Does God lie? And does the devil tell the truth? The Bible quotes God assaying:


  And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die."  (Genesis 2:15-17)


The Bible goes on to quote Eve and the serpent talking: 


  3 but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'" 4 But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. (3:3-7)


Now the devil tells Eve that she will not die and that she will gain the knowledge of good and evil. Which happens from what the Bible describes. God also specified that they will die on the day that they touch the tree, which does not happen, so it wasn't truth that God told Eve. Even if God said it as a metaphor, it was a metaphor that neither Adam nor Eve understood, because Eve told the serpent they they will surely die. And God is all-knowing, so he had to know that they will misunderstand him.  So, he deliberately told a metaphor, which he knew was going to be understood literally, and he knew it would be taken as literal interpretation. 

In either way God provided Eve with misleading information. (It could be a possibility that something is lost in translation, but if not, it would take interpreting the text completely opposite to what is written in order to come to a different conclusion - and if we do, then why bother taking the rest of the Scripture as it is written?)    

Does this mean that we must redefine our definition of lying? 
Maybe lying excludes lying to children for example to save them from a greater harm 
(like taking drugs for example) 

If something is too complicated to explain to a child, maybe the Bible suggests that it's OK to lie to them. I feel like a lot of parents already do that making up stories to keep their children from making noise in church (for example). Telling them that if they misbehave the ghost will get them etc. 

Or maybe lying overall means something else in the 10 commandments. 
I really wonder about that, because I see situations when it might be good to tell a lie. 
I'm Polish, so I always think of the story If I was holding a Jew in my house and Nazis would come in asking if I had any Jews in the house. I know that I couldn't tell the truth. 

So I just wonder If God lied?
If so, is lying sometimes ok according to this passage?
If God doesn't lie, then what is the definition of lying?
If God told the truth that they would die, then is devil lying that they will not die? 

I'm only interested in the Catholic perspective of this scripture as I was raised Catholic and this question bothered me for most of my life.
This is not necessarily a Catholic perspective, but I suspect the exegesis would pass muster.  (Feel free to ignore if you wish)

Faulty Premise #1: God is lying

God did not lie. In the day she ate of it, she became subject to death. Her body (and Adam's) began to decay, and went from immortality to mortality.  

Additionally, she and Adam were, in fact, separated from God which is a type of death.

This question has specifically been asked, here and there is more to the explanation.

In short, most priests would disagree with the premise that God is lying.

Faulty Premise #2: The Devil is incapable of telling the truth

Although the Devil is "the Father of Lies," it does not follow that the Devil is incapable of telling truth (or at least using Truth) when it suits his purposes.  The Devil's aim is to deceive, not to lie.  He deceived Eve by suggesting that God was lying (see above) and that God was withholding something "good" from her.  Neither was the case.  

In general, it is often said that every lie contains a truth, if only so that someone will believe it.  If I knew that everything the Devil said was false, for example, I could always discern the truth by negating what he said.  Simple Logic - Everything A becomes !A.  Ergo truth.  Again, not the Devil's problem.  The Devil merely deceives and destroys. If he can use accuracy to get there, he will use it.

I have little doubt that a Priest would agree with me on this.

Faulty Premise #3: Honesty is the supreme value

(Here is where I become a Protestant again), the highest duty of man is to love.  As this question shows, our duty is to love.    

When the Nazis were clearing the Ghetto, they might have asked, "Are there any Jews here?"  A Christian could rightly "lie" and say "No," simply by re-framing the question in higher terms - "Are there any Jews here whom we may kill?"  No, you may not kill them, since love bids me to protect them. If I must lie, then that too is a sin - but being unloving is worse.  

Again, here, I suspect that most RC Priests would accept this premise, but I defer to Roman Catholics to weigh in on that.

In summary, God isn't lying, the Devil is still deceiving even when he appears to be telling the truth, and we are under no obligation to answer deception in the terms handed to us.