Just War Theory

Jesus serves as a model of peace and love in our world, for He was a man who not only preached peace and love, but lived it.  He asked us to do the same on many occasions, i.e. love your neighbor as yourself, love your enemies, if someone strikes you on the cheek turn to him the other as well, if someone asks for your shirt, give him your coat as well.  There is no doubt that Jesus was not only generous, peaceful, loving in speech, but in deed as well, as proves His humility during His arrest and eventual crucifixion.

Jesus asks that we all live this way, peaceful; however, we do live in a world where some will become violent, greedy, controlling, and some who become downright evil.  The greatest response to evil is peace and love, being a pacifist as was our Lord, but again, either an individual or society can protect itself from an unjust aggressor, hence a second option, mind you not as good as the first but still permissible.  We know this from Scripture and tradition.  When the soldier approaches Jesus and asks Him to heal his servant and they get into the conversation about obedience and eventually the soldier’s servant is healed, Jesus never once says to the soldier “lay down your arms.”  Also, Jesus demands we give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.  In rendering that judgment and others rightful societies can protect themselves and others, however this does not go unchecked.

Today we have so many wars all in the name of protecting democracy, freedom, and even resources, let’s not kid ourselves, oil and money drive the world, no pun intended.  And now, we may possibly have another conflict on our hands with Syria.  The problem here is what do we do?  It has been proven that Syria used chemical weapons on its own citizens.  Do we police that or allow them to work it out on their own?  Not an easy call.  How do measure or decide that our actions are just and good, whether we decide to intervene or not?  As Christians we are asked to always check and examine our conscience in determining such and since the Bible does not spell out whether a war can be just or not except in a very implied way we turn to other Christian thinkers who have in order to help form our own conscience.

St. Augustine was the first Christian theologian to deal with such a topic, “The Just War Theory.”  His position was his own private understanding.  He begins with a humble and pious thought, “What is here required is not a bodily action, but an inward disposition.  The sacred seat of virtue is the heart.”  Peacefulness and virtue is one’s highest aim in life as was Jesus’ example to us, none-the-less, Augustine also would add, “Defense of one’s self or others could be a necessity, especially when authorized by a legitimate authority.”  Augustine does not give us a full discourse on just war but he paves the way for other thinkers to add to his theory.  One such man, 900 years later, St. Thomas Aquinas would further develop the theory.  Thomas came up with three major components in determining whether a war was just or not.

1.    Just was must be waged by a proper authority, i.e. The state

2.    War must occur for a good and just purpose, rather than self gain, i.e. “in the nation’s interest” would be unjust, rather it would have to be, “for the sake of restoring some good, territory, or the punishment of an evil government, military or societal sect.”

3.    Peace must be the central motive. I.E. Right intention

The theory was further developed by other Thomists (students of Thomas) who added.

1.    There has to be a reasonable chance of success

2.    Preemptive war is just because an attack is imminent, preventive wars are not, because an attack is only anticipated and there is no imminent danger.

3.    The response must match the evil, i.e. we cannot drop nuclear weapons when they are only firing ballistic missiles.

4.    Only governing authorities may declare war and if the people oppose the war it would be illegitimate to declare war.

5.    There are moral limits to what we can do, i.e. the innocent and civilians must never be a target, i.e. with today’s weapons that is sometimes not the case.

6.    Peace talks must proceed as much as humanly possible.

  

     Modern theologians would add to this especially claiming that all use of nuclear and or atomic weapons is always unjust.  Nuclear weapons by their nature target civilians and the innocent.  

     How many American wars have met these criteria?  I will not decide for you, but I ask you to decide.  I want you to go home and wrestle with this.  St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas and others have challenged us, they challenge us to be and live peacefully as did our Lord and if we find it impossible not to go to war then we are to follow a certain criteria and set of rules so that we do not become unjust.   But, to both be fair and honest have we Americans been just in our wars.  I think two positions that are unwise is to think we have never acted unjustly or that we have never acted justly, these are extreme positions, I think at times we have failed (both during military action and when we failed to help others because they could not offer us something in return)

)    but I also think at times we have followed a virtuous path (helping others through military force to be free from oppression and genocide), nevertheless the reflection is now yours and the greater question for us as Christian is, “What about Syria?”  Pope Francis has made his thoughts known, look them up, pray about it and most of all pray that Christ touches all with His sense of peace and love.  Amen.  FJ