Shaun Groves
By the time Hugo Grotius was born in 1583, Catholicism had lost it’s monopoly on faith in Europe. Martin Luther nailed his theses up in Wittenberg, the Reformation spread, giving birth to Protestantism – and then Protestantism split into factions of its own.
Grotius was Holland’s attorney general and a member of the Remonstrants, a group of upper-class citizens sympathetic to Jacobus Arminius’ “tolerant Protestantism.” The group was in constant conflict with the Gomarists, orthodox Calvinists led by Franciscus Gomarus, a group most of the nations population and ministers sided with – possibly because the group was led by Prince Maurice.
In 1618, Prince Maurice, using the nation’s military, arrested several prominent Arminians. Some were executed and Grotius was sentenced to life in prison. He escaped and spent most of his remaining years in France.
It was there that he made his contribution to Just War thinking and earned his title “Father of International Law” by publishing De jure belli ac pacis (On the Law of War and Peace).
“Although the paternity of international law belongs as much to Victoria and Gentili, yet Grotius is still considered the most significant writer on international law.”(1)
Grotius wrote…
…fully convinced…that there is a common law among nations, which is valid alike for war and in war, I have had many and weighty reasons for undertaking to write upon this subject. Throughout the Christian world I observed a lack of restraint in relation to war, such as even barbarous nations should be ashamed of.
This “common law” is what Aquinas had called “natural law” – a way that seems right to all people. Grotius further developed the idea of common law, stating outright that consideration of God (or his revelation) was unneccessary when determining if a war was just or not.
…even if we should concede that which cannot be conceded without the utmost wickedness, that there is no God, or that the affairs of men are of no concern to Him.
Grotius argued that our criteria for Just War must be independent of all religion. After all, battles were being fought across Europe between Arminians, Calvinists and Catholics. An independent criteria not founded on faith had a chance, he reasoned, to bring peace to those divided by faith.
Just War doctrine had not been birthed from scriptural exegesis or reflection on the nature and will of God in the first place, but Grotius was the first to declare that it shouldn’t be.
By ditching even the illusion that Just War theory had a faith foundation, Grotius was able to focus his Just War criteria on just cause and give very little attention to right authority and right intention – unlike previous Just War thinkers.
This was a shift away from the inner religious realm of conscience that had been a prime concern of Vitoria toward the exterior and observable. This move strongly influenced later thinking about war.(2)
This emphasis on externals is a mark of the secularized just-war doctrine. (3)
“In the absence of an agreed moral theory,” one U.S. Airforce historian writes, “it made sense to keep to what everyone could see.”(2)
Not only did Grotius separate Just War thought from religion, he also defined more broadly than ever who the enemy is. Grotius considered an entire hostile nation, with all its citizens, the enemy. War was no longer a clash between rulers and their armies but between whole nations.
But, while Grotius considered the entire nation to be the enemy, he kept the medieval distinction between warrior and noncombattant. There were some citizens, he rationalized, who made no “direct contribution” to the war: women, elderly, children, students, priests, and merchants. These should not be attacked.
Though a Christian, Grotius’ many lasting contributions to Just War thinking were admittedly not grounded in his faith.
Grotius had no sense of virtue beyond the natural, and he did not recognize any uniquely religious morality. …Since he had really removed any need for a religious element, Grotius made possible the move to a moral understanding [of war] independent of Christian belief. (2)
SOURCES:
-
(1) William Ballis, The Legal Position of War: Changes in Its Practice and Theory from Plato to Vattel (New York: Garland Publishing, 1973), 108
- (2) Louis A. Manzo, Morailty in War Fighting and Strategic Bombing in World War II (Air Force Historical Foundation, 1992)
- (3) James Turner Johnson, Ideology, Reason, and the Limitation of War: Religious and Secular Concepts, 1200-1740 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1975), 214
Jenna B. says:
I tried to read this twice and still had no idea what your point was. But then I noticed the ‘related posts’ – ah! A series. Ok. I’ll come back when I have more time to read. 🙂 Thanks for keeping me on my toes.
keith says:
You use the word “nation” in the first few paragraphs. Which nation is that? Thanks.
Shaun Groves says:
Oops. Sorry. Deleted the nation’s name in the editing process without realizing it.
Holland.
Douglas says:
“Just War doctrine had not been birthed from scriptural exegesis or reflection on the nature and will of God in the first place…”
Where do you get the idea for this claim? Have you based this idea on a reading of any original source texts? For instance, it strikes me as extremely unlikely that Augustine and Aquinas did not refer to Divine Revelation, specifically Scripture, when developing and explaining their ideas on just war. Just because one believes in the concept of natural law (Romans 2:14-15) and the idea that people can know the right thing to do in a situation despite having never heard of Jesus, the Word Incarnate, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the Just War Theory was developed without specific references to Divine Revelation.
Shaun Groves says:
Read Aquinas and Augustine and you’ll not find that they based their reasons for going to war or proper methods of war on scripture. They appeal to natural law. Yes, natural law, or conscience, is divinely given. But it is limited. And what are we to do when my conscience differs from yours? What is our authority. Aquinas and Augustine and the Church were the authority. But if you’re not Catholic…then what?
Douglas says:
Thanks for putting this series together. It is very interesting and I’m learning a lot. However, I still think that the sources you are looking aren’t very well read in what Aquinas and Augustine thought. For instance, I started with Aquinas because I learned about him a bit in college and am more familiar with him. His ideas on just war are replete with Scriptural references, and he considers the question from many different angles. For instance, the writing of Aquinas below takes up the idea of just war referencing Mt. 26:52, Mt. 5:39, Rm. 12:19, Lk 3:14, Rm 13:4, Mt. 10:34, Rm. 1:32, Mt. 16:52, 2 Tm 2:4, 1 Cor 11:26, 2 Cor. 10:4, Dt. 16:20, Mt 7:12, Jos 8:2, Mt. 7:6, Ex. 20:8, Is 58:3, 1 Mach 2:41 and Jn 7:23. And that doesn’t consider Biblical quotes contained in the extra-Biblical references, some of which were sermons on Scriptural texts.
http://ethics.sandiego.edu/Books/Texts/Aquinas/JustWar.html
Given that all those scripture references can be found in just one very brief writing by Aquinas (out of many thousands of pages that he wrote), I find the statement that he didn’t rely on Scripture when coming to his conclusions on Just War Theory doubtful, to say the least. No Protestant is going to take Augustine or Aquinas or the Catholic Church as an authority. However, no author should ever be dismissive of nor misrepresent someone they disagree with, especially if that person is relying on the Word of God as the ultimate source of their beliefs. If even a numnuts like me can find Scriptural references without too much looking, then there are surely many more.
Thanks again for being courageous and putting your ideas out there. I would encourage you to keep looking, to keep reading, and to find a more reliable text if you want to know what Aquinas and Augustine thought and how they came to their conclusions. It took me ten years after taking a class which spent a month studying Aquinas’ idea of law to understand even a small fraction of what I read. People today are not use his teaching style. It takes a real scholar to put together a reliable summary of his ideas on any given topic.
Peter Kreeft and GK Chesterton are two people who were well read enough to understand and present Aquinas to others, but I’m not sure how much they addressed Aquinas’ ideas on just war in their books Summa of the Summa and The Dumb Ox.
Shaun Groves says:
First, I’m drawing a distinction between eisegesis and exegesis. When I’ve read Augustine and Aquinas I see men foisting their present situation (leaders in a State religion, in a State under attack by non-Christians) onto scripture, ignoring at times scripture’s context and original intent and meaning.
Second, Augustine certainly does use a great deal of scripture to support his broader theology in City of God and Confessions. He makes a solid biblical case, for instance for the depravity of man and his desire to conquer and procure pleasure for himself. He also builds from scripture a solid argument for the existence of two kingdoms – God’s and man’s. He lays a solid theological foundation on scripture (even if I don’t entirely agree with him on every brick of it) but then erects a shaky war ethic on top of it. The foundation is biblical (though full of errors) but the ethic is his own – his best understanding of what that foundation means for Christians in a nation at war.
I humbly refute the assertion that because Augustine and Aquinas cite scripture they are basing their war ethics upon it. But I also stand corrected that I should clarify this fine point instead of making broad statements that make it seem like these men didn’t use any scripture in making their arguments for war. My mistake. Thanks for calling me on it. I’ll reread my posts in this series and correct as often as needed. Thanks, Douglas.
Douglas says:
“First, I’m drawing a distinction between eisegesis and exegesis. When I’ve read Augustine and Aquinas I see men foisting their present situation (leaders in a State religion, in a State under attack by non-Christians) onto scripture, ignoring at times scripture’s context and original intent and meaning.”
Funny. If you replace Augustine and Aquinas with Shaun Groves, that’s basically the conclusion I had come to regarding much of what you have written. I suppose that’s why we come to different conclusions on whether the Christianity is a pacifist religion or whether embedded in Scripture is the idea that war can at times be justified.
Even if we disagree though, it is nice to understand where other people are coming from. To be honest, I would like to read more about your take on the Bible verses Aquinas referenced. I still don’t understand how you interpret the Scripture in Romans that refers to the state bearing the sword as agents of the Divine, and effectively carrying out God’s wrath in the midst of state sponsored violence.
If you have already delved into the exegesis of that or similar passages, feel free to point me to a link.