Just War and the Christian Conscience

Probably no one did more, at least in Protestant circles, to revive just war thinking in the 20th century than Methodist ethicist Paul Ramsey. Ramsey explicitly defends just warfare as an act of “social charity,” or what I’ve been calling a neighbor-love oriented approach.

In his essay “Justice In War” (first published in 1964) Ramsey says:

While Jesus taught that a disciple in his own case should turn the other cheek, he did not enjoin that his disciples should lift up the face of another oppressed man for him to be struck again on his other cheek. It is no part of the work of charity to allow this to continue to happen. Instead, it is the work of love and mercy to deliver as many as possible of God’s children from tyranny, and to protect from oppression, if one can, as many of those for whom Christ died as it may be possible to save. When choice must be made between the perpetrator of injustice and the many victims of it, the latter may and should be preferred–even if effectively to do so would require th use of armed force against some evil power. This is what I mean by saying that the justice of sometimes resorting to armed conflict originated in the interior of the ethics of Christian love. (Ramsey, “Justice In War,” in The Just War, p. 143)

But, says Ramsey, the very same reasoning that permits on occasion the use of force also demands that such force be limited:

The justification of participation in conflict at the same time severely limited war’s conduct. What justified also limited! Since it was for the sake of the innocent and helpless of the earth that the Christian first thought himself obligated to make war against an enemy whose objective deeds had to be stopped, since only for their sake does a Christian justify himself in resisting by any means even an enemy-neighbor, he could never proceed to kill equally innocent eople as a means of getting at the enemy’s forces. Thus was twin-born the justification of war and the limitation which surrounded non-combatants with moral immunity from direct attack. (pp. 143-44)

This would be Ramsey’s response to Orwell’s defense of saturation bombing. If the justification for war is the defense of the innocent, it cannot be used to justify directly attacking the innocent. And “innocent” here doesn’t mean “morally innocent,” as if soldiers were somehow more “deserving” of death than civilians. Rather, soldiers are legitimate targets only because it is their objective acts of aggression that are to be stopped. They are, in Ramsey’s words “the bearer of hostile force.”

It follows from this understanding of justice in war that one can’t draw a sharp line between one’s own people who are deserving of protection from aggression and outsiders who we can safely leave to take their chances. If, as Ramsey says, it is a work of love to “deliver as many as possible of God’s children from tyranny, and to protect from oppression,” then it seems to follow that we should do so when we are able.

At the same time, it would seem that each nation-state is charged first and foremost with the protection of its own citizens. There might be an analogy here with the idea of vocation. If each one of us is primarily tasked with caring for those near to us, we still should be open to the call of the neighbor even when it comes from outside our normal set of concerns and commitments. Likewise, a nation must tend first to protecting its own citizens, but be open to extending its protection to those unable to protect themselves when it is able.

Now, all this abstract theorizing is apt to look meaningless in the face of nation-state realpolitik as we know it. Nations don’t generally act on the precepts of Christian love (even Ramseyan muscular Christian love!); they act, more or less, as maximizers of their own power an interests. So, how exactly can we expect this kind of just war theorizing to gain a foothold in the corridors of power?

Frankly, I’m not sure we can. I’m tempted to share the pessimism of Orthodox theologian David B. Hart, who concludes his review of Darrel Cole and Alexander Webster’s just war defense of the war on terrorism with a great deal of skepticism about the relevance of just war theory for post-Christian secular statecraft:

I do not much blame Webster and Cole for failing to bring their excellent historical and theoretical survey of just war thinking into credible contact with contemporary reality. It seems to me to be a difficulty that is inescapable whenever one attempts to use a moral grammar suited to an age of Christian princes and Christian cultures as a guide to our relations with the post-Christian political order. Webster is almost strident in his assertion that we can credit ourselves with virtuous warmaking in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and pray God he is right. But I cannot imagine anyone not disposed to approve of the invasion of Iraq (in particular) being convinced by any argument this book advances. […]

I am not urging any particular view of the matter, as it happens; I am only calling attention to how complicated the issue becomes when the Christian just war theorist can no longer claim that we are fighting to defend or restore a Christian order. It may well be that the only Christian argument for the war in Iraq that will not inevitably become at best equivocal when subjected to a sufficiently unyielding moral skepticism is that the suffering of the Iraqis under Saddam’s regime was sufficiently monstrous that no Christian conscience could possibly be content to leave that regime in place.

Hart suggests that if Christians are to participate in the secular state’s wars it will have to be on their own terms:

[W]e may have to draw a firm demarcation between the aims of Christians in this conflict and the aims of the secular state. Perhaps we should cease to imagine that we can simply translate the principles of just war from the age of Christendom to the age of “the rights of man.” If we make war justly as Christians, we do so “alongside” the state perhaps, but surely not under its moral or (God forbid) spiritual authority.

Our alliance with the state is more or less accidental, and even somewhat opportunistic, and the prudential decisions we make for or against war must be something separate and distinct from the decisions made by our governments.

If we go forth to fight for God’s justice, we do so as citizens of a Kingdom not of this world, one that can make use of the post-Christian state, but that cannot share its purposes. To the world, this may appear to mean that we go forth only as individuals, driven each merely by the passion of his faith. Perhaps so. And perhaps it is then also the case that, really, we must learn again how to speak not only of just war, but of chivalry.

It’s hard to know how seriously to take this last remark. Is Hart suggesting a kind of Christian corps of mercenaries who would fight alongside the state’s armies on some occasions? Knights Templar for the 21st century? Because an enlisted man is not going to be given the option to fight only when the cause and methods comport with his understanding of just war theory!

If a Christian soldier is not at liberty to participate in the wars of the secular state on his own tems, we may wonder if a Christian should participate in those wars at all. After all, if we take just war theory as an expression of Christian love, doesn’t it seem that many of the wars embarked on by secular governments are more likely to have ends incompatible with that love?