Author: Lee M.

The origins of the just war tradition are usually traced back to the fourth century and St. Augustine’s masterwork, City of God. St. Augustine grapples with the undeniable anti-violent thrust of the Christian tradition, especially the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. He comes to the conclusion that wars of aggression and self-aggrandizement — like Rome’s imperial wars — are neveracceptable. But there are occasions when violence may be necessary. Violence is never a normative good. It is better for an individual who professes Christianity to suffer harm than to commit it. But public officials are charged with protecting the safety of a people: The shepherd must tend the flock. For St. Augustine, the most potent casus belli is protecting the innocent from certain harm — the innocent being those who are unable to defend themselves. — Jean Bethke Elshtain

A contradiction in terms? Not according to Chris Roach who offers a manifesto of sorts for hawkish paleocons.

A while back Bill Vallicella linked to this excellent post at the Big Hominid (n.b.: some bad language) on the topic of pluralism, truth, and religion. This sparked a series of equally interesting posts on the question of whether every religion should be understood as offering a path to salvation and/or liberation.

Rather than enter directly into this debate, I thought I’d use it as a convenient point of departure for some of my own thoughts on the matter of truth and pluralism in religion. For my part, I tend to be an exclusivist about truth, but a relativist about justification. In other words, I believe that the claims of classic Christianity are true always, everywhere, and for all, but showing to them to be true is a complicated, messy, and probably inevitably incomplete matter.

Part of the reason for this is that I agree with much of what sails under the flag of postmodernism insofar as I think the attempt to find a kind of universal starting point for argument, one that all rational beings would assent to, is a fool’s errand. Rather, I think arguments proceed in an ad hoc fashion and vary depending on the conversation partner. Much will depend on what, if any, shared assumptions or beliefs each party brings to the argument. This doesn’t require starting from “scratch,” but from where we happen to be.

With that in mind, I think it’s clear that there can be no fool-proof method for convincing others of our truth claims on pain of irrationality. That doesn’t mean we need to give up our commitment to the truth of our beliefs. To believe something just is to believe that it’s true, even if we can’t show it to be true in a way that will convince everyone. But it does perhaps mean we should display more humility in advancing our beliefs. In fact, I think the character of the arguer can be just as important in advancing a truth as the cogency of the reasoning. In the early years of Christianity, for instance, it was primarily the love displayed by Christians, for each other as well as outsiders, that attracted new converts.

For Christians, it may be that truth is an eschatological concept. We are assured that one day “every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord,” but for now “we see in a glass darkly.” In the world we live in, sorting through claims and counter-claims of truth is a messy business. This means recognizing that people of good will can come to different conclusions on these matters, even as we strive to lead lives of faithful witness to the truth as we have received it.

So says Alice Cooper about Springsteen, R.E.M., et al.:

“To me, that’s treason. I call it treason against rock-and-roll, because rock is the antithesis of politics. Rock should never be in bed with politics.”

and

“If you’re listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you’re a bigger moron than they are. Why are we rock stars? Because we’re morons. We sleep all day, we play music at night and very rarely do we sit around reading the Washington Journal[sic].”

A helpful article from the London Spectator shining the light of truth on that icon of soi-disant college radicals:

The essential fact about Che was that he misunderstood his own experience, and then tried to apply it as a rule for the whole world, with predictably disastrous results. He was a savage ideologue, a mesmeric fool and, in the end, a poetic blunderer, possessing some extraordinary qualities, certainly, but without the judgment and humility to make those qualities count. … In the ramshackle, amateurish conflict in the Sierra Maestra, where Castro’s forces were numbered in dozens and, at most, hundreds, Che was a man who did not mind getting his hands dirty. If a man was accused of being a traitor, or an informer, or even of defeatism, Che could, and often did, condemn him to death. He was not averse to carrying out the sentence himself. Pistol to the temple, pull the trigger, has to be done…. The peasantry soon learnt to fear him. Che wrote in his memoirs: ‘Denouncing us did violence to their own conscience and, in any case, put them in danger, since revolutionary justice was speedy.’

In addition to being a cold-blooded killer, Che proved an inept manager of the Cuban economy:

Moving on from his role as Castro’s Fouquier-Tinville, he took charge of Cuba’s economy. According to his ‘Theory of Value’, which Fidel supported, the value of an object was defined not by supply and demand but by its moral and social worth. Che was left to decide which priorities should be followed. His years in command of the Cuban economy drove it to ruin. … He was undaunted by the deaths he had ordered and the errors he had made. He had larger dreams than the fate of the Cuban economy.

Apologies to my three readers for the gap in blogging this week. Chalk it up to some vacation and work-related travel.

Luther … establishes a sharp opposition between what the Christian does as a private person and Christian and what he does and has to do in fulfilling the responsibility of his office in behalf of those who have been entrusted to his care. As a Christian, when his own personal wefare is involved, he seeks to do nothing else than serve his neighbor, even if his neighbor is his enemy. He is prepared to suffer injustice without protecting himself and resisting evil, without calling upon the authorities and their judicial power for help, without avenging himself — all this in accordance with the statements of Jesus and the apostles. However, as a secular person, fulfilling his office of protecting those entrusted to his care and acting in matters that affect the welfare of his neighbor, he must under all conditions fulfill his duty to protect them, to oppose evil, block it, punish it, and use force in resisting it. “A Christian should not resist any evil; but within the limits of his office, a secular person should oppose every evil.” It is not appropriate for the authorities to be meek and mild; that would run counter to the task which God has given them. The governing authorities cannot justify such a lenient attitude toward evil on the basis that Jesus says we should not demand justice and retribution, for these statements are not at all concerned with secular government and cannot be established as a rule governing it. Rather, they are concerned with the Christian’s attitude in his heart. They are binding on the Christian not in terms of what he does in his office as a secular person but only in his personal relationship to his neighbor. They are not intended to regulate secular affairs and thus serve to preserve this earthly life; rather, they show the way to eternal life. — Paul Althaus, The Ethics of Martin Luther

President Bush is in even greater danger of losing the crucial Philly vote than before (link via Matthew Yglesias):

It all started yesterday, when CNN, Fox and The New York Times were content to transcribe and transmit President Bush’s comment about preferring his Philadelphia cheesesteaks “Whiz with,” thereby handing the Bush camp what it was after — a revisitation in the national press of a year-old John Kerry “faux pas” (ordering his Philly cheesesteak with Swiss).

In contrast to the bigfoots of the national press, Kathleen E. Carey of The [Delaware County, Pa.] Daily Times went beyond mere stenography and did a little leg work on the issue, as well she should. For, while it’s certainly not in the top 100 critical campaign issues this election year, it’s safe to say that the proper construction of a Philadelphia cheesesteak matters more to Daily Times readers than it does to a national audience.

And the intrepid Carey came up with her own expose. She reported that Bush actually “prefers his steak absent of the usual Cheez Whiz and provolone, accompanied only by cheese of the American variety,” information that she obtained from her own Deep Throat, one Caeser Barnabei, the owner of the well-known cheesesteak shop, Jim’s Place. Barnabei, who has fed the Bush camp on previous swings through Pennsylvania and provided “70 to 80 hoagies” for the Bush campaign yesterday, confided to Carey that “the Jim’s Special is altered to whet the ‘W’ appetite.”

In Philadelphia, the classic cheesesteak recipe is hot beef strips and fried onions dripping with grease, slathered with Cheez Whiz straight from the squeeze bottle, all atop white bread. Solemnly, Carey reported her devastating conclusion: “The commander-in-chief fooled thousands Tuesday to believe he eats like the epicureans here.”



(By the way, if you think that’s bad, try going to Jim’s Steaks and ordering a vegetarian cheese steak! You get some funny looks, let me tell you…)

Since many Christians seem eager to align Christian belief with laissez-faire capitalism, it might be instructive to consider what one of the great teachers of the church had to say on the subject of private property. I realize that St. Thomas carries more authority with Catholics than sola scriptura Protestants, but at the very least, an investigation of the riches of the Christian tradition might prevent hasty generalizations about what a “biblical worldview” implies in the area of political economy.

In the Summa Theologica, Second Part of the Second Part, Question 66 St. Thomas takes up a number of topics pertaining to the just distribution of property. The obvious first question is whether private property is inherently just, or as Thomas puts it “Whether it is lawful for a man to possess a thing as his own?”

He answers:

Two things are competent to man in respect of exterior things. One is the power to procure and dispense them, and in this regard it is lawful for man to possess property. Moreover this is necessary to human life for three reasons. First because every man is more careful to procure what is for himself alone than that which is common to many or to all: since each one would shirk the labor and leave to another that which concerns the community, as happens where there is a great number of servants. Secondly, because human affairs are conducted in more orderly fashion if each man is charged with taking care of some particular thing himself, whereas there would be confusion if everyone had to look after any one thing indeterminately. Thirdly, because a more peaceful state is ensured to man if each one is contented with his own. Hence it is to be observed that quarrels arise more frequently where there is no division of the things possessed.

This looks like an essentially pragmatic justification of private property. Possession of property is “necessary to human life.” Private property (as modern economics confirms) creates an incentive structure that allows for an efficient allocation of resources that will serve to meet human needs. People will tend to work harder for their own gain than for the gain of the community. Furthermore, Thomas notes that private property aids in peaceful coexistence. When ownership rights are unclear or contested, conflict breaks out and wealth creation is interrupted. As many have pointed out, some of the poorest areas of the globe have the weakest property rights protection.

However, Thomas is far from the extreme libertarian view that property rights are absolute or sacrosanct. He goes on to ask several articles later “Whether it is lawful to steal through stress of need?”

His answer:

[I]f the need be so manifest and urgent, that it is evident that the present need must be remedied by whatever means be at hand (for instance when a person is in some imminent danger, and there is no other possible remedy), then it is lawful for a man to succor his own need by means of another’s property, by taking it either openly or secretly: nor is this properly speaking theft or robbery.

Why does extreme need justify theft according to Thomas?

Things which are of human right cannot derogate from natural right or Divine right. Now according to the natural order established by Divine Providence, inferior things are ordained for the purpose of succoring man’s needs by their means. Wherefore the division and appropriation of things which are based on human law, do not preclude the fact that man’s needs have to be remedied by means of these very things. Hence whatever certain people have in superabundance is due, by natural law, to the purpose of succoring the poor.

In other words, God created the goods of this world for the use of the human race as a whole. Since private property as an institution is justified by its ability to meet human needs, it can’t be used as an excuse for denying human need.

It’s interesting to note that Thomas treats this question under the heading of “justice” rather than “charity.” The excess of some people is due “by natural law” to aiding the poor. Thus there would seem to be little support to be found here for the idea that the government should have no role in redistibuting wealth to aid the poor. At the very least, Thomas’ principles would seem to point to something like a mixed economy standing between the extremes of socialism and laissez-faire capitalism.

Colby Cosh:

For three years and change, the man who pledged a “more humble [American] foreign policy” has been raked over the coals for failing to adhere to that promise, despite the unusually strong reasons (e.g., the large ashen hole in the lower part of Manhattan) for a midterm course change. Now Bush has taken the first steps toward ceasing to guarantee, in toto, the defense of every other industrialized democracy in the known universe. And the man they were calling an imperialist yesterday is now instantly tarred as an isolationist. Do we need a new word here? Isoperialist? Impolationist?