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Course 22 · Lesson 4.4

Evaluating the two traditions: the strongest arguments on each side

13 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 22 outline

Module 1: Foundations: Moral Theories and Moral Reality

  1. What ethics is: the good, the right and the virtuous
  2. Natural law: Aquinas and the tradition, with Protestant and Orthodox responses
  3. Virtue ethics: Aristotle, Aquinas and the revival of the virtues
  4. Divine command theory and the Euthyphro question
  5. Moral realism and its rivals: can moral claims be true?

Module 2: The Moral Teaching of Scripture

  1. Law in the Bible: moral, civil and ceremonial categories and their critics
  2. The Ten Commandments: text, numbering and interpretation in the traditions
  3. The Sermon on the Mount: the main readings from Augustine to the present
  4. Using Scripture in ethical argument without misusing it

Module 3: Human Dignity, Sexuality, Marriage and Family

  1. The image of God and the basis of human dignity
  2. Sexual ethics in Scripture and the traditions: Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant positions
  3. Marriage as covenant and sacrament, and the teaching on divorce and remarriage
  4. Family, children and obligation
  5. Serious disagreement among Christians and how to state it fairly

Module 4: War, Violence and Peace

  1. The early church and military service
  2. The just war tradition: Augustine, Aquinas and modern developments
  3. Christian pacifism and nonviolence: Anabaptists, the peace churches and Catholic and Orthodox variants
  4. Evaluating the two traditions: the strongest arguments on each side

Module 5: Wealth, Poverty and Stewardship

  1. Scripture on wealth, poverty, justice and generosity
  2. The Fathers on wealth: Basil, Chrysostom and Ambrose
  3. Property, work and vocation: Aquinas, the Reformers and modern social teaching
  4. Stewardship of creation and of possessions

Module 6: Bioethics

  1. Life, dignity and the aims of medicine
  2. The beginning of life: abortion, embryo research and reproductive technology
  3. Suffering and the end of life: palliative care, withdrawing treatment and euthanasia
  4. Reasoning in hard cases: principles, intentions and consequences

Module 7: Technology, Artificial Intelligence and Social Responsibility

  1. Technology and the human person: a Christian framework
  2. Artificial intelligence: work, truth, privacy, personhood and responsibility
  3. Christians in public life: models of church and society
  4. Moral formation: virtue, conscience and the limits of argument

All courses

Program / Course 22: Christian Ethics / Lesson 4.4

What you will learn

  • State the strongest arguments for the just war tradition and for Christian pacifism, each in its own terms.
  • Identify the shared ground between the two traditions.
  • Locate the real points of disagreement in the readings of Scripture, the church and the world.
  • Describe a method for weighing the two without caricature.

The big idea

Just war thinkers and pacifists share a good deal: both hold that killing is a grave evil, that the innocent must be protected, that war should be a last resort and that Christians must love enemies. They differ on whether love ever requires or permits lethal force. Each side has serious arguments from Scripture, tradition and reason, and each faces serious objections. This lesson sets the arguments side by side and asks what each must answer, so that a student can judge them fairly and see what is at stake.

Key terms

Presumption against force
The principle, shared by many just war thinkers, that force requires justification and that the burden of proof lies on those who would use it.
Responsibility ethic
An approach, associated with Max Weber and used by Reinhold Niebuhr, that holds leaders accountable for the consequences of what they do or fail to do.
Witness ethic
An approach that holds that the church’s task is to be faithful to Christ’s way and testify to it, whatever the results.
Double effect
A principle that allows an act with a good aim that foreseeably has a bad side effect, if the bad effect is not intended and is proportionate.
Responsibility to protect
A modern idea that the international community has a duty to act when states fail to protect their people from atrocities.
Contingent pacifism
The view that war is almost never justified in practice, even though it is allowed in principle.
Absolute pacifism
The view that it is always wrong to use lethal force.

Background

The two traditions have lived beside each other for centuries. Augustine and the Mennonite elders both read the Sermon on the Mount with care and came to different conclusions. In the twentieth century, the debate was shaped by world wars, nuclear weapons, genocides and the Cold War. Theologians such as Niebuhr and Yoder, John Courtney Murray and Stanley Hauerwas, Paul Ramsey and Oliver O’Donovan argued the questions at length, and the churches’ statements, from the Catholic bishops of the United States to the World Council of Churches, show the range.

A fair evaluation begins by recognizing that both sides want the same things in many cases: protection of the weak, restraint of cruelty and the peace of Christ. It then separates the questions of interpretation, history and prudence on which they diverge. The lesson aims to present each side’s best case as its defenders would. It does not say which is right. A student may find that a single position does not settle every case, and that some thinkers hold a mixed view.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: The strongest case for just war

Just war thinkers argue first from love of neighbor. If someone is attacking a child, love of the child may require stopping the attacker, with force if necessary. Refusing to act can be a failure of love, and Augustine argued that to allow evil to prevail through inaction may be a greater sin. Second, they argue from Scripture: Romans 13 describes rulers as God’s servants who bear the sword, John the Baptist and Jesus do not tell soldiers to leave their work, and Old Testament texts commend defense of the weak.

Third, they argue from the responsibilities of public office: a government has duties to protect its citizens, and Jesus’ commands about personal conduct do not remove the duty of public authorities to restrain evildoers. Fourth, they appeal to the long tradition of the church, in which most Christians since the fourth century have held that force can be just. Finally, they argue from experience: some regimes and movements, such as the Nazi regime, have been stopped only by force. They add that the just war criteria are not permissive but restrictive, and that the existence of the tradition has helped limit atrocities.

Step 2: The strongest case for pacifism

Pacifists argue first from the teaching and example of Jesus: love of enemies, nonretaliation and the cross are central, and he refused the sword when his own life was at stake. Second, they argue from the early church, as many of them read it, in which the first Christians refused to kill and sought to overcome evil by suffering love. Third, they argue from the nature of the church as a community of peace: if the church is a sign of the kingdom, it should show that kingdom’s way of living, even in a world that does not.

Fourth, pacifists argue from experience: that violence tends to breed more violence, that just war criteria are often bent to justify wars after the fact, and that nonviolent resistance has succeeded in places such as India and the American South. Fifth, they argue from the problem of Christians killing Christians, as in the wars of the twentieth century. They add that the pacifist is not passive but takes risks to protect others, and that faithfulness may require trust in God’s providence where the result cannot be calculated.

Step 3: Shared ground and the real disagreements

The two traditions agree that violence is a tragic evil, that the innocent are to be protected, that peace is the aim, that enemies are to be loved and that rulers must be held to moral standards. They agree in rejecting a view that war is glorious or that might makes right. Many just war thinkers and many pacifists work together on arms control, relief work and efforts at reconciliation. Recent Catholic teaching has moved the traditions closer by emphasizing the presumption against force and by honoring nonviolence.

The disagreements are chiefly of four kinds. First, how to read Jesus’ commands: as a rule for personal conduct and for the church community, or as binding also on the use of public force. Second, how to read church history: whether the early church’s reserve was normative and its later change a fall, or a faithful development under new responsibilities. Third, the role of the state: whether Christians may take part in an institution that uses force. Fourth, a judgment about consequences: whether, in a world of sin, nonviolence can protect the innocent or whether force is sometimes the only effective means. The last disagreement, in part, depends on facts that are not settled by theology.

Step 4: Hard questions for each side

Just war thinkers must answer: Has the tradition in practice restrained war or has it served to justify it? How can the criteria be met in modern conflicts with weapons that harm civilians widely? Why are the commands of Jesus on enemies not binding on soldiers? Does the church’s alliance with power since Constantine distort its reading? These questions are posed by pacifists and by honest just war theorists themselves.

Pacifists must answer: What of the innocent who cannot be protected without force? Does refusing to share in the burden of order depend on the protection that others provide? How can the church speak to the state if it does not take responsibility for its tasks? Is the pacifist reading of the early church and the New Testament the only way to take Jesus seriously? Some pacifists, such as Yoder, answer these questions in detail, and others admit them as difficulties. A fair student asks each side the other’s hardest question and listens to the reply.

  1. Which of the strongest arguments on each side depends mainly on Scripture, on church history, on reason or on facts about the world?
  2. Where do the two sides really disagree, and where do they only appear to?
  3. What would each side say the other is overlooking?
  4. Which hard question for a person’s own side is most easily avoided?
  5. Are there cases in which the two traditions would give the same advice?
  6. What kind of evidence could change a person’s mind on this question?

Examples

Rwanda, 1994

During the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, hundreds of thousands of people were killed in about a hundred days, while outside powers did not act. Many just war and responsibility to protect thinkers cite it as a case in which force should have been used to protect the innocent. Pacifists reply that the case shows the failure of the world’s violence and the need for earlier peacemaking, and some note that Christian churches were complicit in the killing in some places, which raises questions for all sides.

The Nazi regime

Defenders of just war often cite the Second World War as a case where force was necessary. Pacifists such as Yoder and Hauerwas reply that the question should be asked about the earlier choices and the cost of the war itself, and note the work of nonviolent resisters, such as the villagers of Le Chambon in France who sheltered Jews. Neither side thinks the case is simple.

A police officer

A Christian police officer faces a person threatening others with a weapon. A just war thinker may hold that the officer may use necessary force to protect the innocent. A pacifist may hold that Christians should not take such work, or may allow some uses of force by police while rejecting war. The difference between police action and war is another area of debate. (A constructed example.)

Different perspectives

Catholic

The Catholic Church teaches that legitimate defense can be justified and that the strict conditions of just war apply, and also honors nonviolence as a Gospel witness. Recent popes have urged a presumption against force and have said that war is never the way to resolve conflicts. Catholic theologians continue to debate whether just war theory should be retained, reformed or replaced by a just peace approach.

Orthodox

Orthodox teaching holds that war is always an evil but that defense of neighbors is sometimes a tragic necessity, and it asks that the penance for killing not be forgotten. The church’s liturgy prays constantly for peace. Orthodox writers vary, some stressing the saints who defended their people and others the saints who forgave their enemies.

Protestant

Protestants hold both positions in strength. Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican and many evangelical churches affirm just war, while Mennonite, Brethren and Quaker churches hold pacifism, and individual Christians in all traditions take either view. The ecumenical movement has encouraged a shared stress on a just peace, which includes the prevention of war, the building of justice and the restraint of force.

Secular and scholarly

Secular ethicists and political scientists debate the same questions in different terms, such as the ethics of humanitarian intervention, the effectiveness of nonviolent campaigns and the limits of force. Realists doubt that moral criteria control states, and liberal internationalists defend the use of force under law. Christian arguments can be tested by these studies.

Why it matters

Almost every Christian will meet this question in some form: in an election, a family decision about service, a response to news of a conflict. A student who has seen the strongest case for each side is less likely to adopt a slogan and more likely to hold a considered view with humility. The study also trains a skill needed for every contested question in ethics.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: One side is simply loyal to Jesus and the other to the state.

Correction: Both sides seek loyalty to Christ. They read his teaching and the church’s situation differently. Calling either side disloyal is a failure to describe it fairly.

Misunderstanding: The two traditions disagree about everything.

Correction: They share a presumption against violence, concern for the innocent, love of enemies and commitment to peace. The disagreement concerns whether love ever permits killing.

Misunderstanding: Just war thinkers ignore nonviolent options.

Correction: The criterion of last resort requires that peaceful means be tried first, and many just war thinkers work for peacemaking and arms control.

Misunderstanding: Pacifists believe that no one should ever protect others.

Correction: Pacifists believe in protecting the vulnerable by nonviolent means and accept personal risk. The question is whether lethal force is an acceptable means for Christians.

Knowledge check

State one strong argument for just war and one for pacifism.

For just war: love of neighbor may require protecting the innocent by force, and rulers have a duty under Romans 13 to restrain evil. For pacifism: Jesus teaches love of enemies and refuses violence, and the church is called to show the way of the cross as a sign of the kingdom. Any similar strong points are acceptable.

What do the two traditions share?

They share a conviction that killing is a grave evil, that the innocent must be protected, that peace is the goal, that enemies are to be loved and that war must be a last resort at most. Many members of both work together for peace, relief and arms control.

Name two of the main points of real disagreement.

They differ on how to read Jesus’ commands, whether as binding on public force too, and on how to read church history, whether the early reserve is normative. They also differ on the role of the state for Christians and on the factual question of whether nonviolence can protect the innocent.

What is a hard question for each side?

Just war thinkers must explain how the criteria constrain war in practice and fit the teaching of Jesus on enemies. Pacifists must explain how the innocent are protected when force is excluded, and how the church can speak to the state without sharing its responsibilities.

Think it through

  1. Which of the hard questions in Step 4 troubles you most, and why?
  2. Could a person hold a mixed view, for example that most wars are unjust but that some force is permitted? How would that work?
  3. What would a church need to do to treat both positions respectfully among its members?
  4. What could pacifists and just war thinkers do together?

Independent assignment

A balanced evaluation

In your notebook, write 500 to 700 words. Write the strongest case for just war and the strongest case for pacifism, each in a paragraph that its defenders would accept. Then write a paragraph on the main points of agreement and one on the real disagreements. End with a statement of the position you find most persuasive, if any, and the best objection to it, or an honest statement of why you remain undecided. Do not send this to anyone or post it anywhere.

Further study