Last night I was part of a discussion panel looking at the Ethics of War; I defended classical just war theory. Speaking in defence of pacifism was one of the Waihope three who offered the argument that you cannot use force against an oppressor because of the Golden Rule, typically stated as: ‘do to others as you would have them do to you.’ His idea seemed to be that if you were an oppressor you would not want force used against you so therefore no one should use force against oppressors – this is what the Golden Rule teaches.
This struck me as odd. One problem with this line of argument is that it interprets the Golden Rule as stating we should do to others what we want them to do to us. This interpretation is obviously problematic. I want a million dollars, does it follow that therefore I should give a million dollars to everyone? I want a nice car does it follow that I should give nice cars to everyone? What the Golden Rule says is that there should be consistency between what we think that people are morally required to do for us and to us and what we are morally required to do for and to others; if I object to someone stealing from me in certain circumstances and condemn that person’s action in doing so as wrong then I am committed to not stealing from that person.
Once this is understood, I do not think my fellow panellist’s argument works. I am quite happy to accept that if I was trying to kill or seriously maim another human being that others (including the state) would be morally permitted to use force to stop me; I may not want them to but that is not the issue. The issue is whether I think they are are required not to and the answer I think is obviously no.
In fact, anyone who recognises the government as legitimate must accept that the state can use force against them if they violate certain rules. I would have thought that the laws against assault and homicide would be paradigm examples of this.
Tags: Golden Rule · Pacifism · Waihope Three · War Ethics11 Comments
A common objection to belief in the God of the Bible is that a good, kind, and loving deity would never command the wholesale slaughter of nations. In the tradition of his popular Is God a Moral Monster?, Paul Copan teams up with Matthew Flannagan to tackle some of the most confusing and uncomfortable passages of Scripture. Together they help the Christian and nonbeliever alike understand the biblical, theological, philosophical, and ethical implications of Old Testament warfare passages.
I am not sure how one could rationally claim that others are not allowed to use force and violence against me in the name of the Golden Rule – the Golden Rule says that how I am treating others is precisely how I should be expected to be treated.
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[…] ‘If someone wants something from us and we do not want to give it to them that is the sin of selfishness and the Bible condemns selfishness.’ This was one of the three points a Christian pacifist speaker made in defending his stance at the panel discussion on War Ethics that Matt mentioned in Pacifism and The Golden Rule. […]
Hello Matt,
How can you square this away with Susan Niditch’s research on the ethics of violence in the Bible? Granted Puritan war ideology and the jus ad bellum in the classical sense as understood by Augustine is of a different format from the Yahweh wars of Canaan, which was more annihilative in nature
The latter would be a problem of inspiration, nowhere in the Bible is the concept of a just war ever delineated. In addition, with the Joshua’s campaign there was no distinguishing element to the destruction of an enemy city, every living thing under cherem warfare was killed including non-combative women and children as far as the people groups that were condemned as abomniable in Yahweh’s sight are concerned.
But you are right that the Bible is by no means a pacifist book, Yahweh condemns the oppressor through Ezekiel and Isaiah, but its also a misnomer to say that it was Yahweh himself who sent a pagan nation to bring punishment to a nation of apostates and oppressors by literally applying the principle of talionis on the haughty Israelite kings and elites for oppressing their own people.
But what is troubling is that during the course of a just war, its understood that there would be policy in limiting the war to the combatants only as targets and not women and children. But biblically speaking, Yahweh seems to disregard these when it comes to attacking the Canaanitic cities, (he didn’t do so to the cities that are far, they are to be offered terms of peace)
Matt,
Also, with Thom Stark’s reply
I tend to agree with him and seeing the limitations of exaggerated metaphor whenever Joshua reports the siege of Ai or Jericho, he literally did put everyone to the sword as the narrative states.
The metaphor would only apply to statements of general hyperbole, whenever Joshua is summarily boasting or exclaiming. but after action reports on the results of a siege on a specific location like Ai and Jericho can’t be taken as metaphorical.
I’m just concerned that because the Bible does not give specific rules and conditions for warfare in the NT. christianoids in the past have exploited the silence of the scriptures on these issues and have formulated a conveinient theology to justify the slaughter of pagans and indians because they tend to see them as metaphorical canaanites threatening their metaphorical Israel
Obviously, its wrong theology in fact and interpretation. But even Niditch points out that just war theory tends to be abused and misused in the hands of wrong headed overzealous christians. John the Baptist at least gives a general principle for soldiers to be content with their pay and not to oppress people, but Christians today quote Paul and Jesus and they didn’t say anything specifically to a soldiers’ or a statesman’s circumstances in times of war. Its their silence that’s unnerving
Alvin
I have yet to go through Stark’s reply in detail ( I have been very busy of late). But, if you see the articles I wrote on the issue. I give several examples where the language is used hyperbolically with regards to a specific location. I mentioned for example how if you read the account of the battle of Ai the text in fact states all the men of Ai were slaughtered on three separate occasions and in each case immediately afterwards it mentions survivors. This occurs with a section that Stark considers a single literary unit. Similarly, I note that the specific cities mentioned in Joshua 10, are recorded as not being wiped out a chapter latter, (again within a section Stark suggested is a single literary unit) and again in Judges these cities are recorded as being alive. Another both Paul and I have given is the language used to describe the defeat of Jerusalem ( a specific place) here the same language of total annihilation is used in writings for a post exilic audience. Moreover in the first chapter of Judges the city of Jerusalem is said to have been destroyed and had all its inhabitants wiped out and then a few verses latter it’s still full of Canaanites and standing. So, I gave examples of specific places in my published articles on this topic.
The problem with your argument here is that you conflate the state with the church. It is one thing for the church to submit to the state, it is another to actively commit violence on its behalf.
Matt Stone says: “you conflate the state with the church”
I say: Who does? And where? Specific quotes would help, because I don’t see Matt doing this.
Would you consider the “illegal combatants” concept (as designated by the US) to be violation of the golden rule? That is, making it “illegal” to resist force with force.
Very glad to see the importance of the golden rule as the interpretive lens through which we should read the rest of the gospel. We are told to love our enemies, not practise petty sentimental towards them.
‘Do to others as you would have them do to you.’ I certainly know that, were I to go mad and started torturing my children and my parents to death, and the only way to prevent this were for someone to shoot me, I would have course regrettably my own killing. Or do pacifists think I would relish living with the guilt of having tortured all my relatives to death?