Mental Reservation

MENTAL RESERVATION. - I. NOTION AND HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT. - Mental reservation consists in the interior act of the mind by which the person responding changes within himself — restricting, broadening, or otherwise modifying — the meaning that his outward answer obviously offers to the one who hears it. Thus the said answer takes on a double sense: the outward one, resulting from the verbal expression and from the circumstances in which it is uttered; and the inward one, resulting also from the modification inserted into it by virtue of the mental act of reservation. And it is precisely in the double meaning of the answer that the whole interest of mental reservation lies, because, by virtue of its outward meaning alone, one will be able to shield one's inner thought from indiscretion. While, by virtue of its inward meaning, the answer will not be in conflict with one's thought and therefore, not constituting a lie, will be lawful.

Historical development of the question. - Already Cajetan (d. 1534) reports the opinion of many authors of his time (In 2ª-2ª, q. 89, a. 7), an opinion which he himself, however, does not hold to be true, according to which it would be lawful to swear to an external statement to which is added « tacitam in mente conditionem, puta : si debeo »; for example, to make an outward promise, confirming it if necessary even with an oath, to hand over to the blackmailer the sum he unjustly demands, adding mentally the condition: « If I am obliged ».

But not all authors agreed on this. As long as the controversies unfolded within the ecclesiastical sphere, they were always kept within the dignified limits of scientific seriousness and charity. But when in the 17th century laymen too took part in them, they overflowed into unseemly polemic, at once the fruit and the occasion of the venting of personal and partisan passions. Provoked by this, the Holy Office intervened, which in March 1679 condemned the doctrine of mental reservation in two propositions (Denz-U., 1176-77), at least as « scandalous » and « in praxi pernicious ».

Following this condemnation, the champions of mental reservation were forced to revise their doctrine, which they proposed anew within these limits. The distinction, already previously put forward by some author, between mental reservation in the strict sense and mental reservation in the broad sense was reassessed. Mental reservation in the strict sense occurs when, in the modification that it brings to the outward meaning of the answer, no revealing traces appear either in its grammatical or syntactical structure, or in the accompanying circumstances in which it is uttered. If, on the other hand, some such traces do appear, so that by reason of them the answer comes to take on a meaning that is also outwardly equivocal, then there is mental reservation in the broad sense. In a rich and subtle casuistry the nature, the qualities and the limits of these equivocating traces were illustrated. Once this distinction had been laid down and precisely defined, it was held that only mental reservation in the strict sense had been condemned by the Holy Office. Whereas that in the broad sense, as immune from the condemnation, continued to be maintained as a lawful means of concealing one's thought. Even this means, however, was permitted to be used only in cases of necessity, that is, when the manifestation of one's thought constitutes, through the malice or imprudence of others, a real danger of private or public harm.

In this definitive form the doctrine of mental reservation is admitted even today by many treatises of moral theology.

II. CRITICAL JUDGMENT

The principles from which the supporters of r. m. proceed and the conclusions at which they arrive are undoubtedly sound. Namely: the intrinsic unlawfulness of lying, whose essence lies entirely in the relation of contrast between the thought of the speaker and the expression by which he manifests it; the reasonable existence of lawful and valid means of concealing one's thoughts in cases of necessity; that therefore, in such cases, responses cannot be condemned - unless one is to renounce common sense - in their obvious, equivocal, or even outright false meaning. Such responses are certainly not lies, as was demonstrated elsewhere (v. MENZOGNA). But that in the act of r. m. the reason why such responses are not lies should be this, is untenable.

And the matter is evident as regards r. m. in the strict sense. For such a reservation would transform into a sincere response one that without it would be a lie only insofar as it succeeded in changing either the thought of the one who utters it or its external expression; in fact: thought and external expression in contrast with each other are the essential constituents of a lie. Now, neither the one nor the other element is modified by r. m. Not the external expression of the response; because the reservation in the strict sense operates only in the mind, without revealing traces in the external realm. The thought of the one who responds also remains the same; because it is to defend it in the shadows, not to change it, that one has recourse to r. m. Moreover, at least upon r. m. in the strict sense weighs the condemnation of the Holy Office. Its own defenders acknowledge this, limiting themselves to upholding only r. m. in the broad sense. But even this does not withstand criticism.

Let it be made clear first of all that r. m. is understood in the broad sense insofar as it remains only in part concealed in the mind, while for the other part it is manifested in external elements, more or less revealing. Now, for that part of the reservation which remains concealed in the mind, what was just said of the reservation in the strict sense holds good. For in the one and the other case it operates only in the soul of the one who responds, without bringing about any change either in his thought or in the external expression by which he manifests it.

As regards, then, the part of the reservation resulting in the external expression, granted but not conceded that it succeeds in making sincere a response that without it would be a lie, this would come about no longer by virtue of r. m. but rather through the equivocal meaning that the response now presents of itself. So true is this that for the lawfulness of such a response the authors do not consider the reservation of the mind alone sufficient, but require traces that externally render it, in some way, perceptible. And then the observation already made by Caramuel (d. 1682) in his Theologia fundamentalis (Frankfurt 1651, n. 1804) is entirely correct. Whoever regards as mental restriction an expression that is in itself equivocal, retains of r. m. only the name; because, in that case, the expression derives a meaning other than the obvious one, not from the interior act of the mind, but from elements that are in the expression itself.

It was said: "granted but not conceded"; because not even an expression equivocal in itself preserves the response from the unlawfulness of lying. But this is not the most suitable place to discuss it. One concludes rather with two observations: one of a practical character, the other of a historical character. The first is that the practical consequences deriving from the doctrine of r. m. are exceedingly odious. For, while cunning men, in the easy use of equivocating expedients, would find the convenient way of escaping almost every lie, uneducated and simple persons, on the other hand, through mere lack of technique in the use of words, would not have at their disposal the lawful means of defending their secrets. And yet it is self-evident that such a means must be accessible to all, indeed especially to the uneducated, whom a condition of inferiority exposes more to the snares of the cunning. The second observation is that the paternity and patronage of r. m. are wrongly attributed to the Society of Jesus, taking occasion thereby to denigrate it. Apart from the name, the doctrine of r. m. is seen to have been proposed and defended as early as the times of Cajetan (d. 1534) and of Bl. Angelo da Chivasso (d. 1495), before the founding of the Society (1540). Subsequently, moreover, many distinguished Jesuit theologians did not adopt it. For example, Suárez (d. 1617) held it to be only probable in the De religione (in Opera omnia, XIII, Paris 1859, tract. 5, chs. 9 and 10), while De Lugo (d. 1660) clearly rejected it (De fide, d. 4, n. 62, Venice 1718, p. 99).

Leonardo Azzollini