(4) S1E4 The Case for Christian Nonviolence: Logic and Intuition

Episode Transcript
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Derek (00:05):
Welcome back to the Fourth Way podcast. This is the
4th installment in our series onChristian Nonviolence. In the
first episode, I told you a bitabout my story, how on my
journey to nonviolence I had tofirst address some of my biases
and presuppositions to be ableto objectively look at the case
for nonviolence. In the secondepisode, we discussed the

(00:26):
Biblical case for Christian nonviolence. Taking a look at the
Old Testament gave us glimpsesof this idea of non violence, as
well as how Christ seemed toprescribe non violence, and how
the New Testament authors viewednon violence, and violence and
vengeance in the New Testament.
In the last episode, wediscussed church history. We

(00:46):
took a look at some of the earlychurch fathers. We looked at
examples of individuals who leftthe army. We looked at ideas of
government and what that allentailed and how Christians
viewed that, and we also took alook at enemy attestation and
what enemies were saying aboutwhat Christians seemed to be
doing. I'd mentioned in the lastepisode that this next episode

(01:09):
was going to be discussing reallife examples of individuals who
incorporated non violence intotheir lives.
However, I've decided to savethat for the next episode. And
instead, in this episode, I wantto take a look at the
philosophical or logical aspectsof Christian non violence and
its counterpart. That means weare going to take a look at

(01:30):
intuitions, we're going to takea look at empirical evidence
supporting non violence, andwe're also gonna take a look at
the internal coherence today ofthe just war theory, the, the
opposite aspect of non violence.So while in the next episode
we'll get to the internalcoherence of non violence
Christian non violence and andhow that plays out in real life.

(01:54):
In this episode, the coherenceaspect, we're gonna first try to
tear down the Just War idea, andshow you how it's incoherent.
So, in the next episode, we canput in its place what the
coherence of non violence lookslike. So, without any further
introduction, let's jump rightin. Intuitions. Now, I have to

(02:15):
admit that when it comes to theidea of intuition, I
wholeheartedly agree thatintuition seems to say that non
violence is just incoherent. Itdoesn't make any sense.
I 100% understand that, becauseI was there, and honestly, I can
play certain scenarios throughmy head, and intuition screams

(02:37):
at me that to kill or to doviolence is a good thing, and
the best thing to do in certainsituations. I, I 100% understand
that. And I think, I think themajority of Christians, and even
those who adhere to nonviolence, would probably agree
with me on that. Intuition,oftentimes, compels us to

(02:58):
believe that violence is anoption on the table. Now, I do
want to be clear, I am not atall here to bash intuition,
because I think intuition is isinvaluable in life.
Intuition is a fantasticstarting point for for beliefs.
However, it is a terrible endpoint. Let me give you an

(03:18):
example. So, my kids have neverjumped from the 7th step on our
stairs, and they didn't need tosee anybody else jump from that
step. They didn't need to jumpfrom it themselves.
And, in fact, even if they hadseen me jump from the 7th step,
they could have climbed up tothe 7th step, and seen other
people be successful. And theycould have intuitively

(03:41):
recognized that if they jumpfrom the 7th step, there are
gonna be some problems. Becausetheir intuition of their
physical capability, of gravity,of the height of things, of of
how much their body can handle.They just intuitively know that
they can't jump from the 7thstep, or that it's not a good
idea. They get that.

(04:01):
And intuition, there's so manyexamples that we could come up
with, but intuition is vital forunderstanding the way the world
is, or beginning to understand,and and understanding what to
pursue and what to avoid, andthose sorts of things. But at
the same time, we can allunderstand that intuitions can

(04:21):
be very faulty. And we could gointo a number of real life
examples that cognitivescientists give us, and, there
are so many TED Talks you canwatch on this, and we just all
understand that intuitions areare flawed oftentimes. But, let
me let me give you an examplethat I think is going to help us
as we try to progress into ourdiscussion of non violence. So,

(04:44):
I like to think of intuition theintuition of jumping off of a 30
foot platform.
I I I climb up to a 30 footplatform, and let's say there's
ground underneath me, not water.I can get up to the top, and
just like my kids standing atthe 7th step, I can look down
and I can recognize that jumpingis not a good idea. Jumping from
30 feet will do some seriousdamage to my body. However, fast

(05:08):
forward a couple 100 years, andI go to the moon, and they have
a 30 foot platform up there.And, I get to the top of that
platform, and I look down, myintuition tells me not to jump.
I can't do it. It's gonna hurtmy body. It might kill me. But,
because the moon's gravity is somuch less, I I intellectually
know that if I jumped from that30 foot platform, I would

(05:32):
probably be fine. My intuitionsare wrong, and they're wrong
because they're based on anotherplanet.
They're based on the way that Igrew up, the environment that I
grew up in, they're just basedon, on something completely
different. They're not based onthe facts of the situation.
They're not based on the realityof me being on the moon. Now, as

(05:53):
a Christian, I think it's fairlyclear that we are aliens. We are
not earthlings in in a certainsense, and the book of 1st Peter
lays that out more clearly thanany other book.
But, we are strangers here, weare foreigners. This, you know,
we are we are old men and women,we have put those off because we

(06:14):
have become new men and women inChrist. Now, you don't have to
read Paul too long to recognizethat even though Paul saw that
he was a new man, and he wasbeing given new intuitions, he
really struggled with the oldman and with the old original
intuitions. He was standing inthe freedom of Christ, standing

(06:34):
on this, this 30 foot platformon the moon where he has just
been given liberation, andintellectually he knows the
truth of what Christ has taught,he still struggles with those
earthly instincts, with thatgravity that just weighs him
down. Likewise, we are going tostruggle with our old natures,
with our old intuitions thatthat aren't intuitions we're to

(06:56):
really have or bring or fosterin the Kingdom of Christ.
Our goal is to be like Christwho defies these intuitions. I
think Philippians 2 is really aa great passage to look at, and
you'll probably hear me refer toPhilippians 2 fairly frequently.
But, Philippians 2 is justbeautiful in how Paul is telling

(07:16):
the individuals to lay downtheir lives for others, to put
others first. And the way thathe tells them to do this is to
look to Christ and do what Hedid. And what did Christ do?
Well, He gave up his, thisnotion of divinity, this idea
that He had to control things.He laid that down at the feet of

(07:37):
God, and He obeyed. He obeyedeven to a torturous death. He
obeyed to give up heaven andbecome human. He obeyed in every
way and gave up His Hissovereignty, His control over
things, in humble obedience.
And, for His love of God, butalso for His love of us. It was

(07:59):
self sacrificial. And Paul tellspeople to do the same thing, and
this is absolutelycounterintuitive. To lay down my
lives for others, and evenenemies? That's just crazy.
But Jesus and the apostles justdestroy our intuitions. Blasts
are to be first. The weak arestrong. We're supposed to have
joy in giving rather thanreceiving. The poor are gonna be

(08:20):
blessed.
Masters are to serve. Slaves arebrothers and sisters. I mean,
what kind of world is this? Thisis not the world that my
intuitions were formed in. Theintuitions that Christ wants to
foster in me, the way that Ibecome like Christ, is
absolutely counterintuitive injust about every way.
So, when when people point tointuitions as something that is

(08:43):
an evidence against nonviolence, that can be a good
thing for their case, or it canbe a bad thing for their case.
Because sometimes intuitionsreally work out for you,
something so strong that itjust, you know it has to be
true. And, there are other timeswhere something is is so strong
that you, as a Christian, youjust know that it has to be

(09:05):
wrong in some weird way. Whenthat when that strong intuition
is a self centered intuition,It's intuition about self
preservation. Whenever there'sthis just extreme worry, about
the self and this, this self,focus, most of the time, those
those extreme intuitions tend tobe intuitions that aren't great

(09:30):
in terms of kingdom mindedness.
So, yes, intuition's great, butwe have to remember that
Christianity is oftencounterintuitive. Now, if that's
the only thing I could say onintuitions, we'd kind of be at a
stalemate, where I say thatChristianity is
counterintuitive, and mostpeople say non violence is
intuitive, and we could justkind of end there. Fortunately,

(09:51):
I think I, I have some resourcesthat are going to be able to
show that intuition is reallynot in the favor of those who
advocate violence. Now, commonsense intuition, like, if you
ask somebody, is going to be,yes, violence is an option. But,
when you really get down to it,conscious, the consciousness,

(10:12):
the the conscience that God hasseared into our souls, when it
has the opportunity to evidenceitself, shows us that our
intuitions are actually quitedifferent than we think they
are.
So, here I want to refer to, aman named S. L. A. Marshall.
And, Marshall fought in WorldWar I, he was a leader, as well

(10:34):
as in World War 2, and I believeKorea and Vietnam.
But in in World War 2, Marshallnoticed something really odd. He
noticed that only about 15 to20% of of people, of soldiers on
the line were actually firingtheir weapons. And he could tell

(10:54):
just by looking that even someof those individuals who were
firing their weapons were notfiring in any direction that was
that was gonna have any chanceof doing damage. So they were
firing well over the enemy'sheads or down into the dirt.
Based on Marshals' findings, theArmy was actually pretty
appalled at what was going onwith, with their soldiers.

(11:15):
If you only have 15 or 20% ofyour fighting force shooting at
the enemy, it's a problem.Right? Think about how much
better you could do if you goteverybody, or even 90% of
people, to fire. And so, becauseof Marshall's research, the army
actually implemented a lot ofbehavior sorts of things, like,
they changed the circulartargets in their their practices

(11:37):
to, to human silhouettes. They,they incorporated, like, in
their their drill sergeantsbegan to, say all these terrible
things when they would when theywould be marching, you know,
talking about killing, raping,pillaging, just these things
that were just meant todesensitize men to violence and

(12:00):
to killing.
It was really meant to to createa distance between them and the
enemy, so that when they saw theenemy, they didn't really see a
human being, they saw just atarget. And, because of
Marshall's research and theArmy's implementation of
behavioristic processes, inKorea, the firing rate went up
to about 50 to 60 percent, andthen in Vietnam, we saw 90 to 95

(12:24):
percent of US soldiers shootingto kill. You really see this
come out in a book called OnKilling. And, and the book
references Marshall's study, butit it goes far more into just
this idea of of killing. It goesback further, and it also
incorporates a lot of anecdotesfrom soldiers who recount their

(12:46):
experiences.
So the book On Killing beginskind of with the with the
Napoleonic era. And, based onsome of the the tests that the
Prussians were doing, you know,they'd line their their
regiments up at 75 yards andthey'd they'd shoot a target
that was 6, 6 feet high andlike, you know, the width of

(13:07):
another enemy regiment. And theyhad all their people just fire
at it. And so, you know, you geta certain hit rate of, like,
kill a couple hundred people,500 people a minute or something
like that. And, okay.
But, when you start to go lookat the numbers of deaths in
battles due to infantry fire,across the board, and in most

(13:30):
battles, you really only see ahandful of people dying per
minute. And that doesn't makeany sense. 500 people a minute
versus 2 people a minute issignificantly different. So, the
author of On Killing goes intodiscussing a lot of these, these
pieces of evidence and findingsthat go to show that Marshall's

(13:53):
discovery in World War 2 isreally something that people
have kind of known has beengoing on since Napoleon. One
other example of the many isthat at Gettysburg, they found
tens of thousands of multiloaded weapons.
Now, we're not just talkingabout, you know, a soldier in
the heat of battle forgets thathe already loaded his weapon and

(14:14):
loads it again. We're talkingabout some weapons that have in
the double digits of loads intotheir into their weapons, where
people would literally load tolook like they're to look like
they're going through theprocess of of firing and
reloading. They would just load,pull up the gun, and put it act
like they fired, put it backdown, load. You had people who

(14:36):
just would refuse to fire, butnot overtly, because if you
don't at least act like you'reloading and somebody sees you
that might be a problem, foryour commanding officer. So he,
the author goes into many, many,many examples of how the kill
rates just are not even close towhat they should be from

(14:56):
infantry fire.
He goes into these these, tosome certain anecdotes, which
aren't, are more sparse for thethe Napoleonic era, but he goes
into the multi loaded weaponsfrom Gettysburg. He just
explores so many things thatseem to show, hey, there's an
issue here. And he doesn'treally say exactly what that is

(15:17):
yet, he just sets up that, look,there's some issue where people
are not shooting, people are notkilling. What's the, what's the
issue? Throughout his book, Ibelieve the author's name is
Grossman, but he, he reallyshows through through stories of
soldiers from more modern wars,that it is really hard for

(15:38):
people, even in the heat ofbattle, even when your life
depends on it, even when youryour your partner's life depends
on it.
It is really hard for people tokill another human being. There
are all kinds of anecdotes hegives about people who are like
deer in the headlights, and theythey go through this whole moral
conundrum within a split secondof not wanting to kill. He shows

(15:59):
the remorse of people afterthey've killed, even though they
feel like, or even though to usit would seem like a just kill.
You have to defend yourself.There is just this huge aversion
to killing, and Grossman showsthat very well throughout his
book.
Well, I would love to talk aboutthis book for an hour. Let me
just kind of pull out what the,the main concept is. People have

(16:22):
issues killing, and the way thatthe army has gotten people to
kill is by creating distance.And, Grossman really shows how
how distance is necessary forone human to kill another human.
And he gives an example ofbombers in World War 2, and how
they just slaughtered 100 of1,000 and 1,000,000 of citizens

(16:45):
in World War 2.
And people don't really have aproblem with that, and the
bombers don't really have aproblem with that. They don't
really feel remorse for for whatthey did. Yet, when you get down
onto the ground and you get topeople who've fought in close
combat, and who've seen thefaces of the people that they
killed, or, they they see thepeople that they've killed from,

(17:05):
you know, 20 yards or 50 yards,there is is just significant
damage that is is done to thesepeople because they recognize
the humanity of the individualthat they're killing. And so
what Grossman points out is theway that you get people to kill
is by you create distance. Andyou can do this in a lot of
different ways.
You can do this withsuperiority, like us versus

(17:27):
them, we're better. You you seethis a lot in the early 1900,
you know, the Eugenics Movement?How do we put a a man, Ota
Benga, in the Bronx Zoo? Do weput him on display? Because he's
not really human.
Right? He's he's black, he's anAborigine. And we can do that to
people who are like us. Youcreate superiority. You can also
create moral superiority.

(17:48):
You can have, God is on my side,not their side, and so I need to
kill them, or they're theydeserve to be killed. You can
create mechanical distance. So,if I shoot somebody through
thermal imaging, I I see kind ofthe the silhouette of a human,
but it doesn't it's not reallyhuman. Or, if you've ever played
Call of Duty and you're in theAC 130, you see the night vision

(18:12):
silhouettes of people. Or if youknow about drone operators, you
know, you just kinda see theseblobs and you just press a
button and It seems like you'replaying a video game.
You are, if you're playing Callof Duty, but you know what I
mean. It's like you're playing avideo game, and you're not
really killing people. So youcan kind of create mechanical
distance, which is what happenedwith our our bomber pilots, why

(18:33):
they don't have issues. Becausethey're not killing people,
they're bombing buildings. Thenyou could also create physical
distance, which is also kind ofanother aspect of the the bomber
pilots.
If you can't see people, ifthey're really far away, and
maybe you just see kind of likea blur, or if they're running,
if it's dark, then that physicaldistance makes you think that

(18:54):
you're not really a person. So,for for one human to kill
another, you really do need thisthis notion of distance. You
need to strip them of theirhumanity in some way. Because
our intuition is so strong, justdon't kill other people. But,
only 15 to 20 percent ofindividuals have historically

(19:15):
even shot in the generaldirection of the enemy, and a
good portion of thoseindividuals were not shooting to
kill.
I'll refer back to On Killing alittle bit later, but I I really
want to recommend that you takea look at that book. It's it's
fascinating from a psychologicalperspective, from a war
perspective, and it's also justit's interesting to hear the

(19:38):
anecdotes of people who'vekilled. And while it would be
easy for me to say, oh, no,they're justified. Their kill
was legitimate, and that wasfine. Even people who are in
those situations that everybodyelse can say is a legitimate
justified kill, oftentimesyou'll see them refer to it as
murder.
They themselves say that theymurdered people, or they will

(20:00):
use all of this, this languagethat tells you they're not
really okay with it, they'retrying to justify it. And
Grossman does a good job of ofpointing that out, how how
language can kind of betraypeople's true feelings. It's
just a really, really good book.So, what's the ultimate point
about our intuitions then? Well,Jesus doesn't only transform a

(20:22):
Christian's intuition.
I think Grossman and Marshallshow us that, that there really
is a remnant of the humanconscience that's retained.
This, this God given intuitionon taking life seems to be
retained in us, even if we don'tdeny that in our violence soaked
culture now. We know when we getinto the heat of battle, when we

(20:45):
get into an instance where wehave to pull the trigger on
somebody else, that that's justnot what you do. Now, maybe in
our culture that, that intuitionis going away, and Grossman does
a really good job of of pointingthat out, how we're being
desensitized. And it it's reallymade me think a bit more about
video games, because that's Ilove video games, and

(21:07):
particularly shooters.
And so, he talks about thatdesensitization and what the
army does and and how that'soccurring in our culture.
Though, I don't know that we'veretained that God given
intuition to the same extent,but, Grossman does a good job of
showing how historically we haveretained that. Alright.
Intuitions seem to be on theside of non violence, because

(21:30):
not only is non violence thiscounter intuition to this,
approval of violence which isself focused, and which has to
see another human being aslesser, and which is willing to
do harm and evil to another forone's own preservation. And not

(21:51):
only do we see this play out inin studies like Marshalls and
Grossman's, now I want to turnto the more empirical evidence
of the positive nature of hownon violence has influenced the
world.
Now, I have to highlight herethat I am absolutely not a
consequentialist, and I I reallyharp on consequentialism a lot,

(22:15):
and I hate it. I think it is itis probably the the thing in the
United States and the West, andmaybe in all of humanity, that
just undermines Christianvirtues. I think it's a huge
problem. The ends do not justifythe means. However, I also do
want to recognize that if Ibelieve in an orderly God, a God

(22:36):
who's who knows what He's doing,God who has intentionality and
purpose in His actions, then Iwould probably guess that what
God has us do tends to be theideal way to do things.
And, if you're doing somethingin the ideal manner, then
probably it's going to producethe best outcomes. Of course, in

(22:59):
a broken world, God's meansprobably tend to require the
foregoing of immediate results,and God's means probably are
also going to require prettygreat sacrifice. And, I think
you see that with non violence.And take a look at something
like the civil rights movement,and you have a lot of sacrifice

(23:19):
for a lot of years, but you seethat it's ultimately not the
civil war that really resolvesthings, but it's the nonviolent
movement that seeks reparationand love. Now, I don't want to
discount civil war at all, andthat that it it did nothing, and
I I really don't know how to howto weigh all of those factors

(23:43):
and and figure things out.
I don't know what would havehappened if we had somebody like
King without first having civilwar. I I just don't know. But, I
can probably give you a prettygood idea, empirically. So
research has gone a long wayinto proving that non violence
might not only work sometimes,but it might actually provide
the best chance at lastingtransformation. Those are some

(24:03):
keywords there.
Right? Lasting transformation.In a book slash long article
called Why Civil ResistanceWorks, the authors go through
tons and tons and tons ofviolent and nonviolent movements
over the past several decades.Probably, I I don't remember
exactly, but maybe 50, maybe a100 years. I don't remember.

(24:26):
But they show that over thattime period, nonviolent
movements are more than twice aslikely to have full success as
violent movement. And I believeit's like 70% to 40% success
rate, if you count partialsuccess as well. The lasting
transformation. So just abouttwice the the positive results

(24:49):
for non violence versusviolence. A couple things to
note, the authors obviouslyaren't looking at, you know,
individual examples of, like,home defense and such.
Instead, they they look atsociety wide movements, non
resistance movements versusversus violent movements. And we
could talk about scale and howthat influences the way the way

(25:11):
that actions are beneficial oror produce change. But,
nevertheless, point is, we canempirically show that non
violence is overall twice asgood as violent movements. And,
that's something I did notexpect to see. I never expected
to be able to empirically showthat non violence has even close

(25:35):
to the same effectiveness asviolence.
Because I grew up in the UnitedStates, where every July 4th we
celebrate the violent revoltagainst a government, because
that's how you change thingsthat are that aren't ideal for
you. If you wanna check out someother resources on this, from, I
think, back in the seventies oreighties, there's a guy named

(25:55):
Gene Sharp, and he has a book, Ibelieve, called Everyday
Rebellion. And he's got a seriesof books that deal with with non
violence and its effectivenessand, how it really deals with
power structures. It's veryinsightful. And I think Sharp's
book is particularly helpful forpeople who feel who think that

(26:15):
nonviolence is passivity and notdoing anything.
Sharp really does a good job ofshowing you how nonviolence
actually is still attackingpower structures, but in a
different way, and actually in amore meaningful way. Because,
rather than dealing withsymptoms, you deal with causes,
and rather than create more harmand more violence and more

(26:40):
enemies, you are working forrestoration and understanding.
Sharpe does it, I would say, ifyou read Why Civil Resistance
Works, and just see the evidencefor yourself, and then take a
look at Sharpe's book to try tofigure out why in the world is
this evidence socounterintuitive to the way that
I would have thought the worldworks. Of course, I would argue

(27:01):
that it's counterintuitivebecause it's God's way, and it's
self sacrificial. But, you know,take a look for yourself.
As kind of a part 2 to theempirical evidence, I want to
jump back into the On Killingbook and just throw in something
that I I thought was reallyinteresting. And this I kinda
questioned whether or not Iwanted to put this in here,
because I I don't know that itit necessarily proves much about

(27:26):
non violence. But, since this isa cumulative case that I I'm
trying to make, I thought itmight just be an added an added
straw that might eventuallybreak the camel's back for you.
So, Grossman talks a little bitabout how in World War 2, we had
this this bombing campaign onboth sides, the Axis and the

(27:47):
Allies. And people wereimplementing bombing of
civilians, bombing of cities.
And, you know, they said therewere some military targets
around, but we know that that'snot really what was going on.
And especially from our side, 22 nuclear bombs and then all the
fire bombings that we did, wedefinitely were were aiming for
civilians. And we pummeled someof these places. And I know

(28:10):
London and and some other placeswere also pummeled by the Axis.
But part of the reason that wepummeled civilian locations was
because we wanted to disheartenthem, we wanted to discourage
them.
And, literally, according toGrossman here, we wanted to
drive them insane. Because inWorld War I, there was this huge
problem of shell shock andpeople coming from the front

(28:32):
lines who were just goinginsane. Insanity and psychoses
abounded in World War I. And wewanted to do that to the
civilian populations of ourenemies, and they wanted to do
that to us. Because if yourcivilian population can't make
ammo, then you're not going tobe able to shoot at us.
So we bombed and bombed andbombed, and we and we we used

(28:54):
all kinds of bombings, and theworst was was, the fire bombings
and, we'll get to that a bitlater. But what was really
interesting about this is thatresearchers after the war
discovered that civilians hadmaybe only a slightly increased
risk of psychosis as before. Somental disorders that you might

(29:19):
expect to occur from from thesestressors were really only
slightly increased in civilianpopulations that had experienced
this continuous bombing. And itwas also interesting, because
other groups of individuals thatyou would expect would have a
higher, risk for mental mentalproblems, like, POWs and medics.

(29:44):
Medics who often are not reallyfiring at the enemy, but have
this huge burden of trying tosave lives and running across
the battlefield up to the frontwhere people have gotten shot
and, just this this insaneresponsibility and
vulnerability.
You'd expect there to be issuesin in those groups of people.

(30:04):
But, there's really nostatistically significant
increase in those groupscompared to the the normal
soldier. And, Grossman arguesthat the combat soldiers, the
only thing different between thecombat soldiers who are
experiencing the horrors ofwars, and the medics, and POWs,

(30:24):
and the the civilians beingbombarded, the only difference
is that for the combat soldier,they had this added weight on
them where they would thisweight that they have killed
other people, or that they werewilling to kill other people and
they were in a position to bekilling. And they they had to be
thinking about that and andviewing other people as as

(30:45):
inhuman. So the thing that upsyour chance for psychosis is not
necessarily the trauma youexperience.
So trauma is is certainly a apart of but what seems to be the
factor that skyrockets psychosisis being put in a position where
you have to face the choice tokill. And, Grossman also

(31:09):
mentions where where you feelthis animosity of other people
who are viewing you as asinhuman and trying to
specifically kill you too. So,empirically, it seems like this
this notion of killing, evenjustified killing, right, you're
you're killing your government,there you go, Romans 13, you're
killing in a justified fashion,these other people who are

(31:31):
trying to kill you, fighting theAxis powers, you're fighting
countries who've invaded othercountries and oppressed people.
So, you, even in in thissituation, the factor that
increases your chance forpsychosis is being put in a
position to view other humans asnot human, so you can kill them.
Obviously, I've simplifiedGrossman's argument and and

(31:55):
evidence significantly here.
Highly recommend you you checkout the book On Killing. And,
interestingly, Grossman is not aChristian as far as I can tell.
In fact, I would I would say heprobably isn't, because his
whole goal in all of this youknow, he starts off by by
talking about, like, our primalinstincts and how it's it's

(32:16):
great that we we don't have thisdesire to kill other people.
It's great that we have thisaversion to kill other people
because the human race wouldn'tsurvive, and he talks about the
evolution of this, and then hetalks about all of that. Yet,
his goal is to help the armyfigure out how to get people to
more effectively kill whilesupporting them so that they

(32:40):
have less of a chance for mentalissues coming out.
His his goal is not at all tostop the killing, because he
thinks that killing needs to bedone. His goal in this book is
to get people, and in his mind,hopefully the right people,
right, the United States wagingjust wars, in his mind. His goal
is to get other people to kill.Do it healthfully healthfully.

(33:03):
So Grossman is definitely not onmy side when it comes to non
violence, but I find that thatwhat he discovers, what he
uncovers in his research, reallyhelps a lot with the empirical
aspect of Christian nonviolence, as well as the
intuitive aspect.
So Christian non violence saysthat the ends are not what
justify the means, and Christtaught us what means we're

(33:24):
supposed to use. While we wouldexpect God's means to work
better overall, which evidenceseems to indicate is true, our
goal is faithfulness and notresults. Morality is found in
always loving, which includesloving our enemies. Let's take a
look at our our final aspecthere, which is gonna be internal
coherence. And, in this episode,I really just want to look at

(33:48):
the internal coherence of theopposite of nonviolence, which
I'm gonna just call the just wartheory here.
And, the reason I want to take alook at the opposite before
taking a look at the coherenceof non violence is because I
think it's gonna help to createa vacuum and, as well as kind of
a foil to compare the coherenceof non violence to. Because when

(34:11):
I, when I talk about nonviolence, there are gonna be all
kinds of questions that thatcome up, and, oh, well, what
about this? Or, well, no, Ithink that, you know, it would
be just to to kill in thatsituation. But I I want to kind
of create this dissonance foryou here, where you recognize
that we need a coherent theoryof non violence because the

(34:32):
theory of a just war isincoherent. There's there's a
huge hole here, and I want tocreate the hole for you in this
episode, and in the nextepisode, try to fill it with
what non violence looks like inreal life, and and how that's
coherent.
So let's talk about just war,the just war tradition. What

(34:52):
exactly is a just war? Well,there seem to be 6 pretty agreed
upon aspects of of what a justwar entails. One of those is
pretty new, and I'll save thatone for last. But the first five
have have been around for mostof the time.
So, the first one is, there hasto be a legitimate authority.

(35:14):
And really, without a legitimateauthority, pretty much
everything else breaks down,because the having the authority
to kill is, is this umbrellajustification needed for all of
the other ones. And someChristians try to argue that,
you know, you have the authorityin your own home to kill an

(35:36):
intruder. And they try to argueall these of the these aspects
of authority, but really, atleast from the New Testament,
the only legitimate authoritythat seems to be given the sword
is gonna be Romans 13, whichshows us the government. The
government has the right to bearthe sword.
We will talk a lot more aboutRomans 13 in its own episode.

(35:57):
Some people are gonna extendthat and say, well, if the
government tells me I can shootan intruder in my home, then I'm
an arm of the government. Youget into all kinds of arguments
like that, but just know thatwithout a legitimate authority,
you don't have just war. You canargue about what a legitimate
authority is, but you need it.2nd aspect is a just cause.
So, what is a just cause? That'sa great question. But,

(36:19):
generally, just cause is isviewed as something where you
are protecting the lives of yourown people, and that can be
preemptive or retaliatory to acertain extent, where you're
just retaliating to prevent thatfuture attack, which would be
likely if you don't retaliate.While we could argue all day

(36:40):
long about what a just causewould be, people are always
gonna find ways to to justifydoing something that they want
to do. My biggest issue withthis idea of just cause is its
inconsistent application.
Let me give you an example. Wego into, let's say, Iraq evades,

(37:00):
invades Kuwait, and we decide togo over there and intervene.
Should Iraq have invade invaded?Were they killing people? Were
they were they doing things thatthey they shouldn't have that
were immoral and and terrible?
Probably. I I don't really knowthat much history about it. And
we intervened. Okay. So we wantto say that that's a just cause.

(37:21):
Great. Alright. There's there'sa good standard for you. You
have a country that's invadinganother country, and that is is
killing innocent people. Good.
Well, now we end up having theseother countries, like, let's
say, Rwanda or, you know,generally you see these in in
Africa, let's say the Congo,whatever. You have these other

(37:43):
countries where you've got thesegenocides and these terrible,
horrendous atrocities occurring,probably Myanmar, North Korea,
wherever else. But, you know,let's stick with the with the
African countries, which don'thave much recourse. They can't
nuke us, theoretically nuke usback. So you can't argue that,

(38:03):
we're just not invading them,for our for our own well-being.
Let's take an African countrylike Rwanda. You have a terrible
atrocity going on there, and youdon't do anything about it. Why?
Why why with Iraq, and why notwith Rwanda? Because if Iraq was
a just cause, surely, surelysome of these other countries
where you have genocides andatrocities going on would be

(38:27):
places where we should getinvolved.
So, why Iraq and not these otherAfrican countries? Well, because
there's some interest that wehave in Iraq, that we don't have
some of these other countries.And, that's probably my biggest
issue with with just cause. Ifwe wanna say that there's a just
cause, that if there issomething that warrants us going

(38:47):
in to protect other people forthe moral good, and we apply
that only out of self interestwhen we can get oil money or,
some political clout orsomething out of it, we justify
it in that manner, then werefuse to assist in in areas
where all we're doing, helpingother people not to die and be

(39:08):
slaughtered, and we don't reallyget anything out of it, then
that seems like an immoralapplication of the just cause.
So, I'm off for just wartheorists wanting to talk about
just cause, but then show me howin the world you're you're
consistently applying that.
And I I haven't seen that yet.Ultimately, that's because it
seems to me like just war theoryis often a cover for, national

(39:35):
prosperity and self interest, asopposed to doing the moral good.
3rd aspect of just war would beproportionality. So, if a, let's
say a Russian fighter, whichthey have a tendency to kind of
do stupid things sometimes, youknow, accidentally runs into one

(39:55):
of our planes and kills our guy.It might be disproportionate if
we go ahead and and bomb one oftheir cities and kill lots of
people.
That might not be proportional.So, proportionality just says
that we're not gonna we're notgonna go overboard with
retaliation or with ourpreemptive strikes. We're not

(40:16):
gonna do more than we need todo. 3rd one would be civilian
and non combatant safety. We donot want to shoot people, or
kill people, harm people who arenon combatants, and that one is
probably one of the most agreedon and uncontroversial.
4th aspect is reasonablesuccess. There has to be a
chance of success for me toengage the enemy, for me to

(40:39):
declare war. And that's becauseif I throw all of our troops at
an enemy, knowing that they'reall gonna die, and we're not
gonna accomplish the moral good,and the evil person is going to
win and implement their theirevil agenda anyway, then I might
as well lessen the evil done bylimiting the amount of deaths

(41:00):
and choosing not to go to war,but to just surrender. So there
has to be reasonable success forme to choose to engage in
violence. And finally, the newone, the the newer one, this
idea of just peace.
And just peace is one that says,if we're gonna fight a war, if
we're truly concerned aboutmorality and justice, and we

(41:22):
want to make things right, andwe don't want to see future wars
so take World War I, forexample, leads to World War II
because of all the, thefracturing, and, and the
terrible conditions we gave tothe losers. We need to help in
rebuilding and restructuring,and we need to come alongside of
the defeated, even though theywere our enemies. And I think

(41:45):
that's a fantastic one, and Ithink it's a step in the right
direction for the just warposition. And, yeah, that's,
that's the newest one. Somethingwe've only kind of come to terms
with recently.
Okay. So knowing all of thoseaspects of what it means to to
have a just war, and we can wecan probably apply those to just

(42:06):
violence as well. Right? We canwe can talk about the intruder
coming into your home, orwhatever. If we take these ideas
that you have to have thislegitimate authority, there's
proportionality, just cause,etcetera, let's, let's evaluate
that.
So I've got some questions forthis position. And, the first

(42:27):
question would be, what exampleof a just war can you give that
comes even close, even closebeing just? And, I'm I'm sure
some history nerd can give mesome war that maybe is kind of
close, but I'm, I really don'tthink you, you can. Probably
not. And, and if you can, youprobably can't give me 2.

(42:49):
Let's, let's take the one thateverybody thinks is really this
just the epitome of a just war,and that's World War 2. And, I
think it was one of the worst,worst wars ever. And, why is
that? Well, Just Cause for theUnited we'll speak from the
United States perspective here.So, Just Cause for the United
States.
Did we have it? What was ourreason for joining the war?

(43:13):
Well, it wasn't to free Jews orpolitical prisoners. We didn't
really know that that all ofthat terrible stuff was going on
until we liberated people in,like, 45. We didn't we didn't
really know what was going on.
So, we didn't join the war tosave the Jews. We didn't join
the war to help Europe, becausethe war was going on since, I

(43:35):
believe, 39, and we only joineda couple years later. Oh no, we
didn't, we didn't join to helpEurope. We joined to retaliate.
And I think you see this thisfairly clearly.
Right, right when World War 2starts for us, one of the first
things we do is, I think it wascalled the Doolittle Raid, where

(43:56):
we just went and we kinda didthis, this symbolic bombing. It
wasn't like anything superdestructive to the Japanese, but
we symbolically like, bombedthem and and got close to them
so that they they knew that wewere serious and and we could we
could reach them. We joined thewar because we wanted to
retaliate. We didn't need tojoin it for our protection. We

(44:18):
would have joined it beforePearl Harbor.
The Japanese sunk a couple ofour boats, but all we would have
had to do is build up our fleetand protect our coasts. We
there's no way we were gonna getinvaded. We just had it would
have been absurd for anybody toattack us had we built,
especially had we built up ourdefenses. We did not need to

(44:39):
attack anybody, but we didbecause we wanted to retaliate.
Now, maybe you disagree withthat, and that's fine, because
that's not even what I'm gonnahang my hat on here.
We're gonna get to one later,which I I think is so appalling
that it just it just, it wouldmake you throw this war out as
just in and of itself. Justauthority. Yeah, sure. The

(44:59):
United States, we the governmentapproved it. Just authority.
Reasonable success? Reasonable.Yeah. You know, the UK was about
to fall had we not gotteninvolved, most likely, and
pretty much all of mainlandEurope was was fallen. So
success was was certainlytenuous, but it was probably

(45:21):
reasonable, I would say.
Proportionality? Not at all. Noway. And I'm gonna lump
proportionality and and civiliansafety in because the 2 kind of
go hand in hand. And I'll useI'll use 2 two lines of
reasoning for why theproportionality was was
atrocious.
The first one is the atomicbomb. How in the world is that

(45:45):
proportional to to what has beendone? Now, a lot of people like
to argue that we we killed a150,000 people to save a 1000000
American lives, and that'sthat's certainly proportional.
They killed a 100, that 150,000citizens. I mean, you can, you
can give an analogy of, now, canI, can I execute 1 innocent

(46:06):
person to save 10 people'slives?
Like, execute them? Put a gun tothe back of their head, blow
their brains out, so that I cansave 10 people's lives? No. Not
at all. But for some reason,when we use an atomic bomb, kill
a 150,000 people, incineratethem, and and create lifelong
damage for so many others,that's justified?

(46:28):
No way. No way. Not only is itnot proportional to what has
been done to you, but it's alsodoing that to civilians. So,
I've got problems with that.But, but even more than that,
and what most people don't know,sadly, that the atomic bomb
wasn't really that bad incomparison to to the other
bombings.
The Tokyo firebombings killedover 200,000 people. And, 2

(46:51):
bombings, 2 a bombs killed, youknow, a 120,000, 150, whatever.
The the firebombing of Tokyo,twice, 2 firebombings, killed
over 200,000 people. And Tokyois not the only place we bombed
like that. We bombed other otherplaces whether with fire bombs
or or other types of bombs.
We bombed civilian locations.Hamburg, 3,000 people. Dresden,

(47:14):
I believe, was was anotherlocation. I mean, we just we
just slaughtered civilians. Andfire bombs were were
particularly terrible becausethey were purposefully created
to be viciously evil.
And, Grossman, in his book, OnKilling, goes into this, but
they would have these small,like, 5 pound bombs that were

(47:34):
incendiaries that were meant tostart fires on roofs. They'd
have a little bit heavier bombsthat were meant to to cave in
cave in, ceilings and walls,blow out windows to to feed the
fire with oxygen, and we'd havethese larger bombs that were
meant to create huge potholes onthe road so that fire trucks
couldn't get to it. And, whatyou do is you create just this

(47:57):
this firestorm that woulddemolish everything in its path,
create hurricane force winds,suck things into it because of
the the vortex that it wouldcreate. And, even if you're in a
bomb shelter, it's gonna getdown to you. Heat will just melt
you, and, you'll be deprived ofoxygen.
You're you're just gonna die.And that's what we did to 100 of

(48:19):
1000 people with firebombs, andwith with other types of
bombing, millions of people.World War 2, I I believe the
figure is something like 2thirds of the people who died
were civilians. I mean, tens ofmillions, tens of tens of
millions of people of civilianswere murdered by by our army on

(48:41):
purpose. So, no, proportionalityand civilian safety were not at
all reasonable in World War 2.
We executed innocent people inorder to save other people's
lives. We're not talking aboutcollateral damage, we're talking
about we executed them. But, youknow, the good thing is, just
peace afterwards, we helped themrebuild and, you know, at least

(49:02):
we we got that aspect of thejust war right. So, in my book,
we get 3 out of 4 for the justwar of World War 2, as the
United States anyway. Maybe ifyou wanna go with Just Cause and
say that what we did wasn'tretaliation and we really had to
do it to save lives and, to saveour lives, okay.
It's fine. I still gotproportionality against civilian

(49:24):
safety, which the a bomb andfire bombs alone, I think, just
demolish the the notion thatWorld War 2 was a just cause for
the United States. It is inretrospect if you count the
Jews, maybe. Maybe. But still interms of number of lives and how
many civilians we executed, Idon't know.

(49:45):
K. Let's take, another war. Whatabout the revolutionary war?
America's favorite war. Becausewithout that war, we wouldn't
have the United States.
This one would be problematichere. Number 1, just authority.
Nope. Have that one. Don't havethe umbrella umbrella,
justification.
Because we weren't a governmentyet. We're under another ruling

(50:06):
government. So there's nolegitimate authority. Just
Cause, we didn't wanna paytaxes. Felt like we should have
a stronger voice in certainpolitical realms.
Philly? We're gonna kill peopleand and have a rebellion because
of taxes and representation. Andwhat strikes me as as

(50:26):
particularly ironic about thisis I hear a lot of people
reminder, I run-in conservativecircles. A lot of people talk
about how ridiculous, like,let's say, the Black Lives
Matter movement or just theother racial sorts of things.
Like, you know, civil rights,that was was 40 years ago.
Slavery, that was a 150 yearsago. Let's just get over it and

(50:48):
let I mean, that let the past bethe past. But what the what the
black community in particular iscomplaining about is that they
don't have fair representationin the court systems, criminal
justice system, politics. Theydon't have fair and equal
legitimate representation. Yet,when you see somebody like
Malcolm X in retrospect,especially back in the sixties,

(51:11):
when they really didn't haverepresentation.
There really wasn't equality.You have somebody like Malcolm x
who wants to do violence. Not arevolutionary. He's a terrorist.
Well, what do you think thecolonials the colonialists were
who were trying to rebel againstEngland, if not terrorists, and
for far less reasonable issues?
Taxes and representation?Malcolm x and and other people

(51:33):
in the sixties and and aroundthat era were were trying to
push back against segregation,inequality, maltreatment,
lynchings, all those sorts ofthings. And even today, what
what certain movements, youknow, whether whether you agree
with the Black Lives Movement,with every aspect of it or not,
at least part of what they'retrying to voice is this idea

(51:54):
that that there is unfairness inthe system. And many people,
black community, are trying todo that in a non violent way and
are getting called babies andtold to stop whining. Yet, every
July 4th, we celebrate thatpeople used violence to get out
of taxes, get betterrepresentation.
So Just Cause? No. We're o for2. Proportionality? We're trying

(52:16):
to take a little bit of yourmoney and not listening to your
voice all that much and killthem?
Okay. I guess, you know, maybethe the first shots fired were
were at us, but if if you takethe police shootings of today
and say, well, you wereresisting authority. What did
you expect to happen to you?There you go. Menelists who were
rebelling against thegovernment, you got shot because

(52:36):
you existing.
Expect. So, no. Proportionality.A just authority. A legitimate
authority trying to get us tostand down.
We as not a legitimate authoritywithout a just cause acted
disproportionately. Reasonablesuccess for the colonists? No.
Not even close. Obviously, therewas success, so it was possible

(52:57):
success.
But it wasn't reasonable. No waywas it reasonable. Nobody
expected doing that. Civiliansafety? I don't really know how
you count that.
Probably, because they foughtout in fields and stuff. Sure.
And then Just Peace. I don'tknow how to count that one
either. So, I'll give you thoselast 2, civilian safety and Just
Peace.
The other 4 horrendously,horrendously, off base in terms

(53:19):
of Just War. Rationalization.Just doesn't work. So what
example of just war can you giveme? I can't think of any.
And the 2 that we celebrate themost in the United States are
possibly 2 of the worst. MaybeWorld War 2 isn't as bad as it
seems like it is, but when youlook at the a bomb and fire
bombs, it's it's pretty bad.Okay. Question number 2. If

(53:40):
civilian safety is one of thethings that we're we're focused
on here in a just war, but ifwar in politics always creates
collateral harm and harmsindiscriminately, how does that
work out?
So who is a combatant? Is is thefarmer who produces food the
army buys? Is the farmer acombatant? Is the chip maker

(54:00):
makes chips for a Tomahawkcruise missile? Is he a
combatant or she a combatant?
What about the plastics makerwho provides the plastics or the
chipmaker who makes the chip forthe Tomahawk cruise missile? And
you can go down the line. Right?Well, the problem is, if those
individuals aren't combatants,then in in most wars, we have

(54:21):
blockades and sanctions. How doyou deal with that?
I know in World War 1, there wasa a blockade, particular
blockade that just devastatedGermany and caused starvation
and just horror there. How doyou how do you justify a
blockade? Because that actionactively causes the death of
many, many civilians, refusingto let them have food. And you

(54:43):
can talk about your right totrade with people in terms of
sanctions, but in terms ofblockades, I yeah. I just don't
know how you how you get pastthat, the fact that you are are
killing 1,000,000,000,000,1,000,000,000, indiscriminately
causing the deaths of people onpurpose.
How do you deal with that injust war? Alright. Here's an
interesting one. Question number3. In a nuclear age, how is it

(55:05):
possible to fight any war?
Because fight a just war can'thave reasonable success. Going
to refuse the nuclear option.Let me explain. Let's say you're
the United States. You are ajust war theorist, and you are
elected president.
We have all these nuclearweapons. Russia, more volatile.
Now, all of a sudden, we're atwar with Russia. Well, as a just

(55:27):
war person, you cannot go into awar and use nuclear weapons.
Now, maybe you could if you,like, bombed certain parts of
Siberia, like a militaryinstallation or something.
But you're you're not gonna bombMoscow with a nuclear weapon
because you're gonna kill tonsand tons of civilians
indiscriminately. You can't havethat because then it's no longer
a just war. That's immoral. Butat the same time, Russia has

(55:50):
nuclear weapons. And they're notjust war theorists.
They're focused on themselves,and they have no problem their
weapons on you. Particularly,they know that you won't use
nuclear weapons back. They said,wait a second. We're in this
war. I have nuclear weapons.
You don't. I'll use the nuclearweapons. And if you're not gonna
retaliate, get destroyed, and Idon't. It's there to lose for

(56:11):
Russia. So if they have nuclearweapons, you can't use yours.
And by not using yours, they canjust threaten to use theirs, and
you can no longer win. So youhave to choose which aspect of
the just war theory you want tocompromise on, and you're gonna
be immoral, one way or another.So in the nuclear era, it's just

(56:32):
impossible to fight a just warbetween 2 nuclear nations.
Alright. 4th question.
Kind of moving a little bit awayfrom from war a little bit, but
how how is torture not just justwar theory? And now, I I can't
prove that torture is wrong. AndI'm sure there are a lot of
people listening to this whowould say, well, of course,
torture is okay. I think a lotof Christians, even even

(56:54):
conservative ones who might beokay with just war, I think you
have this intuition thattorturing people is just wrong.
And you might be okay withAmericans torturing people, but
when you see other people doingit, you know it's wrong.
And you just need to have theconsistency to apply that to
your your own group, if you havethat intuition about other
groups. But most of us know thatit's wrong, intuitively, or a

(57:14):
lot of us, I should say. But injust war theory, if you're gonna
go with with those, 6 criteria,how is torture not just? If
you're an arm of the government,say you're in the army or FBI or
something. Right?
You have legitimate authority.Say you have a a just cause. You
found this terrorist, planting abomb. Know that there are other

(57:35):
bombs being planted. You don'tknow where.
You need information from him.So there's just cause to try to
prevent deaths of thousands ofpeople. There's proportionality.
Torture him, the terrorist, inorder to gain information to
save thousands of lives.Person's physical harm to save
thousands of lives seems prettyproportional.

(57:56):
And he's not an innocent person,so you're not harming an
innocent person to save a 1000lives. Civilian safety? Yeah.
That's what you're shooting for.You're not harming civilians.
You're only harming a combatant.Reasonable success? Just let
them sit there. Nothing's gonnahappen. There's no success.
If, you know, you're kind of onthe clock, now it might be great
to try to build a relationshipwith them. That might be more

(58:17):
effective in the long run,research shows. But if you maybe
got an hour, you might not havethe time to do that. Go hardcore
pretty quickly, get someinformation. So reasonable
success?
Yeah. More reasonable to torturethan to just sit there and try
to build a relationship. Andjust peace. Yeah. Definitely
just peace.
Because if you let the guy live,you torture him. Afterwards,
you're gonna have theopportunity to help try to

(58:40):
rehabilitate him. That might beridiculous. He might not ever
wanna do that, but certainlycan't do it if he's dead. So if
you're able to, you're able toonly torture him, so he
survives.
Bomb ends up not going off, sohe doesn't kill people. And
maybe he doesn't get theelectric chair or, life in
prison. Might have this chanceto build a relationship and and

(59:01):
debilitate, and he may, at somepoint, be able to come back into
society. I don't know. Butthere's more of a chance of that
than if the bombs go off.
But really, torture on just wartheory, rationalize that really
easily. I mean, it can fit allsix criteria. But to me, torture
is so intuitively wrong, I justI just really can't see that as

(59:21):
as being something that, that'son the table. So, again, not not
necessarily a proof, but more ofa a question I'd pose and have
people seriously consider.Alright.
5th question. How has themarriage of the church and state
worked out for Christianity overthe past, 1500 years? Since,
let's say, ConstantineAugustine, through medieval

(59:42):
Europe to today where somepeople might consider the United
States a Christian nation. Butbut not even close to what it
was in in Europe where the thechurch and state were were
really married. How's thatworked out?
I can tell you anecdotally thata lot of atheists I run into
know personally. They've gotsome significant problems, and
and one of the top problems theytend to have with how the church

(01:00:05):
has used violence throughout theages. For a church church who
has proclaimed just war and thentried to implement that, again,
I just don't know where you seeexamples of just wars and when
the state tries to wield thesword in a manner that's
Christian. Never does. Alwaysends up bad for the Christians.

(01:00:25):
In hindsight, you see the thehorrors of of what Christian
Europe did. And, two resources Iwould really recommend on this.
Anatomy of a Hybrid goes into alot of a lot of how the state
and church have been married andthe problems that that's had.
And then Dan Carlin, it'shardcore history. He has a a
good episode on torture.

(01:00:46):
And it's it goes into thingsthat they were doing Christian
Europe time. And those two booksare gonna give you some some
insight into what the state doeswith the sword, the churches
behind them, rationalizingthings, acting as if there's
such a thing as a just war, orjust violence. Question number
6. What action can cause aperson to lose their right to

(01:01:08):
life? What gives you the rightto be the taker?
See that a lot in in Grossman'sbook where many soldiers really
struggle with with the fact thatthey've taken life. Even if we
might look at it and say, well,no. You were justified. They
just recognize that they don'thave that right, that that
something is wrong with thetaking of life even in those
circumstances which may beviewed by the outside as

(01:01:30):
justified. You know, if webelieve that human beings are
image bearers of God, it reallybegs the question, at at what
point does somebody stop beingthe image bearer of God that
allows us to to take their life?
Last question. Is it reallypossible to kill your enemy in
love? Because we know clearlythat we're supposed to love our
enemies, but really do violenceto your enemy love? I'm I'm just

(01:01:51):
not sure how how it's possibleto fulfill the command of Christ
while you're killing somebody,doing violence, or torturing
them. In summary, I think thejust war falls short on many,
many premises, probably startingwith the first one, just a,
legitimate authority.
Even given legitimate authorityand and giving violent view of

(01:02:11):
Romans 13, how government canbear the sword, even given that,
other justifications just fallapart, any war that I can think
of. On the individual level,lack of love for enemies and and
empirical evidence of hownonviolence works and anecdotes
of the soldiers and and theempirical evidence in and
studies of people's intuitionsand what's happened in war, I

(01:02:33):
just I can't see how a just wartheory can lead up to scrutiny.
It's it just falls apart. AndStanley Herawas wrote a a good
article about this where hebrings into question whether
just war theory is coherent. Andit was great because what he
essentially says is that, look,everybody looks at pacifists and

(01:02:54):
and people who adhere tononviolence, and they always
say, you guys are idealists.
Nonviolence is just thisidealist pie in the sky notion
that can't happen and it doesn'twork. First of all, we we see
that it does work. We see thatempirically. But, secondly, what
makes you think that the justwar theory works? You might
think that nonviolence isidealistic, and and admittedly,

(01:03:17):
it does seem that way on thesurface.
Just love your enemies. Right?But when you really dig into the
just war theory, you recognizethat just war theory is
infinitely more problematic. Itdoesn't hold up to the scrutiny
of intuition. It doesn't hold upto the scrutiny of empiricism.
And when you take a look at itscriteria for being just and for

(01:03:37):
upholding morality, it justisn't ever done, and in some
cases, it just can't be done. Soin my book, just war theory is
incoherent. It it leaves thisgaping hole. Doesn't work.
Doesn't make sense.
We need a better explanation.That explanation is non
violence, and I'm going to giveyou some examples of what it

(01:03:58):
looks like in the next episode.So peace is my pacifist. When I
say it, I mean it. It.

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(4) S1E4 The Case for Christian Nonviolence: Logic and Intuition

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