Year is 1945. You and your neighbors have been seeing smoke come up from the smokestacks of the concentration camp right next to your village for years now. You've seen your Jewish neighbors disappear. You've smelled the stench of the smoke. You hear the whispers of the guards who come into town for drinks every now and then.

You know what's going on there, but the war is being lost. And as the allies push forward and begin to liberate, you see the German army flee the concentration camp. You and a neighbor, a neighbor who is also a Jewish Jewish sympathizer, you go up to the camp as the guards are starting to leave. When you get there, you look around for a bit, and eventually you see this lone guard forcing people into a gas chamber. You see a gun on the ground, a gun one of the the fleeing guards must have dropped as he was running away, and you pick it up.

You look down the sights, but you just can't shoot. Your friend quickly takes the gun from you and quickly kills the guard before the guard can flip the switch to exterminate all those who are in the gas chamber. You're disappointed in yourself that you couldn't pull the trigger, and you're happy that your friend could. Many lives were saved that day. Alright.

So if if we address the morality of that situation right there, what was good and what was bad? Was it good that somebody killed the guard and saved a lot of lives? Was it bad that the other neighbor didn't shoot? Like, was he wrong for not killing the German guard? Should he have been braver and more courageous to do the right thing to kill the guard to save lives?

Or would the right thing to do have been to not kill at all? If you want to take a look at that question today, we will definitely come back to this story. But, for now, welcome back to the 4th Way podcast, as we continue to take a look at rebuttals to non violence. In this episode, we are going to look at the principle of what it means to do good. As James says, if we know to do good and don't do it, then it's a sin.

You know, a lot of times people focus on doing wrong actions. If you lie, that's a sin. If you murder, that's a sin. Doing wrong things are sins. But James, as well as lots of other books, Micah, Job, I mean, you name it, talk about this idea of positive justice, that good and right isn't just the avoidance of doing bad things, but it's also the doing of good things.

As it pertains to non violence, the argument goes somewhat like this. If we see someone in danger who we are able to help, then we are sinning if we don't help. I think perhaps Saint Cyril can help us to see this example a little bit more clearly as he deals with some people who are coming to him and asking him about the morality of joining the army. Now keep in mind, we already talked about the early church and what they thought about joining the the army and doing violence. And as you'll be able to tell from this quote, Cyril comes a bit later in the story, and so he was, in my opinion, socialized by by his environment.

But anyway, Cyril responded to these these individuals and he said, If 2 commandments were written in 1 law and given to men for fulfilling, which man would be a better follower of the Law, the one who fulfilled one commandment or the one who fulfilled both? Well, of course, the individuals who responded to Cyril said, well, the person who fills fulfills both is obviously better. So Cyril continued, Christ our God commands us to pray to God for those who persecute us and even do good to them. But he also said to us, greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. That is why we bear the insults that our enemies cast at us individually and why we pray to god for them.

However, as a society we defend one another and lay down our lives so that the enemy would not enslave our brethren, would not enslave their souls with their bodies, and would not destroy them in both body and soul. So what is Saint Cyril exactly saying? He's saying that we are supposed to love our enemies, but we're also supposed to help our friends. And so if our enemies are torturing or or seeking the harm of our friends, then I can still pray for my enemies and have goodwill towards them, but that can't negate me doing something tangibly to help my friends, to save them. So that means I'll pray for my enemies and kill them to prevent them from harming my friends.

In Cyril's mind, he is accomplishing 2 goods. He is loving enemies, and he is helping friends, he's loving friends. Now I have to admit that when I first saw Cyril's argument it kind of threw me back because I think anytime you see a a ancient church father quote, it's kind of intimidating. And it sounded really smart, like, the way that it was set up. But as I thought about it, I've recognized that that this, I think, is probably one of the weakest arguments that that I see against non violence, even though on the surface it seems like like it should be pretty strong.

So I'm gonna go through a number of, instances or examples of why I think there are problems here. And definitely stick around for the end because we are gonna come back to that Nazi story we talked about. And there is also, another point that I think is is very important that you don't miss. Anyway, start off simply. First question to Cyril, is it is it really possible to fulfill both of those commandments, to love our enemy, by killing them?

Like, is it really possible to have that love in your heart as you're pulling the trigger against them? I mean, maybe it is. Is that really thinking of of their interests as well, of seeking reconciliation and restoration and, you know, whatever, forgiveness, whatever else. Like, it just it doesn't seem like you are actually doing good 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, it doesn't seem like that happens there. 2nd, is it, is it really loving to your friend for you to take on the the action of violence and depict a kingdom in which image bearers can be objectified and killed? I mean, part of what we are to do as Christians is to live out the kingdom, partly because that's going to conform us to the image of Christ, but also partly because that is a display to the world that we don't rely on its power, and that they too can be free in Christ. And so part of our part of our action and refusal to do wrong and our our desire to be holy to have holiness is that we want to depict the kingdom so that others are compelled into that kingdom.

And, you know, my wife and I have talked about this sort of thing before. I think a lot of conservative Christians have have talked about this because we have a persecution complex. But, you know, you talk about if you know, my wife and I would say, well, if if I'm ever persecuted or if I'm ever being tortured, and they say, I'm gonna keep torturing your wife until, until you renounce Jesus. She said, you know, in the moment, I might tell you to, but I'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's life. There's something there's something deeper in love than being concerned about the preservation of our physical lives. I mean, that's certainly an important part. But if that's really your primary goal, then that's not that's just not what we see biblically. And you can look at martyrs as as just a great example of that, and persecution.

It's just this this idea that wait. So you're telling me that I should die instead of renounce Jesus? Well, yeah. Because some things are more important than your life. Your allegiance is more important than your life.

And if allegiance is more important than my life, then allegiance is more important than other people's lives too. Because in that allegiance, you're able to depict something that is is more compelling and more 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 of people who are into violence, but, nevertheless, we'll leave it at that. I'll get into some things that will be more compelling. 3rd, Cyril assumes, like so many people do, that nonviolence is passive.

He kind of he he comes to think that, alright. Well, if if you don't fight your enemies, then you're not doing anything for your friends. That's just not true. You can do a lot of things for your friends. We took a look in previous episodes about, Bulgaria and Denmark and how they, through nonviolence, saved a 100% of the Jewish community there about.

Nonviolence doesn't mean sitting on your butt and just hoping that something good happens. It does involve prayer, which is more than just sitting on your butt. But it also involves doing positive things, like hiding refugees or trying to help people escape, those sorts of things. Cyril, like most people, wrongly assumes that nonviolence is passive. 4th, Cyril's a consequentialist.

We see this all the time from from people who embrace violence as well. And it's he, in his mind, gets to determine what success is. In his mind, love means the preservation of life. There's success in survival. If your action doesn't contribute to survival, then it's not a good action.

And, I just have to say that that is Cyril's consequentialist ethics right there. It's His determined end, it's not God's determined end. Alright. 5th, let me let me get into, an example that kind of it came up during devotions one night. We're reading these these really cheesy kids' devotional books because we've got really young kids.

And one of the stories was about his father, he came home, and he told his kids that he'd lost his job. He lost his job because his bosses were asking him to do something dishonest, and he said no. The father refused to lie, to keep his job, in order to support his family. Right? So he did the right thing, he told the truth.

But that means that something bad happened, he can't support his family. Now let's take a look at Cyril's equation here, right? He talks about doing 2 things. So here's what I think Cyril does, I think he somewhat equivocates. So we, we can kind of change this around.

So right now we're saying it's not right to lie in order to support your family. Now, supporting your family is a good thing, and in fact, the Bible says that you'd better support your family. That's, that's very important. You need to be responsible for your family, so that is a good thing. But to lie is a bad thing.

And I'm pretty sure Cyril would say, well, yeah, you can't lie, you can't do a wrong thing in order to accomplish a right thing. But what Cyril does is Cyril kind of switches the equation around a little bit. So, what if I said it like this: You ought to keep your job so you can support your family. So instead of saying lie, which is the means to getting a good job, or to keeping your good job in order 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 the negative language of what you're actually doing to your enemies. You know, you're killing and you're violence to them. And he takes out this this notion that gives you the wrongness, the feeling of wrongness, and this negative aspect. And he kind of replaces it with this airy, nice language that makes it sound good. He cleans it up.

Now, we would say that the father should not lie to keep his job, and that's not a bad thing. Even though he should keep his job to support his family, he shouldn't lie to do it. You can't do a wrong thing. The same thing seems to apply if we're talking about doing something wrong to save your friend. If doing violence, if hating an enemy, if doing wrong to an enemy is bad, then you don't do that even to save your friend or your own life.

I mean, we can see this in in other instances as well. Like, we can empathize with somebody who, you know, let's say that family lost their job, and they can't eat, and so the mother thinks, well, or the teenage daughter thinks, well, now I need to become a prostitute to feed my family because even though being a prostitute is bad, feeding my family is good. And we would say, no, that as a Christian, that's not right. I can't do that. And I would suffer suffer malnutrition, whatever I need to suffer, instead of doing the wrong thing to accomplish a right thing.

And we see that with things like prostitution, because we can't imagine that that would ever happen to us. We say, nah. That's that's inexcusable. But, you know, our friend's in trouble, especially in the states where we've got, gun laws where where we can shoot people and carry guns. Yeah.

I could see myself potentially being in a situation where I would have the opportunity to save somebody's life. And we recognize that doing a wrong to accomplish good is not valid in other places, but we don't we don't recognize that here. And part of that's because Cyril changes around the the way that the positives and negatives sound. And the other part of it's just that, that we're good at kind of categorizing things in ways that that make it easier for us to accept. Alright, 6th point.

And this is where, this is where things get good. Now, I I have a really hard time with this sort of objection from people, because they don't really understand the implications of what they're saying. They're saying, if I have the power to stop somebody from doing evil in order to save somebody's life, or even, you know, let's say there's, a a child rapist or, something like that who's about to be doing something that he shouldn't be doing, kidnapping or something sexual, they'd say, no. Shoot that guy. Take care of him.

Right? If you have the power to do that, you should do that. That is good, and to not do it is evil. Well, the problem with that is you can't forget that we we serve an omnipotent God. Right?

And if I let that child rapist go, so does God. If I let that murderer or torturer continue with his act, so does god. Now, god, more than me, is capable of stopping those things, but he doesn't. Every evil thing that happens, god can stop, but he doesn't. And so to tell me that I am responsible to kill somebody, or to do violence to somebody in order to protect somebody else, is just ludicrous.

Because, then we're condemning God. It seems pretty obvious to me that since God lets so many of these things go, that there is there is some other ethic in play besides doing what seems immediately effective, and comfortable, and best, and good, and, non traumatic, doing that right now. If God can let those things go, I can let those things go if I am adhering to his ethic. Just like the father who says, I don't have to lie to keep my job to support my family. I might not be able to support my family, but we can endure that because doing the right thing is more powerful and better and faithful.

Doing the right thing does not mean that it leads to better results. It means that it's faithful, and oftentimes faithfulness means that there is suffering. So saint Cyril here, if he wants to accuse, those who refuse to do good to do too goods, then he's gonna have to lump God in there with that. And that is just not gonna work out well for any Christian. Alright, now maybe you want to dismiss all of those things that I just said, and maybe you think you have a, a a good retort to getting God out of out of the accusation that he fails to do good.

Maybe you got something great. So let me let me pull out the last little bit here that I think isn't as powerful as as pointing out how most people accuse god of evil in in this argument, but it might be more powerful because I it's gonna resonate from with inside of you instead of, philosophically outside of you. So let's return to the to the Nazi example we gave at the beginning. I'm hoping that I can use that to show you that that this idea of, doing violence to others in order to bring about good is just unlivable, and wrong, and we know it. Intuitively, like, we just know it.

And we prove it. And I'm gonna hope that I can prove that to you. So let's return to the the Nazi example, the Holocaust example. But now we are going to be set in 2019. So we're set right now, this year.

You're probably familiar, especially if you're a conservative Christian, you're probably familiar with this idea that abortion is a modern day holocaust. And I agree with that, because I think abortion takes human life, valuable human life, and we do it in numbers that are just astronomical. Now, the interesting thing about this is most of us drive by, or many of us drive by abortion clinics every now and then. Some of us probably every day on our way to work. We don't do anything of substance to intervene.

We I mean, electing a president every 4 years so he can nominate Supreme Court justice justices is not having an immediate concern for, for the individuals who are being murdered. Right? I mean, that that doesn't count. That's not of substance. Now, at the same time, while we fail to do anything significant to intervene, we condemn people who use violence against abortion doctors and against the abortion clinics.

Right? Even though they're fulfilling Cyrille's criteria, they are doing good to the to the victims. And at the same time, if they're churchgoing people, they're probably probably praying for people too. Right? Praying for the theoretically, you can have somebody who prays for the abortion doctors and sees that they're continuing in their ways and says, I have to stop this, goes, bombs an abortion clinic, shoots a shoots a doctor, and, right, there's Cyril's criteria right there.

That's our notion that somebody's doing good because they're preventing the commission of violence against innocents. Problem with this here is that the majority of those who aren't pacifists approve the Nazi killing. However, hardly anyone approves the killing of abortion doctors. I don't know anybody for as as conservative, as my group is. I do not know anybody who would say that it is morally justified to go and kill an abortion doctor.

Now I know people who might be kind of happy about it, like, well, he got what was coming to him. But I don't know anybody who would be willing to say that that was right of somebody to do. But, in the Nazi example, I grew up watching all sorts of World War 2 movies, like The Dirty Dozen and Saving Private Ryan. And I loved it when the Nazis got killed. And it was just awesome, like, what justice.

I wish I could pull the trigger. So I take it that that most non pacifists at the beginning here thought that the person who shot the Nazi guard to prevent them switching up the gas on the gas chamber was justified. Like, that that was good. Not only was he justified, but that was the right thing to do. Now as for the the other person who failed to shoot, I don't know that most non pacifists would condemn that person as doing the wrong thing.

Maybe that's, Christian liberty or, I I don't know, whatever. Maybe, they just were too weak and couldn't do it. But I don't know that they'd condemn them, but they would definitely condemn the person who did nothing, who who didn't even try, didn't even think about it, just, like, said, no, I can't, I can't shoot. And I don't mean did nothing, there are other things that you could do. But, you kinda get what I mean.

It's important to note here that that there's really no significant differences between the Nazi example I gave at the beginning and the thing I gave at the end, in 2019 with the abortions. The only difference, and and this difference actually is not in my favor, the only difference is that in the Nazi example, we have a civilian who is shooting somebody who represents an arm of the government. Which, if you throw Romans 13 into this, is a lot more problematic for for the people who advocate violence. Whereas in the in the abortion scenario, it's a civilian versus a civilian, just protecting protecting other people by harming another civilian, not even by government mandate. If killing the Nazi then is justified, and maybe even more than justified, maybe it's good, then why don't we praise abortion bombers?

Why don't we become people who kill abortion doctors and prevent abortions? If we really think that that that what happened with the, with the Nazis, that killing Nazis was great, even by citizens of, their own nation, why why don't we do that with abortion doctors? And even if you wanna go so far as to say, well, in the Nazi example, the person who didn't shoot was justified, so we don't have to kill abortion doctors. Great. That's fine.

But if killing is optional, then why do we still condemn the people who do kill? Why do we call that wrong? So we definitely have a double standard here, where we say that it's okay. It's okay to do this to Nazis, but it is not okay to do it to abortion doctors. This was one of the conundrums that was kind of a turning point for me too when I first started coming to nonviolence.

I asked this question, and nobody could answer it. Nobody could tell me. Now I knew what the implications were. I understood that if I said you shouldn't kill the Nazi, then you shouldn't kill the abortion doctor. And if those two things were true of such egregious egregiously evil situations, that said a lot about nonviolence as a position.

But if I said that you could kill the Nazi, then I recognize what that implied for how we should be living here in regards to abortion. We should be violent. It was far more intuitive to me that you don't kill abortion doctors than it was intuitive to me that you kill Nazis. For as much as I grew up on those wonderful war World War 2 movies, and for as much as I've fascinated about killing Nazis, that was much less intuitive to me than the fact that you just shouldn't kill abortion doctors. Not because abortion is less wrong, but because you just you just can't go and murder people.

And that's not just my intuition. That's the intuition of 99.9% of the Christian community because nobody's doing it and hardly anybody except, like, extremists are are doing it. We know this is true. So we recognize the intuitive nature of non violence. And if if you wanna disagree with me on that, well, then the alternative is that we're all cowardly hypocrites who say that these people should be killed and nobody's willing to do it, because we don't wanna face the consequences.

Now, I will grant you that most of us are probably cowardly hypocrites. But, as far as this goes, I I just, you know, if this if we really believe this is a holocaust, and we really believe in violence, that violence is a solution, then I am convinced that way more people would be doing this if we didn't have this intuitive sense that, no, non violence really is correct. So intuitively, we all know that Cyril's wrong. I showed you, like, 6 or 7 different different ways of going about looking at at what he said, and this idea of doing good, or not avoiding doing good. In the end, we know that doing 2 goods doesn't mean doing one evil to accomplish a good.

Right? We we just know that. And I showed you that with the the father example and the prostitute example. We're not allowed to return evil for evil, even to do a good, because that's not 2 goods. That's an evil 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 points fairly quickly.

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 all for this episode, so peace. Because I'm a pacifist, when I say it, I mean it.