Making war with Tears in Our Eyes

Maureen McKew

While conceding that under some conditions making war might be necessary, St. Augustine set the bar very high. War should be the last not first resort of nations. Many of his views are said to have influenced Thomas Aquinas, whose writings on the subject have come to be known as the "Just War Theory." As the United States prepares for a possible invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the Catholic Church and other religious denominations are expressing strong reservations on the morality of these actions. Not surprisingly, Augustine’s views are at the center of the debate, although they sometimes are not recognized.

A prominent Catholic independent weekly newspaper, The National Catholic Reporter, recently commented on an address by Pope John Paul II to the diplomatic corps on January 13 of this year. The pope spoke about the United States’ proposed actions against Iraq. NCR noted that the American Ambassador to the Vatican, James Nicholson, could take some comfort from the Jan. 13 address, because John Paul at least had acknowledged that war could sometimes be a "last resort." "His previous statements over the Christmas holidays, albeit indirect, had been more absolute, calling peace not only possible but obligatory," the paper added.

That last sentence probably made more than one Augustinian scholar wince. The pope was not being less "absolute." He was reflecting St. Augustine’s views on war and peace.

Most scholars agree that Augustine’s writings on war and peace were a major source for Thomas Aquinas’ treatises on whether or not Christians could be justified in making war. Aquinas reached the conclusion that Christians might be allowed to engage in war under certain, quite restrictive conditions: the cause should be just, that the decision to wage war be made by a legitimate ruler, that there should be a reasonable expectation of success, that rights are not violated, and that no unnecessary harm be done. These conditions became known as the "just war theory" and ever since the Middle Ages, Christian theologians and philosophers (not to mention politicians and journalists) have trotted them out like a pre-flight check list whenever a superpower like the U.S. contemplates military actions.

Not all scholars agree that Augustine and Thomas should be so closely linked in this subject. David A. Lenihan, lawyer and theologian, wrote in a 1988 essay in the journal Augustinian Studies, that to transpose Augustine’s writings on justice into the essential and categorical world of Thomas . . . does violence to the original context and perverts the true meaning of Augustine," In the same essay, Lenihan pointed out the just war theory is not dogma, even though it was reaffirmed as recently as Vatican II, when it was included in Gaudium et spes, the Constitution on the Church in the Modern World.

However, Aquinas was a disciple of Augustine and even though their philosophies had different roots (Thomas followed the Aristotelian methods and Augustine was a follower of Plato), both placed strong restrictions on the right to make war.

Christians: From Pacifists to Warriors

For nearly the first 400 years of Christianity, its followers actually were barred from military service both by the church and the Roman State. However, the Roman Emperor Constantine changed that. He claimed to have seen a cross in the sky and heard the words "In this sign, you will conquer." The enemies to be conquered, of course, were the barbarians acting against the empire. Soon, Christians were fighting along side the pagans.

What did Augustine think of this? Augustine saw no evil in military service, as long as the purpose was to preserve order. In Letter 138 to a Roman imperial commissioner named Marcillinus, Augustine referred to an encounter in Luke’s gospel between John the Baptist and some solders who asked how to be saved.

John did not tell them to leave the army; instead, he told them to do violence to no man and to be content with their wages.

In another letter, this time to the Roman general Boniface in 423, Augustine responded to the general’s concern about the morality of his position by making it clear that war is legitimate when it has the purpose of securing peace.

It is important to understand that in Augustine’s time, all wars were civil wars or police actions within the Roman emperor. There had not been an external conflict in a hundred years. The wars Augustine witnessed or experienced were internal actions waged to preserve the order of society, not foreign invasions or preemptive strikes against other nations who appear to be contemplating aggressive action.

The Rev. Donald X. Burt, O.S.A., retired professor of philosophy at Villanova, took up the question of Augustine’s views on war and peace in his 1999 book, Friendship and Society: an Introduction to Augustine’s Practical Philosophy (Wm. P. Erdmans Publishing Co.). He found Augustine to be a very reluctant warrior but not a pacifist.

Augustine placed a tremendous burden on the legitimate ruler who, according to Augustine, derived his authority from God. The ruler has the obligation to protect the welfare of the citizens and society against injustice and, Augustine, believed, received special help from God to do it. This obligation appeared to include the obligation to waging either a defensive or offensive war. A defensive war would be defined as one waged to protect the security of the state. An offensive war (not to be confused with a preemptive strike) would be one that is waged to punish a criminal state or to seek reparations for goods damaged or stolen.

Augustine also had strong opinions about the manner in which war is conducted. It should be waged reluctantly and with tears in ones eyes. "The real evils in war are the love of violence," he wrote in the treatise Against Faustus the Manichean, "the cruel passion for revenge, the blind hatred of the enemy, the sometimes insane uncontrolled resistance to attack, the lust for power and other things of this sort."

Father Burt wrote that Augustine insisted that the rights of noncombatants should be respected. War should be a last resort, not a first. It should be waged only if there is a reasonable hope of success. The only true justification of war is to restore order and peace to civil society.

Augustine also cautioned the victors that the vanquished will not always be a subjugated people and that memories of harsh treatment last forever. This is wise counsel. History has borne it out. The bitter memory of the reparations extracted from Germany after World War I by the Treaty of Versailles provided fertile ground for Hitler’s extreme nationalism. On the other hand, the Marshall Plan that followed  World War II turned the defeated Axis countries into democratic allies.

This raises the issue of how to make peace. Augustine taught that peacemaking begins within each individual. It is only when one is at peace with oneself (no small task given the selfish, unruly nature of post-Eden humankind), that one may attempt to make peace with others.

Augustine offered two basic rules in The City of God: do no harm and attempt as far as possible to benefit others. How to live those rules in the earthly city is the subject of the next installment.

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