There is woven into our cultural consciousness the sense that war is unavoidable. In the previous two and one-half millennia there have been few if any centuries without war. Wars and the rumors of wars seem to be part of social existence. Joseph Stalin saw wars between capitalist states as inevitable. For others the proclivity for war resides in our genetic inheritance with its predisposition to violence. Immanuel Kant thought that the inclination toward war was ingrained in human nature.
It is little wonder that war has been seen as unavoidable. History from antiquity to the present is replete with armed conflict. The Bible tells of wars fought by the people of Israel: the Promised Land was taken from the Canaanites with war action. In the fifth century before the Common Era the city-states of Athens and Sparta fought each other is a war that lasted decades. In the next century Alexander the Great began his wars of world conquest. At the end of the millennium and into the new millennium Rome expanded and maintained its rule by the force of arms. In medieval Europe feudal wars were regular events. The First Crusade was in 1095, followed by six more through the end of the thirteenth century. In Asia Genghis Khan in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and Tamerlane in the fourteenth century mounted their wars of conquest.
In antiquity, in the Middle Ages, and into the modern period there have been wars of various types and descriptions, varying in motive and scope: wars of conquest, wars for living space, wars to answer attack or to regain honor, irridentist wars, intrareligious wars, civil wars, two-state wars, regional wars, world wars, and wars between states and quasi-states.
Many go off to war imbued with the sense of a righteous cause, but as the realities of war register their attitude often changes. “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori” (It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country) wrote the Roman poet Horace in the last century before the Common Era (Odes, III, 2). In his poem he explicitly finds “virtue” in war. Wilfred Owen in his poem “Dulce et Decorum Est” describes the horrors of gas warfare in the First World War, and he labels the “Dulce et decorum est” line from Horace’s poem “[t]he old lie.”
For many there may be a deep ambivalence toward war. War may be both seen as necessary and hated. Also, both those who see war – their war – as necessary and those who oppose war may fervently desire peace. Though the desire for peace may at times be hypocritically expressed or given only lip service, the desirability of peace is not an issue for most of humanity; the desire for peace is universal or nearly so, even when the reasons for turning to war are deemed to be overriding and war is seen as unavoidable.
In the Bible the Lord give Moses a blessing with which he is to bless the people of Israel:
The Lord bless you and keep you
The Lord make his face to shine
upon you, and be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up his countenance
upon you and give you peace. (Num. 6.24-26)
The peace in the last line of this blessing is a spiritual peace that may be given to those receiving the blessing. In the Christian tradition peace is given by God in the person of Christ (Jn. 14.27); it along with love, patience, kindness, and gentleness, is the “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal. 5.22-23). Religiously such peace cannot be overestimated. Yet it is distinguishable from that peace that is the banishment of the violence of armed conflict and human violence in its other forms. The first has religious significance. The second has both religious and moral significance. The first is gained by, or given to, individuals. The second is interpersonal and social. It is peace in the second religious and moral sense – particularly in its religious sense and aspiration – that is our concern in this book.
Our interest is not in war per se or even in the panoply of human reactions to war, although in part it is in various religious attitudes toward war. The focus of this book’s interest is on the religious repudiation of war and violence found in religious pacifism: the intersection at which religion, pacifism, and nonviolence meet. Though our discussion of pacifism will heed its moral as well as its religious grounding, special attention will be given to pacifism’s religious grounding. What pacifism does and does not imply will be discussed. Pacifism rejects war, but in its most coherent and viable form pacifism rejects all violence: war is only the most horrendous form of violence. Pacifism is not passive. Pacifists may be retiring and passive, but if they are it is not because their pacifism requires them to be. Pacifists – religious and nonreligious – may also be active, voicing their opposition to way, demonstrating against war and specific wars, writing articles and books advocating for pacifism, and at times risking jail time for their beliefs or active opposition to a current war.
In this book’s second chapter four ways of approaching war that have been sanctioned within religious traditions will be identified. They are: (i) to fight militarily in the name of one’s state, (ii) to fight militarily in the name of one’s religion, (iii) to follow the way of the just war theory, and (iv) to follow the way of pacifism.
Chapter 3 will treat the first two of these, bringing out how certain New Testament passages may be cited in apparent support of fighting militarily for one’s country; it will be noted how fighting militarily in the name of one’s religion – taking up arms in a crusade or holy war against infidels or unbelievers – has a history in medieval and later Christianity and a contemporary Islamist iteration in the Middle East.
In Chap. 4 the just war approach will be examined. According to the just war tradition, if a war meets certain conditions it is a just war; otherwise it is not. Cicero, drawing upon even earlier sources, provided the nucleus of just war thinking. Later St. Ambrose and St. Augustine presented a Christianized form of the just war idea, and still later St. Thomas Aquinas elaborated the Christian idea. By the Middle Ages the just war approach was a received Christian way to evaluate war efforts. In Chap. 4 the contributions of these propounders of the just war idea as it is embodied in the just war theory will be discussed, as will the later evolution of the just war theory and of thinking about the proper conditions for a just war. As will be seen in this chapter, just war thinkers are not in perfect agreement about the true conditions for a just war. In time those reflecting on the conditions for a just war distinguished between the proper conditions for undertaking war and the proper conditions for the way war is conducted. What is distinctive about the just war approach, as seen in the thinking of religious and secular proponents, is that some wars can be just and so permissible in their undertaking and their conduct. Because this approach to war was elaborated and approved by Christian religious thinkers, and tacitly followed by many Christians, it became one of the established religious approaches to war within the Christian tradition.
Chapter 5 will address the current status of the just war theory. In it several broad criticisms that can be brought against the just war theory will be reviewed. One relates to the sovereignty condition, which requires that a just war be declared by a sovereign (or the legitimate authority of the state). The criticism is that it is questionable whether states have sovereignty in this sense. Often a condition of a just war in its conduct that is advanced by just war theorists is that innocent civilians not be intentionally killed, but it has been argued that modern wars invariably involve the intentional killing of innocents. A further criticism is that wars, modern or not, violate justice because they violate the right of persons to be treated as persons. Also in Chap. 5 it will be seen how political figures have contemporaneously appealed to just war principles in delineating their governmental position and in justifying specific policies.
Chapter 6 will bring us to an evaluation of the principle of double effect. This is a principle congenial to the just war theory and is appealed to by just war theorists. It is a principle that under certain circumstances can relieve perpetrators of war actions that inflict suffering on innocents (or have other harmful or evil effects) from responsibility for those effects. The principle asserts that an action, such as a war action, done with an intention to bring about a good effect is permissible though it has other harmful effects, provided that those harmful effects are not intended, even if they are foreseen. This principle, it will be argued in Chap. 6, is deeply flawed, and if accepted as valid in a wartime application, it can be used to justify virtually any horrendous war action.
The subject of Chap. 7 is the fourth religious approach to war: the way of pacifism. Pacifism is a central concern of this book, and in the chapters that follow this one the implications of pacifism – what it requires and what is allows – will be discussed, as well as animadversions of pacifism and its moral and religious support. In this chapter the history of pacifism and nonviolence in early Christianity will be documented, and the roots of nonviolence in both Eastern and Western religious traditions will be noted.
Pacifism, however, has been given different interpretations and several of these interpretations will be examined in Chap. 7. The most coherent form of pacifism, this chapter’s discussion will conclude, is the moral or religious acceptance of nonviolence and the repudiation of war and violence in personal relations and in all its expressions.
In Chap. 8 some seven arguments against pacifism will be presented and answered. These include the arguments that the refusal of pacifists to bear arms results in the deaths of innocents, that pacifism is pernicious it its effects, that it is internally incoherent, and that it is counter to human nature. Also in this chapter moral support for pacifism will be presented. Pretheoretical moral intuitions are divided on pacifism, it is conceded, but theoretical moral reflection does provide support for pacifism. It is argued that utilitarian thinking, Kant’s deontological ethics, and virtue ethics can all be mustered in support of pacifism and that, as well, the requirements of moral justice provide an argument for pacifism. Pretheoretical morality is divided on the issue of pacifism, on whether killing in war is ever proper, but this is not to say that no support for pacifism or the repudiation of war is to be found in the received categories of pretheoretical morality. The argument against the just war theory based on moral justice that is presented in Chap. 5, and which it is noted in Chap. 8 is also an argument for pacifism, proceeds from a consideration of the pretheoretical moral concept of justice.
In Chap. 9 we will present another moral argument against wars: the terrible costs of war in recent centuries and in the foreseeable future, it will be argued, establishes the moral wrongness and evil of modern wars. These costs include the great suffering of civilians in combat operations and the post-war effects on both civilians and soldiers, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), This argument is not for unqualified pacifism (because it argues against only modern wars, not all wars), but if successful it shows the correctness of a pacifist approach to modern warfare.
When pacifism is understood as the acceptance of nonviolence and the rejection of all war and violence in personal relations and in all its expressions religious support for pacifism can be found in various world traditions. The subject of Chap. 10 is the multiplicity of religious support for pacifism. Chapter 10 will present that support in its breadth as found in traditions ranging from Islam and Judaism to Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. In addition, in a treatment of Christianity’s support for pacifism, it will be argued that the Christian message of love provides a deeper support for pacifism than the moral support offered by utilitarianism and deontological ethics.
In Chap. 11 the current status of pacifism will be considered. After the arguments against pacifism presented in Chap. 8 and their rejoinders have been briefly commented upon, several noteworthy twentieth-century pacifists will be cited, including Mahatma Gandhi and Bertrand Russell. In the Second World War, it will be observed, there were American conscientious objectors, and later many Americans protested the Vietnam War and other American war efforts. While many of these protestors objected only to specific wars, some were pacifists. The effort of one contemporary philosopher to reconcile just war theory and pacifism will be examined, and it will be observed that, though just war theory and pacifism finally are logically and morally incompatible, because no modern wars meet the just war criteria just war proponents and pacifists in recent decades have been able to protest against these war efforts together.
Pacifism in its most coherent form rejects the violence of war and violence in all its manifestations. Nonviolence tautologically rejects violence, but this is not to say that it rejects all uses of force. However, if the nonviolence of pacifism allows force, the question of the difference between violence and force arises. This crucial question will be addressed in Chap. 12. The issue is not whether pacifism can allow activity. Both Jesus, the Christian paradigm of nonviolence, and Gautama Buddha, the Buddhist paradigm of nonviolence, were active. The issue is whether the activity of pacifism allows force and the character of the force it might allow. When a parent forcibly restrains her child in order to stop him from stepping off the curb on a busy street, her use of force is generally recognized as necessary and proper. This and similar cases establish that in some instances force is allowable. Allowable force, it will be argued in Chap. 12, is importantly intentional and is compatible with love and compassion, which it cannot exclude. In an elaboration of this analy...