Derek: 00:06

Welcome back to the Fourth Wave podcast. We are continuing our discussion of just war theory today. And in the last episode we took a look at our first issue, our first tenet of Just War Theory, and kind of asked some tough questions for it. How this idea of just cause could warrant the war or taking of life. In this episode, we're going to deal with the second tenant of the Just War Theory, which is the idea of legitimate or just authority.

Derek: 00:41

And just authority is interesting because for Augustine and probably Aquinas as well, this would have really been the first issue to kind of look at. And that's because, at least for Augustine, the government is the only just authority to be able to allow an individual to kill on his behalf. Even self defense was not legitimate to Augustine. Even though the law said it was because he just couldn't see how an individual could regulate their passions and kill somebody in love when it was out of self defense and in the heat of the moment. So even if you had what seemed like a just cause, and Augustine even acknowledges that, you know, if you have self defense, you might be legally moral, but you wouldn't be ultimately moral because you'd be judged by God even though you wouldn't be judged by the state.

Derek: 01:46

So it really boils down to if there isn't a just authority, it doesn't matter if you think you have a just cause. So this is really the primary one for somebody like Augustine. For Americans, it seems like number one is first and because if it's not, if if you really do need a just authority first, then that would discount the American Revolution and we'll we'll get to that in our, like, our last episode in this series. But for Christians, you need the just cause for American Christians, need just cause before just authority or else the July 4 becomes a little bit less celebratory as as some day of honor for for the revolutionary war. So let's dig in and take a look at just authority.

Derek: 02:40

So this this first issue, it it doesn't necessarily negate the possibility of there being a a just authority, just human authority that can allow us to do violence. But it is something that we see as problematic. And remember that part of what we're doing isn't just to show that just war theory is hypocritical and inconsistent and incoherent, but one of the other things we're trying to do is to show that really it's just as idealistic as pacifism is in the eyes of most just word adherents. Because a lot of times people say, pacifism is just idealistic, you know, that's not going to work, nobody can adhere to that fully and it's not going to produce the results that you want. Well, some of the issues that we're going look at in Just War Theory are we're to kind of say the same thing, like, wait a second, you're telling me that there's a Just War Theory and how to be Just in wars but nobody is ever going to do it, nobody is ever going to be just.

Derek: 03:45

Well, if you know that nobody is ever going to be just in doing this action, why do we as Christians think we can participate in this action if it's inherently problematic in a fallen world? You know, if I can't avoid doing evil in this action, then that seems like a problem. So the first issue with just war with just authority, is that Yoder talks about this idea of a blank check that when we look at authority and we look for just authority, just authorities are basically a blank check for war. And what he means by this is that and you see this even in C. S.

Derek: 04:28

Lewis' arguments against pacifism where he's like, you know, you just need to fight for your government. And that that's great advice to the British right before World War two, but, yeah, had a German heard his speech, then the German should fight for Germany. I mean, it's a blank check for a government to get people to follow them, to say that, well, there really is no illegitimate authority because Romans 13 very clearly says that government is from God and Romans 13 was probably written under a not so good guy and whatever guy I'm under at the moment or girl is probably going to be as good or better than who Paul was writing about. So my authority is just. I guess if they call me to war, I need to go to war.

Derek: 05:21

And that blank check issue is very problematic for Christians. Because how can you be a Christian and give somebody a blank check for for fighting in their wars. That takes out discretion and holiness for Christians who are supposed to be distinct and refuse to do evil. You know, that leads into kind of a second issue which is we kind of already stated, but what authority isn't just then or isn't appropriate or legitimate? In North Korea, I mean, Kim Jong Un is a legitimate authority.

Derek: 06:01

He inherited the the throne or whatever they have, the the seat of power. And he might do things that we really don't like, but when he tells Koreans to do stuff, isn't he a legitimate authority? Aren't both governments, The United States and North Korea, ordained by God according to Romans 13? I mean, Nebuchadnezzar was ordained by God. We see that in the Old Testament.

Derek: 06:29

Assyria, Babylon were wielded by God, and, you know, God eventually brought judgment to them, but they were legitimate. And God even tells people that they better obey or submit to Nebuchadnezzar, and if they don't, God's gonna judge them. He says that in the Old Testament. Babylon and Syria were pretty terrible groups of people. You have a hard time explaining how if I were a Christian in North Korea and I was told to to go to war, if that's a legitimate authority and legitimate authorities justify war, how you know, that's not a blank check for them and how there is such a thing as an illegitimate authority that's a government.

Derek: 07:21

You just can't pull that from the Bible that there's an illegitimate governmental authority. Now we can discern the difference between obedience and submission to governments, that is something that's clear in the Bible, one Peter, Romans, etc. But there's no such thing as an illegitimate authority. And if there is no such thing as illegitimate authorities, or even if there are, you know, go back to go back to more medieval Europe when all the countries are Christian and they're fighting each other. You know, if I'm from If one person is from France and one person is from Great Britain and their kings are both legitimate authorities, sending them off to fight each other, Christian countries, Christian leaders, all air quoted here, Christian countries, Christian leaders, Christian warriors, then you're telling me that both the Frenchman and the British guy, they are both moral and godly when they obey their countries and try to go kill each other?

Derek: 08:33

That doesn't make any sense to me. I I that's something that doesn't compute for me that you can have two people trying to slaughter each other and trying to slaughter the other group of people that are not only loving each other supposedly, but are both godly because they're obeying their government in their attempt to kill other people. That just fly. Another question, can't authorities be compromised by self interest as well? I just read a book called War is a Racket which is fantastic because it's short, it's written by a very well decorated general, it was written like back in the nineteen thirties before, you know, people started to get labeled as like social justice warriors and all kinds of stuff.

Derek: 09:28

It's just written by a by a pretty good guy and he goes into just how war is a racket and how it's it's just exactly that. It's a racket. It's people get rich off of it. There's a whole bunch of self interest. The motivation for going to war isn't legitimate.

Derek: 09:49

And I think he talks about even in World War one, you know, we didn't go into the World War for good reasons. We went in because we wanted money. We're getting paid out the wazoo by Great Britain and I think France and and those those countries that would become the allies in World War two. And we didn't loan that much to Germany. So when did we decide to go to war?

Derek: 10:20

It was like a few days after this delegation came from those future allied nations and said, hey look, we're losing here and it looks like we're gonna lose. Now, I want you to remember, if we lose all that money that we owe you, we're not gonna be able to pay back. And then what do you know? We enter the war, enter World War one. We entered the war not for some meaningful justice but because we wanted our money.

Derek: 10:49

And that's what you find with a lot of the wars is that there are very dark, devious, self interested sort of reasons that we ultimately end up fighting many of the wars that we do. And to think that governments are not self interested when they decide to go to war and that that self interest doesn't outweigh or negate any any good that we are are seeking to do, I think that's just foolish to think that or naive or both. So now I want to get into one that we touched on in the last episode. If we draw the justification for Christian violence from God's authority to governments and we see how God asserts his authority and wages were in the Old Testament, then we have to answer why when we go to warfare aren't our governments just in mandating a number of things that we see God either condone or fail to judge or actually implement himself or tell others to implement in the Old Testament? Why if violence is still legitimate, is our violence hogtied in ways that the Bible seems to think is not problematic at all?

Derek: 12:20

Now, for just to fight and use violence, why are we not just in massacring civilian women and babies? In the Old Testament, if if a a group was evil, like, let's say North Korea, let's say they're just evil, their regime is evil and they've been implementing evil practices, they've been brainwashing people. Why not just slaughter everybody? We see that in the Old Testament. If the violence is legitimate today, in part, you want to excuse our violence today because we see it in the Old Testament.

Derek: 12:54

How can you legitimize violence while saying that these other things are wrong? That slaughtering women and children are bad. If we're just in fighting today and using violence today, why don't we take slaves in war? God allowed that. I'm not I'm not talking about prisoners.

Derek: 13:13

I mean, slaves for, like, the rest of their lives. Why is that illegitimate? Because if violence is justified today in part because it was justified in the Old Testament and we see how it was used in the Old Testament and not condemned, why don't we do that today? What about taking rape victims for ourselves in war? The young virgins, it was something that was regulated in the Old Testament and was allowed, and, that's how they implemented violence and took spoils.

Derek: 13:47

Why is that off limits for us today? Why would we think that's bad? You know, even if we didn't do it, why would we think that's a problem if that's how violence was implemented in the Old Testament and we think that violence carries over from the Old Testament? If we're just in fighting and using violence today, then why not dismember enemies and display their corpses? Why are we so soft?

Derek: 14:11

Why don't we put heads on pikes and stick them up around our army bases to show what happens to people who are unjust and mess with a just nation. They did that in the Old Testament and you don't see that condemned in the way that God talks. He can talk pretty grotesquely at times. Why is that a problem? Why would we say that, oh no no, violence is good today, but oh that, yeah, that's off limits, that's bad.

Derek: 14:37

You know, why are we willing to carry over some aspects of or the existence of violence and the use of it, but not these other things that we see come along with it in the Old Testament. And we see God engaging in Himself or condoning or commanding. If you're going to say, well, those things are off limits because, you know, God had to command the slaughter of the Canaanites. He didn't tell them to massacre all men, women, and children. But he told them, you know, when to do it and when God gave the command, then it was okay.

Derek: 15:12

If he didn't, it wasn't. Right? You can use that sort of justification for some of these things, not all of them. But then if you do, that comes back to the pacifist question which is, if if God commanded us not to take vengeance or do violence in the New Testament, then why don't we adhere to that? Why do you recognize that for a certain type of violence like the massacring of women and children to occur in the Old Testament, God had to command it to allow it.

Derek: 15:46

But in the New Testament, God has expressly disallowed violence, you say, no. No. We're gonna carry that over from the Old Testament. It seems like a a double standard there and hypocritical. Last question here.

Derek: 16:01

If God's theocracy today is the denationalized church, which that's what it is because the Gospels are clear that Jesus Christ brought the kingdom. The kingdom is here. The Gospels are clear that Jesus sits is seated right now at the right hand of the throne of God, right, ruling in power. Ephesians shows us the same thing. He's seated at the right hand of the throne of God, ruling in power, giving us every heavenly gift.

Derek: 16:28

First Peter declares very clearly that we are aliens and strangers in this land because we are a part of a different kingdom, a kingdom that God said, that Jesus said, is not of this world and we do not fight for like others fight for. So if there is a theocracy today with Jesus reigning as king and that is a that theocracy is a denationalized church, then how can the church justify fighting other other Christians across the world when we go to war for our governments? Or attempt to implement God's law through force when the church is borderless, when the the church isn't like a national church. It's not a it's not a nation. Our legitimate just authority is Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone, and we submit to other authorities, national authorities, but that submission goes only as far as it until it becomes a conflict with our true king.

Derek: 17:35

And it's, I guess, for you to explain to me how there can be a just authority in this world that can tell me to go against my king and his commands and his example. I just don't think you can do it. And you run into a lot of problems when you try to rationalize that, especially when you look at how how violence was implemented in the Old Testament. Well, I think that's all for now. So peace.

Derek: 18:05

And because I'm a pacifist, when I say it, I mean it.