In many religious traditions, God is said to be perfectly good and an embodiment of truth itself. As a pure being of benevolence, where everything associated with it is pure goodness, then, God cannot lie, nor spread untruth, nor cause deception. Many verses from the Christian Bible say so - see Numbers 23:19, 1 Samuel 15:29, Titus 1:2, Hebrews 6:18, 2 Samuel 7:28, Psalm 119:89,160 and 2 Timothy 2:13. Yet, the waters are muddied immediately by the fact that God created suffering and pain, disease and disaster, and that these things appear to have existed as long as the Universe itself. So, clearly, it seems that such a multifaceted God could of course lie to us, too. And in the Bible, contradicting the verses that say God doesn't lie, are many verses where God does lie. It sends delusions and spreads non-truths: See 1 Kings 22:23, 2 Chronicles 18:22, Ezekiel 14:9, Jeremiah 20:7, Jeremiah 4:10 and 2 Thessalonians 2:11, amongst other verses. So it may have been humility that lead Saint Augustine to despair "Lord, if we are deceived, it is by thee!" 1 , but for all those who happened to be born in the wrong country and raised in the wrong religion (or raised with none), it is God that is ultimately responsible for failing to make the truth universally apparent. The authors of the Bible did not have a particularly joined-up approach when it came to saying if God lies or not. You would think that authors who are in touch with God would have a more consistent message about its character!

1. Verses from the Bible in More Detail

In several different ways, the Christian Bible says that God cannot lie. In Numbers 23:19 it says God doesn't lie because God is not a human being. In 1 Samuel 15:29, Titus 1:2 and Hebrews 6:18 it says God will not deceive. 2 Samuel 7:28 and Psalm 119:160 say that God's words are true for all time. But God does lie in the Bible, in a few different ways.

Some of the above verses are listed by the Skeptics Annotated Bible, and, they link to a Christian response on LookingUntoJesus.net (2007), however, the response is merely to assert that because some of the recipients of the deceits of God were the unfaithful, and those who were already deceived, that the extra deceptions do not count as lying. Needless to say, it still does count, especially if you are (as is God, in scripture) the ultimate pinnacle of morality and truth.