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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Just war doctrine = Near Pacifism?
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anteater
Ship's pest-controller
# 11435
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Posted
For a brief summary of the doctrine, with acknowledgement to the "Catholic Answers" web-site:
quote:
The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy.
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 have 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.
These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the "just war" doctrine. The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.
The discussion arises from the Pacifists thread, in which I pointed out that at least one (the one I read) Catholic theologian is of the opinion that this makes us all near pacifist. And that is my position. I do not think military action can never be justified, but that it is rare, and rarer than it is accepted.
So some questions:
1. Do you agree with the doctrine?
2. What is the individuals responsibility? Is he/she to be held responsible to judge the justness or otherwise, of a war? Some theologians come close to the "Nurenberg defence" in that they point out quite correctly, that the individual soldier has such a lack of information, that he doesn't have the fact that might decide justness in a war. (This doesn't deny the fact that if he is ordered to do quite specific things which are illegal and immoral, he is right to refuse that order).
3. Does wrong tend to work one way? I.e. if you kill in an unjust cause that is worse than standing aside in a good cause (and how do you know that?).
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Where, when, how can military action ever be justified for you personally as a disciple of Christ?
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Love wins
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Where, when, how can military action ever be justified for you personally as a disciple of Christ?
If all military interventions over the last half-century had to fulfil the four criteria mentioned, most would not have taken place. Possibly none of them, in which case maybe we are all pacifists and the stated four criteria lead us to that conclusion.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
Just war theory can lead to near pacifism, nearly every military intervention undertaken, and everything in between.
In my opinion...US wars...
Iraq-no
Afghanistan-yes originally
Gulf War-probably not
Panama-probably
Grenada-probably
Vietnam-no
Korea-yes
World War II-yes
World War I-no
Spanish American War-no
Civil War-no
Mexican War-no
War of 1812-ultimately no
American Revolution-not for the British
Most European wars of the early modern period? No
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
I can't see how Afghanistan can be accommodated with Just War theory. Even for WW2 you have to squint a bit, and that's usually the ace up the sleeve for the pro-war crowd. Can't see how the American Revolution is justified from the colonial side, either - going to war over an import levy? Seriously?
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anteater
Ship's pest-controller
# 11435
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Posted
Martin: if the suffering caused by the intervention is less than the suffering likely to result if nothing is done, then I don't see why you are so against it.
Like I said, very few wars IMO pass the test, but I have already cited the French intervention to get rid of the murderous Emperor Bokassa.
If you are against all use of force I don't see how you accept police forces.
I also think it highly unlikely that Jesus disapproved the wars of the OT. He was, from everything we know, orthodox in his Jewish faith.
However, I don't want to rerun the Pacifist thread.
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Schnuffle schnuffle.
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Sighthound
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# 15185
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Posted
My question is:
"the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated"
How do you work this out in advance? World War I was expected to be over by Christmas 1914. I doubt very much anyone in 1939 could have predicted how destructive WW2 would prove to be. As for the ACW, I can't believe anyone on either side in 1861 would have predicted the amount of death and destruction that one caused.
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by anteater:
1. Do you agree with the doctrine?
Pretty much.
And I agree that it comes pretty close to pacifism.
quote:
2. What is the individuals responsibility? Is he/she to be held responsible to judge the justness or otherwise, of a war? Some theologians come close to the "Nurenberg defence" in that they point out quite correctly, that the individual soldier has such a lack of information, that he doesn't have the fact that might decide justness in a war.
I don't think a soldier is morally blameworthy merely for taking part in a war declared by a proper authority. The soldier is after all risking their life. Ethical issues usually allow for differences of opinion. Given that, if you're going to have soldiers at all they're going to have to hand over their moral responsibility for declaring war to some authority.
A soldier who refuses to serve in a war they deem egregiously unjust is doing something morally admirable, even if it's not morally obligatory.
Soldiers should refrain from obeying orders that they think clearly morally wrong.
quote:
3. Does wrong tend to work one way? I.e. if you kill in an unjust cause that is worse than standing aside in a good cause (and how do you know that?).
In general, acts of omission are less serious than acts of commission. That's an implication of the rule that one ought not to do evil that good may come of it.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
anteater
In war we're talking Devil's alternatives mainly. Do nothing, people suffer, do something, people suffer. Your equation cannot be used in the one greatest 'just' war, WWII at all. 73 million dead is better than what?
It's got nothing to do with utilitarian fortune telling (more of them will die than us, so let's do it). It's unchristian. It's not being a disciple of Christ. Whether that 'works' or not.
War doesn't. Sacrificial, subversive, civilly disobedient, passively resistant Christianity does. It works regardless of how many suffer.
France cleaning up its post-imperial mess with judicious violence is not Christian. Christ-like. We have NOTHING to say on Africa. Absolutely nothing. We have reduced ten thousand kingdoms to a hundred by way of billions of deaths in five hundred years.
Bokassa was made in France. In Rome. In Babylon.
When I have forced myself between protagonists on a Friday night at the 'soup kitchen', I've been really glad when the police showed up. Always shake them by the hand. I see no comparison with taking up arms whatsoever.
If you think that of Jesus then we know different ones. Mine completely subverted and overthrew Jewish culture and continues to do so with all others that are less than perfect, continuing on His trajectory of doing what He says on His tin.
On Saturday my assistant vicar's husband said that we have no idea what Jesus would have done in WWII.
Who's we?
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Love wins
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Beeswax Altar
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# 11644
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
I can't see how Afghanistan can be accommodated with Just War theory. Even for WW2 you have to squint a bit, and that's usually the ace up the sleeve for the pro-war crowd. Can't see how the American Revolution is justified from the colonial side, either - going to war over an import levy? Seriously?
That's my point. Just War theory is vague. Osama Bin Laden would have carried out more acts of terrorism. The Taliban wouldn't turn him over for trial. The Taliban themselves were bad and fighting a civil war. So, sending an international force over to the topple the Taliban, capture Osama, and help establish a more just government could be easily defended using Just War Theory. With the American Revolution, the colonists just fought the army seeking to deprive them of their inalienable rights endowed by their Creator.
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
Just like Jesus did.
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Love wins
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
That's my point. Just War theory is vague. Osama Bin Laden would have carried out more acts of terrorism. The Taliban wouldn't turn him over for trial. The Taliban themselves were bad and fighting a civil war. So, sending an international force over to the topple the Taliban, capture Osama, and help establish a more just government could be easily defended using Just War Theory.
Actually the Taliban did offer to hand him over, if evidence was given. We (civilians)don't know if that was only a fake to buy time. (We do know that by us refusing it he got away for a full decade, and never stood trial, etc...)
quote:
With the American Revolution, the colonists just fought the army seeking to deprive them of their inalienable rights endowed by their Creator.
And the civilians who gave the wrong answer.
(I'm also not sure the right to not have competition for your products is so defensible - the slavery aspect was a reaction and although in defeat the British 1/2 kept their promise, in victory...who knows, their forms not great)
It also clearly fails the first couple of "Just War" conditions. But I think that's where just war theory is imperfect, basically giving total priveledge to the status quo (authority).
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anteater
Ship's pest-controller
# 11435
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Posted
Martin:
quote:
In war we're talking Devil's alternatives mainly.
Well I agree, although the habit of some in the ship to invoke the devil at the slightest excuse is a bit tiresome. That is why, as others have agreed, just war theory is close to pacifism. Mainly - war is not justified. Are we agreed?
quote:
Your equation cannot be used in the one greatest 'just' war, WWII at all.
I never claimed it could. Nor do I now claim that.
quote:
It's got nothing to do with utilitarian fortune telling (more of them will die than us, so let's do it).
I do wish more people on the Ship would see the uselessness of mis-charactising a PoV in debate. You just look closed minded and incapable of grasping arguments.
Just war theory is nothing to do with more of them dying than us. It has to do with more suffering if the war does not happen than if it does.
Bringing fortune telling into this is silly, so doesn't work as a rhetorical device. You could (maybe) have made the point sensibly which is that the calculations involved are difficult and that is one of the main arguments against the theory - that it relies on you being able to make estimates which in fact you cannot.
That is a fair point, but a lot of life is subject to this type of uncertainty. You can only make the best estimate in good faith.
quote:
France cleaning up its post-imperial mess with judicious violence is not Christian.
That's just argument by assertion. Nor do I ever claim that any war is "a Christian act".
quote:
I see no comparison with [police action and] taking up arms whatsoever.
The comparison assumes that the police would, if necessary, use force, even lethal force, if judged necessary, in their actions. So I would be better to have qualified it and said "Given your views, I assume you do not approve of lethal force being used by Police in the execution of their duty". Am I right?
quote:
If you think that of Jesus [I had said: I also think it highly unlikely that Jesus disapproved the wars of the OT. He was, from everything we know, orthodox in his Jewish faith] then we know different ones. Mine completely subverted and overthrew Jewish culture and continues to do so
Of course I cannot prove that Jesus approved the military actions recorded in the OT but I still think it highly unlikely.
You seem to imply that you don't think of him as an orthodox Jew. Do you have evidence for that? Most of what we read him say in the NT implies the opposite (I came not to destroy the law . . Not one jot of the law will pass awaty . .etc). The only counter saying I can think of is the one about divorce (Moses allowed you to give a bill of divorcement but I say . ) But even there, Judaism has always allowed wide areas of disagreement, and many of the saying of Jesus which people think are subversive of the Jewish faith are found in accounts of contemporary rabbis.
I don't see any subversion of the Jewish faith.
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Schnuffle schnuffle.
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
quote:
originally posted by Jay-Emm:
And the civilians who gave the wrong answer.
(I'm also not sure the right to not have competition for your products is so defensible - the slavery aspect was a reaction and although in defeat the British 1/2 kept their promise, in victory...who knows, their forms not great)
It also clearly fails the first couple of "Just War" conditions. But I think that's where just war theory is imperfect, basically giving total priveledge to the status quo (authority).
Deprivation of inalienable rights is in and of itself grave and irreparable harm. What other means were the colonists supposed to take? Great Britain largely ignored the opinion of the colonists and refused to give them representation of any meaningful kind.
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
I believe Jesus approved the military action in the OT.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
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Prester John
Shipmate
# 5502
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
quote:
originally posted by Jay-Emm:
And the civilians who gave the wrong answer.
(I'm also not sure the right to not have competition for your products is so defensible - the slavery aspect was a reaction and although in defeat the British 1/2 kept their promise, in victory...who knows, their forms not great)
It also clearly fails the first couple of "Just War" conditions. But I think that's where just war theory is imperfect, basically giving total priveledge to the status quo (authority).
Deprivation of inalienable rights is in and of itself grave and irreparable harm. What other means were the colonists supposed to take? Great Britain largely ignored the opinion of the colonists and refused to give them representation of any meaningful kind.
If this is a given then I am curious why you believe the Civil War would not be considered a just war.
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
The Emancipation Proclamation wasn't issued until the war was half over and only freed slaves in the confederacy. Most in the North weren't going to war because of slavery. Furthermore, the North never tried a nonviolent way of ending slavery. My suspicion is abolitionists in the North preferred to sacrifice the lives of Northern farm boys and Irish immigrants than spending large sums of money made indirectly from the slave trade and directly from exploiting the urban poor.
Oh and a slave rebellion would have clearly been a just war.
[ 29. November 2013, 15:01: Message edited by: Beeswax Altar ]
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
I believe Jesus approved the military action in the OT.
I don't know, but an argument from silence isn't terribly convincing.
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
All the evidence in the NT suggests Jesus saw himself as being from the tradition that produced the OT. He never implies OT figures weren't obeying God when the OT says they were. He certainly doesn't imply that the God he calls Father was a different God than the one in the OT. What evidence is there to assume Jesus disapproved of the military actions in the OT?
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
quote:
originally posted by Jay-Emm:
Deprivation of inalienable rights is in and of itself grave and irreparable harm. What other means were the colonists supposed to take? Great Britain largely ignored the opinion of the colonists and refused to give them representation of any meaningful kind.
Regarding my third point. Maybe but it still wasn't "waged by a properly instituted authority such as the state" (unless the French count). Hence it fails the first test for "Aquinus's Just War". I think this is a potential failure of Just War theory as no matter how bad Britain was a rebellion is still 'unjust', which I think is clearly bunkum.
Regarding the bracketed bit Zach32 says it better than me.
Regarding the first you still have the atrocities committed against civilians (one is depicted with the flags reversed in The Patriot). Just War includes how you behave. It was a bit petty perhaps but they didn't "Just fight the army..." and it would be hard to accept the actions as "Distinctive, Proportionate or Military Necessary" (or if we do accept that we open the door for things I don't want to accept).
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
The Colonists formed a legitimate government that waged the war. A just war can be fought in an unjust manner. Likewise, an unjust war can be fought in a just manner.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
What evidence is there to assume Jesus disapproved of the military actions in the OT?
"Love your enemies"? Not saying that is decisive, but it is found in the Sermon on the Mount, which many have seen, at least in part, as a radical restatement of various more traditional rabbinical views of the Torah. "You have heard it said .... but I say unto you" etc.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
If all military interventions over the last half-century had to fulfil the four criteria mentioned, most would not have taken place. Possibly none of them, in which case maybe we are all pacifists and the stated four criteria lead us to that conclusion.
The majority of us are pacifists until such time that we are induced by fear to back , or take part in military action . Once military action has been under taken it finds a life-blood of it's own .
If the nazis had won WW11 all the history books would easily have justified their military excursions . Just as our old encyclopedias justified all Britain's imperial foreign interventions pre WW1.
I tend to think it was the mind-boggling losses of two world wars, plus the subsequent invention of the Bomb, that made pacifism and just war theories fashionable . If public reaction, (or lack of it), to Afghanistan and Iraq is anything to go by then it appears to me we are becoming less bothered about such trifles.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Anteater
I'm not one of those people obviously and don't know anyone else who is here either. IngoB is most prone to it ![[Smile]](smile.gif) Seeing demons under every Protestant.
Just war is no where near close to pacifism, a miss is as good as a mile and in fact worse. What is done in the name of just war, in the name of democracy, freedom, emancipation, rights - as Beeswax Altar does on his own para-Christian recognizance - is as hypocritically, self deceivedly bad as it gets, as in Hiroshima where nothing else comes close but Auschwitz for sheer existential horror. Just war is a risible oxymoron. The kind of war Christians can justify is the worst. They - we - cloke themselves - ourselves - in worse blindness than Ayn Rand's defence of Israeli 'civilized' war against the 'barbarian' Palestinians they've displaced.
'Mainly - war is not justified'? No, war is completely unjustified in Christ, in following Jesus the express likeness of The Father the express likeness of Jesus. WE can justify it all WE like. Outside true, real, progressive, evolving, enlightened Christianity and outside humanitarianism and utilitarianism generally. Unless your 'Mainly' applied to your previous sentence - refuted in my previous paragraph - in which case we are agreed: war is not justified.
WW2 is everyone's favourite just war, but not yours, good!
What I do so wish is that people on the Ship would engage in more entertaining, self-deprecating rhetoric rather than project their irony bypass. And I wish I could be nicer about it.
I know what just war theory is and the reality is that more suffer as the result of war ALWAYS - name one - than peace.
Silly fortune telling works fine as a rhetorical device for me. Compared with the insane argument that more good could possibly be done by war than non war. Even if the mere numbers add up. Which they never do. Ever. Name one. Just one.
There is no best estimate in the calculus of war in Good Faith. There is no war in Good Faith.
On your response to the fact of French imperialism sorting its midden out 'post'-imperialistically, that's just argument by counter assertion.
And none of my third rate rhetoric accused you of anything.
As for coppers, like squaddies, they're all heroes to me and I'm extremely grateful for them and no, in Christ, following the Prince of Peace, on the street, up against deranged gunmen, whatever, there HAS to be a more perfect way. We have to work it out. I have been found wanting in that for sure. Not proud of it. Try and learn from it.
I see nothing but subversion in Jesus, to the Jewish orthodoxy of His day, which bares no resemblance to the relatively humane Orthodoxy of today, which has been carried along with Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Wicca by the progressive enlightenment that allows for progressive revelation and in Jesus' case catalysed the enlightenment the perfectly timed revelation.
Even in space my empty glass is full of vacuum.
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Love wins
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deano
princess
# 12063
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Posted
I thought someobody said he'd been told about this sort of thing.
Personally if I had good arguments I would want to make sure people actually understood them, only obfuscating them if my arguments were weak.
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"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot
Posts: 2118 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: Nov 2006
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anteater
Ship's pest-controller
# 11435
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Posted
Martin:
To clarify, and if you don't mind I'll extend this to all uses of lethal force by someone given that power by the state.
Is your argument that there are no circumstances imaginable in which the use of lethal force means that overall less suffering occurs, or:
Regardless of any such calculation, killing another human being is wrong.
Both are, of course, legitimate to hold. There are lots of things I would never condone, such as torturing the child of a terrorist in the hope it might cause him to defuse a bomb in a crowded place. Maybe where we disagree is that I do not view the taking of a life as wrong under any possible scenario.
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Schnuffle schnuffle.
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Beholder's eye deano, beholder's eye.
(Anteater understands [me] as perfectly as he possibly can.)
I can't do anything about that. You I like, but you won't see. You can't. Repentance is granted. If asked for.
Whatever you do, don't ask for it.
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Love wins
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deano
princess
# 12063
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by anteater:
Regardless of any such calculation, killing another human being is wrong.
Both are, of course, legitimate to hold. There are lots of things I would never condone, such as torturing the child of a terrorist in the hope it might cause him to defuse a bomb in a crowded place.
Quite an emotive example you selected there. Let me raise the stakes a little. Your wife and children are in the crowded place.
Now do you condone it, or are you willing to sacrifice your own family for the principle at stake?
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"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot
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deano
princess
# 12063
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Beholder's eye deano, beholder's eye.
(Anteater understands [me] as perfectly as he possibly can.)
I can't do anything about that. You I like, but you won't see. You can't. Repentance is granted. If asked for.
Whatever you do, don't ask for it.
![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif)
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"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Crossed in the post anteater.
Thank you.
Yes, I will be found out by reality, by possibility, be found saying 'SHOOT the sunuvabitch!' and worse 'DIE you bastard'. Jesus wouldn't. He didn't, He wouldn't, couldn't. In ANY scenario He could have encountered. I believe. I believe He thought it wrong, not perfect, not good in that understated way of His, in every scenario, just like His Father, from the beginning, prior to being Jesus, from Eden to incarnation, via the Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, the Exodus, the Amalekites.
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Love wins
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Deano, I'd want to rip his testicles off for a start with my bare hands. You'd have to stop me. You wouldn't have to stop Jesus.
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Love wins
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
What evidence is there to assume Jesus disapproved of the military actions in the OT?
"Love your enemies"? Not saying that is decisive, but it is found in the Sermon on the Mount, which many have seen, at least in part, as a radical restatement of various more traditional rabbinical views of the Torah. "You have heard it said .... but I say unto you" etc.
The Torah says,"Thou shalt not kill," and yet also contains rules for fighting wars. Jesus says the whole of the law is about loving God and loving your neighbor knowing what it says about war. Jesus was talking about interpersonal relationships not war between states. Only a legitimate government can wage a just war.
I can't see how anybody can defend the legitimacy of police action but not military action. A person starts beating you to a pulp. You turn the other cheek. A bystander calls the police. The police come, beat the man with their nightsticks, put him in handcuffs, and throw him in jail. Do you then criticize the police because they didn't let your attacker beat you to death? But, if you don't, then how are you really turning the other cheek if you simply outsource the violence.
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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anteater
Ship's pest-controller
# 11435
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Posted
Deano:
quote:
Now do you condone it, or are you willing to sacrifice your own family for the principle at stake?
No. Not for a moment.
Can I also say that it helps a discussion of this type if we concentrate on what we believe we ought to do. As Martin implies, there's no real telling whether, under the type of pressure we're talking about, we would stick to our guns (if I may use the expression. Rhetorical device, Martin. ![[Razz]](tongue.gif) )
So in a case where we are morally certain that by killing someone we could save many lives, it is probable that both Martin and I would pull the trigger (which makes the scenario unrealistic for me, since I'd miss - but it's a thought-experiment). Martin, if I understand him, would think he had done a grave wrong and had let Jesus down. I would regret what happened but think I had done the right thing.
Different folks have different lines in the sand. Martin seems to be against all violence, and I would imagine he would not use a gun on someone even if confident he could disable without killing.
I would be prepared to kill. But as stated above, I would not do anything to try and get the desired result.
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Schnuffle schnuffle.
Posts: 2538 | From: UK | Registered: May 2006
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
There is no comparison.
At all.
I have intervened in violent confrontations. I didn't hit anyone with anything. The shrivelled corpus callosum in me still wishes I had. Some outcomes were better than others. Several left me feeling really bad. Inadequate. Cowardly. In at least one I hid in the toilet rather than confront. I'm learning. From failure. Failure of resolve. I'm working it out. I'm working out what Jesus would do. It's very fraught. I have dominated a whole room of violent men with my voice alone. And completely failed in a melee except for shielding a violent woman from counterattack while a non-violent but very foolish man got repeatedly battered a metre away. I failed to stop a woman getting coffee thrown in her face and then the cup, right in front of me. Nasty stuff. The cops were brilliant. They did nothing. They were perfectly minimal. I've seen them like that many times. And I saw the effect of one in five of them on a friend on Friday. Four didn't put the boot in when overpowering him for peaceful protest in a council chamber, one did. To this day I wish I'd had the conviction to just launch myself regardless of the consequence against the huge guy throwing coffee and cup at the suicidally provocative mother - she confessed her deathwish after to me - of his children. Even though I see them both now, reconciled apart. I shake his hand every time. I tell her how happy she looks. Because she is. Difficult isn't it? She begged us not to testify against him. Life eh?
Like all of us, like me until literally a couple of days ago to the degree I feel it, understand it, have it shine upon my darkness now, you completely miss the point of progressive revelation. You always will until the resurrection unless you ask or something gives. You're as fecklessly innocent as Karl.
The Bible is not flat. It is not a cookbook. It is to be fully, completely interpreted backward and forwards to NOW from Jesus.
Jesus didn't quench a smoking reed. He confronted the fire. With words. With blood yes. His own. No one else's. He raised a hand to no one.
He waged war on no flesh and blood, but on principalities and powers.
One of my heroes is Wilfred Owen, he took two German machine gun emplacements single handed armed only with a pistol. And accepted their surrender. The love of God shining in darkness or what? I'd have emptied the gun each time with cold relish.
Shine on Lord. Drown us in light.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Beeswax Altar
It's a fair distinction.
Maybe more proper to Kerygmania, but it's been argued that Jesus' proclamations re personal non violence need to be seen in the light of "the coming kingdom", with its Micah 4 dimensions of swords beaten into plowshares and people living peacefully, free from fear.
Jesus seemed to see the need for his followers to be living demonstrations, harbingers if you like, of the coming kingdom. That's the encouragement to servant hood, unselfishness, peaceful lifestyle.
I think our problem is that the coming kingdom still is, and is not. Paul's phrase, from Romans 12, "If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone" certainly allows for circumstances in which it might not be possible.
Which brings us to legitimate policing, restraint by use of legitimate force, and the need for just war principles applied to legitimate governments. You are right. They operate in circumstances where living peaceably is being disrupted by violent behaviour by those outside the law. And I agree that to accept the need for the police and yet disregard the defensive responsibilities of legitimate governments is inconsistent.
I am not a pacifist, for those reasons, nor do I believe it wrong for Christians to be members of the police force or the military. I worry that they may become calloused by the use of legitimate restraining force; but in principle I am glad that legitimate authorities do have peacekeepers with powers and means of legitimate restraint. Including, in the last resort, the power to kill.
I think the issue today is that such powers of last resort have become too powerful, too indiscriminate, and are often exercised remotely, with counter-productive effects. They do not cause wars to cease; rather they seem to perpetuate power struggles, enmity, divisions.
I think we've become too easily accepting of the realpolitik of legitimate violence. Some rebalancing looks in order. Not saying that is easy, but it is as well to remember that last resort can far too easily become first response. People are still afraid. More is being spent on "swords" than "ploughshares". The peace of the coming kingdom looks a long way off.
[ 01. December 2013, 09:51: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Hmmmmm. My sites shift target. Well Barnabas ..
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Wow. A military metaphor. Careful, Martin ...
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
I got me a full clip on sem-eye automatic.
You are the most dangerous possible adversary. Because until you said you aren't a pacifist I'd have thought you had to be, you must be: I can't see how you can't be.
But then I begin to see.
How much not in the Kingdom, of the Kingdom are we? How much can we kill? Who? When? How much war can we wage? How much collateral damage can we inflict?
Or can be done in our name that we couldn't? By 'legitimate' authorities?
Policing certainly isn't wrong per se, one doesn't have to use any lethal violence as a copper that wouldn't come out incidentally, contingently protecting and serving.
Not so with the military.
Who would Jesus kill?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
One of my heroes is Wilfred Owen, he took two German machine gun emplacements single handed armed only with a pistol. And accepted their surrender. The love of God shining in darkness or what?
Mine to . Owen wrote of "thy pity of war" . I don't think he was a pacifist in the the true sense of the word though .
In fact his letters home show how the experience of war had changed him . He wrote regularly to his mother and one of his last letters was signed off -- 'Yours Wilfred , not just Wilfred but more than Wilfred'.
A sensitive, well educated mother's boy had become a hardened warrior, one who had felt his personhood expanded by the comradery and bloodshed of the Western Front.
It is odd that a Second war with Germany is held up as the ultimate Just war, given that one of the main reasons it happened was that we cocked-up the hard won peace from the First.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Aye rolyn, he became a great warrior, a classless unerotic, or beyond mere physically erotic, lover, though gay, of his men whom he couldn't wait to get back to. They all died together. Greek tragedy heroes all. With those they sought to meaninglessly kill who killed them first.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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anteater
Ship's pest-controller
# 11435
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Posted
Blimey Martin. I've met some DBA's, one of which never wore shoes, but well short of the exciting life you seem to have had.
Mind you all the ones I knew were Oracle DBA's. I can see SQL leading to a few altercations. ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
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Schnuffle schnuffle.
Posts: 2538 | From: UK | Registered: May 2006
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
SQL is for girls. Like Windows. Oracle - STANDARD version with scripted log shipping - on Linux. Steam driven.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
I guess I'm a near-pacifist. To me especially the second rule is important: "all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective." And even then, that doesn't make it right. It probably means that you've failed elsewhere.
I also think that there is a difference between a police force and an army. Within the police, it should be clear that shooting someone is only allowed if he makes a direct threat and there's no other way to stop him. At the very least, he should already be pointing his gun at someone.
In the army, there are more instances of shooting someone who isn't a direct threat at the moment, but who might become one in the future. This already gives you the obligation to find other ways to counteract this threat.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
WWJD?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard: WWJD?
I'm not sure, the Gospels don't really tell us.
For example, what if a Roman soldier threatened to kill a child and His only resort was to use violence to stop him?
Maybe He would trade His own life to save the child, but that wouldn't really help if the soldier didn't accept the trade.
Of course, He could have pulled a miracle out of His hat. Or with His Godly knowledge He could have found a way out that we wouldn't see. But that would be cheating.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Aye, He wouldn't. He would trust Himself to God. And interpose. INSIST. It's extremely rare to have to kill deliberately in domestic circumstances to prevent suffering and death. Using appropriate force is ... appropriate. Of course it is. I would fully expect Jesus to do whatever is humanly necessary to protect an innocent, without thinking twice.
There is no excuse whatsoever for what one Leicester police officer in five did to my friend last week. The other four may have been heavy handed, but within the bounds of appropriate force with an agitated, obdurate, unpredictable protester. But stamping a boot heel on his cheek was sheer spite.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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