinguished theologian of the School of Conciliation, and the most original thinker since Schleiermacher,” while “he also showed himself to be one of the humblest Christians and one of the finest formed characters of his age.”  It is not to be wondered at therefore, that, when such a leader in thought and in influence as Rothe declares himself in favor of a judicious use of falsehood as a means of good, many are inclined to feel that there must be some sound reason for his course.  Yet, on the other hand, the arguments in favor of falsehood, put forward by even such a man, ought to be scrutinized with care, in order to ascertain if they are anything more than the familiar arguments on the same side repeated in varying phrase in all the former centuries from Chrysostom to Jeremy Taylor.

[Footnote 1:  Church History (Macpherson’s translation), III., 201.]

[Footnote 2:  History of German Theology in the 19th Century, p. 492.]

The trouble with Rothe in his treatment of this Matter[1] is, that he considers the duty of truthfulness merely in its personal and social aspects, without any direct reference to the nature, and the declared will, of God.  Moreover, his peculiar definition of a lie is adapted to his view of the necessities of the case.  He defines a lie as “the unloving misuse of speech (or of other recognized means of communication) to the intentional deception of our neighbor.”  In his mind, lovelessness toward one’s fellow-man is of the very essence of the lie, and when one speaks falsely in expression of a spirit of love to others, it is not necessarily a lie.

[Footnote 1:  Rothe’s Theologische Ethik, IVter Band, secs. 1064, 1065.]

Rothe does not seem to recognize, in its application to this matter, the great principle that there is no true love for man except in conformity to and in expression of love for God; hence that nothing that is in direct violation of a primal law of God can be an exhibition of real love for one of God’s creatures.