Political Philosophy - Study Materials

Lesson 12: War, Peace and the Problem of World Government

12.1 On Political Philosophy and the Just War Theory

The just war theory has a long distinguished pedigree. Its roots are in classical Greek and Roman philosophy; it was transformed by the Christian philosophy of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, of special interest to us at this Institute; and it has been developed by generations of philosophers hence. It is the official position on the morality of warfare adopted by the Roman Catholic Church, including the documents of Vatican II.³⁸ One finds there a nuanced and tightly reasoned piece of just war thinking. It says that a nation has a right and duty to defend its citizens (Gaudium et spes #79). Thus members of the armed services are making a genuine contribution to peace. This framework of the Just War Theory is also used by the U.S. Bishops' Challenge of Peace; it is not a pacifist document. This was reiterated at the Rome consultation and it is repeated often by the Bishops. A good explanation of these principles may be found in the pastoral letter. The duty of nation to defend itself and the declaration that pacifism is only an option for individuals makes the framework normative for public policy debate. A summary of the consultation in Rome stated that: "it was clearly affirmed that there is one Catholic tradition: the Just War Theory, but that this tradition was subject to inner tensions coming from an ever present desire for peace."³⁹ tAgain Cardinals Bernardin and O'Connor testified before the House: The Church does not embrace pacifism as a public position; it believes that some uses of force are justified in the defense of freedom. The Church continues to employ the just war criteria to establish limits to the permissible use of force."⁴⁰ In he latter part of the twentieth century, the just war theory has been further refined and developed by a number of American theorists including Paul Ramsey, John Courtney Murray, James Turner Johnson, Michael Walzer, and others. The issue of war and peace raises important philosophical and theological questions. The debates about war and peace bring into play a number of important principles regarding the nature of politics, the conditions of justice, the nature of God's kingdom, the presence of sin, the role of authority, and the prospects for progress, to name but a few. John Courtney Murray has said that the threat of war and political disorder has an "unparalleled vertical dimension; it goes to the heart of the very roots of order and disorder in the world - the nature of man, his destiny, and the meaning of human history."⁴¹

Chart 12.1 John Courtney Murray on War

"The present historical situation of international conflict is unique. 'Never,' said Pius XII, 'has human history known a more gigantic disorder.' The uniqueness of the disorder resides, I take it, in the unparalleled depth of its vertical dimension; it goes to the very roots of order and disorder in the world - the nature of man, his destiny, and the meaning of human history." John Courtney Murray, "Morality and Modern War"

Thus, the challenges to the just war theory, particularly realism and pacifism, to which I view the just war account as a golden mean, are very much worth considering and perhaps even framing the issue for us. Let us start with pacifism.

War is an event of untold human suffering and loss: such as the deaths of many people, both military and civilian, the fragmentation of families, the consumption of valuable resources, and the destruction of the environment. At the outset of our consideration of the Just War Theory, it is important to feel the burden and weight of the case against war; and to register some incredulity at the very enterprise of justifying warfare. Erasmus, the great Christian humanist of the 15th century, challenged the Christian Prince to weigh the gravity of the decision to initiate warfare:

Shall I alone be charged with such an outpouring of human blood; with causing so many widows; with filling so many homes with lamentation and morning; with robbing so many old men of their sons; with impoverishing so many who do not deserve such a fate; and with such utter destruction of morals, laws and practical religion? Must I account for these things before Christ?⁴²

And further, he reminds the Prince that:

It is more difficult, as well as more desirable, to build a fine city than to destroy it. But we see flourishing cities which are built by inexperienced and common people, demolished by the wrath of princes. Very often we destroy a town with great labor and expense than that with which we could build a new one, and we carry on war at such greater expense, such loss, such zeal, and pains, that peace could be maintained at one-tenth of these costs.

Erasmus makes a number of other criticisms of the just war theory, but one in particular is important for our topic tonight. He said that both sides claim the justice of the cause, and that it is easy to find a pretext for going to war under the rubric of justice. The disturbing relevance of this voice from the fifteenth century, should remind us of the importance of the western intellectual tradition, reflecting as it does the perennial worth and the internal diversity of the so-called great books.

The just war theory shares with any form of pacifism a deep sorrow and tragic sense, and indeed a deep love for peace. War by any account is a terrible event that should be avoided if possible. C. S. Lewis wrote a marvelous essay entitled "Why I am not a Pacifist."⁴³

Yet on the other hand a judgment is made that the order of justice, to be established and maintained, may require the use of force or the threat of its use. And further, such use of force is morally required if the commitment to a just peace is serious. This is the heart of the issue distinguishing absolute pacifism from the Just War Theory. First, there is an empirical/historical claim, that order requires force. Second, there is a moral claim, that there are goods worth the risk of war and that "peace at any price," is unacceptable. For example, Lincoln spoke as eloquently as Erasmus of the evils of war and admitted that the American Revolution "breathed forth famine, swam in blood and rode on fire; and long after, the orphan's cry and the widow's wail, continued to break the sad silence that ensued."⁴⁴ But he points to great blessings of liberty made possible by the American Revolution. As for the civil war, although Lincoln judged that slavery was an eternal wrong and unjust, he did not adopt that moral high ground as the major war aim; he did not share the abolitionist's sense of a just crusade against the South; rather, in a more Augustinian mode, he judged that the good of order required that force of arms be used to put down the anarchy of rebellion.⁴⁵ Looking back on the war, Lincoln, in his second inaugural address stated that: "both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish." Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is an attempt to establish the worth of the struggle: the dead shall not have died in vain if there is a rebirth of freedom. Are there things worth the risk of human life? The French Catholic philosopher, Jacques Maritain, in an article on immortality, concludes that true civilization "knows the price of human life . . . but it does not fear death, it confronts death, it accepts risk, it requires self-sacrifice - but for aims which are worthy of human life."⁴⁶ Such goods are justice, honor, truth, and brotherly love. Given the presumption against war, and given the precious value of human life, one may yet judge that force of arms is a risk necessary to engage for human aims. Vatican II warns statesmen to "conduct such grave matters soberly." The Just War Theory sets up then a set of criteria to ensure that such risk is not taken lightly or with rash spirit.

Why not realism then? Although the classical philosophers never used the rubric "the Just War Theory", their philosophy never ceased to be preoccupied with the questions of right rule: they clearly recognized the distinction between might and right, the superiority of persuasion to coercion, the limited claims of partisan politics, and the disorders of greed and ambition as forces animating moral and political life. An incident in Thucydides perhaps best exemplifies the problem as the Greeks saw it; in the so-called Melian dialogue the Athenian generals come to discuss the prospects for peace confronting the vastly outnumbered Melians. The Athenians tell the Melians that they have no hope but to surrender; that superior force will dictate the terms of justice: "you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."⁴⁷ The Melians refuse the terms of peace and they are subsequently destroyed and their villages plundered and population sold into slavery. The Athenians sent out a colony of 500 and occupied the territory.⁴⁸

The greater might prevails over any conception of right. The Romans acted in a similar way with the city of Carthage. Perhaps it is this incident, as well as the disfunction of the Homeric heroic man, that led Plato to counter this supremacy of the warrior with the ideal of the philosopher king in the Republic.⁴⁹ As all of you students know from your reading of this great dialogue, Plato strove to refute the Sophistic claims of Thrasymachus that justice is the interest of the stronger. In addition, he argued against the claim of Polemarchus, the warlord, that justice is simply the doing of good to your friends and harm to your enemies. The critique of Polemarchus is complex; but it includes pointing out the paradox of the just man holding a double morality, able to lie cheat and kill the enemy and yet do good to friends. The just man, according to warrior's ethic, is a kind of thief. The challenge of educating the guardians becomes paramount in the best regime: how to combine the qualities of high spiritedness with gentleness, that is, how to form citizens who will be fierce in battle but just and kind with their fellow citizens. It is a challenge that requires replacing Homeric heroes with Socratic dialectic. Reason must rule over thumos, or spititedness, which is akin to anger. The warrior's ethos, based upon a desire for victory alone, is clearly rejected as a disorder by Plato.

12.2 Augustine and the Just War

Augustine's criticism of the pagan political order found fault with its aims and methods. The pagan order was dominated by pride. There was much to admire in it: the great virtues of courage, even justice in some cases. But the worm of pride corrupted its practical deliberations, the desire to dominate and rule over others, and also its philosophers who were driven to deceive the people through the noble lie and to posit an elitist difference between the philosophic few and the crowd. Of the Roman political ethos and order he says:

Glory they most ardently loved: for it they wished to live, for it they did not hesitate to die. Every other desire was repressed by the strength of the passion for that one thing. . . . That eagerness for praise and the desire for glory is that which accomplished those many wonderful things, laudable doubtless, and glorious according to human judgment.⁵⁰

Augustine's assessment of Rome is ambivalent; he clearly criticizes the corruption of pride and the lust for rule; without the love of God all the pagan virtues are deemed "splendid vices" (XIX.25). Moreover, it led to expansion of the Roman empire and required the Romans to "roll with dark fear and cruel lust, in warlike slaughters and blood" (IV.3). The glory of empire is likened to "glass in its fragile splendor." Thus a wiser state chooses for moderate wealth and status, rather than expansion. For all of this, Augustine did acknowledge that the pagan political order could establish a temporal good: the good of order and peace. The Christian could benefit from the temporal peace of Rome and contribute to the temporal peace. This temporal peace, Augustine says, is not "to be esteemed lightly." The temporal peace involves the goods of health and safety, food and shelter, and fellowship. But the good of peace imposes "stern and lasting necessities" (XIX.7), among which are the use of force. By the use of force the "lawless men are prevented from doing harm (XIX.21). The just war therefore, according to Augustine, is not due to the great or glorious righteousness of the cause, but the restraint of the wicked and lawless from harming others. Augustine is quite skeptical of the purity of the cause of justice and can live with an ambiguity of earthly claims to justice. The greatest evil in war, according to Augustine, is the opportunity for "love of violence, revengeful cruelty, fierce and implacable enmity, wild resistance and the lust of power."⁵¹ He further says, "it is to punish these things," that "good men undertake wars, when they find themselves in such a position as regards the conduct of human affairs." For Christians, the temporal peace and temporal goods are used as by pilgrims and referred to the higher peace of Christ. As long as the use of force was aimed at the maintaining of just order and involved the right intention, it was accepted as part of the temporal duty of the Christian.

12.3 Aquinas on Criteria for Just War

Thomas Aquinas added a few elements of his own. In the major question on warfare, Thomas queries whether it is always sinful to wage war, reflecting a skepticism about the enterprise of war as actually practiced. He answers that war is not sinful if it meets three conditions: the war must be declared by proper authority and not by private citizens or groups; second, a just cause is required; and third, there should be a rightful intention, such as the advancement of good or the avoidance of evil.⁵²

Chart 12.2 Aquinas's three basic criteria  for the moral use of armed force
proper authority just cause right intention

He cites Augustine as a major authority. A whole range of human goods are destroyed and fundamental moral precepts are often abandoned. It is no wonder then that Thomas Aquinas in his classic treatment of the issue of war queries "whether it is always sinful to wage war?" No more war, war never again, is surely the cry of any man or woman of conscience who has seen or lived its devastations. So why not pacifism? As we noted at the outset, Aquinas forms a reasoned judgment that the very goods of flourishing are at stake, perhaps requiring the sacrifice: "Multo autem magis est conservanda salus reipublicae, per quam impediuntur occisiones plurimorum et innumera mala et temporalia et spiritualia, quam salus corporalis unius hominis."⁵³

Aquinas proposes three basic criteria for the moral use of armed force. These three are proper authority, just cause, and right intention. Each criterion contains important philosophical content. Indeed, together they implicitly contain the more elaborate sets of criteria for just war that have been developed over the centuries to serve as points for critical reflection.⁵⁴

These criteria are fairly well known; but for simplicity and clarity, we shall comment on the core three-fold criteria articulated by Thomas Aquinas. First, war must be an act by "the authority of a sovereign by whose command the war is to be waged. . ." Thomas views strife as an opportunity for indulging "private feelings of anger of hatred" (II-II 41.1.ad 3). It is incumbent upon political leadership to follow reason, a public reason devoted to a measured good and a measured action. Competent authority is a criterion that prohibits the waging of private wars for personal ambition and with anarchic results. In the American context it may entail further questions about the separation of powers and congressional war powers. The Civil War saw the anarchy of private armies and bushwhacking across Missouri and Kansas. It is not for private individuals to assemble or summon the people. On Aquinas' account, authority is necessary for a community to act with unity; authority must make formal consideration about what is to the common good. Private individuals must act for individual or partial goods. The magistrate has "care for the common good" and a duty to "watch over the common weal." There is a profound political teaching contained in this requirement for proper authority. The nature and purpose of the political community are the terms which set the issue of war in perspective. Just war and proper authority are not first of all a matter of legalism, but rather a condition for political legitimacy.⁵⁵

Paul Ramsey is often quoted to the effect that the use of armed force is part of the larger issue of the right use of force; force is part of the bene esse or well being of political life.⁵⁶ This first principle distinguishes natural law just war teaching from pacifism and realism.

Aquinas states that the magistrate must use the "sword" to defend against internal disturbances, as well as against external enemies. A judgment is made that the order of justice, to be established and maintained, may require the use of force or the threat of its use. And further, such use of force is morally required if the commitment to a just peace is serious. This is the heart of the issue distinguishing absolute pacifism from the Just War Theory.⁵⁷ There is an empirical/historical claim that order requires force and that such force be in the hands of the authority. There is also a moral judgment that there are goods worth the risk of war and that "peace at any price" is unacceptable. So indeed if war is prima facie evil because it destroys a large range of human goods and flourishing, so too must a magistrate protect such goods from destruction by others. War is therefore a political act, a deliberate act by a political authority for a political good. The pacifist misses this complex reality of the possibility and political conditions for human flourishing. By the same token, the political good sets a limit on what kinds of wars may be waged. The realist approach, by which the conduct of war is bound by no moral limit, undermines the very moral and political legitimacy of the regime.

Aquinas' second criterion follows as the next obvious point: a just cause is required, "namely that those who are attacked should be attacked because they deserve it on account of some fault." The judgment is left in general terms, referring to an underlying assumption of culpability or moral regard. For specifics, Aquinas cites Augustine: "when a nation or state . . . refuses to make amends for the wrongs inflicted by its subjects or to restore what is unjustly seized." Aquinas makes no distinction between offensive or defensive wars, as later just war thinkers do; he simply points to an order of justice and acknowledges the possibility of wrongful harm and unjust seizure. Such a response may perhaps be defined as inherently defensive insofar as it is a response to a wrong or a seizure. But this notion must not be initially interpreted in a legal sense, but morally/politically in the realm of human flourishing. Thus, the right of war is not simply the self-defense of physical life, although that is part of it; it is a defense of the very order of justice. As Aquinas stated in the opening citation above, it involves guarding against "innumerable evils both temporal and spiritual." There is implicit here a judgment of proportionality and last resort. Lincoln stated in his Second Inaugural Address, "Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish." Both sides attempted to gauge certain values, certain claims to justice, at stake in the conflict and both saw war as a proportionate and last resort. Are there things truly worth the risk of human life? Given the presumption against war, and given the precious value of human life, Thomas judges that force of arms is a risk necessary to engage for human aims. Proportionality is at work here; it refers to the relation of the achievement of success to the overall cost and loss imposed upon both sides. It is the final declaration or judgment that the war was worth it. Lincoln refers to the Revolutionary War as a success because it achieved so much with minimum of bloodshed and loss: "If the relative grandeur of revolutions shall be estimated by the great amount of human misery they alleviate, and the small amount they inflict, then, will this be the grandest the world shall have ever seen." It seems too hard to make a simple claim for the Civil War, with its enormity of death, waste and destruction. Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is an attempt to establish the worth of the struggle: the dead shall not have died in vain if there is a rebirth of freedom. Lincoln can but briefly mention the land as consecrated by the dead, as if to avert any crass calculation of cost and benefit. The judgment of proportionality is the hardest to make because of the unknown consequences and magnitude of the human undertaking of war. Yet political justice is not a good to be abandoned to the terrible maw of might. In the Vatican II document, "Gaudium et spes," statesmen are warned to "conduct such grave matters soberly." It is finally a matter of prudential judgment. Prudence in the expanded sense of term, which includes a judgment of justice as an end, and selection of the appropriate means to that end.⁵⁸

Prudence is deeply affected by the dispositions of the agent. So war is also about character -- of the leaders and the people of the nation. Aquinas next lays down a third criterion to ensure that such risk is not taken lightly or with rash spirit: rightful intention. The rightful intention is the advancement of good -- ultimately it is peace.⁵⁹

Again citing Augustine, Aquinas excludes the intention of aggrandizement and cruelty: "The passion for inflicting harm, the cruel thirst for vengeance, and unpacific and relentless spirit, lust of power" are "rightly condemned in war."⁶⁰ This demand for right intention not only establishes the proper disposition or frame of mind for conducting such "grave matters soberly," but must be woven through the other two criteria. The goal of peace, a just peace, is the intention after all of a magistrate in charge of a commonweal and is the order of justice for presupposed by a claim to a just cause. It would be a contradiction to intend in the name of justice an unjust goal, an excessive revenge or desire dominate others. The nation itself is in some way part of a larger community of nations. Lincoln rightly mentions in his Second Inaugural, the desire for peace in the nation and with all nations. The good of peace for itself, as well as the conditions of flourishing, are indeed goods for all human beings and all nations. Although the magistrate does not have direct responsibility for the conditions of flourishing in another nation or community, he can will it as a good for all and seek to do no harm to that other.

These three criteria -- rightful authority, just cause, and right intention -- form the core principles of the just war theory. The three can be unpacked into the longer list of the "jus ad bellum," but the simplicity of the three recommends them to our use. We are less likely to lose the political and moral origins of the just war effort and we can better avoid a checklist and casuist mentality. But where is the traditional criteria for the right conduct in war, the "jus in bello"? John Finnis is probably correct to say that the distinction between jus ad bellum and jus in bello is very misleading and "scarcely part of the tradition."⁶¹

It suggests that a just war may posit an end which then comes into conflict with the means; the realist exploits this very distinction, as we shall see below. For Aquinas, the limit on conduct follows from the very criteria for the "jus ad bellum." Aquinas does not allow a double morality for magistrate and another for private citizen. The magistrate in care for the commonweal is bound by natural law and so is limited in the taking of life -- innocent life may never be taken. In fact, in his treatment of homicide, Aquinas allows the taking of life of an aggressor in self-defense only as a matter of double effect.⁶²

Aquinas sees lethal force strictly as a "counter-force" measure; the humanity of other is always acknowledged. Thus, it is implied that a soldier who is wounded or who has surrendered, is no longer a wielder of force and not an object for attack. Capital punishment may be directed against the non-innocent -- those noxious to the community. The non-combatant is not a noxious element to be removed or halted by use of force. The second criterion of just cause would also place some limitation on conduct of war. The presumed moral warrant for taking up arms for the order of justice is undermined by unjust conduct in war. As Paul Ramsey argues, the modern violations of non-combatant immunity are reflections of a totalitarian political principle insofar as such conduct reduces "everyone without discrimination and everyone to the whole extent of his being to a mere means of achieving political and military goals."⁶³ So too the third criterion of intention touches on the question of means. So often the attack on civilians is simply a matter of "cruel thirst for vengeance" or lust for power. Is there a true necessity to do so, one free of vengeance and libido dominandi?

12.4 Is Just War Philosophy Relevant Today?

Although Vatican II reiterated the principles of the Just War Theory, it also said that we must develop a new attitude toward war. The modern world presents some new developments; There are at least four developments that require new thinking. The four developments are: first, the development of new scientific weapons which are capable of mass destruction; second, the exaggerated role of nation states in age of global inter-dependence; third, the tremendous outlay of expenditures on military spending when the tasks of development for humane purposes is such a pressing need; fourth, the prospects for non-violent resistance to injustice. The developments have been brought to head in the unfolding of the nuclear arms race and the paradox of deterrence. These developments, however do not nullify the Just War Theory, but highlight its internal strengths and resources. We must comment briefly on each development and see how it relates to the principles of the Just War Theory.

The invention of new weapons, capable of mass destruction, is the most frightening development of the last century. The Documents of Vatican II refer to scientific weapons as the general category, because this includes more nuclear weapons, but also biological and chemical warfare. The threat of biological and chemical weapons in the recent war brought this home to many people. The central tenet of the Just War Theory, the non-combatant immunity from direct attack, clearly leads to a rejection of the use of these weapons which are indiscriminate in nature. The single condemnation issued by the Vatican Council was made just on this issue (Gaudium et Spes, #80). This does not spell the death of the Just War Theory, but reaffirms its relevance. It has lead many to become nuclear pacifists from within the Just War Theory; Catholic moralists like Grisez, Finnis, Anscombe have taken this approach. The goal of banning biological and chemical weapons, as well as nuclear ones, is encouraged. The nuclear threat is complicated by the threat of use of nuclear weapons as a means to avoid using them. There is a complex dilemma here, one of the most challenging in theory and practice. The deterrent force has established a kind of peace; but the threat to kill civilians is also immoral and not transformed by the greater intention of peace. One may resolve the dilemma through the concept of bluff or through a policy of not targeting civilian areas. The bluff deterrent is not credible. American policy makers claim that the targets are not directly on civilian sites. But the principle of proportionality must applied at this point; the extent of damage to civilian areas and the environment would be so great as to undermine its moral warrant. The Vatican and the U.S. Bishops have issued a "conditional acceptance" of deterrence, calling for good faith efforts at disarmament. Other thinkers have extended this concern about proportionality to cover any modern war, questioning whether any modern war can be just because of the extensive collateral damage done to civilians and the environment.

The second development points to the need for greater international cooperation to deal with the reality of inter-dependence. War has been a policy of nation-states or blocs of states engaged in struggles with each other. On this view, then war must abandoned. Vatican II and the Challenge of Peace call for greater international cooperation and institutional arrangements for the prevention of war. But the need does not eliminate the right of defense; ironically, it simply places it on a new level. That is, an international authority would still require "effective power to safeguard" the security of all; international cooperation may still elect war as a means of policy, as we have seen. And as long as there is no sufficient international authority, then nations must still use the authority that is theirs to achieve the common good as best they see it.

The third problem, the tremendous military spending in contrast to the needs of human development is a constant theme of Vatican and U.S. Bishops. This pertains to the principle of proportionality; it is therefore a judgment call. It should force a nation to continually reassess its priorities and its sense of what is necessary. But as long as defense remains as a valid good of the nation, it equally requires an honest assessment of what means are necessary given military and political factors at work in the international community.

Fourth, the success of non-violent resistance to unjust rule and violence has raised the hopes for alternatives to war. Gandhi, King, Walesa and other great leaders of people under oppression have shown the power of truth and love in confronting evil. Their successes can be weighed in under the principles of last resort and probability of success for military action. In many cases, military action is futile, as in the cases mentioned. An alternative is necessary. In other cases, there is a possibility of alternative means. But in the latter cases, such proposals must be honestly assessed by probability of success and the last resort cannot be used as a means to indefinite delay. Moreover, in some cases, it is the balance of power of force that may allow certain movements to flourish and be maintained.

These contemporary challenges place us on the cutting edge of the debate and discussion within the Church and academia. But it is the inner tensions within the very theory of just war as a framework for moral discussion that allows such a sharp focus to emerge and for fruitful developments and exchange. The Just War Theory endures and flourishes for many reasons. First, it is premised upon realism in the political order and the rejection of utopianism. That is, there is an ever present need for force and threat of force to maintain semblance of order. Vatican II traced the origins of war back to human sinfulness: "insofar as men are sinful, the threat of war hangs over them, and hang over them it will until the return of Christ" (378). Similarly Pope John Paul II stated that the prospect for a totally and permanently peaceful society is utopian, based upon a mistaken view of the human condition. Deceptive hopes, he says, would lead to the "peace of totalitarianism." The Just War Theory attempts to balance peace and justice, both as limited achievements in this life.

Second, the Just War Theory has the capacity to develop in new ways to meet new challenges; it can absorb the concerns of pacifism without illusions. Its principles focus the important issues of debate: imperialism or patterns of domination as unjust and nonjustifiable; unlimited warfare as an evil; the disproportionate use of resources or evil outcomes and the like. As we suggested above, the development of new weapons, the new international realities, non-violent resistance, and the priorities of spending can be well articulated from within this framework.

Third, the Just War Theory offers a superior framework for debate and discussion. It is not a mechanical system: there are real possibilities for differences here: on empirical claims as to effectiveness of non-violence and military solutions; historical judgments about the nation state and the alliances and coalitions which form from one era to the next; the prospects for technological limitations on warfare through more accurate weapons and defensive systems; the timing of military ventures and last resort. The theory is not a means for rationalization; it requires sober judgment, empirical fact, and honest disclosure.

Finally, it flourishes because it is connected to major philosophical questions about human nature and society. And while establishing a formal and rational system for policy discussion, it opens out onto philosophical questions and ultimately to the theological. John Courtney Murray has said that the threat of war and the present disorder has an "unparalleled vertical dimension; it goes to the heart of the very roots of order and disorder in the world - the nature of man, his destiny, and the meaning of human history."⁶⁴

We must seek a deeper explanation than economics or politics for war and disorder; Vatican II identifies this as human sin. Solzhenitsyn prophetically warns that men have forgotten God and such is the origin of modern wars and oppression. "To the ill-considered hopes of the last two centuries, which have brought us to the brink of nuclear and non-nuclear death, we can propose only a determined quest for the warm of hand of God, which we have so rashly and self-confidently spurned."⁶⁵

Chart 12.3 Solzhenitsyn on Origin of Modern War

"The material laws alone do not explain our life or give it direction. The laws of physics and physiology will never reveal the indisputable manner in which the Creator constantly day in and day out, participates in the life of each one of us, unfailingly granting us the energy of existence. ... To the ill-considered hopes of the last two centuries, which have brought us to the brink of nuclear and non-nuclear death, we can propose only a determined guest for the warm hand of God, which we have so rashly and self-confidently spurned." Alexandr Solzenhitsyn, Templeton Address, 1983

The just war theory, in its full theological dimensions, is open to this higher perspective. For this reason we cannot but benefit from a return to Augustine's teaching on the just war and learn how to see the city of man in its relation to the city of God.

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