The Bird's Eye View: Some Thoughts about the Just War Tradition

Extract

Although the teaching and example of Christ clearly call us away from violence and hatred and bloodshed, the world often pulls the other way. The tension which results can be agonising; and it is tempting to get rid of it straightaway by a kind of intellectual manoeuvre. We can for instance pretend that the world does not exist—or that we arc not responsible for it; or we can pretend that the gospels do not apply to it. If we succeed in reducing the tension, then is the time to beware; for the tension between the world and the gospels can only be removed by eliminating one of them; and both are necessary for a Christian-in-the-World.

St Augustine felt forced by historical circumstances to admit that a man could serve in the army and still please God; but it was not without a great sense of strain that he gave some kind of approval to ‘such great, repulsive and cruel evils’. From scraps of St Augustine, the Western Church evolved what has come to be known as the ‘just war tradition’, permitting war, and later making it obligatory, in certain defined circumstances. The idea of a ‘just war’ is an explosive one; it provokes extreme responses. The Roman Catholic who still bases his thinking on this tradition, or the more common type, who simply relies on the opinions of ‘experts’ and does not think at all, will regard the just war as part of the Creed and will afford it an unquestioning reverence; those who do not have such faith consider it as just another piece of appalling Roman casuistry.