Is There Such a Thing as a Good Lie?

Recently I read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer a loud to my kids to prepare for our homeschool kid book discussion.  There were a lot of things to talk about: how boys and girls relate to each other, superstition, friends, adventure, behaviors in kids, treasure and honesty.  I was particularly interested in the discussion about honesty.  There are several times when Tom tells a lie and the people affected forgive him saying it was a good lie.  I raised the question “Is there such a thing as a good lie?”  I was surprised at the responses and comments from the kids and later from the moms.

Let us go to the story and look at Tom’s lies.  The first is after he and 2 of his friends run away and are mistaken as dead.  A funeral is planned for the supposed dead boys.  Before the funeral Tom sneaks back into the town and observes his Aunt Polly and Mrs. Harper remembering all the good traits of the boys.  Later, after the funeral and the boys reveal themselves to be alive, Aunt Polly rebukes Tom saying it was “a pity [he] could be so hard-hearted as to let [her] suffer so.”  She thinks that he should have given her a hint that he had only run away.  Tom then proceeds to tell Aunt Polly about the time he snuck into town.  Only in his telling he lies and says it was a dream.  When Aunt Polly discovers the lie she says “it’s a blessed, blessed lie, there’s such a comfort come from it,” and later “it’s a good lie—it’s a good lie—I won’t let it grieve me.”  She is forgiving the lie because he believes Tom did it out of his love for her.  Is lying to protect someone’s feelings OK? 

Another lie of Tom’s happened later in the story at school.  Tom’s girlfriend, Becky Thatcher, had ripped a picture of the teacher’s and Tom was the only witness.  He knew that Becky would get punished when the teacher found out she had done it; so when the teacher started asking the students if they had committed this misdeed, Tom jumped up and confessed that it was he and took the punishment.  Becky believed Tom to be “noble” and bragged about his actions to her father.  Judge Thatcher said that it was “a noble, a generous, a magnanimous lie—a lie that was worthy to hold up its head and march down through history breast to breast with George Washington’s lauded Truth about the hatchet!”  In this case Tom lied to physically protect someone he cared for.  Is this type of lie OK?

Now, back to the discussion.  When I posed the question “Is there really such a thing as a good lie?” most of the kids responded with yeses.  They sided with Aunt Polly and Judge Thatcher.  In a later discussion with the moms several moms brought up how people lied to save the lives of Jews during World War II.  It seems that the opinion of most is that a lie that protects someone else is a good lie. 

I struggled with this idea.  I’m not saying that I’ve never told a lie, but I tend to lean toward the letter of the law than the spirit of the law in this case.  The law found in D&C 42:21 says “thou shalt not lie; he that lieth and will not repent shall be cast out.”  Two of the Ten Commandments also deal with honesty: “thou shalt not steal” and “thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”  We are commanded to be honest in all our doings.  Does that mean that we shouldn’t lie to help or protect someone?  I think so.  What do you think?  Is there such a thing as a good lie?