Violence, Jesus, and Just War Reasoning

2021 ◽  
pp. 96-121
Author(s):  
Matthew D. Lundberg
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Imitatio Christi ◽  
Sermon On The Mount ◽  
The Face

This chapter examines the deeper logic of just war thinking by analyzing its central distinction between aggressive violence and responsive violence, as well as its recognition of the threat of destructive synergy between the two. The chapter considers whether the teaching of Jesus renders impossible any Christian sanctioning of even defensive violence, as insisted by the peace church traditions. Through a consideration of the Sermon on the Mount and a theological appraisal of the imitatio Christi motif in relation to martyrdom, the chapter upholds just war reasoning as theologically defensible. It suggests that the pacifist and just war traditions both require a precarious wager in relation to faithfulness and thus serve as one another’s external consciences in the face of the ambiguity of violence.

The Alternatives to War

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Pattison
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Economic Sanctions ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
Military Action ◽  
Comprehensive Account ◽  
The Face ◽  
Normative Issues ◽  
Better Than

If states are not to go to war, what should they do instead? In The Alternatives to War: From Sanctions to Non-violence, James Pattison considers the case for the alternatives to military action to address mass atrocities and aggression. He covers the normative issues raised by measures ranging from comprehensive economic sanctions, diplomacy, and positive incentives, to criminal prosecutions, non-violent resistance, accepting refugees, and arming rebels. For instance, given the indiscriminateness of many sanctions regimes, are sanctions any better than war? Should states avoid ‘megaphone diplomacy’ and adopt more subtle measures? What, if anything, can non-violent methods such as civilian defence and civilian peacekeeping do in the face of a ruthless opponent? Is it a serious concern that positive incentives can appear to reward aggressors? Overall, Pattison provides a comprehensive account of the ethics of the alternatives to war. In doing so, he argues that the case for war is weaker and the case for many of the alternatives is stronger than commonly thought. The upshot is that, when reacting to mass atrocities and aggression, states are generally required to pursue the alternatives to war rather than military action. Pattison concludes that this has significant implications for pacifism, Just War Theory, and the responsibility to protect doctrine.

Epilogue

2021 ◽  
pp. 211-214
Author(s):  
Matthew D. Lundberg
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Just War ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Face ◽  
Just War Tradition

The epilogue briefly returns to the perennial debate between the just war and pacifist traditions of Christianity in the face of violence. The waste and destructive synergy of all violence, even reparative violence, suggests that the just war ethic attempts the absurd. Yet the just war wisdom of the Christian tradition insists that it is possible to find a productive logic in purposeful violence for the public common good. As the pacifist traditions make the gamble that it is not absurd to refuse the temptation of violence even in the face of aggression, and the just war tradition gambles that it is possible to restrain violence and direct it toward peace, these traditions should remain in conversation with one another and open to the possibility of glimpsing the witness of martyrdom in one another.

Only the King Can Do It: Adaptation and Flexibility in Crusade Ideology in Sixteenth-Century Spain

2012 ◽  
Vol 81 (3) ◽  
pp. 552-574
Author(s):  
Patrick J. O'Banion
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
International Law ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Just War ◽  
Council Of Trent ◽  
Holy War ◽  
Elite Group ◽  
The Face ◽  
Just War Doctrine

Reforming efforts at the Council of Trent (1545–1563), the challenges of Protestantism, the rise of national states, and the reassessment of just war doctrine, had initiated a moment of crisis for crusading by the mid-sixteenth century. Indeed, historians have described these trends as signaling the end of the movement. This article explores the theoretical underpinnings deployed by an elite group of Spanish theologians and churchmen in May of 1567 to shore up their monarch's claim to a lucrative version of the crusade indulgence granted by popes since the fifteenth century. By rehearsing traditional arguments, eschewing those they saw as obsolete, and deploying new ones, these theorists expose the remarkable adaptability of crusading. The integrity of papally sanctioned holy war against the enemies of the faith collapsed in later centuries with the rise of international law and recognition of permanent divisions within therespublica Christiana. Yet, the ability of sixteenth-century Spanish theorists to recast ideology in the face of shifting intellectual, cultural, and social tides indicates the continuing viability of crusading during a period of inchoateness.

scholarly journals Just War? War Games, War Crimes, and Game Design

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 367-386 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iain Donald
Keyword(s):  
Game Design ◽  
Just War ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
Jus In Bello ◽  
War Games ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Right ◽  
Entertainment Products

Military shooters have explored both historical and modern settings and remain one of the most popular game genres. While the violence of these games has been explored in multiple studies, the study of how war and the rules of war are represented is underexplored. The Red Cross has argued that as virtual war games are becoming closer to reality, the rules of war should be included. This article explores the argument put forward by the Red Cross and its reception by games media organizations, in order to consider how the concept of “just war” is represented within games. This article will focus on concerns over games adherence to the criteria of jus in bello (the right conduct in war) and will also consider the challenges that developers face in the creation of entertainment products in the face of publisher and press concerns.

Difficult texts: being made perfect according to Matthew 5 and 19

Theology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 124 (6) ◽  
pp. 404-409
Author(s):  
Gerald O’Collins SJ
Keyword(s):  
Imitatio Christi ◽  
Sermon On The Mount

Usually translated as ‘perfect’, teleios appears in Matthew’s Gospel – twice in an exhortation (in the Sermon on the Mount) to imitate our heavenly Father’s boundless love and once in an invitation to a rich young man to divest himself of his great wealth and join the disciples in following Jesus. This article explores the grounds and difficulties for Christians who embrace this imitatio Christi and imitatio Dei.

Turn Toward Just War

Worldview ◽  
1962 ◽  
Vol 5 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 8-13
Author(s):  
Paul Ramsey
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Just War ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Tower Of Babel ◽  
The Face ◽  
The City ◽  
Whole Earth

The story of the Tower of Babel can teach us a great deal about man's political life. It begins at a time before time when “the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.” Then men said to one another “Go to, let us build us a city, and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make its a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” It is sad to report what happened to that first United Nations, at a time (if we are to believe the tale) far more auspicious for the union of mankind and for the ability of peoples to understand one another. The Lord (so the report reads) confounded their language, that they might not understand one another's speech—“and they left off to build the city” (Genesis ll;l-9).

The Face of Battle without the Rules of War: Lessons from Red Horse & the Battle of the Little Bighorn

Daedalus ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 146 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott D. Sagan
Keyword(s):  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Just War ◽  
Al Qaeda ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Face ◽  
Just War Doctrine

This essay analyzes the extraordinary drawings of Red Horse, a Minneconjou warrior who fought at the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn, to provide insights into what warfare was like without just war doctrine or the laws of armed conflict to place constraints on violence. The artist's candid vision of the battle and its aftermath portrays the indiscriminant brutality of the Great Sioux War, the disrespect given to a hated enemy, and the lingering desire for revenge. But the drawings also reveal the pride of victory and the trauma of defeat. In addition to providing a window into the past, the Red Horse drawings provide a lens to help us understand the atrocities committed by the Islamic State and Al Qaeda today and a mirror that can help us more clearly see ourselves.

Why the Ethics of War needs the Social Sciences

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 227-251
Author(s):  
Ariel Colonomos
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Just War ◽  
The Political ◽  
Epistemic Reasons ◽  
Social Expectations ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ethics Of War ◽  
The Face ◽  
Just War Tradition ◽  
Normative Issues

Abstract This paper argues that, for both sociological and epistemic reasons, the ethics of war needs the social sciences and, accordingly, sets an alternative to the two prevailing approaches in the literature in the ethics of war field, i.e. the just war tradition model and the ethics of war theory. Given what we learn from the factual description of war and its interpretation in the social sciences, and given what their epistemic premises are, both models - and more particularly the second one – fail to address important normative issues that arise in the course of warfare. Based on the discussion of two case studies – states’ policy in the face of hostage-taking and the rule of proportionality – I argue it is important to move beyond the divide between a state-centric approach (the just war tradition) and an individualistic one (the ethics of war theory): it is indispensable to take into consideration other social spheres where norms emerge and find, between those spheres, some ‘overlapping normative ground’. I argue, both sociologically and normatively, that norms rely upon interlocking sets of expectations. I also argue that these social expectations need to be thoroughly examined in order to ascertain the plausibility of norms in warfare. As a conclusion, for reasons that are both sociological and normative, I stress the political importance, within a liberal and knowledge-oriented society, of the access to facts that always need to be interpreted when making normative claims.

Why do people believe in a zero-sum economy?

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel G. B. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Perspective Taking ◽  
Evolutionary Model ◽  
Everyday Experience ◽  
Coalitional Psychology ◽  
The Face ◽  
Zero Sum

AbstractZero-sum thinking and aversion to trade pervade our society, yet fly in the face of everyday experience and the consensus of economists. Boyer & Petersen's (B&P's) evolutionary model invokes coalitional psychology to explain these puzzling intuitions. I raise several empirical challenges to this explanation, proposing two alternative mechanisms – intuitive mercantilism (assigning value to money rather than goods) and errors in perspective-taking.

Mars: was There an Ancient Eden?

1997 ◽  
Vol 161 ◽  
pp. 203-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias C. Owen
Keyword(s):  
Positive Answer ◽  
Biogenic Elements ◽  
Habitable Zones ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Origin Of Life ◽  
Early Mars ◽  
Favorable Conditions ◽  
Open Question ◽  
Rocky Planets ◽  
Impact Erosion

AbstractThe clear evidence of water erosion on the surface of Mars suggests an early climate much more clement than the present one. Using a model for the origin of inner planet atmospheres by icy planetesimal impact, it is possible to reconstruct the original volatile inventory on Mars, starting from the thin atmosphere we observe today. Evidence for cometary impact can be found in the present abundances and isotope ratios of gases in the atmosphere and in SNC meteorites. If we invoke impact erosion to account for the present excess of129Xe, we predict an early inventory equivalent to at least 7.5 bars of CO2. This reservoir of volatiles is adequate to produce a substantial greenhouse effect, provided there is some small addition of SO2(volcanoes) or reduced gases (cometary impact). Thus it seems likely that conditions on early Mars were suitable for the origin of life – biogenic elements and liquid water were present at favorable conditions of pressure and temperature. Whether life began on Mars remains an open question, receiving hints of a positive answer from recent work on one of the Martian meteorites. The implications for habitable zones around other stars include the need to have rocky planets with sufficient mass to preserve atmospheres in the face of intensive early bombardment.

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