September 6, 2019 • 28 mins
- A huge thanks to Joseph McDade for his generous permission to use his music: https://josephmcdade.com/
- Discord Discussion Board: https://disboard.org/server/474580298630430751
- Phillip Mast
- patrick H
- Laverne Miller
- Jesse Killion
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Derek (00:00):
Year is 1945. You and your neighbors have been seeing
smoke come up from thesmokestacks of the concentration
camp right next to your villagefor years now. You've seen your
Jewish neighbors disappear.You've smelled the stench of the
smoke. You hear the whispers ofthe guards who come into town
for drinks every now and then.
(00:21):
You know what's going on there,but the war is being lost. And
as the allies push forward andbegin to liberate, you see the
German army flee theconcentration camp. You and a
neighbor, a neighbor who is alsoa Jewish Jewish sympathizer, you
go up to the camp as the guardsare starting to leave. When you
(00:42):
get there, you look around for abit, and eventually you see this
lone guard forcing people into agas chamber. You see a gun on
the ground, a gun one of the thefleeing guards must have dropped
as he was running away, and youpick it up.
You look down the sights, butyou just can't shoot. Your
friend quickly takes the gunfrom you and quickly kills the
(01:04):
guard before the guard can flipthe switch to exterminate all
those who are in the gaschamber. You're disappointed in
yourself that you couldn't pullthe trigger, and you're happy
that your friend could. Manylives were saved that day.
Alright.
So if if we address the moralityof that situation right there,
what was good and what was bad?Was it good that somebody killed
(01:28):
the guard and saved a lot oflives? Was it bad that the other
neighbor didn't shoot? Like, washe wrong for not killing the
German guard? Should he havebeen braver and more courageous
to do the right thing to killthe guard to save lives?
Or would the right thing to dohave been to not kill at all? If
(01:52):
you want to take a look at thatquestion today, we will
definitely come back to thisstory. But, for now, welcome
back to the 4th Way podcast, aswe continue to take a look at
rebuttals to non violence. Inthis episode, we are going to
look at the principle of what itmeans to do good. As James says,
(02:14):
if we know to do good and don'tdo it, then it's a sin.
You know, a lot of times peoplefocus on doing wrong actions. If
you lie, that's a sin. If youmurder, that's a sin. Doing
wrong things are sins. ButJames, as well as lots of other
books, Micah, Job, I mean, youname it, talk about this idea of
(02:35):
positive justice, that good andright isn't just the avoidance
of doing bad things, but it'salso the doing of good things.
As it pertains to non violence,the argument goes somewhat like
this. If we see someone indanger who we are able to help,
then we are sinning if we don'thelp. I think perhaps Saint
(02:59):
Cyril can help us to see thisexample a little bit more
clearly as he deals with somepeople who are coming to him and
asking him about the morality ofjoining the army. Now keep in
mind, we already talked aboutthe early church and what they
thought about joining the thearmy and doing violence. And as
you'll be able to tell from thisquote, Cyril comes a bit later
(03:23):
in the story, and so he was, inmy opinion, socialized by by his
environment.
But anyway, Cyril responded tothese these individuals and he
said, If 2 commandments werewritten in 1 law and given to
men for fulfilling, which manwould be a better follower of
(03:43):
the Law, the one who fulfilledone commandment or the one who
fulfilled both? Well, of course,the individuals who responded to
Cyril said, well, the person whofills fulfills both is obviously
better. So Cyril continued,Christ our God commands us to
pray to God for those whopersecute us and even do good to
(04:05):
them. But he also said to us,greater love hath no man than
this, that a man lay down hislife for his friends. That is
why we bear the insults that ourenemies cast at us individually
and why we pray to god for them.
However, as a society we defendone another and lay down our
lives so that the enemy wouldnot enslave our brethren, would
(04:26):
not enslave their souls withtheir bodies, and would not
destroy them in both body andsoul. So what is Saint Cyril
exactly saying? He's saying thatwe are supposed to love our
enemies, but we're also supposedto help our friends. And so if
our enemies are torturing or orseeking the harm of our friends,
(04:49):
then I can still pray for myenemies and have goodwill
towards them, but that can'tnegate me doing something
tangibly to help my friends, tosave them. So that means I'll
pray for my enemies and killthem to prevent them from
harming my friends.
In Cyril's mind, he isaccomplishing 2 goods. He is
(05:12):
loving enemies, and he ishelping friends, he's loving
friends. Now I have to admitthat when I first saw Cyril's
argument it kind of threw meback because I think anytime you
see a a ancient church fatherquote, it's kind of
intimidating. And it soundedreally smart, like, the way that
(05:32):
it was set up. But as I thoughtabout it, I've recognized that
that this, I think, is probablyone of the weakest arguments
that that I see against nonviolence, even though on the
surface it seems like like itshould be pretty strong.
So I'm gonna go through a numberof, instances or examples of why
(05:54):
I think there are problems here.And definitely stick around for
the end because we are gonnacome back to that Nazi story we
talked about. And there is also,another point that I think is is
very important that you don'tmiss. Anyway, start off simply.
First question to Cyril, is itis it really possible to fulfill
(06:16):
both of those commandments, tolove our enemy, by killing them?
Like, is it really possible tohave that love in your heart as
you're pulling the triggeragainst them? I mean, maybe it
is. Is that really thinking ofof their interests as well, of
seeking reconciliation andrestoration and, you know,
whatever, forgiveness, whateverelse. Like, it just it doesn't
(06:40):
seem like you are actually doinggood to your enemy, which Cyril
does say. He doesn't just say,pray for them, but he says, and
do good to them.
That's God's command. Yeah, itdoesn't seem like that happens
there. 2nd, is it, is it reallyloving to your friend for you to
take on the the action ofviolence and depict a kingdom in
(07:03):
which image bearers can beobjectified and killed? I mean,
part of what we are to do asChristians is to live out the
kingdom, partly because that'sgoing to conform us to the image
of Christ, but also partlybecause that is a display to the
world that we don't rely on itspower, and that they too can be
(07:25):
free in Christ. And so part ofour part of our action and
refusal to do wrong and our ourdesire to be holy to have
holiness is that we want todepict the kingdom so that
others are compelled into thatkingdom.
And, you know, my wife and Ihave talked about this sort of
(07:46):
thing before. I think a lot ofconservative Christians have
have talked about this becausewe have a persecution complex.
But, you know, you talk about ifyou know, my wife and I would
say, well, if if I'm everpersecuted or if I'm ever being
tortured, and they say, I'mgonna keep torturing your wife
(08:06):
until, until you renounce Jesus.She said, you know, in the
moment, I might tell you to, butI'm telling you now, don't do
it. Right?
It's this it's this idea that,you know, love isn't just a
willingness to save somebody'slife. There's something there's
(08:27):
something deeper in love thanbeing concerned about the
preservation of our physicallives. I mean, that's certainly
an important part. But if that'sreally your primary goal, then
that's not that's just not whatwe see biblically. And you can
look at martyrs as as just agreat example of that, and
(08:49):
persecution.
It's just this this idea thatwait. So you're telling me that
I should die instead of renounceJesus? Well, yeah. Because some
things are more important thanyour life. Your allegiance is
more important than your life.
And if allegiance is moreimportant than my life, then
allegiance is more importantthan other people's lives too.
(09:13):
Because in that allegiance,you're able to depict something
that is is more compelling andmore loving and worthwhile than
to be pragmatic in the moment.I'm sure that's not gonna be
compelling for a lot of a lot ofpeople who are into violence,
but, nevertheless, we'll leaveit at that. I'll get into some
things that will be morecompelling. 3rd, Cyril assumes,
(09:38):
like so many people do, thatnonviolence is passive.
He kind of he he comes to thinkthat, alright. Well, if if you
don't fight your enemies, thenyou're not doing anything for
your friends. That's just nottrue. You can do a lot of things
for your friends. We took a lookin previous episodes about,
(09:59):
Bulgaria and Denmark and howthey, through nonviolence, saved
a 100% of the Jewish communitythere about.
Nonviolence doesn't mean sittingon your butt and just hoping
that something good happens. Itdoes involve prayer, which is
more than just sitting on yourbutt. But it also involves doing
(10:20):
positive things, like hidingrefugees or trying to help
people escape, those sorts ofthings. Cyril, like most people,
wrongly assumes that nonviolenceis passive. 4th, Cyril's a
consequentialist.
We see this all the time fromfrom people who embrace violence
as well. And it's he, in hismind, gets to determine what
(10:42):
success is. In his mind, lovemeans the preservation of life.
There's success in survival. Ifyour action doesn't contribute
to survival, then it's not agood action.
And, I just have to say thatthat is Cyril's consequentialist
(11:03):
ethics right there. It's Hisdetermined end, it's not God's
determined end. Alright. 5th,let me let me get into, an
example that kind of it came upduring devotions one night.
We're reading these these reallycheesy kids' devotional books
because we've got really youngkids.
(11:23):
And one of the stories was abouthis father, he came home, and he
told his kids that he'd lost hisjob. He lost his job because his
bosses were asking him to dosomething dishonest, and he said
no. The father refused to lie,to keep his job, in order to
(11:44):
support his family. Right? So hedid the right thing, he told the
truth.
But that means that somethingbad happened, he can't support
his family. Now let's take alook at Cyril's equation here,
right? He talks about doing 2things. So here's what I think
Cyril does, I think he somewhatequivocates. So we, we can kind
(12:06):
of change this around.
So right now we're saying it'snot right to lie in order to
support your family. Now,supporting your family is a good
thing, and in fact, the Biblesays that you'd better support
your family. That's, that's veryimportant. You need to be
responsible for your family, sothat is a good thing. But to lie
is a bad thing.
And I'm pretty sure Cyril wouldsay, well, yeah, you can't lie,
(12:27):
you can't do a wrong thing inorder to accomplish a right
thing. But what Cyril does isCyril kind of switches the
equation around a little bit.So, what if I said it like this:
You ought to keep your job soyou can support your family. So
instead of saying lie, which isthe means to getting a good job,
(12:48):
or to keeping your good job inorder to support your family, I
replace lie with keep your job.Now, Cyril sort of does this
with our enemies up here.
He kind of he takes out thenegative language of what you're
actually doing to your enemies.You know, you're killing and
you're violence to them. And hetakes out this this notion that
gives you the wrongness, thefeeling of wrongness, and this
(13:11):
negative aspect. And he kind ofreplaces it with this airy, nice
language that makes it soundgood. He cleans it up.
Now, we would say that thefather should not lie to keep
his job, and that's not a badthing. Even though he should
keep his job to support hisfamily, he shouldn't lie to do
(13:32):
it. You can't do a wrong thing.The same thing seems to apply if
we're talking about doingsomething wrong to save your
friend. If doing violence, ifhating an enemy, if doing wrong
to an enemy is bad, then youdon't do that even to save your
friend or your own life.
(13:52):
I mean, we can see this in inother instances as well. Like,
we can empathize with somebodywho, you know, let's say that
family lost their job, and theycan't eat, and so the mother
thinks, well, or the teenagedaughter thinks, well, now I
need to become a prostitute tofeed my family because even
(14:14):
though being a prostitute isbad, feeding my family is good.
And we would say, no, that as aChristian, that's not right. I
can't do that. And I wouldsuffer suffer malnutrition,
whatever I need to suffer,instead of doing the wrong thing
to accomplish a right thing.
(14:35):
And we see that with things likeprostitution, because we can't
imagine that that would everhappen to us. We say, nah.
That's that's inexcusable. But,you know, our friend's in
trouble, especially in thestates where we've got, gun laws
where where we can shoot peopleand carry guns. Yeah.
I could see myself potentiallybeing in a situation where I
(14:57):
would have the opportunity tosave somebody's life. And we
recognize that doing a wrong toaccomplish good is not valid in
other places, but we don't wedon't recognize that here. And
part of that's because Cyrilchanges around the the way that
the positives and negativessound. And the other part of
(15:17):
it's just that, that we're goodat kind of categorizing things
in ways that that make it easierfor us to accept. Alright, 6th
point.
And this is where, this is wherethings get good. Now, I I have a
really hard time with this sortof objection from people,
because they don't reallyunderstand the implications of
(15:38):
what they're saying. They'resaying, if I have the power to
stop somebody from doing evil inorder to save somebody's life,
or even, you know, let's saythere's, a a child rapist or,
something like that who's aboutto be doing something that he
(15:58):
shouldn't be doing, kidnappingor something sexual, they'd say,
no. Shoot that guy. Take care ofhim.
Right? If you have the power todo that, you should do that.
That is good, and to not do itis evil. Well, the problem with
that is you can't forget that wewe serve an omnipotent God.
(16:20):
Right?
And if I let that child rapistgo, so does God. If I let that
murderer or torturer continuewith his act, so does god. Now,
god, more than me, is capable ofstopping those things, but he
(16:41):
doesn't. Every evil thing thathappens, god can stop, but he
doesn't. And so to tell me thatI am responsible to kill
somebody, or to do violence tosomebody in order to protect
somebody else, is justludicrous.
Because, then we're condemningGod. It seems pretty obvious to
(17:04):
me that since God lets so manyof these things go, that there
is there is some other ethic inplay besides doing what seems
immediately effective, andcomfortable, and best, and good,
and, non traumatic, doing thatright now. If God can let those
(17:27):
things go, I can let thosethings go if I am adhering to
his ethic. Just like the fatherwho says, I don't have to lie to
keep my job to support myfamily. I might not be able to
support my family, but we canendure that because doing the
right thing is more powerful andbetter and faithful.
(17:52):
Doing the right thing does notmean that it leads to better
results. It means that it'sfaithful, and oftentimes
faithfulness means that there issuffering. So saint Cyril here,
if he wants to accuse, those whorefuse to do good to do too
(18:13):
goods, then he's gonna have tolump God in there with that. And
that is just not gonna work outwell for any Christian. Alright,
now maybe you want to dismissall of those things that I just
said, and maybe you think youhave a, a a good retort to
getting God out of out of theaccusation that he fails to do
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good.
Maybe you got something great.So let me let me pull out the
last little bit here that Ithink isn't as powerful as as
pointing out how most peopleaccuse god of evil in in this
argument, but it might be morepowerful because I it's gonna
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resonate from with inside of youinstead of, philosophically
outside of you. So let's returnto the to the Nazi example we
gave at the beginning. I'mhoping that I can use that to
show you that that this idea of,doing violence to others in
order to bring about good isjust unlivable, and wrong, and
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we know it. Intuitively, like,we just know it.
And we prove it. And I'm gonnahope that I can prove that to
you. So let's return to the theNazi example, the Holocaust
example. But now we are going tobe set in 2019. So we're set
right now, this year.
You're probably familiar,especially if you're a
(19:47):
conservative Christian, you'reprobably familiar with this idea
that abortion is a modern dayholocaust. And I agree with
that, because I think abortiontakes human life, valuable human
life, and we do it in numbersthat are just astronomical. Now,
the interesting thing about thisis most of us drive by, or many
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of us drive by abortion clinicsevery now and then. Some of us
probably every day on our way towork. We don't do anything of
substance to intervene.
We I mean, electing a presidentevery 4 years so he can nominate
Supreme Court justice justicesis not having an immediate
concern for, for the individualswho are being murdered. Right? I
(20:36):
mean, that that doesn't count.That's not of substance. Now, at
the same time, while we fail todo anything significant to
intervene, we condemn people whouse violence against abortion
doctors and against the abortionclinics.
Right? Even though they'refulfilling Cyrille's criteria,
(20:57):
they are doing good to the tothe victims. And at the same
time, if they're churchgoingpeople, they're probably
probably praying for people too.Right? Praying for the
theoretically, you can havesomebody who prays for the
abortion doctors and sees thatthey're continuing in their ways
and says, I have to stop this,goes, bombs an abortion clinic,
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shoots a shoots a doctor, and,right, there's Cyril's criteria
right there.
That's our notion thatsomebody's doing good because
they're preventing thecommission of violence against
innocents. Problem with thishere is that the majority of
those who aren't pacifistsapprove the Nazi killing.
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However, hardly anyone approvesthe killing of abortion doctors.
I don't know anybody for as asconservative, as my group is. I
do not know anybody who wouldsay that it is morally justified
to go and kill an abortiondoctor.
Now I know people who might bekind of happy about it, like,
well, he got what was coming tohim. But I don't know anybody
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who would be willing to say thatthat was right of somebody to
do. But, in the Nazi example, Igrew up watching all sorts of
World War 2 movies, like TheDirty Dozen and Saving Private
Ryan. And I loved it when theNazis got killed. And it was
just awesome, like, whatjustice.
I wish I could pull the trigger.So I take it that that most non
(22:25):
pacifists at the beginning herethought that the person who shot
the Nazi guard to prevent themswitching up the gas on the gas
chamber was justified. Like,that that was good. Not only was
he justified, but that was theright thing to do. Now as for
the the other person who failedto shoot, I don't know that most
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non pacifists would condemn thatperson as doing the wrong thing.
Maybe that's, Christian libertyor, I I don't know, whatever.
Maybe, they just were too weakand couldn't do it. But I don't
know that they'd condemn them,but they would definitely
condemn the person who didnothing, who who didn't even
try, didn't even think about it,just, like, said, no, I can't, I
(23:08):
can't shoot. And I don't meandid nothing, there are other
things that you could do. But,you kinda get what I mean.
It's important to note here thatthat there's really no
significant differences betweenthe Nazi example I gave at the
beginning and the thing I gaveat the end, in 2019 with the
(23:29):
abortions. The only difference,and and this difference actually
is not in my favor, the onlydifference is that in the Nazi
example, we have a civilian whois shooting somebody who
represents an arm of thegovernment. Which, if you throw
Romans 13 into this, is a lotmore problematic for for the
(23:50):
people who advocate violence.Whereas in the in the abortion
scenario, it's a civilian versusa civilian, just protecting
protecting other people byharming another civilian, not
even by government mandate. Ifkilling the Nazi then is
justified, and maybe even morethan justified, maybe it's good,
(24:11):
then why don't we praiseabortion bombers?
Why don't we become people whokill abortion doctors and
prevent abortions? If we reallythink that that that what
happened with the, with theNazis, that killing Nazis was
great, even by citizens of,their own nation, why why don't
(24:34):
we do that with abortiondoctors? And even if you wanna
go so far as to say, well, inthe Nazi example, the person who
didn't shoot was justified, sowe don't have to kill abortion
doctors. Great. That's fine.
But if killing is optional, thenwhy do we still condemn the
people who do kill? Why do wecall that wrong? So we
definitely have a doublestandard here, where we say that
(24:55):
it's okay. It's okay to do thisto Nazis, but it is not okay to
do it to abortion doctors. Thiswas one of the conundrums that
was kind of a turning point forme too when I first started
coming to nonviolence.
I asked this question, andnobody could answer it. Nobody
(25:16):
could tell me. Now I knew whatthe implications were. I
understood that if I said youshouldn't kill the Nazi, then
you shouldn't kill the abortiondoctor. And if those two things
were true of such egregiousegregiously evil situations,
that said a lot aboutnonviolence as a position.
(25:39):
But if I said that you couldkill the Nazi, then I recognize
what that implied for how weshould be living here in regards
to abortion. We should beviolent. It was far more
intuitive to me that you don'tkill abortion doctors than it
was intuitive to me that youkill Nazis. For as much as I
(26:01):
grew up on those wonderful warWorld War 2 movies, and for as
much as I've fascinated aboutkilling Nazis, that was much
less intuitive to me than thefact that you just shouldn't
kill abortion doctors. Notbecause abortion is less wrong,
but because you just you justcan't go and murder people.
(26:23):
And that's not just myintuition. That's the intuition
of 99.9% of the Christiancommunity because nobody's doing
it and hardly anybody except,like, extremists are are doing
it. We know this is true. So werecognize the intuitive nature
of non violence. And if if youwanna disagree with me on that,
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well, then the alternative isthat we're all cowardly
hypocrites who say that thesepeople should be killed and
nobody's willing to do it,because we don't wanna face the
consequences.
Now, I will grant you that mostof us are probably cowardly
hypocrites. But, as far as thisgoes, I I just, you know, if
(27:08):
this if we really believe thisis a holocaust, and we really
believe in violence, thatviolence is a solution, then I
am convinced that way morepeople would be doing this if we
didn't have this intuitive sensethat, no, non violence really is
correct. So intuitively, we allknow that Cyril's wrong. I
showed you, like, 6 or 7different different ways of
(27:30):
going about looking at at whathe said, and this idea of doing
good, or not avoiding doinggood. In the end, we know that
doing 2 goods doesn't mean doingone evil to accomplish a good.
Right? We we just know that. AndI showed you that with the the
father example and theprostitute example. We're not
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allowed to return evil for evil,even to do a good, because
that's not 2 goods. That's anevil and a good.
And that's what Cyril misses.The ends don't justify the
means. They just don't.Hopefully that makes sense, and
you're able to process all that.I know that that one kind of,
went through a lot of pointsfairly quickly.
(28:16):
But if you have any questions,let us know. Or if you would
like to get in touch with us,please do. Give us some pushback
as well as questions. That's allfor this episode, so peace.
Because I'm a pacifist, when Isay it, I mean it.
Year is 1945. You and your neighbors have been seeing
smoke come up from thesmokestacks of the concentration
camp right next to your villagefor years now. You've seen your
Jewish neighbors disappear.You've smelled the stench of the
smoke. You hear the whispers ofthe guards who come into town
for drinks every now and then.
(00:21):
You know what's going on there,but the war is being lost. And
as the allies push forward andbegin to liberate, you see the
German army flee theconcentration camp. You and a
neighbor, a neighbor who is alsoa Jewish Jewish sympathizer, you
go up to the camp as the guardsare starting to leave. When you
(00:42):
get there, you look around for abit, and eventually you see this
lone guard forcing people into agas chamber. You see a gun on
the ground, a gun one of the thefleeing guards must have dropped
as he was running away, and youpick it up.
You look down the sights, butyou just can't shoot. Your
friend quickly takes the gunfrom you and quickly kills the
(01:04):
guard before the guard can flipthe switch to exterminate all
those who are in the gaschamber. You're disappointed in
yourself that you couldn't pullthe trigger, and you're happy
that your friend could. Manylives were saved that day.
Alright.
So if if we address the moralityof that situation right there,
what was good and what was bad?Was it good that somebody killed
(01:28):
the guard and saved a lot oflives? Was it bad that the other
neighbor didn't shoot? Like, washe wrong for not killing the
German guard? Should he havebeen braver and more courageous
to do the right thing to killthe guard to save lives?
Or would the right thing to dohave been to not kill at all? If
(01:52):
you want to take a look at thatquestion today, we will
definitely come back to thisstory. But, for now, welcome
back to the 4th Way podcast, aswe continue to take a look at
rebuttals to non violence. Inthis episode, we are going to
look at the principle of what itmeans to do good. As James says,
(02:14):
if we know to do good and don'tdo it, then it's a sin.
You know, a lot of times peoplefocus on doing wrong actions. If
you lie, that's a sin. If youmurder, that's a sin. Doing
wrong things are sins. ButJames, as well as lots of other
books, Micah, Job, I mean, youname it, talk about this idea of
(02:35):
positive justice, that good andright isn't just the avoidance
of doing bad things, but it'salso the doing of good things.
As it pertains to non violence,the argument goes somewhat like
this. If we see someone indanger who we are able to help,
then we are sinning if we don'thelp. I think perhaps Saint
(02:59):
Cyril can help us to see thisexample a little bit more
clearly as he deals with somepeople who are coming to him and
asking him about the morality ofjoining the army. Now keep in
mind, we already talked aboutthe early church and what they
thought about joining the thearmy and doing violence. And as
you'll be able to tell from thisquote, Cyril comes a bit later
(03:23):
in the story, and so he was, inmy opinion, socialized by by his
environment.
But anyway, Cyril responded tothese these individuals and he
said, If 2 commandments werewritten in 1 law and given to
men for fulfilling, which manwould be a better follower of
(03:43):
the Law, the one who fulfilledone commandment or the one who
fulfilled both? Well, of course,the individuals who responded to
Cyril said, well, the person whofills fulfills both is obviously
better. So Cyril continued,Christ our God commands us to
pray to God for those whopersecute us and even do good to
(04:05):
them. But he also said to us,greater love hath no man than
this, that a man lay down hislife for his friends. That is
why we bear the insults that ourenemies cast at us individually
and why we pray to god for them.
However, as a society we defendone another and lay down our
lives so that the enemy wouldnot enslave our brethren, would
(04:26):
not enslave their souls withtheir bodies, and would not
destroy them in both body andsoul. So what is Saint Cyril
exactly saying? He's saying thatwe are supposed to love our
enemies, but we're also supposedto help our friends. And so if
our enemies are torturing or orseeking the harm of our friends,
(04:49):
then I can still pray for myenemies and have goodwill
towards them, but that can'tnegate me doing something
tangibly to help my friends, tosave them. So that means I'll
pray for my enemies and killthem to prevent them from
harming my friends.
In Cyril's mind, he isaccomplishing 2 goods. He is
(05:12):
loving enemies, and he ishelping friends, he's loving
friends. Now I have to admitthat when I first saw Cyril's
argument it kind of threw meback because I think anytime you
see a a ancient church fatherquote, it's kind of
intimidating. And it soundedreally smart, like, the way that
(05:32):
it was set up. But as I thoughtabout it, I've recognized that
that this, I think, is probablyone of the weakest arguments
that that I see against nonviolence, even though on the
surface it seems like like itshould be pretty strong.
So I'm gonna go through a numberof, instances or examples of why
(05:54):
I think there are problems here.And definitely stick around for
the end because we are gonnacome back to that Nazi story we
talked about. And there is also,another point that I think is is
very important that you don'tmiss. Anyway, start off simply.
First question to Cyril, is itis it really possible to fulfill
(06:16):
both of those commandments, tolove our enemy, by killing them?
Like, is it really possible tohave that love in your heart as
you're pulling the triggeragainst them? I mean, maybe it
is. Is that really thinking ofof their interests as well, of
seeking reconciliation andrestoration and, you know,
whatever, forgiveness, whateverelse. Like, it just it doesn't
(06:40):
seem like you are actually doinggood to your enemy, which Cyril
does say. He doesn't just say,pray for them, but he says, and
do good to them.
That's God's command. Yeah, itdoesn't seem like that happens
there. 2nd, is it, is it reallyloving to your friend for you to
take on the the action ofviolence and depict a kingdom in
(07:03):
which image bearers can beobjectified and killed? I mean,
part of what we are to do asChristians is to live out the
kingdom, partly because that'sgoing to conform us to the image
of Christ, but also partlybecause that is a display to the
world that we don't rely on itspower, and that they too can be
(07:25):
free in Christ. And so part ofour part of our action and
refusal to do wrong and our ourdesire to be holy to have
holiness is that we want todepict the kingdom so that
others are compelled into thatkingdom.
And, you know, my wife and Ihave talked about this sort of
(07:46):
thing before. I think a lot ofconservative Christians have
have talked about this becausewe have a persecution complex.
But, you know, you talk about ifyou know, my wife and I would
say, well, if if I'm everpersecuted or if I'm ever being
tortured, and they say, I'mgonna keep torturing your wife
(08:06):
until, until you renounce Jesus.She said, you know, in the
moment, I might tell you to, butI'm telling you now, don't do
it. Right?
It's this it's this idea that,you know, love isn't just a
willingness to save somebody'slife. There's something there's
(08:27):
something deeper in love thanbeing concerned about the
preservation of our physicallives. I mean, that's certainly
an important part. But if that'sreally your primary goal, then
that's not that's just not whatwe see biblically. And you can
look at martyrs as as just agreat example of that, and
(08:49):
persecution.
It's just this this idea thatwait. So you're telling me that
I should die instead of renounceJesus? Well, yeah. Because some
things are more important thanyour life. Your allegiance is
more important than your life.
And if allegiance is moreimportant than my life, then
allegiance is more importantthan other people's lives too.
(09:13):
Because in that allegiance,you're able to depict something
that is is more compelling andmore loving and worthwhile than
to be pragmatic in the moment.I'm sure that's not gonna be
compelling for a lot of a lot ofpeople who are into violence,
but, nevertheless, we'll leaveit at that. I'll get into some
things that will be morecompelling. 3rd, Cyril assumes,
(09:38):
like so many people do, thatnonviolence is passive.
He kind of he he comes to thinkthat, alright. Well, if if you
don't fight your enemies, thenyou're not doing anything for
your friends. That's just nottrue. You can do a lot of things
for your friends. We took a lookin previous episodes about,
(09:59):
Bulgaria and Denmark and howthey, through nonviolence, saved
a 100% of the Jewish communitythere about.
Nonviolence doesn't mean sittingon your butt and just hoping
that something good happens. Itdoes involve prayer, which is
more than just sitting on yourbutt. But it also involves doing
(10:20):
positive things, like hidingrefugees or trying to help
people escape, those sorts ofthings. Cyril, like most people,
wrongly assumes that nonviolenceis passive. 4th, Cyril's a
consequentialist.
We see this all the time fromfrom people who embrace violence
as well. And it's he, in hismind, gets to determine what
(10:42):
success is. In his mind, lovemeans the preservation of life.
There's success in survival. Ifyour action doesn't contribute
to survival, then it's not agood action.
And, I just have to say thatthat is Cyril's consequentialist
(11:03):
ethics right there. It's Hisdetermined end, it's not God's
determined end. Alright. 5th,let me let me get into, an
example that kind of it came upduring devotions one night.
We're reading these these reallycheesy kids' devotional books
because we've got really youngkids.
(11:23):
And one of the stories was abouthis father, he came home, and he
told his kids that he'd lost hisjob. He lost his job because his
bosses were asking him to dosomething dishonest, and he said
no. The father refused to lie,to keep his job, in order to
(11:44):
support his family. Right? So hedid the right thing, he told the
truth.
But that means that somethingbad happened, he can't support
his family. Now let's take alook at Cyril's equation here,
right? He talks about doing 2things. So here's what I think
Cyril does, I think he somewhatequivocates. So we, we can kind
(12:06):
of change this around.
So right now we're saying it'snot right to lie in order to
support your family. Now,supporting your family is a good
thing, and in fact, the Biblesays that you'd better support
your family. That's, that's veryimportant. You need to be
responsible for your family, sothat is a good thing. But to lie
is a bad thing.
And I'm pretty sure Cyril wouldsay, well, yeah, you can't lie,
(12:27):
you can't do a wrong thing inorder to accomplish a right
thing. But what Cyril does isCyril kind of switches the
equation around a little bit.So, what if I said it like this:
You ought to keep your job soyou can support your family. So
instead of saying lie, which isthe means to getting a good job,
(12:48):
or to keeping your good job inorder to support your family, I
replace lie with keep your job.Now, Cyril sort of does this
with our enemies up here.
He kind of he takes out thenegative language of what you're
actually doing to your enemies.You know, you're killing and
you're violence to them. And hetakes out this this notion that
gives you the wrongness, thefeeling of wrongness, and this
(13:11):
negative aspect. And he kind ofreplaces it with this airy, nice
language that makes it soundgood. He cleans it up.
Now, we would say that thefather should not lie to keep
his job, and that's not a badthing. Even though he should
keep his job to support hisfamily, he shouldn't lie to do
(13:32):
it. You can't do a wrong thing.The same thing seems to apply if
we're talking about doingsomething wrong to save your
friend. If doing violence, ifhating an enemy, if doing wrong
to an enemy is bad, then youdon't do that even to save your
friend or your own life.
(13:52):
I mean, we can see this in inother instances as well. Like,
we can empathize with somebodywho, you know, let's say that
family lost their job, and theycan't eat, and so the mother
thinks, well, or the teenagedaughter thinks, well, now I
need to become a prostitute tofeed my family because even
(14:14):
though being a prostitute isbad, feeding my family is good.
And we would say, no, that as aChristian, that's not right. I
can't do that. And I wouldsuffer suffer malnutrition,
whatever I need to suffer,instead of doing the wrong thing
to accomplish a right thing.
(14:35):
And we see that with things likeprostitution, because we can't
imagine that that would everhappen to us. We say, nah.
That's that's inexcusable. But,you know, our friend's in
trouble, especially in thestates where we've got, gun laws
where where we can shoot peopleand carry guns. Yeah.
I could see myself potentiallybeing in a situation where I
(14:57):
would have the opportunity tosave somebody's life. And we
recognize that doing a wrong toaccomplish good is not valid in
other places, but we don't wedon't recognize that here. And
part of that's because Cyrilchanges around the the way that
the positives and negativessound. And the other part of
(15:17):
it's just that, that we're goodat kind of categorizing things
in ways that that make it easierfor us to accept. Alright, 6th
point.
And this is where, this is wherethings get good. Now, I I have a
really hard time with this sortof objection from people,
because they don't reallyunderstand the implications of
(15:38):
what they're saying. They'resaying, if I have the power to
stop somebody from doing evil inorder to save somebody's life,
or even, you know, let's saythere's, a a child rapist or,
something like that who's aboutto be doing something that he
(15:58):
shouldn't be doing, kidnappingor something sexual, they'd say,
no. Shoot that guy. Take care ofhim.
Right? If you have the power todo that, you should do that.
That is good, and to not do itis evil. Well, the problem with
that is you can't forget that wewe serve an omnipotent God.
(16:20):
Right?
And if I let that child rapistgo, so does God. If I let that
murderer or torturer continuewith his act, so does god. Now,
god, more than me, is capable ofstopping those things, but he
(16:41):
doesn't. Every evil thing thathappens, god can stop, but he
doesn't. And so to tell me thatI am responsible to kill
somebody, or to do violence tosomebody in order to protect
somebody else, is justludicrous.
Because, then we're condemningGod. It seems pretty obvious to
(17:04):
me that since God lets so manyof these things go, that there
is there is some other ethic inplay besides doing what seems
immediately effective, andcomfortable, and best, and good,
and, non traumatic, doing thatright now. If God can let those
(17:27):
things go, I can let thosethings go if I am adhering to
his ethic. Just like the fatherwho says, I don't have to lie to
keep my job to support myfamily. I might not be able to
support my family, but we canendure that because doing the
right thing is more powerful andbetter and faithful.
(17:52):
Doing the right thing does notmean that it leads to better
results. It means that it'sfaithful, and oftentimes
faithfulness means that there issuffering. So saint Cyril here,
if he wants to accuse, those whorefuse to do good to do too
(18:13):
goods, then he's gonna have tolump God in there with that. And
that is just not gonna work outwell for any Christian. Alright,
now maybe you want to dismissall of those things that I just
said, and maybe you think youhave a, a a good retort to
getting God out of out of theaccusation that he fails to do
(18:38):
good.
Maybe you got something great.So let me let me pull out the
last little bit here that Ithink isn't as powerful as as
pointing out how most peopleaccuse god of evil in in this
argument, but it might be morepowerful because I it's gonna
(19:01):
resonate from with inside of youinstead of, philosophically
outside of you. So let's returnto the to the Nazi example we
gave at the beginning. I'mhoping that I can use that to
show you that that this idea of,doing violence to others in
order to bring about good isjust unlivable, and wrong, and
(19:27):
we know it. Intuitively, like,we just know it.
And we prove it. And I'm gonnahope that I can prove that to
you. So let's return to the theNazi example, the Holocaust
example. But now we are going tobe set in 2019. So we're set
right now, this year.
You're probably familiar,especially if you're a
(19:47):
conservative Christian, you'reprobably familiar with this idea
that abortion is a modern dayholocaust. And I agree with
that, because I think abortiontakes human life, valuable human
life, and we do it in numbersthat are just astronomical. Now,
the interesting thing about thisis most of us drive by, or many
(20:11):
of us drive by abortion clinicsevery now and then. Some of us
probably every day on our way towork. We don't do anything of
substance to intervene.
We I mean, electing a presidentevery 4 years so he can nominate
Supreme Court justice justicesis not having an immediate
concern for, for the individualswho are being murdered. Right? I
(20:36):
mean, that that doesn't count.That's not of substance. Now, at
the same time, while we fail todo anything significant to
intervene, we condemn people whouse violence against abortion
doctors and against the abortionclinics.
Right? Even though they'refulfilling Cyrille's criteria,
(20:57):
they are doing good to the tothe victims. And at the same
time, if they're churchgoingpeople, they're probably
probably praying for people too.Right? Praying for the
theoretically, you can havesomebody who prays for the
abortion doctors and sees thatthey're continuing in their ways
and says, I have to stop this,goes, bombs an abortion clinic,
(21:18):
shoots a shoots a doctor, and,right, there's Cyril's criteria
right there.
That's our notion thatsomebody's doing good because
they're preventing thecommission of violence against
innocents. Problem with thishere is that the majority of
those who aren't pacifistsapprove the Nazi killing.
(21:40):
However, hardly anyone approvesthe killing of abortion doctors.
I don't know anybody for as asconservative, as my group is. I
do not know anybody who wouldsay that it is morally justified
to go and kill an abortiondoctor.
Now I know people who might bekind of happy about it, like,
well, he got what was coming tohim. But I don't know anybody
(22:03):
who would be willing to say thatthat was right of somebody to
do. But, in the Nazi example, Igrew up watching all sorts of
World War 2 movies, like TheDirty Dozen and Saving Private
Ryan. And I loved it when theNazis got killed. And it was
just awesome, like, whatjustice.
I wish I could pull the trigger.So I take it that that most non
(22:25):
pacifists at the beginning herethought that the person who shot
the Nazi guard to prevent themswitching up the gas on the gas
chamber was justified. Like,that that was good. Not only was
he justified, but that was theright thing to do. Now as for
the the other person who failedto shoot, I don't know that most
(22:46):
non pacifists would condemn thatperson as doing the wrong thing.
Maybe that's, Christian libertyor, I I don't know, whatever.
Maybe, they just were too weakand couldn't do it. But I don't
know that they'd condemn them,but they would definitely
condemn the person who didnothing, who who didn't even
try, didn't even think about it,just, like, said, no, I can't, I
(23:08):
can't shoot. And I don't meandid nothing, there are other
things that you could do. But,you kinda get what I mean.
It's important to note here thatthat there's really no
significant differences betweenthe Nazi example I gave at the
beginning and the thing I gaveat the end, in 2019 with the
(23:29):
abortions. The only difference,and and this difference actually
is not in my favor, the onlydifference is that in the Nazi
example, we have a civilian whois shooting somebody who
represents an arm of thegovernment. Which, if you throw
Romans 13 into this, is a lotmore problematic for for the
(23:50):
people who advocate violence.Whereas in the in the abortion
scenario, it's a civilian versusa civilian, just protecting
protecting other people byharming another civilian, not
even by government mandate. Ifkilling the Nazi then is
justified, and maybe even morethan justified, maybe it's good,
(24:11):
then why don't we praiseabortion bombers?
Why don't we become people whokill abortion doctors and
prevent abortions? If we reallythink that that that what
happened with the, with theNazis, that killing Nazis was
great, even by citizens of,their own nation, why why don't
(24:34):
we do that with abortiondoctors? And even if you wanna
go so far as to say, well, inthe Nazi example, the person who
didn't shoot was justified, sowe don't have to kill abortion
doctors. Great. That's fine.
But if killing is optional, thenwhy do we still condemn the
people who do kill? Why do wecall that wrong? So we
definitely have a doublestandard here, where we say that
(24:55):
it's okay. It's okay to do thisto Nazis, but it is not okay to
do it to abortion doctors. Thiswas one of the conundrums that
was kind of a turning point forme too when I first started
coming to nonviolence.
I asked this question, andnobody could answer it. Nobody
(25:16):
could tell me. Now I knew whatthe implications were. I
understood that if I said youshouldn't kill the Nazi, then
you shouldn't kill the abortiondoctor. And if those two things
were true of such egregiousegregiously evil situations,
that said a lot aboutnonviolence as a position.
(25:39):
But if I said that you couldkill the Nazi, then I recognize
what that implied for how weshould be living here in regards
to abortion. We should beviolent. It was far more
intuitive to me that you don'tkill abortion doctors than it
was intuitive to me that youkill Nazis. For as much as I
(26:01):
grew up on those wonderful warWorld War 2 movies, and for as
much as I've fascinated aboutkilling Nazis, that was much
less intuitive to me than thefact that you just shouldn't
kill abortion doctors. Notbecause abortion is less wrong,
but because you just you justcan't go and murder people.
(26:23):
And that's not just myintuition. That's the intuition
of 99.9% of the Christiancommunity because nobody's doing
it and hardly anybody except,like, extremists are are doing
it. We know this is true. So werecognize the intuitive nature
of non violence. And if if youwanna disagree with me on that,
(26:46):
well, then the alternative isthat we're all cowardly
hypocrites who say that thesepeople should be killed and
nobody's willing to do it,because we don't wanna face the
consequences.
Now, I will grant you that mostof us are probably cowardly
hypocrites. But, as far as thisgoes, I I just, you know, if
(27:08):
this if we really believe thisis a holocaust, and we really
believe in violence, thatviolence is a solution, then I
am convinced that way morepeople would be doing this if we
didn't have this intuitive sensethat, no, non violence really is
correct. So intuitively, we allknow that Cyril's wrong. I
showed you, like, 6 or 7different different ways of
(27:30):
going about looking at at whathe said, and this idea of doing
good, or not avoiding doinggood. In the end, we know that
doing 2 goods doesn't mean doingone evil to accomplish a good.
Right? We we just know that. AndI showed you that with the the
father example and theprostitute example. We're not
(27:52):
allowed to return evil for evil,even to do a good, because
that's not 2 goods. That's anevil and a good.
And that's what Cyril misses.The ends don't justify the
means. They just don't.Hopefully that makes sense, and
you're able to process all that.I know that that one kind of,
went through a lot of pointsfairly quickly.
(28:16):
But if you have any questions,let us know. Or if you would
like to get in touch with us,please do. Give us some pushback
as well as questions. That's allfor this episode, so peace.
Because I'm a pacifist, when Isay it, I mean it.
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