Stanley Hauerwas takes on C. S. Lewis’ defense of just war at the ABC [Australia] Religion & Ethics site:
I must write critically of Lewis because here I want to examine his views concerning violence and war. I am a pacifist. Lewis was anything but a pacifist. I want to show that his arguments against pacifism are inadequate, but I also that he provides imaginative resources for Christians to imagine a very different form of Christian nonviolence, a form unknown to Lewis, with which I hope he might have had some sympathy. . . .
It is certainly true, Lewis acknowledges, that the lesser violence and harm is to be preferred, but that does not mean that killing X or Y is always wrong or can be avoided. Nor can it be shown that war is always a greater evil. Such a view, Lewis argues, seems to imply a materialistic ethic, that is, the view that death and pain are the greatest evils. But surely Christians cannot believe that. Only people parasitic on liberal societies can afford to be pacifists, believing as they do that the miseries of human suffering can be eliminated if we just find the right cures. But Lewis contends it a mistake to think we can eradicate suffering. Rather we must ”work quietly away at limited objectives such as the abolition of the slave trade, or prison reform, or factory acts, or tuberculosis, not by those who think they can achieve universal justice, or health, or peace.”
The standard, effective rejoinder to pacifists (and one I agree with) is that what this ultimately comes down to is a question of eschatology–specifically, where is the ‘New Jerusalem’ to be built, and isn’t it hubristic (not to mention politically foolish) to fully merge anticipation of the world-to-come with things as they are now? Lewis intuits this critique in the passage above, and his answer pretty clearly reflects this attenuated sensibility.
It’s not clear, though, that Hauerwas is comfortable arguing an unvarnished version of the opposite as a foil. He even concedes that “Lewis is quite right . . . to criticize liberal pacifists for underwriting the presumption that death and pain are the greatest evils we encounter” and acknowledges that pure passivity to serious evil has more in common with a hyper-liberalism than it does with the Christian tradition. But he thinks Lewis got mixed up:
Lewis seems to have assumed that pacifism is rightly identified with liberal forms of pacifism, that is, the view that war is so horrible it has got to be wrong. Liberal pacifists often, as Lewis’s critique presupposes, thought war must be some kind of mistake or the result of a conspiracy, because no right thinking human being can believe war to be a “good thing.” Such a view may seem naive but it was a very common position held by many after World War I. Lewis, therefore, had a far too easy target for his critique of pacifism.
I appreciate Hauerwas’ willingness to critique his own side, and agree that any Christian analysis of war must be grounded in, well, the words and example of Christ, but confess I have a hard time seeing exactly which argument he’s making. We need a new foundation for our thinking, he says, but does this “illiberal pacifism” (to fabricate a term) imply it’s simply the job of the Christian to apply the brakes human societies’ worst tendencies towards war, working and praying that we don’t initiate gratuitous violence or engage in morally problematic conduct once in combat (of these, most Christian just war theorists will readily admit, there is no shortage). Or is he in fact advancing a radical position (in the sense of addressing and attempting to overturn the radix, the root, of the problem)? The reference to “non-participation” may be a clue to the latter; but even here Hauerwas doesn’t seem to energetically advance it as a moral imperative. But maybe that’s a tactical decision in an essay mainly about Lewis.
On this feast day of St. Augustine, perhaps it’s worth keeping in mind that even the best earthly kingdom, and even “good” individuals or states, may find themselves at odds in this life, regardless of efforts at moral reformism and violence prevention. The origins of the cities of God and man are both marred by fratricide, and it is possible to be “good but not yet perfect:”
The wicked war with the wicked; the good also war with the wicked. But with the good, good men, or at least perfectly good men, cannot war; though, while only going on towards perfection, they war to this extent, that every good man resists others in those points in which he resists himself. And in each individual “the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.” This spiritual lusting, therefore, can be at war with the carnal lust of another man; or carnal lust may be at war with the spiritual desires of another, in some such way as good and wicked men are at war; or, still more certainly, the carnal lusts of two men, good but not yet perfect, contend together, just as the wicked contend with the wicked, until the health of those who are under the treatment of grace attains final victory.
(City of God, Book XV, Chapter 5)
August 28th, 2012 | 3:05 pm
Yeah, I wasn’t sure what Hauerwas was actually arguing as well. At the end of the day isn’t the only pacifism that makes a hill of beans worth of difference the opposing of particular wars or conflicts? Opposing “war” in general is like opposing “disease”. I hate both. But where the rubber hits the road is when a particular conflict arises. Are the actions of a particular nation or group “right” or at the least, justifiable? If not, then demonstrate why not.
Hauerwas, in other writings (as well as his theological influence Yoder), does show quite convincingly that Christians often have (and still are) been far to prone to support wars and conflicts that are not justifiable for a variety of reasons.
August 28th, 2012 | 4:13 pm
It needs but one foe to breed a war, not two…. And those who have not swords can still die upon them. — JRR Tolkien “The Return of the King”
August 29th, 2012 | 10:15 am
I generally agree with Steve, that the only real “pacifism” is in opposition to particular conflicts, otherwise, it is like being against disease, or, in this political season, being “for” progress. In light of the common criticism about pacifist utopianism in the article though, I tend to look at the matter this way: As far as I can tell, the NT strengthens the interdict “do not kill”, of the OT, and I don’t see how we are allowed to rationalize our way around that. To some extent, any dedicated attempt to follow Christ can be accused of utopianism on some grounds (that’s just utopian to think that we can/should make the United States City of God-certified abortion-free), and I’ve always viewed it as better to follow what I take to be the clear logic of Christ’s teaching, and let the chips fall. It’s not as though Christians aren’t perfectly comfortable being accused of irrational utopianism where other issues are concerned.
August 29th, 2012 | 11:21 am
arty the comparison with trying to outlaw abortion is flawed. If abortion is outlawed it will become just another crime and no one thinks it can be eliminated. Pro-lifers simply want the rights of citizens to be protected from crime to be extended to unborn children; there is nothing utopian about that and there sure isn’t anything theocratic. On the other hand, the inate fallacy of pacifism is that the last non-pacifist will inevitably be surrounded by lots of tempting prey.
How do you get other people to stop waging war? If you wish to convince them you are wasting time. If you wish to force them you simply have to make war yourself.
On the other hand if by pacifism you mean you yourself refrain from making war that is fine.
August 29th, 2012 | 11:29 am
“What pride flushes the patriot’s cheek when he remembers that his nation can
murder faster than any other people. Ah, foolish generation, ye are groping in the
flames of hell to find your heaven, raking amid blood and bones for the foul thing
which ye call glory. Killing is not the path to prosperity; huge armaments are a curse
to the nation itself as well as to its neighbours. 1026.706==Charles Spurgeon
D.L. Moody: “There has never been a time in my life when I felt that I could take a gun and shoot down a fellow-being. In this respect I am a Quaker.”
Cyprian: “The world is wet with mutual blood(shed): and homicide is a crime when individuals commit it, (but) it is called a virtue, when it is carried on publicly.”
etc.
http://www.amazon.com/Christian-Pacifism-Fruit-Narrow-ebook/dp/B005RIKH62/ref=pd_rhf_dp_p_t_1
http://textsincontext.wordpress.com/2012/05/31/romans-13-in-context/
August 29th, 2012 | 1:46 pm
I think the author correctly identifies this as a question of eschatology. But it is also a question of witness, an important category for Hauerwas and other “illiberal” pacificists (I like that term). What is the best witness to Christ? Is it better to suffer violence (as Christ did) or to resist it violently. The Christian martyrs of the Early Church chose to courageously suffer the violence of the Empire after the example of Christ. Their witness helped convert that very same Empire – a victory they could not have achieved with swords. We turn to a “realist” justification of war and violence largely out of a failure of Christian imagination. Ask yourself, after 9/11 would it have been better to send thousands of troops to the Middle East or thousands of missionaries? How you answer that question says everything about who you really think is in control of history (an eschatological issue, to be sure).
August 29th, 2012 | 4:30 pm
I am inclined to think that Lewis was not quite so ignorant of the history of Christian theology to assume that his criticism of pacifism is limited to the liberal pacifism of the early 20th century. As if he was unfamiliar with Anabaptists and Mennonites, or the Schleitheim Confession? As if he would have surrendered his opposition to pacifism if he lived long enough to read Yoder’s “The Politics of Jesus,” or Sojourners magazine!
August 29th, 2012 | 4:35 pm
“I generally agree with Steve, that the only real “pacifism” is in opposition to particular conflicts,”–
Well, well now– in what meaningful sense is it “pacifism” if there are some wars that you do not oppose and will fight?
Feel free to re-define terms to your heart’s content, but THAT AIN’T PACIFISM.
August 29th, 2012 | 5:25 pm
@ Keith:
My point was that pacifism has real meaning only in response to some particular scenario. I will not become embroiled in some discussion about definitions. I take this position because pacifists often become too preachy and didactic, as though the problem of war isn’t actually all that thorny, as if the just war folks make no claims worthy of serious consideration. I remain unconvinced by just war arguments, and so cannot at present envision a set of circumstances in which I would willingly fight in a war, but I’m not going to go around pretending like perfectly honorable people haven’t come to different conclusions than mine.
That’s my position, I don’t really give a rip what you call it, which is not that significant anyway, the world being made up of people doing or not doing things. I leave it to latter day Soviets to change the world by renaming it.
August 29th, 2012 | 6:04 pm
Keith Pavlischek,
My only response would be that most of the pacifism I have seen in America (at least since the end of the draft) is a point of view with no real consequences. It’s mostly just political posturing.
It may or may not properly defined pacifism, but it has been generally irrelevant.
(BTW, I don’t think that the US military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq have been appropriate, proportional, necessary or just, but I don’t consider myself a pacifist because there might be circumstances where I would support a military action)
August 29th, 2012 | 10:42 pm
What our non-pacifist brothers continually ignore is the abhorrence of bloodshed felt by the early Christians and Christian pacifists through the centuries.
“My son, I had it in my heart to build a house to the name of the Lord my God. 8 But the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘You have shed much blood and have waged great wars. You shall not build a house to my name, because you have shed so much blood before me on the earth.”–David
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