Atheists in foxholes, christian in uniform

Humanist, May-June, 2003 by Mister Thorne

In a speech after the September 11, 2001, attacks, speaking of a war on terrorism, U.S. President George W. Bush said, "We cannot know every turn this battle will take, yet we know our cause is just...." In his 2003 State of the Union message, referring to war against Iraq, the president said, "We will fight in a just cause and by just means."

Just cause? That was the name of a military operation his father, President George Bush, authorized in 1989 to "liberate" the people of Panama, an action that resulted in the deaths of thousands of unsuspecting civilians during the arrest of one man, Manuel Noriega. Little more than a year later, the elder President Bush was talking about another military operation, this time to drive the Iraqi army out of Kuwait. In a speech he gave in January 1991, he said, "The war in the Gulf is not a Christian war, a Jewish war, or a Muslim war--it is a just war." Sounding like a Muslim cleric, he said, "God willing, this is a war we will win."

Just war? What is a just war? The concept was described over 1,500 years ago by Aurelius Augustinus, better known to us today as Saint Augustine. A convert to Christianity, Augustine argues in Contra Faust there is never any justification for one individual to kill another, not even under threat of death. But this limitation doesn't apply to nations. The rulers of nations, he argues, have an obligation to their subjects to maintain peace, and this obligation gives them the right to wage war. Augustine states, "The natural order conducive to peace among mortals demands that the power to declare and counsel war should be in the hands of those who hold the supreme authority." Accordingly, the ruler's subjects have a responsibility to wage war when they are called to do so. The just motive for war is peace. Augustine writes, "We go to war that we may have peace." Furthermore, "War is the result of sin, and war is the remedy for sin."

In Augustine's time, Christians were considered unfit for warfare because of their peculiar religious beliefs. Many became martyrs in the cause of peace. There was Maximilian, a young Christian who, in 295 CE, was executed for refusing to join the Roman army. He said, "I cannot serve in the military; I cannot do wrong; I am a Christian." There was Marcellus, a centurion who converted to Christianity. In 298 CE he was executed after he said that he would serve only Jesus Christ and that he could no longer wage war. There was Martin of Tours, an officer in the Roman army who converted to Christianity. On the eve of a battle around 340 CE, a battle to defend the empire against the invading Teutons, he told the emperor that he could no longer fight; his religion forbade it. The emperor accused Martin of cowardice, and so Martin volunteered to face the enemy unarmed except for the sign of the cross. He was thrown into prison. The next day, the enemy surrendered without a fight. Martin was excused from military service.

Despite the efforts of martyrs, Augustine helped to convert Christianity from a pacifist religion to one that would succeed the Roman Empire. Before long, the church in Rome would be leading its own battles (the Crusades) and torturing and executing people for such things as translating the Bible into English (William Tyndale) or suggesting that the sun wasn't the center of the universe (Giordano Bruno).

The next major advancement in just war theory is attributed to Thomas Aquinas. In his Summa Theologica, Aquinas details three conditions for a just war: proper authority, just cause, and right intent. The proper authority is the head of state, responsible for the welfare of the citizens. Aquinas finds biblical justification for this in Paul's letter to the Romans where Paul writes, "Obey the government, for God is the one who put it there. All governments have been placed in power by God" and "whoever opposes the existing authority opposes what God has ordered, and anyone who does so will bring judgment on himself." If the government says go to war, you go to war. Aquinas also considers what is just cause for going to war: "Those who are attacked should be attacked because they deserve it on account of some fault." As for right intent, Aquinas presents two possibilities: to further some good or to avoid evil.

After Aquinas, other Christian writers elaborated on his three just war conditions. Later, the Catholic scholars Francisco de Vitoria (who, in 1536, argued that the natives of the Americas weren't inferior to Europeans and shouldn't be enslaved), Francisco Suarez (a Jesuit theologian and philosopher), and Hugo Grotius (a humanist, widely considered the father of international law) formalized the theory. These scholars retained the conditions set forth by Aquinas, but they added two more: war must be fought only as a last resort and in a proper manner (for example, without the wanton killing of innocents).

Aquinas said there are two types of wars: defensive and aggressive. The defensive war occurs when one nation defends itself from attack by another. This type of war is said to needs no moral justification; nations have a natural right to defend themselves and their way of life. The aggressive war occurs in response to some offense other than direct attack, as when a nation refuses to abide by a United Nations resolution. This type of war needs to be justified; the requirements for a just war apply only to aggressive wars.