The Concept of Just War in Judaism, Christianity and Islam

Georges Tamer, Katja Thörner, Georges Tamer, Katja Thörner

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9783110738056
• eBook ISBN: 9783110733266
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Comparative Religion

For Jews, Christians and Muslims, as for all human beings, military conflicts and war remain part of the reality of the world. The authoritative writings of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, namely the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and the Koran, as well as the theological and philosophical traditions based on them, bear witness to this fact. Showing the influence of different historical political situations, various views – sometimes quite similar, sometimes more divergent -- have developed in the three religions to justify the waging of war under certain circumstances. Such views have also been integrated in different ways into legal systems while, in certain cases, theologies have provide legitimation for military expansion and atrocities.

The aim of the volume The Concept of Just War in Judaism, Christianity and Islam is to explore the respective understanding of "just war" in each one of these three religions and to make their commonalities and differences discursively visible. In addition, it highlights and explains the significance of the topic to the present time. Can the concepts developed in the Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions in order to justify war, serve as a foundation for contemporary peace ethics? Or do religious arguments always add fuel to the fire in armed conflict? The contributions in this volume will help provide answers to these and other socially and politically relevant questions.

The Concept of Just War in Christianity

Heinz-Gerhard Justenhoven

Is the teaching of ‘just war’ a Christian concept suitable for interreligious dialogue? There is no doubt that there is large tradition of deliberation on the legitimacy of war in Christian theological ethics. The early reception of ancient Greek and Latin stoic ethics, as found in Cicero’s writings by the Christian bishop and influential theologian Augustine, enabled Christian theological ethics to develop arguments treating the biblical prohibition of killing and the fact of (military) violence, continuing down to the present day. Christianity is very diverse, and its answers to this challenge range from radical pacifism to the legitimization of warfare. A mainstream strain developed a critical approach to the use of military force, seeking to hedge the excesses of violence in war and war at large. There is no single ‘just war theory,’ but rather a diversity of attempts, varying as to the respective theological systematic of the particular church traditions or theologians, as will be discussed. Because of the multitude of theological schools, approaches and churches only several of the more influential milestones can be discussed by way of example in this article.¹ Thus we try to build a bridge over historical epochs as well as over the multitude of approaches, beginning with the early church.

1 Pacifism of the Early Church?

There is no just war teaching in the New Testament. Rather, the announcement of a ‘kingdom of peace’ is the essential message of Jesus Christ. The first followers of Jesus Christ, the early church, tried to treat this message within small house communities, expecting the return of the Lord and his Kingdom of Peace, living underground with a focus on brotherhood within their local Christian community, while at the same time preaching the gospel of Christ in public.² With the increase of Christian community at the beginning of the 2^nd century, their relation to the Roman Empire remained ambivalent: The Roman Emperor was accepted as the necessary political authority to govern the Roman Empire and secure stability. Issues of social justice or a change of the political order were beyond their horizon, as the eschatological expectation of the coming of the Lord prevailed.³ The two following key texts of the New Testament attest to this attitude. When asked whether or not they should pay taxes and thus accept the rule of the Roman Emperor, Jesus answered the religious leaders of the Jews: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Mark 12:17). Saint Paul wrote in his ‘Letter to the Romans’ the efficacious sentence: “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God” (Rom. 13:1). While accepting the political authority as necessary, from the very beginning the Christians differentiated political and religious authority in line with the prophetic tradition of the Old Testament, their Jewish tradition, and in contradistinction to their pagan contemporaries. Prophets used to speak up to authorities criticizing them in the name of God almighty for committing crimes against God’s law or transgressing basic issues of social justice. Acceptance of the emperor as a political authority, without the acceptance of any divine authority attributed to him, was a stance adopted consistently by the early Christian communities.⁴

An issue that remains controversial down to today, for example between Peace Churches and most mainstream churches, is whether a Christian is permitted to become a soldier and bear arms; both the positive and negative positions on this question relate back to the New Testament. Pacifists such as the Peace Churches refer to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, with his command to love even one’s enemies. Non-pacifists refer to reports about Roman soldiers: The Acts of the Apostles tell of a Roman soldier, the Centurio Cornelius of Caesarea, who converted to Christianity (Acts 10), without any report that he was asked to quit the army. Becoming a Christian was not incompatible with being an officer of the Roman occupational forces, as later witnesses attest.⁵ During the 2^nd century, more soldiers were baptized. Their problem was the requested cultic sacrifice to the divinized Roman emperor: could they serve the emperor and Christ at the same time? This issue is tackled by Tertullian (155 – 210 CE), a trained Roman jurist who became the first Christian author, and a fierce defender of faith in Carthage. While having accepted the reality of Christian soldiers in his “Apologeticum”,⁶ he later refused the possibility of Christians becoming soldiers mainly because of the cultic sacrifice for the divinised Roman Emperor required as sign of loyalty,⁷ but also because of their participation in excecuting martial law and torture.⁸ Tertullian is often adduced as a proof for a pacifist position of the early Church.⁹ But most church historians refer to the fact that his position did not prevail at the turn of the 2^nd century, as Tertullian himself turned to the radical and marginalized position of Montanism.¹⁰ More and more soldiers became Christians and the Christian communities seem to have accepted these conversions. It was bishop Augustine who at the end of the 4^th century thoroughly treated the question whether a Christian could remain a soldier.

2 Just War in Antiquity: Cicero and Augustine

The beginning of Christian just war thinking is usually dated to Augustine (354 – 430 CE), bishop of Hippo Regius in North Africa. Augustine was not only a theologian and bishop of the 5^th century, but also a citizen of the late Roman Empire, trained in classical philosophy and rhetoric. He found himself confronted with the search for advice from Bonifatius. The Roman officer and newly converted Christian approached Augustine for advice as to whether a Christian might be allowed to use military force against the Germanic tribes attacking the Roman border, destroying settlements and killing their citizens. It is no wonder that Augustine had to make recourse to the Roman philosopher Cicero’s De Officio, which best addressed such controversial ethical matters. The writings of the Church fathers were of no help, as they did not include any systematic ethical reasoning on this political issue. We will turn now, therefore, to shedding some light on Augustine’s important resource for ethical deliberation.

Cicero (106 – 43 BCE), philosopher, advocate, author and Roman statesman, was the first to use the term ‘just war’ (bellum iustum), but he did not develop a just war theory. In his extensive writings, Cicero deliberated on various questions related to the justice of warfare.¹¹ He followed the stoic principle that there can be no contradiction between the moral good and the useful in the long run. Hence it would be senseless to seek only one’s own advantage: according to Cicero, to do harm to others for one’s own benefit will in the end do harm to the actor as well.¹² This moral insight is transferred to warfare: Cicero believed that even the defense of one’s own political community (res publica) does not allow committing injustices to offenders; he prefers non-militar...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Just War in Jewish Thought
• The Concept of Just War in Christianity
• The Concept of Just War in Islam
• Epilogue
• List of Contributors
• Index of Persons
• Index of Subjects