“Just War”—Nothing But War?

In the Lord of the Rings films, human beings are a mixed bag. At the outset it is stated that humans are interested only in power. The character named Boromir seems to confirm that fact when he nearly succeeds in taking the ring from Frodo by force. Later, though, he demonstrates that J. R. R. Tolkien’s view of human nature was not at rock bottom by giving his life to save his friends. His brother turns out to be a noble character, if maligned by his and his brother’s father. Aragorn is an outright Christ-figure, a man who proves he is worthy of rule by his self-sacrificing leadership.

I have heard Lord of the Rings condemned as “a bad movie” because it moves from one horrific battle scene to another. I tried to explain to the person making that judgment that it has to be that way because it is about an apocalyptic struggle between good and evil, and that struggle doesn’t take place over a cup of coffee. My explanation was to no avail.

Since the mid-sixties, what with the counter-cultural movement and the highly problematical Vietnam War, the question of whether war is ever justified has been a big one. I have been in Mennonite worship services in which the choir’s anthem celebrated those who fought for our freedom and a trip to a reenactment of a battle was announced. I have also seen serious pacifists among Presbyterians. I have a friend who is a solid Christian but recently let it slip that his experiences in combat in Vietnam were “fun.” When I reacted with shock, he said he should have said “exciting.”

Augustine’s just war theory came about when many Christians were pacifists and the non-Christian Romans were accusing them of not doing their part to fend off the increasingly powerful assaults on the Empire. Augustine then published his thinking on the subject of Christians’ participation in war, as described here by Arthur Holmes:

1. Just cause. All aggression is condemned; only defensive war is legitimate.
2. Just intention. The only legitimate intention is to secure a just peace for all involved. Neither revenge nor conquest nor economic gain nor ideological supremacy are justified.
3. Last resort. War may only be entered upon when all negotiations and compromise have been tried and failed.
4. Formal declaration. Since the use of military force is the prerogative of governments, not of private individuals, a state of war must be officially declared by the highest authorities.
5. Limited objectives. If the purpose is peace, then unconditional surrender or the destruction of a nation’s economic or political institutions is an unwarranted objective.
6. Proportionate means. The weaponry and the force used should be limited to what is needed to repel the aggression and deter future attacks, that is to say to secure a just peace. Total or unlimited war is ruled out.
7. Noncombatant immunity. Since war is an official act of government, only those who are officially agents of government may fight, and individuals not actively contributing to the conflict (including POWs and casualties as well as civilian nonparticipants) should be immune from attack.

There is a good deal of common sense in Augustine’s theory, although it would be hard to argue against the Allies’ demand for unconditional surrender by Germany and Japan. What to me is a mind-numbing violation of common sense is the radical pacifists’ notion that violence is never justified under any circumstances. When confronted with a hypothetical situation in which a terrorist is about to set off a bomb that will kill a half-million innocent people and the pacifist has a sniper rifle with the terrorist in his sights, the radical pacifist says he will not pull the trigger. To my mind this is fanatical blindness.

But hypocrisy enters the picture when we think of how those principles of Augustine’s were violated by “Christian” rulers through the rest of the Middle Ages and on into our age. A king was horrified by the prospect of dying without having expanded the borders of his kingdom. His name would go down in history as that of a failure. I mean, who wants to appear in a list of the kings of Bulimia as Alfred the Wimp? Underlying that problem is the fact that the prevailing attitude, among the nobility at least, drives such a ruler to sacrifice hordes of young men on both sides of the conflict in quest of a good personal reputation.

And the hypocrisy goes beyond that. Remember the general who warned his colleagues not to knock the Vietnam War because “it’s the only war we’ve got”? In other words, promotion comes more easily when one demonstrates one’s prowess in combat. Hey, that’s the way the nobles in Europe generally got their fiefdoms, and the monstrously corrupt encomienda system in Latin America, in which a victorious soldier was given a huge amount of territory “with the Indians living thereupon” was similarly based.

War is a rotten thing, with its roots firmly planted in fallen human nature. Defensive warfare, though, is an absolutely necessary thing. A lot of the pacifists in my community in California were pretty speechless during World War II when asked whether they thought it would be a good idea to allow Hitler and Hirohito to take over the world without opposition.