In Judaism, war is understood to be an aspect of God’s governance of his people. But, Jewish scholars have not been able to create a cohesive tradition to govern themselves in times of war. Instead, the tradition that has emerged from Jewish scholars, philosophers, and authoritative figures as a multi-faceted tradition because until the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, there was no need for the Jewish people to develop a “just war” theory.
The patriarchs of the Jewish religion did wage war, but these wars were said to be waged when the patriarch was commanded by God. Even though these wars were said to be sanctioned by God, his people suffered great losses that eventually lead to the conquest of the Jewish people. It was during this time of being subject to the rule of Gentiles that the Jewish community started to attempt to force the return of the messiah through direct human action. These acts were condemned by the Rabbis, which resulted in the Jewish Rabbis developing the “Three Vows” in order to keep the Jewish community from “rous[ing] love until it is wished” (Mathewes, 184). The Three Vows are: (1) forbid large scale return to Israel, (2) forbid the Jews from rebelling against the rule of the Gentiles, and in return for the Jews keeping the first two vows, God promised (3) to make sure the Gentiles did not persecute his people “too much.”
With the political introduction of the Jewish state of Israel, many Jewish thinkers were forced to grapple with the reality of how to relate their traditional legal codes and modes of thought to the logistic of international warfare and the political arena. To start, many Jewish thinkers referred to Jewish texts, which does not bring forth the ideas of pacifism and non-resistance. In fact, there are many passages that suggest the exact opposite; “if someone comes to kill you, kill him first,” (Sanhedrin 72a). The most important warfare ideal conveyed in Jewish texts is that war is divinely controlled. The Rabbis took it upon themselves to classify warfare in terms of how God would perceive war. The Mishnah states that war is categorized as either a permitted war or an obligatory war.
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A permitted war is allowed, but the authority to instigate the war is up to human judgement. One key component of permitted war is that the perspective enemy must violate one of the seven Noahide commandments. An obligatory war is a war in which the call to arms is made in dire situations that threaten the existence of the entire Jewish community. Lying in the heart of the Jewish tradition of just war, the final aim of any conducted warfare is that the bloodshed bring forth peace in the most righteous way possible. Peace may seem to be the perfect result of war, but to the Jewish community, perfection will never be achieved until the second coming of the Messiah, thus the Jewish community will never be fully able to lay their weapons down. But for now, the Jewish community strives for peace, hoping for the second coming of the Messiah.
The Christian tradition of just war was born within the Jewish ideology of human politics, but Christians also borrowed ideas from their intimate knowledge of Greek and Roman principles about the meaning and outlook of political life and the morality of war. Like their fellow Jewish thinkers, Christian thinkers turned to the bible to form their basis on which to conduct just war. The main issue here is that when turning to Christian scripture as a guidance tool, there are conflicting messages. Many people infer that the New Testament is a pacifist text. But, some argue, Mathewes being one of them, that the New Testament is a text that doesn’t deal with human war, like in the Old Testament, but it deals with cosmological war, good versus evil. This divided interpretation led to the origin of two different traditions on just war: a tradition pertaining to just war that has now become the basis on how to wage war in the West and a completely opposite tradition that rejects war.
The Christian just war tradition calls for a distinction between justifiable and non-justifiable violence. The Latin words bellum and duellum capture this dichotomy. Bellum, roughly translated to war, represent the idea that the use of force is authorized by a legitimate power. On the other hand, duellum, which gave rise to the English word “duel,” represents the contrary of bellum, an illegitimate use of violence for private or personal use. What is at the heart of this dichotomy is the use of force for private versus public reasons. Public reasons for war are justifiable because some form of authoritative power will have to approve of the use of force, whereas private reasons for the use of force cannot be legitimately justified by the authoritative power.
The just war tradition uses the dichotomy of bellum and duellum to create tow principles that guide a just war: (1) war cannot be an instrument of justice and (2) not all in war is fair – there are some things that are wrong, even if the overall cause maybe right. These two principles are very vague and leave open the questions of: (1) when is it right to go to war and (2) what are the rules of engagement. These two question led to the development of the tradition of jus ad bellum or “the right to make war.”
Jus ad bellum is guided by three main criteria: (1) the party deciding to wage war must be a legitimate/lawful authority, (2) the party must show just cause, and (3) the party must possess, and manifest right intention, both in respect to cause and motives. Coupled with these three principles, there are an additional four “prudential” guidelines of judgement calls that assists the authoritative party in waging war. The first guideline is that war is the only remaining, viable means of justifying a wrong. If there are any other reasonable steps to be taken, those should be taken before war is waged. The second guideline is the that authoritative power should assess whether or not there is justice in the call for war. If there is no justice in the call for war, it is impossible to conduct a legitimate campaign against the identified enemy. The third guideline is that the bloodshed must produce benefits that outweigh the cost of war.
If there is no foreseen benefit of warfare, it is not worth risking the lives of combatants and potentially the lives of non-combatants. The final guidelines builds off of the third guideline, and that is that there must be a reasonable hope of victory. Suicidal warfare should not be permitted, unless the circumstances are a direct threat to the existence of one’s self. Just war thinkers argue that if all these criteria are met, war is not only permissible, but it is morally virtuous. Thus, Christian scholars argue the tradition sees that the use of force is an act of love because it is participating in God’s use of force. The tradition of just war possesses realistic ideas, but the application of the tradition lies in the hands of the authoritative party(s) that are concerned with the common good.
Some Christians do not accept the just war theory, and instead, accept realism and pacifism as their mode of thinking about war. This group of people believe that the just war tradition is too literal and does not account for our human need to engage in conflict. Even though the just war tradition is driven by the gospel message of love, Reinhold Niebuhr, who considers himself a realist, reminds us that the other half of the gospel message is forgiveness. We cannot just simply apply simple moralism because our world is too complex for something that is so cut and dry. Our world is filled with sin, and the actions of war are direct sinful actions, but divine mercy allows us to overcome contradiction within our souls, which we ourselves cannot solve.
We have to recognize our sinful actions is order to receive this divine mercy, but we cannot forget to love our neighbors as well. This duality acknowledges that God, not humans, is in charge of our history. Recognizing our sins is the first step of realistic thinkers, but the next step is how to overcome evil and finally figure out how to eventually live in eternal harmony with each other. Stanley Hauerwas on the other hand, believes that there is a place for a pacifism in our world, but like Niebuhr, he believes that it cannot a simple cut and dry pacifism that Niebuhr denounces. Hauerwas believes that the correct for of pacifism is to not fight because God, not humans, is control of history.
Our efforts to control history are mute, and only lead us down a path of evil. This type of pacifism and Niebuhr’s realism combine to emphasis that redemption is our only answer, and that the point of war is peace, but this notion has been convoluted by secular movements peace, which have culminated in a message of being anti-war. The biggest obstruction to peace is not guns, but people’s indifferences toards one another. Thus, the only solution is to live out the law of love, which can be demonstrated though realism and pacifism, or through the proper use of the Christian just war tradition, in which the obligation to fights arises from Christian love.
Unlike Christianity and Judaism, Islam developed it just war tradition independently, by itself. There is no argument for pacifism, and instead, Islam states that some wars are not only permitted, but they are obligatory. But the use of force outside of these contexts is not permitted.
Islam believes that the world is torn between the submission to the will of G-d and rebellion against the will of G-d. The fight, is then against those that rebel against G-d’s will, and it is the duty of those that submit to G-d’s will to defend G-d’s order and to fight to extend the domain in which G-d’s will commands. Thus, the ultimate aim is a universal domain for G-d to command, as suggested by the Qur’an verse “[Muslims are directed to] fight [the unbelievers] until there is no more persecution [ or seduction] and worship [din] is devoted to God” (Q. 2:193). Islamic thinkers have thought of this war of “conquest” though the term jihad. The Islamic meaning of this word is “struggle towards a worth end” (CITE) and it is the struggle to bring the non-believers to submit to G-d’s will. Fighting, qital, is the last step to conduct this jihad in the territory of war, dar-al-Harb.
The issue with jihad is that it is quite vague, contradictory, and has been left open for interpretation. In early Islam, jihad was not required of every follower of Islam, but just those that are tapped by the Caliph. Thus, Muslims scholars consider this form of jihad to not be obligatory, but offensive, in which there is a destined number of people that need to enlist. The second form of jihad is a defensive jihad, which requires all able bodied Muslims to enlist, as it is their universal duty to serve. Based on these two forms of jihad, there are “sword and peace” verses in the Qur’an that govern the ethics of war, similar to the Christian jus ad bellum.
Peace verses advise Muslims to accept peace from nonbelievers and that the use of force is only applicable in forms of self-defense. Sword verses in contrast, suggest that peace is not enough, and that because there are nonbelievers, you must fight against them. Sword verses, as you may expect, are more applicable in times of war. Sword verses only say that noncombatants are limited to women and children, whereas in peace verses, noncombatants are seen as those that are not legitimate threats (old men, women, children, peasants, slaves, and hermits).
The problem with these two verses is that the sword versus were revealed after the peace verses, thus making it appear to Muslims that the use of the sword is more important, which can lead to the possible interpretation that the sword verses denounce the peace verses. The interesting detail about jihad though, is that it never commands Muslims to engage in wars of mass conversion. The Qur’an states that “there is no compulsion in religion,” (Q 2:235) thus, Islam should not be forced upon others.
The Abrahamic religions share the opinion of their God’s will for the world and that there cannot be bloodshed without serious contemplation. Each of these religion then created guidelines for their believers to follow in how to properly engage in war. As we will see in the next section, these created traditions of just war have been manipulated due to historical circumstances pertaining to each of these religions.
