Bbug said:
I went to a Catholic high school and on the issue of denying one's faith to save one's life, I remember religion teachers being absolutely split. The teacher with young children said absolutely not, if it'd save your life to deny God once without meaning it and allow you to raise your kids, you'd be stupid not to and your death would be pointless. The other one felt it was absolutely wrong, and that if you did that what kind of a mother are you anyway, and so on. I don't know, I think they both made good points and I can't say one's absolutely right.
Catholic high schools really like to pose this question, although the variation I got was whether or not you'd deny your faith if it could save a room full of people who would be killed if you didn't. I think it is meant to be a question like "if a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, would it make a sound?"
(And yes...it would make a sound; sound waves are emitted regardless of whether or not someone is there to hear it, so, yes, a sound is made.)
I think that one's answer to it, though, probably depends on their approach to religion. Essentialists would likely find denying one's faith to be gravely wrong, while personalists would not. An essentialist generally interprets the world according to a fixed set of rules with no room for nuance. In other words, to pose and answer another question, an essentialist would indeed say it is a sin for a poor man to steal a loaf of bread for his family, because, rich or poor, it is stealing, and a violation of the Ten Commandments. Thus, to deny one's faith falsely to save one's life would be lying, and, thus a sin.
A personalist would approach the issue differently, perhaps arguing that God would realize their true intentions--to not deny God, but to save lives. God would know the difference, and, thus, would understand why the false denial would have been made. Thus, the personalist approach would also argue that a poor man stealing a loaf of bread for his family is justified, as the action was not intended to anger God, but, rather, a desperate act to feed one's family.
I guess, really, the question is meant to be unanswerable, as the essentialist / personalist debate has been raging for centuries.
Melon