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From: savage@ssc-vax.UUCP (Lowell Savage)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Jehovah's Witnesses against nuclear weapons
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Date: Tue, 14-May-85 21:38:56 EDT
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Posted: Tue May 14 21:38:56 1985
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< line-eater food >

     David Harwood writes about the Jehovah's Witnesses who leave their
jobs at Los Alamos for religious reasons, about the US Catholic Bishop's
letter on nuclear weapons and on what (I think) he believes the morally
correct policy of a Christian government should be with regards to war.
I am attempting (in partial ignorance) to respond to his posting.

  ...the Just War [I think]
> tradition which arises with Augustine in the late fourth century when 
> Imperial Christianity came to existence. Essentially, this Letter warns
> us about the obvious contradiction of nuclear warfare with the Gospel,
> however it tries to justify their existence by their effect of 'deterrence',
> appealing to the principle of right of national defense. That is, 
> they say that it is extremely improbable that these weapons can be used
> in warfare in a traditionally acceptable way, especially as to satisfy
> principles which discriminate the innocent. Nevertheless, the last word
> is that the Bishops gave conditioned acceptence to the possession of
> these weapons, for the purpose of deterrence, even though they could not
> envisage their moral use -- conditioned on pursuit of disarmament in
> good faith by this nation's government.

    As stated here, that position is probably the most moral one, I think.

> First, when I was told about the traditional "principles" of just warfare,
> about which I must first be informed, for example, the principle of 
> proportionality of effect, which would apparently 'favor' civilians --
> then I asked whether this meant that the Gospel of Christ has something 
> to do with the ratio of body counts -- a rather perverse interpretation
> of the plain Gospel teaching of overcoming evil with good, of non-retal-
> iation against enemies. This is not the ideal of the Gospel at all; it
> is simply a rationalization of violence, which is utterly alien to Jesus.

     The Gospel of Christ has nothing to do with "body counts",
unless it has something to do with counting the bodies that will
result from one course of action and those that will result from
another course of actions.  I interpret the teaching of overcoming
evil with good to be a course of action to be followed in a
Christian's personal life rather than a course of action to be
followed by governments.  For instance, let us suppose that you
are the President of the U.S.  Then, some other country (everyone
will assume that I am talking USSR, so for the sake of concreteness,
let's just say that the other country is the USSR) tells you that
in 48 hours, they are sending a delegation over that you are to
put in charge of the US.  The delegation will be followed by
groups of armed forces to all the major cities to insure order.
Following that, all persons who have committed "economic crimes"
will be tried and executed...Failure to comply will cause a war
between the two nations, killing thousands, maybe millions of
people (mostly soldiers, but they are people too, right?).  Knowing
the history of this government, you know that many people will die,
both Christian and non-christian.  At this point, what becomes of
your "turning the other cheek"?  Other people are killed! YOU, a
Christian, have now been put in a situation where YOU will basically
decide which people will die (It will either be a large number of
soldiers or a large number of civilians--in either case there will
be both christians and non-christians among the dead).  I submit to
you that this is a much different moral issue than the one where a
mugger "asks" you for your wallet (and you, following JC, give him
the keys to your Ferrari--oops, VW--as well).  What should the
Christian response be to Jews being killed by Hitler, to Cambodian
citizens being killed by Pot Pol, to Vietnamese citizens being killed
by the North Vietnamese (after the war, mind you), to Ukrainians,
Lithuanians, etc. being killed by Stalin, to Chinese being killed
by Mao, and to Argentine "disappeared" killed by the military there,
and so on...??? Send missionaries and Bibles??  That's like sending
missionaries and Bibles to Ethiopia and parts similar--you might
help some people deal with the religious aspects of the tragedy--but
you DON'T SOLVE THE PROBLEM!!

----------------------------------- v Just war principle I assume. 
> 	Then I asked where is this principle supported in the Gospel
> or in Paul or in the first three centuries of Christian tradition; 
> it clearly presupposes that Jesus endorses military force for national
> defense. But as a matter of fact, Jesus plainly rejects the previous 
> tradition, which might justify national warfare, saying that since the
> coming of Elijah, in John the Baptist, who heralds the reign of God,
> until his own coming, as the Messiah, as the morning star heralds the
> rising Sun -- even 'until ~now~ the kingdom of God has suffered violence,
> and the violent take it by force.'

    The origins of a principle should not tarnish it if it is a good
one, and the Just War principle deals with the sort of problem that I
have raised above.  It recognizes that governments need to operate by
different rules in this imperfect world than Christian individuals do.
It then attempts to state what the moral duties of a government are
with regards to war.  Actually, the origins of the "Just war" principle,
if they go back to Constantine, are probably pretty honorable.  Cons-
tantine (the Roman emperor who converted to Christianity and ended the
persecution of christians in Europe) knew that he would need to be
prepared to use force to retain his position.  He also knew that as
emperor, he could use his position for the good of a lot of people,
(both in this world, and, by his example, in the next), or he could
step down, and allow someone else to take over, which might mean going
back to a despot that would lead men from God and hurt them economically.
At that point, it seems to me, the Just War theory filled the bill.


> 	Jesus was not a Zealot, who wish to violently overthrow the
> oppressive Roman occupation of Israel, even though this would be
> considered 'just', as many understand this. 

    Correct, but then Jesus' Kingdom is not of this world, is it?
How far can we extend the analogy from the actions of God's Kingdom
to the correct actions of a particular kingdom of man??  Not very
far when a kingdom of man is limited, and God is unlimited!!

> 	The last thing I pointed out, concerning the condition of
> negotiation in good faith for disarmament, was that never has the total
> number of nuclear weapons decreased, despite the fact that only a small
> fraction of these existing weapons would completely destroy any enemy
> military capacity. The substitution and increase of weapons is not
> disarmament; the negotiations are to balance and secure destructiveness,
> hence deterrence, not to eliminate nuclear weapons. As I have said before,
> the 'superpowers' would indefinitely secure an unjust and incredible
> 'peace on Earth' with probable horror.
> 	It is like the prophet Isaiah said, "They have made a pact with
> Death, that it should not destroy them; but it shall fail."
> 	I am glad to hear that the Jehovah's Witnesses at Los Alamos
> want no part of this.
> 					David Harwood

     The trouble is not with having enough weapons to destroy any enemy
capacity, but with having enough to prevent the enemy from doing that
very thing to the U.S.  A first strike is where one side blows up the
capacity of the other side before the other side does anything to the
first side.  All the "extra" is to "ensure" survival from a first strike!
Now, arguments can be made about the necessity of the extra, and the
"sureness" of the survival, etc. but those are questions to be answered
with military reasoning, not religious/moral arguments.  Please, no
jokes about "military intelligence", the best military reasoning may
conclude that all of the nukes ARE NOT necessary, but they will be
based on arguments that show that the nukes cannot serve their military
purpose.  I tend to doubt it though.  For instance, here is a military
argument: the MX missile is a dud.  Without an esoteric basing scheme
(read expensive) that would require the enemy to fire thousands of
warheads to ensure that all MXs are destroyed, the MX missiles are
basically sitting ducks.  As sitting ducks, they fail in their purpose
of posing a credible threat of a counter attack in case the U.S. is
attacked....  I don't intend to argue the validity of this military
argument since this is the wrong group for it, I just wanted to make
the difference between a moral and a military argument plain.

     I personally am searching for some answers to the question of how
pacifistic are Christians supposed to be.  I will not condemn those
who take the "pure" pacifism route, but I feel that for me, that would
be a cop out, "I'll just protest every act of violence I hear about,
and allow any violence that anyone attempts to commit."  That position 
would take a great deal of courage if the violence were directed at me,
but I wouldn't have to think...but if I go with something like the just
war principle, I have to think, and I may also need a large share of
courage and fortitude to carry out what I believe is right.  I guess
that each person will have to decide for him/her-self and then live with
that decision.  I would appreciate postings/mail which point out holes
in my moral position on this matter (note that this is intended to be
about religious and moral issues, not political or military ones).

     Sorry about the length.

				There's more than one way to be savage.

				Lowell Savage (uw-beaver!ssc-vax!savage)