Although the prophet Samuel declares that “the Glory of Israel does not lie,” most medieval Christian theologians, going back to Augustine, believed that although God would not (or could not) tell outright lies, He did deceive—for instance, in telling Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. Only with the Scientific Revolution, argues Dallas G. Denery II, did philosophers begin to argue otherwise, and they did so in order to bolster not their religious beliefs but their rationalist ones:

The Biden administration took office with promises to “end” the civil war in Yemen and ease the humanitarian crisis there. And so it has reduced U.S. assistance to the Saudi-led Arab coalition that has been supporting the country’s pre-2015 government against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, and pressured Riyadh to scale down its military efforts. By doing so, Washington hopes it will encourage the two sides to negotiate a compromise, rather than simply encourage the Houthis to keep fighting until they conquer the whole country. Oved Lobel argues that this entire line of thinking is based on a fundamental misapprehension of the situation: