Toward a Christian Ethic of War
By
Steve Horst, Indiana Wesleyan University
A
paper delivered at the November
Religion Colloquium, Indiana Wesleyan University
Unfortunately, following the horrific events of September 11th, deliberation of the morality of war is more than mere theorizing in an ethics class. According to our President, who I believe is a committed Christian, we are engaged in a war against terrorism and the people who embrace terrorism as a legitimate means of accomplishing their goals.
I pray this day never comes, but should your generation be confronted, as prior generations have been, with the need for universal conscription (a.k.a. the draft), how ought you respond to the call to arms? What do the Bible and church tradition have to say to us about the morality of going to war?
Historically, there have been three different ethics embraced by Christians concerning the morality of participating in war. All of them agree concerning the sad fact that war is inevitable- man, in his fallen condition, has warred, is warring, and will continue to war until Jesus brings His Kingdom to earth more completely than it is at present. Until that time, how ought a Christian respond to the call to arms?
The largest group of believers base their response largely on the responsibilities that accompany citizenship. The Biblical reference they would direct us to is Romans 13:1-7. Paul writes the following to the Christians in Rome, which, by the way, is not a real hospitable place for Christians:
“Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. (I wonder sometimes what our ‘Christian’ founding fathers thought of this passage! But that’s a topic for another colloquium!) For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe him! If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.”
The argument made by this camp has two premises and a conclusion, the conclusion being only as strong as the premises it is built upon. It goes like this:
1. The state is entrusted by God with a divinely given responsibility to wield force as necessary to maintain social order.
2. Believers in both the Old and New Testaments were involved with the state in the exercise of this force.
3. If the state is exercising its legitimate, God-given authority by using force to maintain order, and if believers in the Bible were involved with the state in this role, then there is no reason Christians cannot be involved with the state today in the exercise of the same legitimate, God-given role.<1>
Further
support for this position is drawn from Jesus’ apparently nonjudgmental
acceptance of the fact of war. He praised the faith of a Roman centurion
without saying anything about the man’s profession (Matthew 8:5-10). In fact,
one of the first Gentile converts was a god-fearing centurion of the Italian
Regiment who is instructed by an angel of God to seek out Peter so he might
receive the Holy Spirit just as Peter had. Jesus warned his disciples not to
think of “wars and rumors of war” as
signs of the end of the age because these conditions existed in the present age
and would persist to its end (Mark 13). None of this is to suggest that Jesus
approved of war, but rather that he accepted it as inevitable. Let me just say
that unfortunately, much of the support for this position is an argument drawn
largely from silence- just because Jesus did not condemn participation in war
does not necessarily mean he condones participation in war.
If there is some uncertainty, therefore, about carte blanche approval of a Christian’s participation in any and all wars declared by their government, perhaps there are some conditions which might morally ‘justify’ a Christian’s participation. This leads us to our next group, that of those who argue for what has been called “agonized participation.” It is in this camp that we find our ‘just war’ theorists. The idea of there being “just wars,” in which Christians could participate, was introduced in the 4th century by Augustine, who borrowed extensively from Stoic philosophers, particularly Cicero, in crafting this theory. Augustine is very troubled and quite ambivalent about Christians going to war, advising the Christian who goes to war to repent in advance, because the ambiguities of the situation confuse moral issues and because passions confuse moral intention. War is sometimes not a matter of choice but of necessity, forced on us by the need to control violence in a fallen world. As such, it is the lesser of two evils, for failure to resist the activities of an evil government may result in even worse horrors. Nevertheless, it must be waged only to restore peace, so the soldier should preserve the spirit of a peacemaker, limiting violence to what is needed in resisting and deterring aggression, and extending mercy to the vanquished and the captive.
Elaborated by Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century, expanded in the 16th by de Vitoria, systematized by Suarez and Grotius in the 17th, ‘just war theory’ essentially posits that participation in war can be morally justified under the following conditions:
1. The war must be prompted by a just cause. In other words, it must be defensive only, a response to an act of aggression initiated by the other party.
2. The war must have a just intention. In other words, it must intend to secure a fair peace for all parties- no national revenge, economic exploitation, or ethnic cleansing.
3. The war must be engaged in as a last resort. All diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict must have been exhausted.
4. The war must be initiated
with a formal declaration by properly constituted authorities.
5. The war must be characterized by limited objectives. Wars intent on total annihilation, unconditional surrender, or wholesale destruction of a countries infrastructure are immoral.
6. The war must be conducted with proportionate means. The defending nation is not justified in “burning down the barn to roast the pig.” For this reason, some deny that any war that involves the use of nuclear weapons can be considered ‘just.’
7. The war must respect noncombatant immunity. Only military personnel can be targeted for attack. The use of any weapons that do not discriminate between combatant and noncombatant, e.g., nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, cannot be justified.
Our final group has the most ancient Christian lineage. Pacifism, or nonresistance, was the position of the early church for at least the first four centuries. Granted, for most of these years it was really a non-issue, as Christians were much more likely to be the hunted rather than the hunters. Nevertheless, their response to the question “But, what would Jesus do?” would have been, “Duh! What DID Jesus do?!” The example He gave us, as well as the specific commands He gave us, involve not resisting evil, but responding to evil with good. He could have commanded legions of angels to battle for Him- He did not. He could have cursed those murdering Him- He did not. He did exactly what He had instructed them to do- “Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also... Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:39,44). “Do to others what you want done to you” (Matthew 7:12). “Blessed are the peacemakers- they will be called the children of God” (Matthew 5:9).
Peter reinforces this position: “To this [suffering] you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.... When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:21-23).
Finally, Paul sounds a similar note: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them... Do not repay anyone evil for evil… If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath; for it is written, ‘It is mine to avenge, I will repay,’ says the Lord. On the contrary, ‘If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this you will heap burning coals on his head.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:14,17-21).
Because nonresistance is such a significant part of the identity of Christ on the cross, and following Christ in his sacrifice is such a significant part of the Christian’s lifestyle, the pacifist concludes that trusting God and using nonviolent means of resisting evil are the only appropriate responses to evil for the Christian. Therefore, the Christian, as a follower of Christ, ought not participate in war of any kind. Christians belong to a different Kingdom, so are to be in this world but not of this world, and one of the ways this contrast is evidenced is by a refusal to resist violence with anything but love.
Those who disagree have dismissed the actual implementation of the prescriptions given by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount as overly idealized and utopian, realizable only in the millennial Kingdom. The problem with this approach is that these injunctions by Jesus come right in the middle of statements about divorce, prayer, forgiveness, etc. that we embrace as being relevant and applicable today. You can’t pick and choose- either they all stay or they all go.
In the words of one of my beloved colleagues, “So, what do you think?”
Prof. Steven Horst
Indiana Wesleyan University
<1> Personally, if I were to attack this syllogism, I would begin with the second premise. I would question Old Testament examples as being about something else (namely a theocracy), and scrutinize the assertion that NT believers were involved with the state in the exercise of force to maintain the social order. I think this assertion might be difficult to support.