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War and Christian Ethics (Just Cause Theory)
Manning'sEquation
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Is war ever morally justifiable? Two responses emerge in Christian ethics: the negative response of pacifism and positive response of the just war theory. But both contain various levels of qualification.
At times a pacifist seems to say, not all wars are unjustified, but that the Christian is never justified in participating in war. This is selective pacifism, it does not deny the state the right of self defense; it only denies the Christian the right to participate.
Likewise the just war theory gives no blanket endorsement of war but demands painstaking discrimination between just and just causes. I am convinced that the function of the just war theory, at least in Christian ethics, is not to justify wars but to judge them, to criticize and thereby as far a possible to prevent the use of force and work for the abolition of war.
At times a pacifist seems to say, not all wars are unjustified, but that the Christian is never justified in participating in war. This is selective pacifism, it does not deny the state the right of self defense; it only denies the Christian the right to participate.
Likewise the just war theory gives no blanket endorsement of war but demands painstaking discrimination between just and just causes. I am convinced that the function of the just war theory, at least in Christian ethics, is not to justify wars but to judge them, to criticize and thereby as far a possible to prevent the use of force and work for the abolition of war.
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In this thread the following words will have the following meaning:
1. Just Cause: the only morally legitimate reason for going to war is in self-defense.
2. Just Intent: the only morally legitimate goal in war is the restoration of peace, with justice for both friend and foe. Vengeance, subjugation, and conquest are unjustifiable purposes.
3. Last Resort: war should be pursued only when negotiation, arbitration, compromise, and all other paths fail; for as a rational being man should, if possible, settle disputes by reason and law, not force.
4. Lawful declaration: only lawful government has the right to initiate war, for the use of force is limited to the state and its legally authorized agents; it is never the prerogative of individuals or parties within the state to use force on their own authority. The 2003 invasion of Iraq raised new questions about the authority of the United Nations in regard to the legality of a war.
5. Immunity of non-combatants: those not officially serving as agents of the government in its use of force, including POW's and medical personnel and services, should be permitted to fight and are not to be subjected to violence. This rule produced condemnations of allied obliteration bombings during World War II, but guerrilla warfare and terrorism present it with intense difficulties in determining who is or is not acting as a legitimate government agent in war.
6. Limited objectives: if the purpose of war is peace, then unconditional surrender is an unwarranted objective, as is the destruction of the enemy's economy or political institutions.
7. Limited means: only sufficient force should be used to resist violence or restore peace. The criterion for “sufficient” is not decisive victory but the restoration of a just peace. This suggests limits to the destructive power of weapons; it has resulted in outlawing of poison gas and in continued criticism of both the use and stockpiling of atomic, bacteriological, and chemical weapons.
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There seems to be a conflict here in your statement. How do you reconcile your feelings of war being unjust but at the same time necessary? Where is your break point and what methods did you use to determine where that break point is located?
There is not conflict. The necessary is not made good by being the lesser of two evils.
The idea that the enemy is against everything your particular god stands for will either become vastly more important, or the opposite: people are going to get fed up and inevitably adopt a vastly less petty religion that has a god that doesn't take sides in our relatively petty squabbles.
I think this is the big reason why life in general is so much more complicated than in past generations, in the past. There always was some asshole that could be counted on to invade some other country just because he wanted their land or because they felt it was their divine right to rule the world..etc etc. So it was easy to just point the finger at this asshole and say that he was the reason for all the ills of society.
Religion has always been a part of it too. All that sucks in life is because of original sin or because of Satan or Harry Potter or whatever f you believe the Christian religion. Well, I think less and less people are going to swallow that and start to try and really figure things out for themselves. And I'm not talking about a resurgence in scientific thought. I'm talking about figuring out how to truly get along with people who aren't like you. Because science doesn't tell anyone how to get along with your neighbors or how to be a decent, honest person. I'm talking about morals, not in the religion sense, or how the politicians throw the term around. but in a real sense. The ABCs of how not to be a pompous douchebag to others.
I think more and more humans are starting to realize that there is no guy in a black top hat with a furled mustache threatening to tie some innocent damsel to a train track. I just think a lot of people don't really know how to deal with the concept that bad shit just happens sometimes, and its no ones fault. you just gotta roll with it and not point the finger.
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It's nice to think that people would just decide to change religions if the one in which they've been brought up starts advocating aggressive war. The problem with that, I feel, is that a large percentage of the people in the world take their political views directly from what their religion tells them. Sure, there are lots of people who lose their faith over issues such as this, but that slow trickle is not going to cause any major religions to die out in any of our lifetimes.
This is especially true when one accounts for the large numbers of Christians (and Muslims, and Hindus, etc.) who really do advocate peace and goodwill, even though they're quite far from the most vocal. There will likely always be some other sect of a religion a person can turn to, or even just another group in the same sect, that will better agree with a person's individual sentiments. How likely is this small trend to have a measurable effect on such a large group as a religion?
In my opinion the only thing that would really prevent wars of pure resource/power struggles, and restrict military action to morally obligated wars/conflicts (the wars about stopping things not in the interest of humanity such as racial cleansing, and wars fought for governments rather than their people or nation) would be a global court/punishment/leviathan that was somehow agreed upon by all nations to punish governments and war criminals of any nation that acted against national self-interest and the basic rights of other people's nations. I think such a thing may someday be possible, but only when the candidates for nations (more likely groups of nations like the U.N.) capable of establishing such a thing have to learn how to better deal with undeveloped nations and how to mediate nations in conflict (i.e. spread order not (or at least before) democracy, fight for lives and the victim nation's self-interest when intervening in a moral situation, rather than the engaging countries (who's supposed to be the global leviathan/justice creator) own self-interest), which means giving up the Christian ethos in foreign policy/international relations. While America would be benefited as all other nations would by a reasonable leviathan to mediate all national relationships, it is currently supporting such an idea only in theory, not action. The war in Iraq (as many know) has very little to do with mediating world terror, and much more to do with natural national competition for resources (in this case, the control of resources more than actual obtaining of them).
I don't think wars today are for 'more complex reasons'. Many nations that have always competed violently continue to do so, and even America's wars haven't really been for more complex reasons, they've just failed due to misunderstanding and miscalculation or been made to be justifiable to the ever-improving (very slowly, but it's happening) importance of global morality (whether it's through actual international court organizations or the simple fact that economic relations are depending more on relatively explainable actions) through reasoning that has to be more complex to appear moral, rather than simply in the nation's self interest.
Christian ethics and reasoning (and other religions with similar moral systems and/or importance on conversion and souls rather than lives) when slathered over a war is almost always simply a justification of said war to the people engaging in it. No conventional war has ever really been fought for Christianity. That would be a contradiction. Christianity supplies a personal and individual-based set of moral principles (which to me seem like a great set of principles for that domain), but not a set of principles for dealings of any kind with a whole nation. The largest logical (not contradicting with the religion itself) social extension of this set of principles is the communal church, though it has been taken much further and the church made to be used politically/internationally (this is much less prevalent today but still occurs, and with other religions as well), and so some would argue against even that extension.
Just to throw in something for more discussion, what do you guys think about the idea that once a nation has reached a certain point economically and development-wise, and could become part of a powerful group of allies to defend it's basic self-interest of not being destroyed or reduced in size controlled land-wise, it has a moral obligation (from the overall humanity and individual basic rights standpoint) to join that group and aid against (however small, as long as it supports the system) morally unjustifiable actions of the governments or people of other nations? It seems to me that to deny this obligation is to deny the possibility of ending war, or at least it would assure that the creation of a global leviathan capable of ending anti-humanity wars would arise either from a potentially biased super-nation/group of nations... or massive world conflict.
Until human nature is changed, conflict will not end and Christian morals won't help with the big picture. I think what's important is to prioritize the kinds of conflicts that can be stopped or prevented, and act on them with foreign policy and establishment of international punishment (not from one nation) while recognizing human nature to compete and belong to self-interested nations.
Sorry if that was a little convoluted, hopefully the rational flaws are evoked and discussed.
Do you mean that if you are a citizen of a country you have the responsibility to protect the ruling government from outside violence? So you reject selective pacifism?
or is it
If you believe a war is just you should be ready to kill for your country?
The way I see selective pacifism is...
Some people see Jesus' teachings, as it is better to be killed than to kill someone else. While a Christian might see war as the lesser of two evils in the big picture, he might also hold the opinion that to take another’s life is worst than having your life taken away.
The contradiction occurs when a Christian must take action to save a human life. On a small scale it would be a sin to stand by and watch someone else get murdered, but how far should a Christian go in order to save a life? The belief states it is only as far as it is needed to restrain the aggressor. I believe as a Christian there is no need to kill the aggressor, unless there is no other way to restrain him.
On a large scale if there is no other way to stop genocide (through peace keepers ect.) then I believe a Christian would be justified to fight if there was no one else willing to join the military. However optional wars would not be justifiable under any circumstance.
Hence selective pacifism.
The least evil option is good; the least good option is evil. Gogo consequentialism.
I believe that wars are sometimes justified, and sometimes unjustified, and I don't particularly subscribe to Christian ethics.
And yet Jesus claims:
Yes, Christianity successfully moved the "cult" of religion from being centered on an ethnic tribe to being centered on a nationless ideology. In this respect it is an individualistic religion, but this in no way means that the Biblical Jesus conceives of fighting evil as being limiting to inner struggle.
In reality, Christianity, like Judaism, is a religion filled with the expectation of extreme violence. Somewhat explicitly, in Luke 22:35, Jesus tells his followers to sell their possessions and buy a sword. The entire book of Revelation gives a grim portrait of what is in store for unbelievers—a violent, tortured genocide, followed by more torture in a second death.
Most troubling, Jesus explicitly says that the Old Testament laws are still in effect in Matthew 5:17. The Old Testament laws regarding warfare have nothing to do with the "just war" theory popularly advanced by Christians. War in the OT is not limited to self-defense, and the Jews were ordered to put all their male enemies to the sword, and enslave the women and children (Deuteronomy 20:10).
And this is only for wars which do not take place in the promised land. The Old Testament is the only religious text I know of that actually commands its followers to commit offensive genocide. The entire book of Joshua is a bloody chronicle of the Hebrews' multiple genocide of the Canaanites. All of this was ordered by the same God that supposedly fathered and is equivalent to Jesus. And genocide is not a one-time thing in the Old Testament—it is a standing order to commit genocide against any city in the promised land that reverts to paganism (Dt. 13:15). According to the OT, believers are supposed to be killing almost everyone who lives in Israel right now.
So I don't understand why Christian just war theorists even pretend that their ideas are based on their religious scriptures. In any case, it should come to no surprise that legions of Christians throughout history have completely rejected "just war theory" while simultaneously pointing to the Bible to justify and command the barbaric warfare of the Crusades and the interniceene "cleansings" of heretical groups.
I personally agree with this, though there is a problem of ambiguity (what exactly constitutes self-defense? Does another nation have to attack you and declare war? What about non-nations attacking you, like al-Qaeda?)
But as I pointed out, this ideal is wholly contradicted by the Bible. The Israelites are ordered to go to war without provocation—not just any war, a genocidal extermination.
I agree in principle but this also has a problem with ambiguity—what is "peace"? Muslims often claim that they are a religion of peace, not war, and that they only want to live peacefully with other human beings. But if this Muslim believes that peace is only possible when all lands are under the banner of Islam then this is hardly a feasible ideology. The same can be said about the Romans, who believed they were spreading and ensuring peace during the Pax Romana by conquering barbarian tribes, and the Greeks under Alexander the Great, who conquered swaths of the globe to spread "peace" and "freedom." Too often peace is simply a slogan masking conquest.
Of course, just intent is found nowhere in God's laws either. Yahweh was very interested in conquest, which is why he commanded his followers to go on the offensive to capture the promised land for themselves and eradicate any trace of the people living there beforehand.
Sounds good, but whose reason and whose law? Law of Rome? Biblical law? Shariah law? All come with their own versions of logic as well.
Unsurprisingly, Yahweh does not believe in this proposition either. No condition is given in the OT and the Canaanites were never even offered a chance to negotiate a surrender—they were exterminated like cockroaches.
This clause will probably become more and more irelevent as non-state powers become more proficient at uniting people under a banner.
I agree with the sentiment and the problems stated. Yahweh doesn't, however, as he commands the Israelites to kill everyone or—if not committing genocide against a nation—to kill all the men and enslave the women and children. No distinction is given for noncombatants in the Old Testament.
I agree.
But in the Bible, war can end in one of three ways:
• The enemy immediately surrenders, in which case they are all enslaved and the city plundered
• The enemy fights, is beaten, and surrenders, in which case all of their men are killed and women and children enslaved
• The enemy happens to live in Israel, in which case everyone is killed without exception.
I would like to see this reformulated so that it distinguishes between death and suffering. The goal should be to outlaw weapons which inflict extreme suffering, and to only allow weapons which can kill or incapacitate with extreme precision. But that's still pretty slippery and I have no idea how you would effectively make a moral law out of this principle.
No such idea is found in Yahweh's commands for warfare.
Manning, can you explain why you believe in just war theory when your god is apparently opposed to pretty much every single principle it puts forth? If you can't, then what on earth does just war theory have to do with Christianity or Christian ethics?
I agree with you. Selective Pacifism is counter to Christian morals. Endorsing the war, even if you refuse to fight in it, is a sin.
Isn't a sin defined as disobeying God's commandments?
Those commandments include God's commandments to go to war.
This seems as silly as the abolitionists who said slavery was a "sin." I'm glad you're opposed to slavery and warfare, but you can't say something is a sin if your religion commands you to do it.
Many people make the mistake of believing the Bible says, “You shall not kill,” and seek to apply this command to war. However, the Bible actually says, “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13).
The Hebrew word literally means “the intentional, premeditated killing of another person with malice.” God often ordered the Israelites to go to war with other nations (1 Samuel 15:3; Joshua 4:13). God ordered the death penalty for numerous crimes (Exodus 21:12; 21:15; 22:19; Leviticus 20:11).
So, God is not against killing in all circumstances, but rather only murder. War is never a good thing, but sometimes it is a necessary thing. In a world filled with sinful people (Romans 3:10-18), war is inevitable. Sometimes the only way to keep sinful people from doing great harm is by going to war with them.
War is a terrible thing! War is always the result of sin (Romans 3:10-18). In the Old Testament, God ordered the Israelites to: “Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites” (Numbers 31:2). See also Deuteronomy 20:16-17, “However, in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them--the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites--as the LORD your God has commanded you.” Exodus 17:16 proclaims, “He said, "For hands were lifted up to the throne of the LORD. The LORD will be at war against the Amalekites from generation to generation." Also, 1 Samuel 15:18, “Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites; make war on them until you have wiped them out.” So, obviously God is not against all war. Jesus is always in perfect agreement with the Father (John 10:30), so we cannot argue that war was only God’s will in the Old Testament. God does not change (Malachi 3:6; James 1:17).
Jesus’ Second Coming also is exceedingly violent. Revelation 19:11-21 proclaims, “I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. "He will rule them with an iron scepter." He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.
On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS. And I saw an angel standing in the sun, who cried in a loud voice to all the birds flying in midair, "Come, gather together for the great supper of God, so that you may eat the flesh of kings, generals, and mighty men, of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, small and great." Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to make war against the rider on the horse and his army.
But the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who had performed the miraculous signs on his behalf. With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped his image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur. The rest of them were killed with the sword that came out of the mouth of the rider on the horse, and all the birds gorged themselves on their flesh.”
It is an error to say that God never supports a war. Jesus is not a pacifist. In a world filled with evil people, sometimes a war is necessary to prevent even greater evil.
If Hitler had not been defeated by World War II, how many more millions of Jews would have been killed? If the Civil War had not been fought, how much longer would African Americans have had to suffer as slaves? We must all remember to base our beliefs of the Bible, not on our emotions (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
Ecclesiastes 3:8 declares, “there is…a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. In a world filled with sin, hatred, and evil (Romans 3:10-18), war is inevitable.
Some wars are more “just” than others, but all wars are ultimately the result of sin.
Christians should not desire war, but neither are Christians to oppose the government God has placed in authority over them (Romans 13:1-4; 1 Peter 2:17).
The most important thing we can be doing in a time of war is to be praying for godly wisdom for our leaders, praying for the safety of our military, praying for quick resolution to the conflict, and praying for minimum casualties – on both sides of the conflict (Philippians 4:6-7).
And never did I think I'd find myself discussing such topics on a Penny Arcade forum.
Again, I'm confused. Why are you opposed to slavery? I thought you were looking at this from a Christian worldview, which not only condones (Lev 25:45) but commands (Dt. 20:10) slavery. Why on earth would you advocate warfare to free perfectly legal slaves?
Weren't you just advocating the opposition of God's government in Nazi Germany?
Unless the conflict happens to be in the promised land. Then you would presumably be praying for the maximum amount of casualties on the idolaters' side, correct?
Christian ethics also deals with what should be done with a "tyrant." I will post the full explain in the theory when I get back from dinner and business talk with my father (2-4 hours).
Edit:
Qingu asks if traditional pacifist and just war concepts applicable to rebellion? This raises further questions regarding the basis and the extent of political authority and the nature of what from early times was called “the tyrant.” But once the consent of the governed is invoked, according to Locke, armed rebellion is countenanced on the same terms as a just war. This makes rebellion the “last resort” after less radical means have failed, including due process of law,non-violent protest, and civil disobedience; it presupposes that a government has failed to uphold civil peace and justice. Then the people, says Locke, may establish a government and on its authority overthrow the tyrant who opposes that authority.
See: “On Civil Government” by John Locke
Because this description also refers to Moses, Joshua, David, Solomon ... though unlike Hitler, these men were not democratically elected.
O look _J_ has added something useful to the thread!:roll:
I guess this is open to multiple interpretations, but my reading of it would be that Jesus is saying, to really follow me, to do the things that I ask of you, will cause terrible conflicts within the worldy structures of power and authority (principally the family, but also in other institutions modelled on the family, where the king is the "father" of the state and so on) and that in creating these conflicts Jesus is bringing a sword into the world.
But if these conflicts turn violent, this doesn't contradict the message of "turn the other cheek".
As for the stuff about not overthrowing the old testament laws... I'll have to re-read that stuff. My general impression was that, despite making some noises of acknowledgement of the old testament, Jesus pretty explicitly says that his "new law" overrides the old law.
And that's skirting the issue of the veracity of the OT, which spent a long time as an oral tradition and whose current form is probably not what he was talking about. I don't remember exactly what the Jewish holy books would have been at that point, but it certainly wasn't the exact OT we see in Bibles today.
Really? Immediately after Matthew 5:17, on the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus makes stricter rules to follow than the OT laws. Instead of characterizing the action of murder as a sin, he characterizes the thought as a sin. This is in keeping with other Jewish sects' interpretations of the time—the idea was to put a "fence" around the 613 laws of the Torah so that it would be even harder to break them.
Not really. We have the Septuigint (the Greek Old Testament), which was translated around the time of Jesus. It is almost identical to extant copies of the Hebrew OT and is often used as a source for modern translations.
Now, I have no doubt whatsoever that Jesus himself probably had inconsistent and nonsensical views on the OT, to say nothing of the various people with conflicting ideologies who actually composed the gospel texts. But other posters have suggested they are looking at just war through a "Christian worldview," which means taking the Bible at its word. And in the Bible, Jesus explicitly says he has not come to abolish the OT laws and that "anyone who teaches others to follow them will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven."
A Christian said just war might apply to WW2 since it stopped Hitler from committing genocide.
I then asked what the problem was with genocide, since your god commands it on multiple occasions.
I don't remember anyone bringing up rebellion against Hitler; this wasn't an issue historically either, as he was a popularly elected leader.
Due process of law, non-violent protest—are these Biblical concepts?
How on earth do you reconcile this Biblical law with what you claimed?
It's not necessarily the case that a Christian worldview means regarding the Bible as the literal word of God. There are differing Christian worldviews.
On the NT/OT relationship, my understanding is that in the case of things like Jesus saying that even wanting to commit murder is a sin, that's actually an example of the ways in which he's saying the OT is obsolete. The interpretation that makes most sense to me is that where he doesn't explicitly contradict the OT, the OT laws stand, but where he does contradict them, what he says overrules them, hence all the stuff about the Pharisees getting pissed with him.
You're mistaken when you take the slavery context seen in the New Testament with what we regard slavery as (i.e. American slavery, etc) The slavery system spoken of in the NT is akin to our UAW, to our labor unions. Where to be without such protection was what people did not want.
Wrong again, I am not a Dispensationalist ala the 'Left Behind' series. But I can't blame you for assuming that when it's the current trend for many evangelical Christians.
He rarely contradicts the OT. The only cases I know of offhand are Sabbath laws and certain cleanliness rules. Of course, Jesus (i.e. his gospel writers) were writing in the context of Roman occupation, and for hundreds of years the Jews had been prevented from following all the OT laws by their occupiers—especially laws dealing with international warfare and the execution of unbelievers and sinners.
But keep in mind that both Jesus and Paul conceive of God's commandments in the OT as "holy, just, and good"—they are perfect laws handed down to mankind by a perfect God. The fault is not with the laws, it's with us and our inability to follow them.
In the OT, which Jesus says he has not come to abolish but to fulfil, you could legally beat your slave as much as the Romans beat Jesus before they crucified him (Exodus 21). Hebrew slaves were to be set free after six years, but foreign slaves were your property forever and could be passed down to your children (Lev 25:45). When you conquered cities, God commanded you to enslave the inhabitants (Dt. 20:10). This sounds remarkably like American southern slavery, perhaps without the institutionalized racism. And I fail to see how the NT changed anything, aside from exhorting Christian slave-owners to treat their slaves "justly" (whatever that means, especially considered the OT is the paragon of Christian justice).
If you disagree, that's fine. (I do too!) But surely you don't disagree with Yahweh's normal rules of warfare in Dt. 20:10, do you? You said that in warfare we should be praying for the smallest number of casualties on both sides. But if the enemy resists, Yahweh commands you to kill every single man in the enemy city. That's a lot of casualties! Why on earth would you pray for the least number of casualties in this situation?