Jets 48-3 589-608
Jets 48-3 589-608
Jets 48-3 589-608
590
591
potential for mass destruction, many religious people (though not all) believe that war or the use of military force is intrinsically immoral. Thus we
have todayoverwhelmingly so in academic circles and in many religious
quartersa presumption against force rather than a presumption against
injustice. We see this presumption manifest, for example, in Pope Paul VI's
famous 1965 address to the U.N., in which the pontiff declared, "Never again
war, war never again!"5 It surfaced again during the Cold War tensions of
the 1980s in official ecclesial statements such as the 1985 National Conference of Catholic Bishops's statement The Challenge of Peace6 and the 1986
United Methodist bishops's statement In Defense of Creation.7 And it permeates both the writings of influential Christian ethicists8 as well as some
of the disheartening, irresponsible statements by religious leaders following 9/11.
Our culture's deep-seated skepticism about force as a moral enterprise is
exacerbated by a second cultural development. I refer here to the climate of
postmodernity that encourages radical moral skepticism, stubbornly refuses
to identify moral markers whatsoever, and is committed to a path of nonintrusive "non-judgmentalism." Such is the social climate in which we presently live. Not only does our culture not assist us in making moral judgments,
it discourages us from doing so, as James Q. Wilson has observed with considerable force in his book The Moral Sense.9 Why is it, given the omnipresence of evil around us, that people are not more concerned to wrestle with
the problem of evil? Why does society flatly and resolutely refuse to acknowledge evil as an entity? To call it by its name? Much less, to inquire how specific forms of manifest evil might be confronted?
For the full text of this address, see John Paul VI, Never Again War! (New York: United
Nations Office of Public Information, 1965).
6
The Challenge of Peace: God's Promise and Our Response (Washington, DC: U.S.C.C., 1983).
7
In Defense of Creation (Nashville: Graded Press, 1986).
8
Anabaptist theologian John Howard Yoder is perhaps the most influential spokesperson over
the last 50 years for the pacifist position. See inter alia The Christian Witness to the State (IMS 3;
Newton: Faith and Life Press, 1964); Nevertheless: The Varieties and Shortcomings of Religious
Pacifism (2d ed.; Scottdale: Herald Press, 1992); The Original Revolution: Essays on Christian Pacifism (Scottdale: Herald Press, 1971); The Politics of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972); What
Would You Do? (Scottdale/Kitchener: Herald Press, 1983); and When War Is Unjust: Being Honest
in Just-War Thinking (2d ed.; Maryknoll: Orbis, 1996). Yoder repudiates any Christian participation in armed force because God and not humanity is responsible for history (The Original Revolution: Essays on Christian Pacifism [Scottdale: Herald Press, 1971] 132-47). While just-war
proponents share this conviction of providence, they believe, contra Yoder, that such conviction,
anchored in love for one's neighbor, takes seriously the need to protect the innocentin the home,
in the neighborhood, at the workplace, and in international relations. Stanley Hauerwas has
further popularized Yoder's line of thinking. See, e.g. The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics (Notre Dame/London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), esp. 121-30; Should War
Be Eliminated? Philosophical and Theological Essays (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press,
1984); and Against the Nations: War and Survival in a Liberal Society (Minneapolis: Winston
Press, 1985). See, further, the recent collection of essays of which Hauerwas is co-editor: The Wisdom of the Cross: Essays in Honor of John Howard Yoder (Grand Rapids/Cambridge, U.K.: Eerdmans, 1999).
9
James Q. Wilson, The Moral Sense (New York: Free Press, 1993).
592
593
state. The danger of idolatry should also prevent Christians from becoming
teachers and students, since both require studying the "classics" of Greek
and Roman literature. In addition, trades such as gold- and silversmithing
as well as woodcarving are also to be avoided by Christians, since these vocations so frequently entail making pagan idols for clients.
It should be noted that both Tertullian and Origen, the two chief pacifist
Church fathers, prohibit Christians from bearing the sword, yet neither
denied to government the moral duty of self-defense nor denied that Christians actually served in the military. In fact, Tertullian indicates that considerable numbers of Christians were already serving in the Roman legions,
and he concedes certain conditions under which he believes a Christian could
serve as a magistrate. (And we know from Eusebius that before the fourth
century there were Christian governors in the provinces.) What is more, Tertullian can pray for "security to the empire; for protection to the imperial
house; for brave armies."11
In the third century, Origen, the other primary witness to Christian pacifism, sought to defend Christianity in the light of attacks made by the pagan
philosopher Celsus. Celsus had pressed the argument that Christians who
did not serve in the Roman legions would contribute to Rome's collapse at
the hands of barbarian hordes. Origen's response is noteworthy. He concedes
that some believers are in fact soldiers, though most are not. More importantly, he maintained, Christians supported the Empire in equally valid ways
through their prayers for its leaders. In this way, the forces of evil are also
combatted.12 Unfortunately, of all his writings, Against Celsus is the lone
work in which Origen addresses the issue of war. And even here the concern
is not the ethics of warper se.
Among early Christians there is a certain ambiguity toward war that
emerges from one's reading of patristic sources. The conventional portrait of
the early Church that comes to us is that the early Christians were uniformly
pacifistic, followed by the Church's fourth-century "compromise" with the
Roman Empire. Beginning with Constantine's rule, it is typically argued,
Christians "prostituted" themselves to secular authority. This portrait, however, does not bear up under close scrutiny. It errs both in its oversimplifying early Christians' relation to the state and in its attributing to fourthcentury Christians an overly uncritical attitude toward governing authorities.
As Augustine painstakingly argues in his magisterial City of God, there are
civic duties that are required of the Christian believer, even in a culture
that is (quite literally) crumbling. That duty may encompass preserving the
social order (soldiering), bearing arms, and defending innocent third parties
against gross injustice.
11
On Idolatry 17. What is remarkable well before Tertulliano time is that the early-second
century letter of Pliny to the emperor Trajan (AD 112) concerning the problem of Christians fails
to mention anything about their unwillingness to serve in the military. Given the tenor of the
letter, non-service would have been conspicuousand scandalousto Pliny, since, as Origen writes,
the emperor required service.
12
Contra Celsum 8.73.
594
For St. Ambrose and St. Augustine, from whose writings Christian justwar thinking is thought initially to derive, two common elements in their
reflections on war are striking. One is the hortatory tenor with which both
admonish fellow Christians not to remain aloof from affairs of the state as
they wait for the eschaton. The "earthly city" is never wholly free from the
dangers of human depravity, bloodshed, and war. This will mean that in order
to preserve the basis upon which peace and order reside, a justly ordered
application of force is necessary. Short of the eschaton, that heavenly city,
justice must preserve a penultimate form of peace. Christians are by no means
absolved from society's duty to preserve justice.
What is significant about Ambrose is his location and his position. Before
he became a bishop, he was a Roman governor in the northern military outpost of Milan. While it is tempting to portray Ambrose as something of a
"crusader" because of his background, this is simply not the case. Very
13
This is true of the preaching of John the Baptist as well as Christian discipleship as taught
by Jesus and the apostles.
14
Roland Bainton, Christian Attitudes toward War and Peace (New York: Abingdon, 1960) 66
and 81.
15
See, for example, his detailed discussion of Christian attitudes in the first four centuries in
chapter one of The Quest for Peace: Three Moral Traditions in Western Cultural History (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1987) 3-66 ("Christian Attitudes toward War and Military Service in
the First Four Centuries").
16
Elsewhere I examine the development of just-war thinking in "'Do Not Suppose That I Have
Come . . .': The Ethic of the 'Sermon on the Mount' Reconsidered," Southwestern Journal of
Theology (forthcoming); idem, "Justice and Neighbor-Love in the Just-War Tradition," Logos (forthcoming); and idem, Between Pacifism and Jihad (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, forthcoming),
chapter 2.
595
596
597
28
War and the Christian Conscience (Durham: Duke University Press, 1961), introduction.
The just-war theorist agrees with the pacifist that some resort to violence is morally wrong.
It rejects, however, the notion that violence is always wrong.
30
Aquinas's argument regarding war is developed most fully in Question 40 ("On War") in
the Secunda Secundae of his Summa.
31
The Sermon on the Mount 1.19.
29
598
many ways against their will. For when we are stripping a man of the lawlessness of sin, it is good for him to be vanquished....' "32 Foundational to Thomist
just-war thinking is the premise that it is the responsibility of the magistrate
to protect the common weal. Armed force by the magistrate is the other side
of promoting the common good. And while Aquinas may rightly be viewed as
an "interventionist," he is not a crusader. Oppression and injustice, not religious proselytization, are grounds for justified war.
The Protestant Reformers Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli were unified in the
Pauline conviction that the magistrate is ordained by the Almighty to wield
the sword of justice for the purpose of resisting evil and preserving the social
order. Moreover, due to the integrity of all vocations, Christians can carry
out obedience to God as magistrates or soldiers, even when the spheres of
Church and the state remain distinct realms. Luther, like Augustine and
Aquinas, also believed that military service can be a service of charity. In
his work On War against the Turk, he writes: "It is . . . a work of Christian
love to protect and defend a whole community with the sword and not let
the people be abused."33 (Luther will also take up the question of a Christian serving as a soldier in a treatise titled Whether Soldiers, Too, Can Be
Saved.) "Why does anyone go to war except because he desires peace and
obedience?" Luther asks rhetorically.34 His answer is striking: not only
should the Christian not shun military service, he should consider it a duty
and means by which to order peace and justice.35
In his discussion of war, Calvin anticipates certain religiously-based
objections. One comes readily to mind, with three possible answers. If we
object that the NT contains no precept or regulations permitting Christian
participation in war, three considerations suffice as a response. First, the
same causes of war in the ancient world exist in the present time; therefore,
governing authorities retain their primary function. Second, that no explicit
teaching on the subject of war is found in the teaching of the apostles is
to be expected; their chief aim is to proclaim the kingdom of Christ, not to
organize and justify civil government. Third, Calvin cites Augustine's observation regarding John the Baptist: if Christian participation in all warring
is illegitimate, then the soldiers who sought out the Baptist would have been
directed to throw away their arms and leave their profession. To the contrary,
they were admonished to act justly and be content with their pay. Military
life was not to be understood as prohibited.36
32
Epistle 138.
Martin Luther, Temporal Authority: To What Extent It Should be Obeyed (1523), reproduced
in Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut Lehmann, eds., Luther's Works (54 vols.; St. Louis: Concordia
Publishing House, 1955-) 45.121.
34
LW 46.
35
Luther writes: "It looks like a great thing when a monk renounces everything and goes into
a cloister, carries on a life of asceticism, fasts, prays, etc.. . . On the other hand, it looks like a
small thing when a maid cooks and cleans and does other housework. But because God's command is there, even such a small work must be praised as a service to God . . . For here [i.e. concerning secular and mundane vocations] there is no command" {LW 4.341 and 5.102).
36
Institutes of Christian Religion 4.341 and 5.102.
33
599
Historic religious pacifism, in its sixteenth-century Anabaptist expression, rejected the views of Luther and Calvin (as well as the Swiss reformer
Zwingli, who stood in basic agreement with them) regarding Christian participation in the affairs of the state. The historic "peace churches"37so
named not because other confessions are not concerned with peace but
because these churches refuse participation in war, to the present dayprohibited Christians from bearing the sword or governing.38 Where historic
Anabaptists differ from many contemporary Anabaptist pacifists is in their
understanding of the powers. Anabaptist writers today tend to have a much
more negative (i.e. apocalyptic) view of governing authorities. As evidenced
by the sixth of seven articles of the Schleitheim Confession, penned in 1527
as a brief summary of Anabaptist beliefs,39 historic Anabaptism affirms that
the sword is ordained by God in the hand of the authorities for the twin purposes of punishment and protection:
We are agreed as follows concerning the sword: The sword is ordained by God
outside the perfection of Christ. It punishes and puts to death, and guards and
protects the good. In the Law, the sword was ordained for the punishment of
the wicked and for their death, and the same [sword] is [now] ordained to be
used by the worldly magistrates (Art. 6).
An important adaptation of the just-war idea for the early modern period
by theorists such as Francisco de Vitoria (1480-1546), Francisco Suarez
(1548-1617), and Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) is the identification of natural
law and the law of nations (ius gentium) rather than a mere appeal to religion. The moral principles constituting just-war thinking are accessible to
all peoples and societies, not merely those that are narrowly Christian. Vitoria, it should be noted, was writing at the time of the Spanish encounter
with the new world. Just-war principles as he framed them were not uniquely
reserved for European Christians; rooted in reason and natural law, they
are common to all of humanity and apply to all cultures. Suarez, significantly, addresses the subject of war not unlike Augustine and Aquinas
as a duty of lovebut also argues that the laws of war are binding on all
nations.40
The Dutch legal theorist Grotius, considered the father of modern international law, is roughly contemporary to Suarez. He wrote in the context of
the Thirty Years War that had ravaged much of Europe prior to the Peace of
Westphalia in 1648. It was the bitterness of this strife, rending Church and
37
The "peace churches" are primarily three confessions: Quaker, Mennonite, and Brethren.
Not all groups or individuals associated with the "radical Reformation'' were pacifist, though
most were. An exception was the Anabaptist preacher Balthasar Hubmaier.
39
At the time that the Schleitheim Synod was convened in 1527, the Swiss Brethrenwho
drafted the Schletheim Confessionwere persecuted by Catholics and Protestants alike. For this
reason they became separatist, to distance themselves from religious persecution, not to deny the
role of the sword or the governing authorities.
40
Suarez develops this argument in The Three Theological Virtues, written in 1621. The Dutch
legal theorist Grotius, contemplating rules for war at about the same time as Suarez (early seventeenth century), argued that limitations placed on warring were binding upon all people, irrespective of their religious beliefs {The Law of War and Peace 3.1; 2.1; 2.25-26; and 3.3).
38
600
state and leaving no international authority, that caused him to pick up the
pen and write. Grotius confronts the dilemma of just limits to war in much
the same way as Vitoria and Suarez. In his important work The Law of War
and Peace (1625), Grotius argues that how nations relate to one another is
governed by universally binding moral principles. These are "binding on all
kings" and "known through reason."41 This argument has important implications for both the Church and the state, for it places limitations on both.
It also places limitations on whether nations may go to war justly and how
warfare is to be conducted. Given the divinely instituted natural law, such
rules of military engagement are valid for all people.
A significant contribution of Grotius to just-war thinking was his wrestling
with the particular requirements of justice, and hence his acknowledgment
of preemptive use of force. What specific occasions justify preemption, and
what situations do not qualify? What measures are unwarranted, and how
grave must the impending threat be that warrants a preemptive strike of
force? For Grotius, not a presumption against force per se but a presumption
against injustice must be the focus of just-war thinking.
Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century thinking about war is marked primarily not by moral considerations but by idealistic and Utopian dreams
dreams that eventually would find a response by people like Reinhold Niebuhr, writing in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and Paul Ramsey, scarcely
a generation later, in the 1960s. Ramsey, it should be noted, was one of few
theorists, joining Roman Catholic theologian John Courtney Murray and political scientist William V. O'Brien, who contended for the viability of the justwar tradition in the nuclear age, an age marked by a pervasive presumption
against war and against force in general. The shift from a presumption
against injustice to a presumption against the use of force represents an inversionindeed one might argue, a perversionof classic just-war thinking.
In his classic chapter on "Why the Christian Church is Not Pacifist,"42
Niebuhr wrestles with the tension inherent in "Be not anxious" and "Love
Thy Neighbor." Niebuhr sides with Ambrose, Augustine, and Aquinasand
Paul Ramsey after himthat genuine love can be called upon to resist injustice, given the sinful will-to-power that constitutes human depravity. Responding to the religious pacifists of his day, he notes rather sarcastically,
"[i]f Britain had only been fortunate enough to have produced 30 percent
instead of 2 percent of conscientious objectors to military service, Hitler's
heart would have been softened and he would not have dared attack
Poland."43 In the end, Niebuhr calls the Christian community to opt for
neither anarchy nor tyranny. For him, love is a "principle of discriminate
criticism"a principle that requires us on occasion to confront evil actively
with morally measured force.
One generation removed from us, Princeton ethicist Paul Ramsey, in
addition to his former student James Turner Johnson, who presently teaches
41
42
43
601
602
the threat that totalitarianism posed to the free world during the Cold War
era. Second, while on the one hand the Bishops pay lip service to the justwar tradition, they alter the tradition and render it incapable of establishing justice; they "disembody" it. 48
The subject of war and peace cannot be finessed, O'Brien believed. For individual Christians the crucial question is not, "What would Christ do about
war, deterrence, revolution, or peace, if he returned to earth?" Rather, the
question must be, "What does Christ require me to do about these problems,
given my station in life?" In a fallen world, O'Brien argued, we cannot escape
the moral obligations that citizenship bestows upon us. 49
Political theorist Michael Walzer's important 1977 book Just and Unjust
Wars50 is not written from a Christian perspective, and yet it is significant
because of the moral questions he raises. Walzer inquires into the justice of
particular wars of the twentieth century. How can the morality of particular
wars be determined? Who bears responsibility for particular acts of war?
And in what dimension? Walzer scrutinizes the ends and means of warfare
in this volume.
Despite his misgivings about the war in Vietnam, Walzer believes that a
moral dimension to warfare does in fact exist. Because war is hell, it is always
assumed that the worst is inevitable.51 But Walzer calls the reader to reflect
further: Is conduct in war inevitably consigned to this grim baseline reality?
Is there no element of moral reasoning, of moral reckoning, that can trump
or at least informmilitary strategy? Despite the unwillingness of American culture to make moral judgments, moral arguments, Walzer is convinced,
are not only possible but must be advocated.
Over the last two decades University of Chicago political theorist Jean
Elshtain has been an eloquent defender of the "permanent things" that serve
as foundations of civil society. As Elshtain understands it, the moral reasoning of the classic just-war tradition, which assists us in discerning between
appropriate uses and abuses of power, is indispensable to this task. Elshtain
is perhaps best known as an Augustinian scholar, and her indebtedness to
Augustinian thought has caused her to reflect considerably on the just-war
tradition as a model both for civil society and for handling foreign-policy
issues. Among her many works are Augustine and the Limits of Politics,
Democracy on Trial, Women and War, and more recently, Just War against
Terror. Writing in a most engaging manner, Elshtain is able to weave political theory, the history of ideas, and Christian moral reflection into her very
astuteand always timelysocial criticism.
48
"The Failure of Deterrence and the Conduct of War," in William V. O'Brien and John Langan,
eds., The Nuclear Dilemma and the Just War Tradition (Lexington/Toronto: Lexington Books,
1986) 155.
49
This is the thrust of his concluding chapter in War, "War and the Christian Conscience."
50
Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (New York: Basic
Books, 1977).
51
The renowned theorist Karl von Clausewitz remarked: "War is an act of force which theoretically can have no limits" {War, Politics, and Power [ed. Edward M. Collins; Chicago: University of Chicago, 1962] 65).
603
604
55
Just War against Terror: Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition (New York: Basic
Books, 2003) 47.
56
Ibid. 49.
57
This is particularly applicable in the case of terrorism.
58
CCC para. 2308.
59
Ibid. This citation is from Gaudium et Spes 79, para. 4.
60
Emphasis is present in the text.
61
Clarification of "last resort" is in order. Last resort does not mean that we may only assist
or attack after an aggressor has initiated attack. This would give the aggressor the upper hand.
Rather, last resort requires that all reasonable attempts to resolve political conflict via diplomacy
be first exhausted. Therefore, preventative strikes to limit catastrophe are morally legitimate.
605
the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the
evil to be eliminated (the power of modern means of destruction
weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition);62
discrimination and proportionality.63
CCC 2309.
Ibid. 2313. That is, civilians, wounded soldiers, and prisoners (non-combatants) are to be
treated humanely, while disproportionate means of warfare, such as extermination and genocide,
are illicit.
64
Ibid. 2309 (emphasis added).
65
So Augustine, De civ. Dei 19.12, and Aquinas, Summ. Theo. II-II Q. 40, art. 1 and 3.
63
606
promotes skepticism and queasiness about the use and abuse of power
while not opting out of political reality altogether in favor of Utopian
fantasies and projections;
requires action and judgment in a world of limits, estrangements, and
partial justice;
fosters recognition of the provisionality of all political arrangements;
advances respect for other peoples and nations, both in terms of
autonomy as well as accountability;
acknowledges the necessity of self-defense and intervention against
unjust aggression and gross oppression while refusing to legitimize
imperialistic crusades and empire-building.67
It has been said that just war is not just about war. It is rather "a way
of thinking that refuses to separate politics from ethics."68 Unlike ideological pacifism, just-war thinking does not shy from difficult issues that require
political prudence, agonizing over justice, and morally guided application of
force. Unlike Realpolitik and militarism, it insists on fusingrather than
divorcingpublic and private morality. Therefore, no sharp cleavage between
"domestic" and "foreign" policy should exist. For the militarist, force must
be used cleverly and totally, since ethical considerations are non-existent or
unimportant. For the just-war thinker, by contrast, humanity is to be viewed
through the lens of the human conditiondignity and depravity. It follows,
therefore, that war is not always justifiable, since it may be tainted by a
thoroughly selfish and brutish will-to-power. But it also follows that war
may be justified, as a limited means to redress/punish evil and protect the
innocent.
The principled reasoning that constitutes just-war thinking calls us to
make moral judgments. It calls us to distinguish, whether in domestic or
foreign policy, between aggressors and victims, between the just and the
unjust, between what human behavior is tolerable and what is intolerable.
These are clearly difficult matters for postmoderne, it goes without saying.
66
Application of just-war thinking to policy matters and basic issues of justice is the burden of
Elshtain's book Just War against Terror, though it surfaces also in Women and War.
67
Women and War 265-66.
68
Just War against Terror 43.
607
But they are non-negotiable if as a culture we are to develop and realize any
vision of civic virtue and peace. And that vision must be the possession of
"Everyman" and "Everywoman."69 It cannot be left to government alone.
And it is certainly not solely the domain of political theorists or philosophers,
even when they play a critical role in reflecting on the proper basis for civil
society.
V. CHRISTIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO CIVIL SOCIETY
In what concrete ways does the Christian moral traditionand the justwar tradition by implicationinform our national polity and sense of civic
responsibility? To begin, Christians will always have the challenging task of
reminding society of what it means to be human, that is, reminding politicians and citizens of our anthropological dualism. In the words of Aquinas,
we are simultaneously the crown jewel of creation and the scum of the
earth; we dare not forget either. Responsible policy depends on it.
We also, as people of truth, have a responsibility in a world of lies, deception, and subterfuge to name things accurately. That is, we must carry
the Orwellian burden to use language honestly and resist the totalitarian
tendency to manipulate language and meaning for selfish or subversive purposes. We will need to confront society when it insists on linguistic promiscuity or playing fast and loose with facts. We will need to call for a purging
of dishonest, manipulative, and false uses of language.
Further, we must learn once more how to engage culture winsomely
without losing our convictions. We will need to be prepared to offer a reasoned defense of the "permanent things." We refuse to sever epistemological
questions from ontological questions. Because we do not know all truth does
not mean we cannot bear witness to some truth. Correlatively, we must be
lovers of people while hating evil that ruins those very same peopleand
culture at large. Many cultural critics despise America presently. We need
not capitulate to either an unreflective nationalism or a culture- and peopledespising hatred.
In line with this, we need to be driven by an "incarnational humanism" of
which John Courtney Murray,70 and more recently, John Paul II, has spoken.
That is to say, we need a fresh vision of the cosmic lordship of Christ over
all thingsterrestrial as well as celestial.71 This is necessary to counter the
dualism that plagues so many Protestants. Tertullian was wrong: the earth
and everything in itis not destined for some cosmic ashheap some day; it
will be merely transformed.
Finally, and perhaps most challenging, we will need to lead our churches
to a place where they can astutely interpret culture and, as a result, responsibly address culture. Not merely being consumed with church growth, not
merely being programmatic, not simply chasing after the latest publishing
phenomenon, but developing a cultural fluency that allows the Christian
69
70
71
608