Just War  Neil Patterson Originally published in Issue XVI of Vulgata, May 2007.

Sometimes, in my idle daydreams (and I do not think that I am alone), I imagine myself as a humble pikeman charging out of the besieged city of Orleans to meet the opportunistic English invaders and their allies the treacherous Burgundians. Riding beside me is the seventeen year-old warrior maiden Jeanne, her white banner raised high. Upon it is the face of Christ and two angels carrying the names of Jesus and Mary. “In God's name! Let us go on bravely!”ⁱ She cries.

Other times, I stand in the rag-tag band of Judas Maccabeaus as he rouses his men before making a charge against the Mysian mercenaries under the employ of Antiochus, desecrator of the Temple. “God will crush them before our eyes; do not be afraid of them!” (1 Mac. 3:22)

And yet do we not believe that “blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God”? (Mat. 5:9) When we saw ten thousand orcs fall at the Helm's Deep and cheered, was this mere bloodlust? Perhaps we think that war was okay for the medievals or the Ancient Jews, but surely we are beyond that now. Or maybe every war in the Old Testament is an allegory for spiritual warfare. Maybe we should remove the Book of Joshua from the Cannon altogether. How can we bring our confused and confliced ideas about war into a clear and unified truth?

Pacifism and Warmongering

As is too often the case with difficult philosophical and ethical questions, we flip-flop between opposite extremes, never taking the time to think clearly and work through the nuances. The two extremes in the question of war are obvious: on the one hands, there is the warmonger who believes that might makes right, and on the other hand there is the pacifist who believes that the things destroyed in war (property and human life) are more important than anything else that might potentially be gained by war. In their modern incarnations, both of these are founded, at least implicitly, on atheistic materialism.ⁱⁱ In the first case, there is no higher authority than the warring powers of Earth; in the second case, there is no higher ideal to be fought for beyond the temporal well being of individuals. Warmongery we can dismiss, since there is virtually no one who argues seriously for it and I'm sure that all readers can see how it is contrary to the Christian faith. However, absolute pacifism is a lot more tempting. Increasingly in the West, particularly in Canada and Europe, the vox populi is that no good can be brought about by war and that it is never justifiable. The prevailing arguments and attitudes are a mixture of right moral horror at the atrocity of war (which is often glossed over by war's proponents) and moral cowardice in the face of the suffering and sacrifice that comes with the pursuit of justice.

Let me draw a distinction that will separate what is right in pacifism from what is wrong in it. The private individual, when faced with violence, may choose – and should choose, as the nobler response – to turn the other cheek and offer himself as a martyr; to overcome hatred with love. In this sense the pacifist is absolutely correct, provided he is motivated not be self-preservation but by self-sacrifice. However, one cannot choose martyrdom for others. It would be moral cowardice for me to say, upon seeing a man attacked in the street, “blessed be your martyrdom.” This is especially true for those given authority over others by God: primarily fathers (set over their families) and civic authorities (set over their citizens). When children have an argument, they go to Mom or Dad to settle it; when there is an injustice between private citizens, they go to the courts to settle it instead of going to war Hatfield-McCoy style. But between nations there are no such organs of justice, at least not ones that have real authority behind them. If we believe that injustice demands rectification, we have to admit tht war is sometimes that only way to achieve that end.

You may be of the opinion that, while everything I have said is good political science, it is only applicable to the kingdoms of this Earth; citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven are held to a different standard. If this is your line of thinking, you are not alone. Many Christian pacifists take similar positions. Augsburger explains the presuppositions behind this well in defense of his own Christian pacifism: “The Church is...a minority in society always separate from the state (any state, recognizing that God has ordained government for the good of the people.) The Church is not coterminous with the state.”ⁱⁱⁱ Obviously the Church is transnational (and therefore not coterminous with the state). It is furthermore obvious from Romans 13 that all authority (civic included) comes from God. It is the first statement that is incorrect. It precludes the possibility of a Christian society. To Augsburger, governments are ordained by God, but not Christian. It would be impossible to be both a Christian and a King or president. However, not only must we respect civil authority as is commanded in Romans 13:1-7, but Christians are to participate fully in public life.^iv It is true that our hightest loyalty is to the Kingdom of Heaven, of which the baptized are citizens, but ideally the two loyalties should not be at odds. This is what is meant by civic authority being from God; it is from God in-so-far-as it is exercised according to the law of God. So, if a legitimate civil authority enter into a just war, not only is it admissable for Christians to participate, but there need to be Christians there, making Christ present in the foxholes and setting a good example for others.

The Just War

We have now identified two principles: firstly that the only legitimate aim of war is the prevention or rectification of an injustice (especially attacks on the innocent.) Justice, being a divine attribute, is worth temporal sacrifice. Secondly, War can only entered into by legitimate authority given by God. These are important foundations, but we still have not addressed the criteria that determine whether a war is just or not.

What we discover when we undertake to define the criteria, is that the task before us in not really all that difficult. St. Augustine established some guidelines in the Fifth century with which everyone since has more or less agreed – including St. Thomas and the Universal Catechism. Since I have never heard anyone who agrees with the just war doctrine in principle propose anything radically different, I will simply quote the Catechism (CCC 2309), trusting that it will be acceptable to everyone:

The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration...at one and the same time:
- the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
- all other means of putting an end to it must hve been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
- there must be serious prospects of success;
- 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.”

I would also add, mainly as a clarification of the fourth paint, that the just war must be fought with limited and defined objectives. To put it another way, it must be fought with the intent of bringing about peace.^v

Now that we have a workable definition, our inclination is, of course, to begin applying it to various actual wars in an attempt to sort the just ones from the unjust ones. However, what one soon finds is that very few wars fit clearly into one category or the other. The cause of one side or the other will meet some, but not all of the criteria, or will meet them partially, depending on whose version of the story you believe. Very often in debates of this nature, one ends up arguing over motices and interior dispositions; a fruitless and impossible task. The current U.S. invasion of Iraq is like this. If one assumes that President Bush is fighting to bring to justice a tyrant and bring peace and stability to a nation and region, he looks like a hero; but if his motive is to steal oil or win votes, then he has committed a great evil. Who can tell? I do not presume to judge.

Nonetheless, it is a good exercise to see the just war doctrine in practice, so that we may have instantiations of the principles contained within it. Althought some may accuse me of having a rosy and propagandized view of history, I argue that World War II is just such an example. Germany and Japan were incorrigible agressors following demonic philosophies. No one nation could stop them alone, so a band of allies came together to stop them. In the case of both Germany and Japan, their beliefs in their own racial and national superiority, and their willingness to carry those beliefs to their logical conclusion – i.e. mass murder and destruction – fulfills the first two conditions. The third condition is also fulfilled by the obvious fact that the allies won. The fourth condition is fulfilled easily because of the magnitude of the evils and disorders being committed, and by the generally high level (with some exceptions, of course) of humanitarian concern shown for POWs and civilian populations, at least on the part of the Western Allies. Also, we can see the conduct of the victors (again, with the exception of Soviet Russia) was not to destroy the vanquished, but to bring them into the global community. I think it is a great and often overlooked miracle that now, only a few decades later, we enjoy peaceful and mutually prosperous relations with our former enemies.

Friends and Enemies

Some would point out that Stalin was no better (I would say worse) than Hitler, and yet he was our ally. So how can the allied nations see ourselves as just if this is company we keep? The answer to this question brings out several truths. Leaving the moral status of the Stalin government aside for a moment, we can see that Stalin fought to protect his country against an agressor, which was the proper and just thing for a leader to do in that situation. So, insofar as he behaved in a just manner, he was our ally. However, the things that made us uneasy about him, such as his refusal to grant meaningful sovereignty to the territories he capture in Eastern Europe and his treatment of civilians and POWs, are the ways in which he was unjust and the reasons why he became our enemy quickly after the war. Because what Stalin, Hitler, Hiroshito, and their likes do not understand is that “enemy” and “ally are not ontological categories. What does this mean? If I fall into an ontological category, I am irreversibly in that category as a part of my being. For example, I am a human being, a man, a baptized person, and a Caucasian. I am not a student, an editor of Vulgata Magazine, or a friend of so-and-so in the same way. So, if Hitler says “the Jews, and the Slavs, and the Gypsies (etc.) are our enemies, he is assuming that being Jewish, or Slavic, or whatever is relevant to the question of who is an enemy (which is the definition of racism), but he is also taking those unchangeable ontological categories and making them coextensive with the definition of “enemy”, which, not being ontological in nature, should be changeable. The consequence of this is that peace is impossible. Unless there is some way for your enemy to cease being your enemy, you can never move from war to peace. Even if you kill all your enemies, you will not be at peace, for if one group of humans is so repulsive to you that you will not be satisfied until they are all dead, you will not be able to tolerate any other group either because we are all more or less equally loveable and hateable. Stalin judged everyone on their degree of loyalty to communism, but it even the most loyal of his followers were purged, who can believe he would have stopped until he was the last man on the planet?

There is another side to all of this, which is another sense in which the pacifist and the warmonger make the same mistake. If we can never say “you are my enemy” this is not charity, but falsity. We are to love our enemies, but Christ did not say, “you will have no enemies.” So what we can say, in Christian love and charity, is “you are a child of God and my enemy, but I hope that one day you can become my friend.” This change of enemy to friend happens on the level of nations, i.e. after a war is over the process of peace-building begins. It also happens on the level of individuals. If I face an enemy on the battlefield, I may fire my rifle at him in an attempt to kill him, but later when the skirmish is won and prisoners are being taken, I my find that I missed and he is only wounded and so I take him prisoner. At that point he is no longer my enemy, but my neighbour and brother and maybe there is some way that we can be reconciled.

The peace that the world gives must die, for it is not true peace, but merely a temporary lack of hostility. Only when this proximate peace dies, which sometimes must happen though conflict, can it be resurrected into the peace that only Christ can give. For peace is a union of wills,^vinot a non-aggression pact.

The Just Revolt

So far we have only discussed war in the context of nations, following the principle that private citizens cannot decalre war, but only civic authorities established by God. However, we have also said that authority only comes from God insofar as it is exercised according to God's law. If this is the case, then it is certainly possible for a so-called civil authority to be so far from the law of God as to have no claim to legitimacy. If this is the case, there is no authority at all, merely coercive power. According to te precepts of justice, such a situation demands some kind of action, non-violent if possible, violent if necessary. The Church lays down five conditions for a violent revolt to be justified, which are not dissimilar from the conditions for a just war. The Catechism (CCC 2243) states:

“Armed resistance to oppression by political authorities is not legitimate unless all the following conditions are met: 1) there is the certain, grave and prolongued violation of fundamental rights; 2) all other means of redress have been exhausted; 3) such resistance will not provoke worse disorders; 4) there is a well-founded hope of success; and 5) it is impossible reasonably to foresee any better solution.”

None of this is to negate the principle that private citizens cannot declare war. Therefore, it must be true that the man who leads the revolt, and who acts justly with pure intent, must be the one to whom God has bequeathed authority. For it is he who God will expect to rule in the place of the tyrant with justice and peace. Historically speaking, good examples of just rebellions are hard to find; very often the revolutionary government is worse than the old one. However, one revolt stands out for me as the exemplification of the principles we discussed above. I am referring to the Maccabean revolt of the 2^nd century BC. At that time, the Greeks, under Antiochus, who was King of one of the splinter kingdomes that made up the remnant of Alexander the Great's empire, occupied Israel. The Temple of Jerusalem had been dedicated to Zeus, Judaism had been outlawed, anyone found practicing it was put to death. So we have a clear instance where the first condition, the violation of fundamental rights, is satisfied. As for the second condition, that all non-violent means of redress had been exhausted, it is obvious that Antiochus had no willingness to negotiate and his unhesitancy in slaughtering any and all who offered resistance should be enough to satisfy anyone that it is also met. However, to some this condition can never be satisfied. One could argue that the Twentieth Century, in leaders like Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr., has taught us that non-violence is in fact more powerful than violence, no matter who the enemy is. However, if we look at the case of Ghandi, we can see that he and his fellow Indians were not facing an enemy who were willing to murder the opposition by the thousands in order to maintain power. If the British had been so without conscience as to have begun a full-scale war against the Indian population, Ghandi's methods would not have been successful or, at the very least, by the time they were successful the damage done to the country would have been virtually irreparable – and the loss of human life far greater than that which could be expected from legitimate armed resistance. I am convinced that, as great as Ghandi was, his methods are not applicable at all times and in all places. We can see an analogous situation in the Maccabean revolt. It is related in Sacred Scripture that there was a group of faithful Jews – about a thousand of them – who had escaped into the desert and, when they had been found by Antiochus, chose the path of martyrdom instead of violence (cf 1 Mac. 2:29-38) Their death was glorious, but did nothing in the temporal order to free Israel from bondage. Here we have an excellent example of the soldier and the martyr standing side by side, neither claiming the nobler death. Getting back to the conditions for the first rebellion, it is clear that the third condition is satisfied. Maccabaeus and his army were not killing innocents, pillaging territory that they captured, or setting themselves up as tyrants: thus the rebellion was not worse than the oppressions of Antiochus. Condition five, that there is no other foreseeable solution, is satisfied for much the same reasons that condition two is satisfied. This leaves only condition four: that there is a reasonable hope for success. Now, the way the Catechism words this conditon is fairly vague, so one could say that, even thought the Jews were out-numbered, that it wasn't a totally hopeless cause and therefore the condition is fulfilled. But even if Judas Maccabaeus had these conditions laid out before him (which he, and virtually all others staging a revolt, do not) he would not have said that victory is merely possible. Rather he would have said (as he indeed did say),

“It is easy for a great number to be routed by a few; indeed, in the sight of heaven deliverance, whether by many or by few, is all one; for victory in war does not depend on the size of the fighting force; it is from heaven that strength comes. They are coming against us in full-blown insolence and lawlessness to destroy us, our wives and our children, and to plunder us; but we are fighting for our lives and our laws, and He will crush them before our eyes; do not be afraid of them.” (1 Mac 3:18-22)

War in the Old Testament – Some Post-Enlightenment Misgivings

It would be beyond my ability to give a complete analysis of the role of war in the Old Testament, but it is certainly true that many of the stories related within are troublesome, even to someone like myself who does not hold to pacifism. There are many examples, to be sure, of the Jewish people facing a foreign aggressor and justly defending themselves, such as the Maccabaean revolt which I just discussed. However, there are more troubling bits, particularly in the books of Judges and Joshua. It is my view that instead of trying to dismiss or explain away these accounts, we should try to learn what we can from them from the perspective of Christians under the Law of Love, rather than the Law of Moses. Let me take up one example that puts in focus in only a few verses all our misgivings and hesitations about Old Testament war. Psalm 149:4-9 reads:

“For the Lord takes delight in his people,
He crowns the poor with salvation.
Let the faithful rejoice in their glory,
shout for joy and take their rest.
Let the praise of God be on their lips
and a two-edged sword in their hand,
to deal out vengeance to the nations
and punishment to all the peoples;
to bind their kinds in chains
and their nobles in fetters of iron;
to carry out the sentence pre-ordained;
this honour is for all his faithful.”

The obvious surface reading of this Psalm is accurate; it is both a song of praise to God and a call to battle. It is also a song of thanks for the participation that God allows us in His divine life. When we perform works of charity, we are instruments of and participants in God's providence and mercy, but here the psalmist is rejoicing in the participation God's people have in his justice. These are equally praiseworthy, because God's mercy and justice are one. In the New Testament, we learn that our real enemy is the Prince of Evil; it is no longer Israel versus the pagans, but humanity versus Satan. In that sense, the kings we find in chains, and the nobles we bind in fetters of iron, are the “prince of this world” and his henchmen, for God works through humanity to rid the world of evil. But that is not to spiritualize or abstract the conflict our of material reality. Most commentators are highly critical of the last few lines of this Psalm, citing them as proof of a radical divide between the old covenant and the new. But the new law enlightens the old. The commentator Kraus expresses the problem with the tendancey to explain away unsavoury bits by saying:

“No matter how the human emotions that extend to revenge may be constituted, we cannot and must not overlook the facts that also in the New Testament the vengeance of judgement is spoken of (Revelation) and that this-worldliness and the carrying out of God's power in the world of his enemies is a real theme.”^vii

Lucifer is our enemy because of who he is; some humans are our enemies because of what they do. Battle can be a participation in the Divine Life, since war on Earth is a shadow of the war in heaven. Just as we suffer in union with the cross and perform works of mercy as a participation in the resurrection, we are called also enter into conflict with evil.

Still in the mind of some readers is probably the deeply entrenched fear of the post-enlightenment man: namely “wars fought in the name of religion.” Supposedly, most, if not all, wars pre-Enlightenment – from Abraham to the Counter-Reformation – took the same basic form. One of both sides would decide that God was on their side and that therefore they had justification to do whatever they wanted. Many may argue that the ideas discussed in this article amount to a clossed over version of the same. In reality, no war has been that simple, but because of the muth of the religious war, most people tacitly assume the following: 1) that it is impossible to tell whose side God is on in a war; or 2) God has no opinions on war; therefore 3) we should leave God, God's justice, and God's moral law out of any discussion on war. You will notice where we have ended up; we are left with two opposite extremes that we discussed earlier of warmongering and pacifism. If we want to go to war, and God and His justice are not good reasons, then reasons such as the winning of territory and resources are the only possible reasons left for going to war. If this were the case, maybe it would make sense to be pacifists, or maybe we would throw out all ethical considerations whatever and become warmongers, but as it stands we are left with only one legitimate motive for going to war: justice. That menas that rather than avoiding bringing God into the question of war and avoiding fighting “in the name of religion,” the name of God should be our singular battle cry. What should we do except in the name of God? It may still be objected that, by unscrupulous persons, God can be used as an excuse, rather than a reason, for war. But this would be falling back on the tacit assumptions that we discussed above. God is Justice and the side who cries our for Justice cries out for God. In the strict sense, since God is Truth, he doesn't have an “opinion” on anything, and since God is also Justice, should one side in a conflict truly be just in its grievance, actions, and intent, then God is, by definition, on their side.

St. Jeanne D'Arc – An example to men

When something is unclear, it is often fruitful to look to a saint who had an intimate understanding of whatever it is that we are wondering about. If we wish to understand poverty, we look towards St. Francis. If we wish to understand child-like trust in God, we look towards the Little Flower; for charity, Mother Theresa. If we wish to understand war, St. Jeanne d'Arc is our clear choice for an example. To begin our reflection on St. Jeanne, we must begin by being struck by the most basic fact about her life. Based on the historical records, and the fact that the Church cannonised her, there can be almost no shadow of a doubt that God intervened in a very non-subtle way to give victory to one side in what was seemingly a very earthly conflict. It is truth that France, being the country under attack, was on the side of right, but the conflict was hardly unique in character. One might have expected God to intervene when Spain was expelling the Muslims from Christendom, or when the Russians tried to repel the Golden Horde. I am sure that God is with any side that fights in the cause of justice, but why was He seemingly so outraged by England attacking France? The short answer is that we don't know. We do know that Jeanne was fighting for the legitimate heir to the throne of France, Charles. At the time there were two competing heirs: Charles the son of the old King and Queen of France, and Henry VI, Charles' nephew by his sister and Henry V of England. Clearly by all laws and customs, Charles was the rightful King, but the powerful state of Burgundy, the Queen (Charles' mother) and their allies, the English, favoured Henry, who at the time was only an infant. However, both Paris, the capital, and Rheims, where the King must be crowned, were in Burgundian hands. At the time, Henry could not be crowned in Rheims because of the easy target he would make for Charles' supporters. Whatever the failings of the democratic system of government may be, everyone agrees that one of its great strengths is that it virtually ensures a peaceful transfer of power. So we are unused to petty arguments and wars over who will be the next ruler, or at least they seem petty to us who are used to constitutionality. But imagine how outraged we would be if, after electing one party into government, the Governor General refused to recognize the validity of the election and gave the opposition power. There were be riots in the streets, perhaps martial law would be declared, parliament would be stormed and maybe (hopefully), we would call out to God for justice. Why God chose to give justice to the French, I cannot say, but we can say that just as we respect the civil authorities above us as having authority from God to make decisions for the nation, so too did the rightful King of France. God was not indifferent to who was on the throne. We can be assured that the cause was just, because God stated clearly that it was. We should pray that He always be so clear, as Jeanne said of the voice of God, “I wish that everyone heard it as I do.”^viii

Beyond the question of whether the war was just or not (for we have just answered that question), we can learn much from Jeanne on how to actually go about conducting a just war and what our disposition should be towards it. The first thing we can be sure about Jeanne is that she was not, by nature, a warlike person. During childhood she showed no interest in warfare and was not trained in the use of any weapon or in military tactics. She even said once to one of her captains, “Were I not sure that God guides this work, I would rather keep sheep than expose myself to such perils.”^ix Strangely enough, she also had the grace to fully accept her unusual divine mission. She did not go into battle timidly or with a sick heart. She did not seem to take the view that war is the lesser of two evils, except for maybe in the bare and obvious sense that it would be better if the English were not there at all (which is rather like saying that the Sacrament of Confession is the lesser of two evils because it would be better if no one ever sinned.) War, if it is to be taken up as a serious enterprise, must be done with a vigour of spirit, and unshakeable courage, and a singularity of purpose. Jeanne herself was, as is famously known, not merely a figurehead at the rear guard; she rode ahead of her soldiers, suffering wounds, screaming orders and rallying cries, and performing miracles (such as knocking holes in enemy fortifications with the touch of her banner.) As a consecrated virgin to the Lord, she never wounded anyone in battle, but her sword was never at rest in her sheath once the battle started either.

She knew nothing of military strategy and rebuked anyone who offered tactical advice. Her plan was always to charge directly at the enemy stronghold, relying on God's help, which always came. As I said before, St. Jeanne is to war as St. Francis is to poverty. So, just as I would not recommend Franciscan poverty in its fullest sense to a married man, I would not recommend the St. Jeanne d'Arc school of military strategy to a general. Work for a living, but have the poor heart of St. Francis; read Clauswith and Sun Tzu, but have the courage of St. Jeanne. Victory always comes from God.

St. Jeanne also gives us an excellent example of what our ethical conduct should be in war. Although she predates the Geneva convention by five hundred years, she acts in accord with it and beyond. She never killed surrendered enemies, but gave them a chance to flee (the practice of taking POWs to be repatriated after the conflict was unheard of at the time.) She always gave the enemy a chance to surrender before the battle, and informed them of the perilous state of their souls (particularly the commanders.) She also insisted on the moral uprightness of her soldiers – in fact, the only time to struck anyone with her sword was to use its flat to drive a prostitute out of her camp.^x

Horror

No matter how ethical we are in our practice and pure in our intent, we must always hold in our minds the inescapable reality that the characteristic activity of war is the killing human beings. War is a horror. It is by that horror, fully apprehended, that our cause must be judged. The decision to go to war is never a light or easy one, and it is one that the human race is notoriously bad at making. Either our minds are clouded by malice and greed, or else by cowardice and apathy. We also find real life geopolitics to frustrate out theoretical analyses. Actual conflicts are complex and multifaceted, and reliable and relevant information is almost impossible to find. But such is often the lot of fallen man, to go chasing after shadows. We do better to focus on what we have been set over, for geopolitics is nothing compared to the politics of the Kingdom of Heaven. Christ is King. Mary is Queen. Raise the white banner.

Notes