FURTHER REFLECTIONS ON

WAR, VIOLENCE, AND THE STATE

 

By Stephen Palmquist (stevepq@hkbu.edu.hk)

 

      Throughout Part Two we had several opportunities to consider the difficulties concerning war and violence as they relate to the biblical and/or traditional Christian views of the state. The complexities of these issues can no more be laid to rest in a short Appendix than they could in the main text and footnotes. Nevertheless, there are three interrelated topics worth pursuing in slightly more detail: the theocratic alternative to the "just war" debate; the limitations placed on pacifism and nonviolence by the way wars are portrayed in the Bible; and the irrationality of the typical argument used to legitimize the state and/or other political institutions.

 

Transcending the "Just War" Debate

 

      The basic just war argument was first elaborated by pre-Christian, Roman writers, such as Cicero, and was adopted by Augustine, Ambrose, and numerous other Christian theologians down through the centuries in their attempts to explain how Christians in power could sanction a war without compromising their Christian principles [A3:40-43]. Jesus' command not to resist evil [Mat. 5:39], for example, must be regarded as wholly inapplicable to governments, since the just war theorist says in essence that the only time a war is justified is when it is entered for the purpose of resisting (defending against) aggressive action which is clearly evil. Rather than utilizing such biblical principles, the just war theorist appeals to various well-established principles of worldly politics. In order to be regarded as "just", a war must not only be waged for the "right" motive (i.e., resisting evil), but must also be the last resort, have a reasonable chance of success, be conducted with proper discretion as to the amount of force used, etc. Yet by such standards, many (if not all) of the wars in the Old Testament [see above, pp.97-98n] would have to be declared unjust-along with the God who commanded them!

 

      For this and many other reasons, theocrats must resist the temptation to take refuge in a just war theory. We must rather face up to the biblical truth, as Maritain did in the midst of World War II, "that war in itself has no transforming power.... The creation of a new world will not be the work of the war but the force of vision" [M2:4-5]. Yet at the same time we must recognize that a dogmatic pacifism is no more consistent with the biblical perspective than is the just war theory. For a false peace can be as evil as war. We may not wish to go so far as Tinder, who says "Jesus himself apparently accepted violence in principle" [T4:134], but we must admit that the wholesale rejection of all violence is not consistent with the biblical narrative. For biblical theocracy requires us to confess the wrongness of the entire perspective from which this debate is typically addressed, and to change our perspective to one that allows for God's sovereignty over evil [see above, p.106n] to be expressed as he sees fit. From this new point of view, we can agree with the pacifist, that all war is unjust, and agree also with the just war theorist, that apathetic compliance with evil is unjust. And we can cut through the resulting false dichotomy by allowing God to use force as he sees fit.

 

      Tinder comes close to voicing this theocratic perspective on force when he answers the question of when force is justified [T4:97] as follows: "Here, Christians can only do what they believe God requires of them... If they decide on force, they stand unjustified by moral principles. But they stand before God." In other words, even if moral and/or political principles cannot justify a given action, we might need to respond with force when we believe God is telling us to do so, provided that in so doing we suf­fer for others in his name, humbly recognizing our own inability to per­form such actions without incurring guilt [cf. A3:182,208]. Those who feel called to use force in spite of this risk would do well to temper their actions by always remembering that, as Tinder later explains [T4:161], the proper "aim of force is not to achieve justice, or community, or any such final end. It is rather to make persuasion possible. Force can never be justified unless the ultimate intention is to create a situation in which dialogue can occur."

 

Pacifism, War, and Nonviolence

 

      Anyone who wishes to defend pacifism on the basis of the Bible must reckon with the fact that wars are condoned not only in the Old Testament, where God commands them as a way of providing his people with a homeland, but also in the New Testament, where wars are depicted as the instrument through which God's kingdom will finally reach its full fruition. I have already discussed the former problem [see pp.97-98n]. On this issue, Bonhoeffer argues that God allows wars in the Old Testament only because Israel is a nation [B2:157]: "But with the Church it is different: it has abandoned political and national status, and therefore it must patiently endure aggression." Concerning the role of war in the New Testament, it is important to note, therefore, that Revelation nowhere depicts the saints themselves as initiating the battles: that is the task of "the Lamb that was slain" [Rev. 5:12; see above, pp.82-83n]! Hence, as we have seen, theocrats ought not to condemn the use of force as such, but only humanly initiated (i.e., unloving) uses of force.

 

      As a result of the impossibility of basing an absolute condemnation of all war on biblical theocracy, pacifists (like the just-war theorists) generally find it necessary to draw support for their position from some extra-biblical (e.g.,philosophical) considerations. Merton, for example, appeals to Simone Weil in defending the view that war is essentially irrational [M6:134-139]: "The supposed objectives of war are actually myths and fictions" (just as much today as in the Trojan War), which can be overcome only "by rational analysis and action"; for "the acceptance of war as an unavoidable fatality is the root of the power politi­cian's ruthless and obsessive commitment to violence." "Effective nonvio­lence...is that which opposes evil with serious and positive resistance, in order to overcome it with good."

 

      Sider appeals not to philosophy but to history. He compiles in S3:7-35 an impressive collection of short stories demonstrating how non­violence has been used repeatedly over the past two thousand years as an effective strategy to confront evil political situations [3]. He then goes on to recount in more detail several recent examples (taken from India, Nicaragua, and the Philippines), concluding in S3:76: "The twentieth cen­tury has demonstrated that non-violent revolutions can be more effective [than violent ones]." Unfortunately, Sider bases his entire argument on Gandhi, King, and the desire for democracy, virtually ignoring the role of God, Jesus, and the vision of theocracy! (According to the Index [114-115], Sider refers to Gandhi on eighteen different pages, to King on ten, and to Jesus on only five.) Thus, he claims nonviolence promotes democ­racy "because the process itself is more democratic" than violent strategies [78], so it "increases the prospects of a democratic future."

 

      Inasmuch as the just war tradition argues that war should be considered only as a last resort, Sider claims that nonviolent strategies have been grossly overlooked [S3:81]: "To have any integrity, both the pacifist and just war traditions demand a massive commitment to non-violence." Hence, he advocates as the next step forward a substantial increase in government spending on nonviolent strategies, suggesting the funding of new study centers, new training centers, and new nonviolent movements around the world [83-86]. In addition he calls on churches to begin forming "Christian Peacemaker Teams" (CPTs) to serve as volunteer "soldiers" [87-92]: "we have always assumed that death by the thousands, indeed even millions, is necessary in war. Would it not be right for non-violent CPTs to be ready to risk death in the same way soldiers do?" Such action he sees as a practical implementation of the call to imitate Christ in self-sacrificial love [91-92].

 

      Such ways of justifying nonviolence are not wrong in themselves; but they must be carefully distinguished from biblical theocracy, with its refusal to reject violence absolutely and its insistence on the futility of any political strategy that operates on merely human standards. Nevertheless, speaking from our human point of view (the only point of view we can adopt!), the strategy of nonviolent resistance can be regarded as a step in the right direction, provided we do not confuse it with the goal. In other words, compared to the traditional political strategy that relies primarily upon violent resistance, the pacifist strategy of nonviolent resistance is an improvement; but Jesus asks the theocrat to go still further by trusting in God's strategy enough to employ nonviolent non­resistance.

 

The State in the Tension Between Adam and Christ

 

      Although we have seen [p.106n] that God is able to use something evil, like war, to do his will "in the ordering of the cosmos" [Y1:204], this does not give Christians license to participate in such evil [199-200]. For neither Romans 13 nor Revelation 13 "calls for active moral support or religious approval of the state", but only "for subordination to whatever powers there be" [203]. The typical argument for the opposite view of church and state is strikingly defective. Atkinson, for example, rejects the pacifist interpretation of such passages (and of the Sermon on the Mount) on the grounds that it wrongly equates "the kingdom life...with a pattern of social life which is attainable here and now" [A3:106]. Yet this is tantamount to rejecting the Ten Commandments on the grounds that nobody can keep them all during their entire earthly life, so they must apply only to a future Messianic Age! For as we saw in Chapter Five, the theocratic vision is intended for the here and now, even though we will never be able to see more than a partial glimpse of it in the present life [cf. 1 Cor. 13:12].

 

      Though often expressed in exceedingly complex terms, the "traditional" interpretation of Christian politics (taking Atkinson as a typical representative) really boils down to the following:

 

 1.  We are all sinful and "in Adam", so to believe we can usher in the kingdom of God this side of heaven is unrealistic utopianism.

 2.  In spite of their originally political context, the demands of the kingdom cannot therefore be taken literally as relating to political life, but at best to the Christian's personal relationships [see e.g., A3:103-105,155, 163-164; but cf. p.137 above].

 3.  Instead, God has instituted the state as the best way to implement justice and peace on earth.

 

On its own, this type of argument sounds quite reasonable; yet the power of persuasion it has held over the minds of so many Christians down through the ages has to be counted as among the Devil's greatest lies! For it is essentially the same as the central temptation Jesus resisted in the desert [see above, pp.39-40].

 

      The New Testament completion of the bib­lical vision of theocratic politics can be summarized in almost exactly the opposite terms:

 

 1.  Although once hopelessly sinful ("in Adam"), we are now "in Christ", so we have the potential to see God's kingdom coming now, on earth as it is in heaven.

 2.  The political demands of the kingdom are to be taken so seriously that the destiny of mankind depends on our willingness, in God's grace, to put them into practice.

 3.  To treat worldly institutions or methods as if they were capable in themselves of bringing about justice and peace is to succumb to the chief alternative to a truly Christ-like (i.e., theocratic) way of life.

 

Using this latter argument to shed light on the deception inherent in the former can help us to guard against the all-too-common temptation to treat worldly power structures as more than just "necessary evils", but as them­selves capable of bringing about justice and peace [see e.g., A4:125-126, 140,170-171]. Naturally, as long as the theocratic vision is still only a vision, as long as the kingdom of God is still coming and therefore to some extent not yet here, we will have to live in a constant tension between these two realities. Nevertheless, we must be careful not to accept the deception as such, lest we unknowingly succumb to the line of reasoning against which Paul directed his potent argument ad absurdum in Romans 6:1-2: "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?"