Hi Felgar
1) To what extent ARE we required to protect the innocent?
Proverbs 6:16-17 (NIV) There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him:[17] haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood...
Jeremiah 21:12 (NIV) O house of David, this is what the Lord says:
" 'Administer justice every morning;rescue from the hand of his oppressor the one who has been robbed, or my wrath will break out and burn like fire because of the evil you have done...
In this passage God instructs David to administer justice and to rescue those who have been robbed from oppressors, and not doing so will cause God to be angry. In addition, we see that God hates those who spill innocent blood, thereby imploring us to protect the innocent. We also need to consider the question of abortion here, do we have the right to kill in order to save the unborn, the ultimate innocent?
Are you convinced that we have the right to kill (possibly millions of unprepared souls) to do it? Consider that we are told how Christians will be persecuted throughout the ages for their beliefs; is it really our place to kill another to free them of that?
Your question here presupposes the answer, and somehow seems to miss my earlier point. War can only be justified if it is against evil, and that those souls are unprepared is down to the choice of following that evil. How and where Christians will be persecuted is not relevant to the issue for me, it strays a bit far from the original point.
Anyhow, let's discuss it. Are we not to consider that God sent the 10 plagues to free His people from Egypt, including the killing of the firstborn? There are many places in the OT where God sends His people into battle to either pre-empt attacks on them, gain land or to protect them. While this does not relieve us of our personal duties, we are to submit to the power of the God-appojnted leadership, provided it is a just war, but also on a personal level to love those who wrong us.
Consider that one of the places where the church is strongest and growing the quickest is in China where they are persecuted, does God really want all of China to turn into atheists and/or away from God like the rest of the West?
I'm not sure how that follows from your previous point?
Does God really promise lives of freedom on Earth to His followers?
Only on the new Earth
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I assume here you mean if it is justified to go to war to ensure freedom from persecution? Since persecution is one of the ways that Christians and Christianity are tested and proven, you can arrive at a conclusion that it is not, but it is highly hypothetical. The reason I say that is because as long as man has free will, we will see persecution of Christians, regardless of how many persecutors are killed.
Of course freedom of the spirit from death is emphasized much more in the Bible, and so it should be. I don't however see the relevance of this to the issue, maybe you can rephrase it a bit?
2) At what point do you draw the line of submission; because don't you believe that our submission to God's kingdom must be placed before submission to our Earthly kingdom? When standing before God I just don't feel it will fly to tell him, "I was only following orders."
You are right of course, that is why the Christian guidelines of a just war need to be followed, so that we can be sure we are compliant with the Scriptural conditions for war.
The criterion of just cause classically and explicitly included one or more of three possibilities:
1- Defense against wrongful attack,
2- Retaking something wrongly taken,
3- Or punishment of evil.
The just war theory is a largely Christian philosophy that attempts to reconcile three things:
1- Taking human life is seriously wrong,
2- States have a duty to defend their citizens, and defend justice,
3 Protecting innocent human life and defending important moral values sometimes requires willingness to use force and violence.
A war is only a Just War if it is both justified (Jus ad Bellum), and carried out in the right way (Jus in Bello). Some wars fought for noble causes have been rendered unjust because of the way in which they were fought
The Just War:
A- Jus ad Bellum: The conditions under which the use of military force is justified:
1- The war must be for a just cause:
- Self-Defense: Invasion: The clearest example of a just cause is self-defense against an aggressor.
- Assassination of a prominent person - a monarch or president.
- Attack on national honour (e.g. burning the flag, attacking an embassy).
- Attack on state religion.
- Economic attack (trade embargo or sanctions).
- Attack on a neighbour or ally. Assisting an invaded friendly nation.
- Preemptive strike: attacking the enemy to prevent an anticipated attack by them...Preemptive strikes may no longer be acceptable by UN members, since the Charter says that short of actual attack, "all Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means" (Article 2:3)
- Human rights violations: Another common example is putting right a violation of human rights so severe that force is the only sensible response.
- To punish an act of aggression. This is not accepted by everyone. Some people would say that a war of punishment can never be a just war.
2- The war must be lawfully declared by a lawful authority.
- Only a war lawfully declared, by a government with the authority to declare war, can be a just war.
- It prevents sneaky attacks in advance of a declaration of war:.The example usually quoted of an attack before a declaration of war is the Japanese attack on the Americans at Pearl Harbor.
- There are two obvious problems with this: First: there can sometimes be doubt as to which group is the lawful government of a country, and second: if a government behaves in a way that is arbitrary and unjust does its 'lawful' authority have the necessary ethical force for it to be entitled to wage a Just War?
- The UN has the lawful authority. However, the idea of the UN as the final authority is very legalistic since in practice the actual power to do things such as wage war remains with individual states.
3- The intention behind the war must be good:
- Good intentions include: creating, restoring or keeping a just peace, righting a wrong, assisting the innocent.
- Bad intentions include: Seeking power or imperialism, demonstrating the power of a state, grabbing land or goods, or enslaving people, hatred of the enemy, genocide, personal or national glory, revenge, preserving colonial power.
4- All other ways of resolving the problem should have been tried fist: War must be the last resort!:
- The alternatives might include diplomacy, economic sanctions, political pressure from other nations, withdrawal of financial aid, condemnation in the United Nations, and so on... These alternatives should be tried exhaustively and sincerely before violence is used.
- It is argued that sometimes it will be morally better to go to war sooner rather than later. This might be because waiting too long would allow the enemy to do much more damage, or kill more people than an early war would have done; or may allow the enemy to become so established in another country's territory than far greater force will have to be used to remove him than would have been needed earlier... like Hitler!.
5- There must be a reasonable chance of success:
- Only winnable wars are just. A State should only go to war if it has a reasonable chance of winning. Going to war for a hopeless cause may be a noble act, but it is an unethical one. This comes from the idea that war is a great evil, and that it is wrong to cause suffering, pain, and death with no chance of success.
- A war among two countries with large nuclear weapons arsenal would be a disaster.
- It is sometimes morally necessary to fight against a much larger force, for national defense, for example.
- This condition could be a bullies' charter, in that it means that big powerful countries can trample on little ones, and the little ones can't ethically retaliate, because they can't win.
6- The ultimate goal of a just war is to re-establish peace.
More specifically, the peace established after the war must be preferable to the peace that would have prevailed if the war had not been fought.
B- Jus in Bello: How to conduct a war in an ethical manner:
7- Innocent people and non-combatants should not be harmed:
- This question has become more important during the last 100 years because of the weapons of mass destruction.
- At the beginning of the twentieth century only 10%-15% of those who died in war were civilians.
- In World War 2 more than 50% of those who died were civilians.
- By the end of the century over 75% of those killed in war were civilians.
- The "doctrine of double effect" is sometimes put forward as a defense:
- For example if an army base in the middle of a city is bombed and a few civilians living nearby are killed as well, nothing unethical has been done, because the army base was a legitimate target and the death of civilians was not the intention of the bombing (even though their death could be predicted).
- The "doctrine of double effect" can't be used to defend the use of weapons of mass destruction, such as nuclear weapons, area bombing, or chemical or biological weapons used against a population in general, since these are so indiscriminate in effect that civilians casualties can't be regarded as a secondary result.
8- Only appropriate force should be used. This applies to both the sort of force, and how much force is used:
- The means used must be in proportion to the end that war seeks to achieve:
- Not just the aim of the war, but the means used to fight it must be in proportion to the wrong to be righted.
- Destroying an enemy city with a nuclear weapon in retaliation for the invasion of an uninhabited island would make that war unethical, even though the cause of the war was just.
- The war must prevent more human suffering than it causes.
- It must prevent more evil than it causes.
- Weapons that are intrinsically evil should not be used: Chemical and biological weapons.
These were banned by the Geneva Protocol in 1925. Many writers argue that nuclear weapons are inherently evil, and I personally think so.
- Landmines, because they are indiscriminate weapons which cause great harm to civilians, are inherently evil.
- Genocide, mass rape, torture and so on.
- The Hague Convention of 1907 bans:
- poison or poisoned weapons
- killing or wounding treacherously
- killing or wounding an enemy who, having lay down his arms, or having no longer means of defense, has surrendered at discretion
- declaring that no mercy will be given to defeated opponents
- using arms, projectiles, or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering.
9- After the fighting is over:
- There must be respect and mercy for the defeated.
- There may be no acts of vengeance, nor cruelty, nor deeds of imperialism.
- If possible, the nation defeated should be helped to its complete restoration, physically, economically, and the welfare of the citizens... The USA did a good job after victory in Japan, Germany, Korea, Vietnam, and it is trying to de the same in Afghanistan, Iraq... North Korea is now a hell compared with the bliss of South Korea!.
Again a long post, so please comment.
