On the face of it, this is an absurd question, since just war theory has a healthy Catholic tradition behind it. Obviously, the questioner is a natural Protestant.

“Even so-called “Christian just-war theory” has nothing to do with Christ. How can armed resistance to tyranny be reconciled with His unambiguous commandment to live as the Lamb of God, even in a world of wolves?

I ask this not in judgement but as someone who struggles with this question myself.

If I’m being honest, I think Christ is right. We can not defeat violence (the essence of the state) by employing the same. Case in point: The fruits of the American Revolution have already rotted into a tyranny far worse than the one that was ostensibly overthrown in armed revolt just over 230 years ago.

What to do, then? The great libertarian Frank Chodorov advocated, first, self-improvement, then education of those already predisposed toward freedom (he believed individualists were born that way, as were socialists.) I think he was correct. And this approach is consistent with the teachings of Christ.

Yours truly,
Robert Brazil

More at Will Grigg’s Pro Libertate.

While I agree with Mr. Grigg – in his response – that taking one part of the Bible (and of the words of Christ) out of context and elevating it over the rest of the material is incorrect, I think his own answer – that the only possible appeal against the power of the state is to the power of God (as evidenced in the Church) — strikes me as inherently problematic.

God as Church will only end up substituting the tyranny of a Pope or priesthood for the current one of the state.

Is this an impasse? I think not, if we dwell a bit more on what it is we mean by that ambiguous signifier, God.

God must surely operate through reason, since he is by definition (supposing one could define such a concept) the reasonableness of reason. Just as he is the lovingness of love, and the essence of every other superlative.

And surely he or she must be the sort of God that is envisioned by the most powerful reasons that have existed, since they would most likely approach his reasonableness the closest.

Check out the beliefs of those possessing the most powerful reasons that have existed (in so far as what they thought is available to us), and we find that they vary. In the past, religious orthodoxy probably prevailed. Then, some form of religious heterodoxy or deism. Often, especially today, and in certain periods of history, atheism or agnosticism.

Can all these viewpoints be right? No – say militant atheists, who use this to “prove” that religion is nonsense.

I say yes, relying on the hoary tale of the nine blind men and the elephant. Each thought he saw the whole creature in the leg, trunk, or tusk. But in fact, they were all wrong in the global sense, and all right in another, more limited, local sense.

All major forms of belief and disbelief (note that I did not say the irrational crazes of deranged minds, which have not had lasting adherents) must therefore have an element of truth in them, but in a limited way.

It follows that whatever laws the state prescribes must be the ones calculated to leave the utmost freedom for the individual that is compatible with upholding the practices that don’t violate the reasonableness of the most reasonable of its citizens.

I would think that that reasonableness is a good enough barrier against state encroachment as long as men remain organized in relatively small, transparent groups. But bigger groups (unless acted upon indirectly through small groups) tend to need more direct and overt coercion to change. Thus, propaganda, war and all the other evils of the state system…

Where does that leave Just War?

(Here, I am not talking about defense of your native country against aggressing invaders — although it’s always possible to stretch what any of those terms mean by the way we define them)

Just War, I think, is still possible for smaller groups and in limited situations that are close enough for us to fully understand. In our current state system where our interests lie everywhere and are interlocked with allies and enemies, where our weapons fall on the innocent and the guilty, not just in this generation but in generations to come, where common practices of chivalrous war have long been lost — in this sort of global imperial system I don’t think that even a just war can be undertaken easily.

So while possible in theory, in practice, I think even a just war is self-destructive. And unnecessary. We now have enough scientific knowledge at our disposal to begin to cast the wisdom traditions (I mean the esoteric teaching of the major religions) into new and effective practices that can dismantle the state system, so that we could end all large-scale wars, at least….if we only chose to.
It is up to us.

Just my random thoughts.