CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTIONS

Toward a Reconstruction of the Social and Political

Philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth

J. Landrum Kelly, Jr.

Toronto Studies in Theology
volume 68

The Edwin Mellen Press
Lewiston/Queenston/Lampeter

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kelly, J. Landrum.
	Conscientious objections:  toward a reconstruction of the social and political philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth / J. Landrum Kelly, Jr.

	Includes bibliographical references and index.
	ISBN 0-7734-1935-7
	1.  Pacifism--Religious aspects--Christianity.  2.  Jesus Christ--Political and social views.  3.  Jesus Christ--Person and offices.  4.  Christian ethics.    I.  Title
BT736.4.K45  1994
261.8'73--dc20								93-30971
											CIP

This is volume 68 in the continuing series
Toronto Studies in Theology
Volume 68 ISBN 0-7734-1935-7
TST Series ISBN 0-88946-975-X

A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.

Copyright  1994  J. Landrum Kelly, Jr.

All rights reserved.  For information, contact

The Edwin Mellen Press					The Edwin Mellen Press
Box 450								Box 67
Lewiston, New York 						Queenston, Ontario
USA 14092							CANADA L0S 1L0

The Edwin Mellen Press, Ltd.
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UNITED KINGDOM SA 48 7DY

					

To
Betty,
Allison,
and Anne

TABLE OF CONTENTS

		Preface												   i
		Acknowledgments			     					 iii
		Introduction											  1
I.		Pacifism and the State								  5
II.	The Limits of Legal Obligation: 					 43
		The Christian and Socratic Traditions Compared
III.	Militerrorism											 81
IV.	The Divine Constitution:							113
		A Radical Rethinking of the
		Church/State Distinction
V.	Justice as Forgiveness:								153
		The Paradox of the Golden Rule
VI.	The State as Protection Racket:					189
		Altruism, Citizenship, and Exclusion
VII.	A Theological Metaphysic of Pacifism				227
VIII.	The Epistemology and Moral						263
		Psychology of Pacifism
IX.	Veiled Violence: The Euphemisms of				299
		Organizational and Social Control
X.	Sexuality and the									337
		Harmonious Social Order
XI.	Toward Perfection:  Beyond the					373
		Limits of Present Vision

		Epilogue: Peace and Freedom						403
		Notes													409
		Bibliography											439
		Index													447

PREFACE

	The original goal of this work was to assemble a body of arguments which could serve as a handbook for conscientious objectors and others opposed to war: against the sword of the state, it seemed, such persons were at least entitled to a few rational arguments by way of self-defense.
	As the work progressed, it became obvious that something even more significant was at stake: a vision of a perfect social order.  This work is not a statement of such a vision, but part of an attempt to formulate a morally perfect individual response to an imperfect social order.  Such a morally perfect response would entail an ethic of ideal means, an ethic which, if universalized, could not but offer some glimpse of the perfect social order, a social order in which persons always used the most perfect means imaginable to advance their valid social ends.
	It became immediately obvious that the requirement of ideal or perfect means has truly revolutionary implications: if persons ideally may not use violence, then ideally neither may they threaten the use  of violence, nor may they coerce, punish, judge, nor even accuse, for all of these methods fall short of the ideal.  Since a general refusal to use all non-ideal means would threaten the perpetuation of the existing legal and social order, a truly consistent pacifism implies the possibility of a new order, even though it does not offer a blueprint for new social structures.  Even so, pacifism as an ethic of ideal means at least points toward a comprehensive social theory or philosophy.  
	The most perfect statement of ideal means seems to be found in the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth in the Sermon on the Mount and related passages in the New Testament.  In what follows, I have tried to recast Jesus of Nazareth as a social and  political philosopher, the most radical one who ever lived, as well as the one who most consistently lived by the revolutionary doctrine of perfect or ideal means.
	The philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth, so conceived, is ironically the sternest possible challenge to orthodox Christianity in its present typical role as defender of the institutions of war, judgment, and punishment.  That is, if one respects the original teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, then one must conclude that the ethical and religious canons of Christianity ought not to be props for the use of the weapons of war or for the perpetuation of other reactionary institutions.
	I still hope that the original modest goal of this work has been realized to some extent: I hope that it can provide one source of useful contemporary arguments against the military draft and against war in general.  Let it be remembered that all of the most successful pacifists (such as Christ, Gandhi, and King) have given their lives for the cause of peace.  Even so, there is no one who, having once glimpsed the fullness of the ideal of perfect means, could ever again settle for aspiring to anything less.  There is something powerfully compelling about the cause of peace, something that requires a single-mindedness that tends to push aside all purely personal concerns.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

	I wish to acknowledge the support of the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities for grants which covered periods of study and reflection from 1970 to the early 1980's.  The most significant change in my thinking came during and after an NEH Summer Seminar at Johns Hopkins University in 1982 under the direction of Richard E. Flathman.
	Prior to that summer, and during the writing of a doctoral dissertation from 1975 to 1978 at the University of Florida, I had tried to defend a philosophy of non-retributivism on consequentialist grounds resembling utilitarianism.  I cannot say with precision at what point it become clear to me that a coherent non-retributivism could never be founded on utilitarian or other consequentialist foundations, although I am sure that conversations with Richard Flathman, Peter Steinberger, and other members of the 1982 NEH Summer Seminar group were decisive.  The actual writing of the manuscript in its present form was done between 1986 and 1993.
	Among my many intellectual influences, I am especially grateful to Alfonso Damico and the late Manning J. Dauer of the University of Florida, Will Adams of William Jewell College, Michael Preda of Midwestern State University, Ernest E. Harrill and Ernest J. Walters of Furman University, and Edward Babin and Conway Henderson of the University of South Carolina at Spartanburg.  
	Of colleagues and students, however, none have been more valued than those at Salem College from 1977 to 1984, including especially David M. Lynch, Francis Perna, Melvin Nida, John Wood, Edward Wheat, Mark Funkhouser, and Dallas Bailey.  If I had not known the intellectual culture at Salem, and experienced very personally the travail of that institution in the late 1970's, I should have had no real motivation to understand why peace is so fragile and why it is to be valued so highly during those magical times when it does seem to reign supreme in an entire community.  Salem College was well-named, and it was at Salem during the fall of 
1978, within two months of the defense of my doctoral dissertation, that my quasi-utilitarian foundations failed me in practice.  Thus did the long search for an alternative theoretical foundation for a consistently non-retributive ethic begin in earnest.
	As for the final stages of this manuscript, my many thanks go to colleagues in the Political Science Department at Georgia Southern University.  Technical assistance from John Daily and David Moskowitz (the latter now at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte) is especially appreciated, but the general climate of support and intellectual and ethnic diversity and toleration were the decisive factors which promoted the completion of the manuscript.  I owe a particular debt in that regard to Lane Van Tassell, Roger Pajari, Shafik Hashmi, Christa Slaton, and Debra Sabia, although the entire department has been so supportive that I hesitate to single out any person or group.  
	I hope that none of the above-mentioned persons would be too dismayed at the conclusions which I have reached, and for which I alone am responsible.
	My sincerest expressions of gratitude go to my wife Betty and to my daughters, Allison and Anne, for their support during the writing of this manuscript.  All of them had to make sacrifices and endure hardship which should never have been imposed on anyone.  Betty, the gentlest person that I have ever known, is the embodiment of the ideals expressed in this work: there has been more coherence and persuasiveness in her daily example than in the best rational argument, and she is the truest and fullest inspiration for this work.
	Finally, I owe to my parents, my sister Brenda K. Tripp, and my niece Lynn Tripp Arce a family tradition of philosophical and theological inquiry which goes back to my earliest years.  Indeed, I cannot remember when my father was not questioning some received opinion, or when my mother was not expressing some sense of wonder in the commonplace realities of existence.  The capacity to convey that sense of wonder and inquiry is to me the greatest gift that parents can give to their children.

					J. Landrum Kelly, Jr.

INTRODUCTION

	What would the history of Christian moral and political philosophy have been like without the enormous influences of Augustine and Aquinas?
	The present work does not attempt to answer that question directly, nor does it offer a systematic refutation of these two thinkers.  The point here is to try to comprehend the earliest Christian ethical teachings in their original social and historical contexts, before those teachings were subjected to Pauline and medieval revisionism.  So doing has required the excising of at least one great (but negative) contribution of the two greatest medieval theologians: the "just war" doctrine of Augustine,1 and the "divinely-sanctioned coercive state" doctrine of Aquinas.2  Nothing in the original teachings of Jesus of Nazareth suggests that he embraced either doctrine of violence.  (War, that is, is overt violence, whereas coercion is the threat of violence.)  If Jesus embraced an ethic of ideal means, then he could not have believed in either violence or the threat of violence, which together make up the foundation of the coercive state.  If, to the contrary, one accepts the idea that the coercive state is a divinely-sanctioned institution (as Paul suggests in Romans 13), then the doctrines of the "just war" and of "justifiable punishment" follow logically enough as being necessary for the survival and maintenance of that state.
	Augustine actually believed in both doctrines, although it was Aquinas who gave us the most refined statement of the theory of the divinely-sanctioned state.  The influence of Paul is also evident in the writings of both thinkers, although the Pauline influence can be seen most clearly in Aquinas.

	What follows can be seen as the beginnings of an attempt to reconstruct the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as part of a unique and systematic body of social thought based on the agápe idea of unconditional love and a concomitant requirement always to respond to evil with good.  This agápe principle (the foundation of a uniquely Christian interpretation of the "golden rule") would seem to require excising not only the premises of Augustine and Aquinas, but the scriptural warrant of Paul upon which the doctrines of both political philosophers rest.  
	The following tentative attempt at a reconstruction of the views of Jesus of Nazareth is not a formal treatise, but is instead a series of exploratory short essays and aphorisms which address many long-standing issues in all areas of Christian ethics, with particular emphasis on the use of state-sanctioned violence.  What follows thus does not so much try to disprove the "just war" and "divinely-sanctioned coercive state" theories as it assumes their falsity by assuming the absolute validity of non-violent, ideal means and seeing what the implications might be for a number of enduring social questions.  As an intellectual exercise, what follows can thus be seen to be a "rationalist experiment," for it asks the reader to imagine what the philosophical--and social--legacy of Christianity would have been without the now standard buttresses of the "just war" and "divinely-sanctioned state" doctrines.  In the larger philosophical context, what follows is also a running critique of social contract theory.  The agápe concept is thus the ethical frame of reference for critiquing both the "just war" tradition and the larger contractual tradition out of which much statist thinking has emerged.
	This speculative theoretical experiment assumes the absolute validity of non-violent (and non-threatening, non-coercive) means on the grounds that only ideal means would have been worthy of God or God Incarnate: God Incarnate, that is, would have had something very distinctive to say, something which would surely distinguish his teachings from those of all imperfect human beings.  The hidden premise, then, is that a Perfect Being would recommend and use only the most ideal means in dealings with other persons.  The implications and conclusions derived from this assumption should point toward a more authentically Christian interpretation of the myriad issues of social and political theory, culminating (one hopes) in someone's success in achieving a formal theoretical reconstruction of what one might call "the social and political philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth" from the biblical fragments of his teachings.
	What follows may also indicate what kinds of radical insights are possible when critical thinkers decide to put the medieval Christian tradition behind them once and for all and move toward a mature and robust faith in the One who was truly deserving of the title, "The Prince of Peace."

									

CHAPTER ONE

PACIFISM AND THE STATE

	1-1.  What is wrong with a pacifist polemic?  Does the institution of war deserve better? 
	Yet, a polemic against war does not preclude a philosophical defense of peace.  

	1-2.  The "just war" doctrine is a medieval relic.  It represents the same chauvinistic impulse that gave us the Crusades.  The "just war" doctrine is thus little more than the Christian version of the Islamic Jihad: it is little consolation to know that some presumed "just" war is to be waged with good will rather than a spirit of vengeance.  
	Neither the living nor the dead can recognize the difference.

	1-3.  A consistent pacifism represents a categorical renunciation of the principles and practices of war and punishment, and thus of retribution and retaliation in general.  This renunciation extends to the realm of public as well as private action.  
	So defined, pacifism implies a political philosophy, not only a statement of ethics.  It implies, that is, that the state cannot legitimately resort to the practices of war or punishment anymore than can individuals.  And, since the state is defined by such practices, the final implication of pacifism for political philosophy is that the coercive state is morally illegitimate.

	1-4.  Pacifism is not only a categorical renunciation of violence--of acts of war and punishment--but also a renunciation of the threat of such (including the threat implicit in every accusation and judgment of another person).  For, if one never uses violence, but only threatens to use it, one relies upon terror as the basis for social order and social justice.  This is not the way of peace.

	1-5.  In challenging the legitimacy of state violence, pacifism challenges the distinction between public and private morality.  It is this distinction which is the foundation of the claim that the state not only has the right to use violence, but that it has a monopoly on such a dubious "right."
	
	1-6.  "If a man strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other.  You may not exact retribution with your own hands.  You may, of course, invoke the power of the state and the entire society to do what you are forbidden to do on a purely personal level.  That is, you must as individuals be as gentle as lambs.  You are permitted to be vicious only when acting in groups."
	Such might have been the words of Jesus of Nazareth if he had believed in the usual distinction between public and private morality, in the "right" of secular rulers and officials to lord it over their subjects, the common people.       

	1-7.  Paul said, in Romans 13, that "The state is the instrument of divine retribution."  Thus began the tradition of revisionist Christianity, by which an accommodation with the coercive state was made possible. 
	This accommodation, given scriptural warrant by Paul, was given philosophical warrant by the medieval theologians, Augustine and Aquinas.
	Modern orthodox Christianity, far from throwing off these medieval influences, is too well-established, too comfortable with its accommodation with secular power--violence--to accept the message of its founder in all of its purity and idealism.

	1-8.  Because Paul is in the Bible, orthodox Christianity categorically endorses the words of Paul as the word of God. 
	Orthodox Christianity, that is, worships the Bible in lieu of worshiping God.

	1-9.  In rejecting the gentle teachings of Jesus of Nazareth and embracing the legacy of Paul and the medieval theologians, orthodox Christianity endorses a point of view that vitiates the original message by making it perfectly equivalent to and compatible with the secular, worldly way of dealing with injustice: violent retribution.
	By endorsing Paul without qualification, orthodox Christianity not only accepts the divine sanction of the coercive state, but it also tells us something about what it believes to be the nature of God, as well as the nature of divine justice.

	1-10.  Pacifism is not only at odds with the so-called "just war" doctrine, but with all variants of "deterrence" theory as well, for deterrence is based on terror, fear.
	The Kingdom of Heaven is not based on the rule of fear.  Jesus of Nazareth did not "deter" evil.  Terror was the greatest evil which he came to conquer.  Would he have used terror to cast out terror?  Can a house divided against itself stand?

	1-11.  "Peace through war"--is the "just war" tradition not reducible to this absurdity?
	"Peace through fear"--is this not the absurdity of the doctrine of deterrence?

	1-12.  An ethic of peace cannot, of course, be defined merely by what it renounces.  Peace is surely not something which can be brought into existence merely by a an ethic of "thou-shalt-nots": peace is certainly more than the absence of conflict, as even the "just war" theorists have noted.  
	Therefore it is not enough to forbid retribution, retaliation.  Nor is it enough to rail against war and punishment, nor the institution of the state which they support.  One must also offer alternatives--to all of them, but, above all, to the coercive state.  If the coercive state is seen to be indispensable, then so must the institutions of war and punishment, for these are the instruments of its survival.

	1-13.  The ultimate foundation of the "just war" doctrine is the assumption, in one form or another, that God ordains the coercive state (hereafter simply referred to as "the state").1
	For, once one has assumed that the state is ordained of God, one cannot but claim that one is justified in fighting (or punishing) to defend the state: in accepting the idea that God has ordained the state, one has implicitly accepted the "just war" doctrine as well.

	1-14.  If the use of "scare quotes" around the phrase "just war" seems to be conveying some warning, then let the message be clear and explicit: "just war" is assumed in this work to be an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms.

	1-15.  Von Clausewitz is quoted frequently and faithfully by the sons of Leviathan: "War is the extension of diplomacy by other means."2
	How much time does von Clausewitz require by way of rebuttal?  One need do no more than point out that von Clausewitz's aphorism can be reduced to this and no more than this: war is shooting at people; diplomacy is threatening to shoot them.
	Such is the moral foundation of the so-called "Realpolitik." 

	1-16.  The central requirement of the Sermon on the Mount is that one should love one's enemies, do good to those who despitefully use one.  (Matthew 5:44)  
	But, in the language of the U.S. Constitution, one who gives aid and comfort to the enemy is a traitor to the state or nation.  Thus, by the pronouncements of the state, one who is truly loyal to the Christ is a traitor to the state.  It is not, however, the simple pacifist who declares himself to be a traitor to the state.  It is the state who declares the pacifist to be the traitor. 
	Jesus was viewed in his own time as a traitor because of his  pacifistic views.  Is orthodox Christianity today, in its accommodation with the violent state, a traitor to the Christ?
	
	1-17.  When Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, his fellow Jews expected a warrior to be the champion of justice.  What else could the ethical tradition of "an eye for an eye" have led them to expect?  When he appeared, gentle and vulnerable, armed only with the power of peaceful ideas, they felt betrayed.
	Or perhaps they were merely frightened by a new idea, one that challenged their own retributive, violent, and patriarchal tradition.

	1-18.  The view that Jesus was pacifistic and did not accept the legitimacy of the violent state (and its coercive methods of enforcing compliance) is not only misunderstood by the overwhelming majority of those who label themselves as "Christian": it was not even completely understood by the original disciples, nor by Paul.  
	There are two problems to contend with here in dealing with believers: first, one must demonstrate to nominal Christians the viability of the substantive ethical point of view being defended (pacifism and the moral illegitimacy of the state); and, second, one must demonstrate that this point of view was indeed that subscribed to by Jesus of Nazareth.  The first task is one belonging to the province of philosophy, ethics.  The second is one belonging to the province of biblical exegesis or interpretation.  
	Unfortunately, while the two tasks are theoretically factorable, both enterprises are mixed up together in practice.  That is the nature of Christian ethics, and it is one reason that all attempts at a sceptical secular reduction of Christian ethics are impossible.

	1-19.  On the Christian view, God not only appeared in the flesh, but he did so in such a way as to make himself vulnerable, denying unto himself the protection of both the state and religious hierarchies.  His point was surely to exemplify a way of dealing with threat and wrong-doing, a way which did not rely on appeal for protection to the coercive sword of the state, but to God or true Reason alone.
	It does take a lot of faith in the infinite power of God to accept such teachings without fear.

	1-20.  One does not know the Christ except insofar as one understands him as challenging all forms of domination.  Since all hierarchies are forms of domination, the message of the Christ is thus quite revolutionary in its rejection of both state and "church" authority.

	1-21.  Is denial of unconditional allegiance to the state the cry of anarchy?  If one means by anarchy "without rule" (what the etymology of the term would imply), then it most certainly is not anarchy.  For, if God rules, there is rule indeed, and so the absence of human coercion and hierarchy is not the same as anarchy. 

	1-22.  I am not advocating anarchy.  Nor am I advocating theocracy as the term is commonly understood, for in theocracy, as the term is commonly understood, God is seen to rule through the state.  I prefer to think that my view is quintessentially Christian.  We must consider the possibility that God does not need the coercive state in order to rule--but he rules nonetheless. 
 	If you must label me, then, label me not as an anarchist but simply as a Christian, one who can take his religion straight, without rationalization or self-deception.

	1-23.  Would the Prince of Peace have Leviathan3 in his employ?  Would that not be a house divided against itself?

	1-24.  "Anarchism" literally means "no rule."  What I have advocated is indeed the ideal of no coercive rule of human beings over other human beings, but rule instead by the providential hand of God working both through a providentially-ordered world and through human reason.  If secular thinkers choose to label the philosophy espoused here under the broad category of anarchistic theories, they err greatly.  The connotation of the term "anarchism" is not only that there would be no rule but that it is possible for human beings to institute such a state of affairs.  Whether this is to be done peacefully (Kropotkin4) or by smashing the state (Bakunin5), the presumption is that the goal of social action should be to design institutions to take the place of the state.  My presumption instead is that the only moral requirement for individuals is to try to do the will of God: working through situations and institutions as we find them, and changing them peaceably for the better where possible.
	God is already ruling, and thus the anarchist attempt at instituting a secular alternative to the state represents a denial of the existence of such divine rule.

	1-25.  I admit that what is being denied here is some presumed necessity for the state as an intermediary in the "chain of command" of divine rule over human beings and the earth.  What I am affirming is that order and harmony could still prevail--peace in the fullest sense.  Belief in God's omnipotence requires such a belief, at least to my mind.
	How closely such an ideal will ever be approached in this life is quite another issue.  But that the conscientious individual could and must live under God's rule of unconditional benevolence regardless of what others might do is both an article of faith and a statement of moral obligation.  Nor does one have to retreat to a commune or to the false security of some escapist sect to carry out one's true obligations: one is required instead to carry one's efforts into the world, without yet being corrupted by it nor yet being captured by allegiance to some small segment of it to the neglect of the rest of humankind.

	1-26.  Let us be frank and admit that, as a consistent Christian, one is a traitor to the coercive state.  Everything that one stands for works against the long-term maintenance of the state.  If human beings were to be successful in their way of dealing with each other and with social problems, they would do more than make the state obsolete.  They would destroy not only the state through their virtue: they would destroy its very appeal.

	1-27.  Christianity urges one to love one's enemies, and the state by contrast requires that one hate one's enemies, once the state has officially so declared them.  Christian love is to be manifest by action, and so action consistent with Christianity will sometimes coincide with the will of the state and sometimes not, but in any case consistently Christian action will sooner or later--inevitably--run afoul of the state.

	1-28.  There is a kind of ironic truth in the view that the person who gives aid and comfort to the enemy is a traitor to the state.  Christianity requires such aid and comfort to all persons, emphasizing aid to one's enemies.  The requirements of Christianity are thus traitorous to the state.  Nor is this fact unseemly or unfitting: as "no man can serve two masters," no person can serve the God of unconditional benevolence and the god of retribution.  And, make no mistake, the state is inherently retributive.  Retribution is its modus operandi.  The church of the Christ operates, by contrast, by the modus operandi of unconditional benevolence and altruism, not retribution.

	1-29.  The military assault the enemy, and who is their greatest enemy?  Those who will not join them in the killing.
	"You are cowards, you who are not willing to kill for your country!"
	And so it is that those who are not willing to kill someone from another land might want to prepare themselves to die at the hands of those from their own land.  If one should be called thus to die (and one should not lightly disparage that possibility), then one must remember what country it is that one is dying to found and protect: the Family of Humankind, the country that excludes no person.
	The Family of Humankind is the only country worth dying for.  It is not logically possible to kill for it without killing one of its own citizens.

	1-30.  God's judgments rest upon the premise of the absolute worth of the individual, as expressed in the parable about the shepherd who left ninety-nine sheep to search for the one which was lost.  The rationale of secular authority, by contrast, is usually for a mandated sacrifice of individuals for the sake of the greatest happiness, the common good, national security, the State, or some other institutional rationale which subordinates the worth of the individual to the whole.  	The state, that is, believes in human sacrifice.

	1-31.  The mandated sacrifice of persons for the protection of institutions is finally for the sake of maintenance of the institutionalized dominance implicit in their governing structure, nothing more, ever.  As Caiaphas said upon rationalizing the execution of Jesus of Nazareth, "It is expedient that one man should die than that the whole nation should perish." (John 18:14)
	The statement turned out to be highly prophetic, but hardly in the way that Caiaphas intended it.  Caiaphas, for his part, perhaps mistook his concern for his position for concern for the true welfare of the people, which can never be fruitfully discussed apart from the welfare of particular individuals, all of them.

	1-32.  The question which needs to be asked is not whether it is conceivable that a society could be planned and operated without appeal to coercion and the traditional conception of authority, but whether each individual could see his or her way clear to function effectively within the existing order without such appeals.
	If so, then the order--the structures of society--would also surely change, in the most revolutionary and unpredictable ways.  

	1-33.  One does not know whether a voluntaristic lifestyle is possible until one has tried it, and tried it not intermittently or superficially, but

as part of a continuing struggle to work out alternatives to coercive and hierarchical organizational devices, while yet trying to maximize one's contribution to society.

	1-34.  One must accept the inevitability that the ethical idealist must at some point be prepared to put his principles on the line, in the form of his life, his family, and all of his worldly goods.  If he can live more comfortably with the loss of all of these than with the loss of his principles, then and only then does he deserve to be taken seriously. 

	1-35.  I can almost hear the chorus: "But would you not kill to protect your own children?!"
	In trying to frame a response to this powerful objection, one needs to remember that all persons are children of God, and all are of infinite value in his sight.

	1-36.  The greatest successes in the realm of moral teaching have been abject failures according to the standards of the world, and their worldly reward has typically been humiliation, defeat, and even violent death.  Greatness is bought with a price, and its fruits are for future generations, not for one's own.  
	Is it any wonder, then, that ethical idealism has had so few converts, and that most persons prefer to embrace what is typically called the ethic of "common sense": of self-defense, law and order, and those other principles which offer the hope of material and social success--at least for the thirty or forty years of life likely to be remaining to them when they first consider these questions seriously.

	1-37.  What is this nonsense about "idealism" versus "realism"?
	It must be remembered that the root of "idealism" is "idea."  The so-called "realist" is merely an unimaginative person trapped in the old habits of thought of the existing order of things.  The "idealist" has an idea, a conception of what might be.

	1-38.  Who are the greatest heroes, the most courageous persons in the world?  They are those who put themselves on the moral battlefields without arms or armor, and whose measure of courage is in terms not of what they are prepared to conquer but of what they are prepared to endure.

	1-39.  It is true that the whipping boy of "secular humanism" contains a great deal of respect for the individual, and thus this great tradition of thought is falsely maligned by those who obviously do not understand it.  Yet, one may say of secular theories in general that, even when defending the individual against the state, they tend to invoke the state as the defender of the individual against the state itself.
	The most ironic manifestation of this is the case of the church-state controversy, wherein the state is the referee: it is a bit like putting the fox in charge of the hencoop, but  working out better, no doubt, than if religious bureaucracies were in charge of the problem.

	1-40.  The final god of the secularists is the concept of "checks and balances" or "limited government" (limited by what if not the state itself?).  This view is even a theology of sorts: it is certainly a metaphysic.  It seems to posit a universe whereby evil may be used to check evil.  Yet, this view of the way evil is to be checked does not prevent the perceived necessity of designing man-made institutions whereby this checking can be carried out.  
	James Madison's Federalist Number LI is perhaps the Bible for this view,6 although Benjamin Franklin is perhaps its deistic theologian.

	1-41.  In early Christian thought, what checks evil is not evil but good.  I presume therefore that we are not to design either our personal actions or our institutions in order to return evil for evil, but good for evil: a house divided against itself cannot stand.  That is, it is not by evil (as power or ambition) that we are to "cast out" evil (to check power or ambition), but by the altruistic actions of individuals.  
	What Madison unwittingly did was merely to help extend the retributive machinery of law at the micro level (where, at the level of specific acts, evil had always been met by evil), to the macro level, by establishing constitutional and political institutions whereby this checking of evil by evil could come into play in the larger scheme of institutional forces.  The intent was not retributive, to be sure, but the form was: law, as John Rawls has correctly said, is always retributive in form.7  
	The greatest architect of practical legal theory who ever lived, Madison was yet still a legalist.  His theories are closer to the Realpolitik ("balance of power") school of international relations than to Christian ethics.  His legacy is retributivism writ large: it is the foundation for the litigious society where persons put their faith in coercive law and in force checking force rather than in themselves--and in God's law and forgiving spirit working through them.
	The Madisonian tradition is a brilliant prudential tradition.  It is not, however, a moral tradition.  Madison's masterpiece, the original U.S. Constitution, was a product of compromise between dominant economic interests.  It was indifferent to the worst-off members of society--African Americans and women--and it contained no significant reference to individual rights.
	The constitutive foundation of the truly just society, the Sermon on the Mount, made Madison's masterpiece obsolete two thousand years before it even came into existence.

	1-42.  So-called "benevolent despotism" usually does not involve the benign use of force, as in pushing a child out of the way of a speeding automobile.  Despotism in practice involves the use of intimidation; it is an appeal to fear.  All institutionalized despotism involves some degree of intimidation.  Intimidation cannot ever be benign, even when employed for the noblest of ends.  At the very best, it can only be called a "necessary evil," and even there we give it too much credit.

	1-43.  Did nuclear weapons "keep the peace" after World War II?  Lester Brown has said that, far from having had "peace through deterrence," or peace through military preparedness, what we had was forty years of "war by proxies" between the two superpowers, each fighting the other through the medium of smaller countries armed by them.8  There were too many casualties during that forty-five-year period to call it "peace."
	One might go beyond Brown and say without exaggeration that this forty-five-year period of the Cold War was in fact the Third World War, always on the verge of escalating into holocaust: that potential still exists.  The Cold War was a violent stalemate of destructive significance comparable to that of the First World War.  This is not an exaggerated claim, since some of the by-products of the Cold War were the Cambodian and Ethiopian tragedies, not just the Korean and Vietnam Wars, or the numerous wars in Asia, Africa, and Latin America initiated and funded in large part by the two superpowers.  
	The total casualty list of the Cold War would also have to include those persons who have died by the sins of omission which massive military spending always produces: those who in that era could have been fed but weren't because the two superpowers were so obsessed with military "aid" that they neglected the humanitarian aid of which they were capable.  Previous great powers have not had the tremendous technological advantages which the two superpowers had after WWII.  What good the two superpowers might have done so far outstrips the capabilities of all prior empires and dynasties that their failure to use these capabilities for good actually puts them into a new category of villains: those who let more people die than any other two regimes in history.

	1-44.  The best commentary on peace is the well-ordered and peaceful life, not a written discourse.  Such a life is not only its own commentary, but it will be sufficiently inspiring to compel others to want to tell and to write about it.
	It is in the spirit of that observation that one writes about Christian ethics within the context of Christian faith: the man who was God captures the wholeness of the message, so much so that the message cannot be understood apart from the story of his life and being.  Thus it is that Christian ethics treated as just another ethical system founders on the shoals of shallowness and superficiality: it is the Being of God that one seeks to know.  The ethical utterances are just an expression of that Being.  They are to be revered, but they can only be fully revered and fully understood and appreciated as an expression of that life, of that Being.

	1-45.  An idealist pacifism rests upon the assumption that a peaceful solution is always possible, at least in the limited sense that a peaceful response to conflict can always be found by the individual actor.
	It is not absurd to presume that a peaceful response is always possible: the absurdity is to presume a priori that only some kind of coercive and punitive action can resolve certain types of problems.
	The burden of proof always lies upon those who would choose violence, coercion, or retaliation.  A peaceful response does not have to be defended.

	1-46.  Christianity has been co-opted by its enemies.  Everywhere those who rule by force and those who follow them (and support them by the same means) invoke the name of the Son of God for the most sordid of activities.  Two broad interpretations of Christian ethics are clearly at odds with one another.  How is this situation to be rectified?
	One may say first that one's interpretation of the life of Christ should not come from one or two passages but from the first four books of the New Testament taken as a whole.  The image of the Christ which comes through is so obviously an image of peace and gentleness that it takes quite a bit of rationalization to interpret it otherwise.  Yet, this is quite often done, and not merely by those who rule and fight, but by those who consider themselves "ordained" (a curious concept) to be "official ministers" (an even more curious concept) of the truth.
	The result of orthodox interpretations of Christian ethics, both Catholic and Protestant, is what one might expect of official versions of anything: an interpretation which is friendly to officialdom, both ecclesiastical and worldly, but not so friendly to the truth. 
	Christianity has become increasingly a complex of bureaucracies, large and small.

	1-47.  What makes a pacifistic philosophy a Christian philosophy is the general requirement to respond to evil with good, as well as to initiate good or benevolent action in other situations.  This general idea of unconditional altruism, which requires us always to do good unto others no matter how they may treat us (good, bad, or indifferently), is the practical expression of the golden rule: always treat others not as they treat us, but as we would have them treat us.  
	Stated another way (so as to avoid any possible relativistic implications of the golden rule), we are to treat others not as they treat us but as they ought to treat us.  That is, we are always to do good unto others, implying an objective standard of what is good and worthy.  This concept of the good or worthy can be further generalized as the will of God: the good is that which is in accordance with the will of God, and evil is that which is not in accordance with the will of God.  

	1-48.  The most courageous souls to have walked the earth are those who have gone into the world without armor.  Socrates the soldier was no doubt a brave man, but it is Socrates the philosopher whom we remember.  Other examples abound of those who have risked everything armed only with words: Jesus, Gandhi, King, to name only a few.
	The greatest pacifists have not only refused to carry weapons.  They also expected to die, and many of them did.  There is nothing cowardly about pacifism.  If any man thinks that there is, then let him be human enough to try it.

	1-49.  The original point of the Christian teachings must have been in part to demythologize war, the state, and other coercive and prudential institutions.  Even marriage was not to be exempt: even marriage was tied to the prudential contractualism which was presumed to be the mortar of society, and a higher bond between exclusive pairs of human beings had to have been anticipated.

	1-50.  If one could imagine modern technology as existing during the life of Jesus of Nazareth, what would one think of the picture of Jesus entering Jerusalem in a bulletproof, plexiglas "Jesusmobile," surrounded by twelve or more disciples carrying automatic weapons?  
	Or, on the evangelical Protestant side, compare the simple entry of Jesus into Jerusalem on a donkey, "the foal of  beast of burden," with one of the modern "Christian" rallies in which the leader rides up in a limousine, with hundreds or thousands of people waving little American flags, while here and there policemen and bodyguards armed with handguns look for troublemakers in the crowd.

	1-51.  Everywhere we witness the folly of entire cultures placing their faith in militaries as the guarantors of "peace on earth."  Thus it is that the U.S. Air Force, not knowing what peace is, can proclaim (no doubt in all innocence) not only that "Peace is our profession," but also that it is through nuclear might that we have enjoyed almost a half century of "peace."
	Peace, indeed.  Mercy to those who cry peace where there is no peace.  God bless them; they know not what they say.

	1-52.  Who is the enemy in this or that war?  Who, indeed?  The enemy is not a person at all, but a way of thinking and acting: the enemy is militarism itself.  
	He who would fight that enemy cannot use arms or make threats, for in taking up arms or in making threats he concedes that the enemy  has conquered him.

	1-53.  Is there war?  Then let there be more preparedness for war so that there might be peace.  Is there infringement upon liberty?  Then let there be more arrests, judgments, and incarcerations so that there might be more liberty.  Thus will peace and freedom be realized in the world.
	Or so it is claimed, and this way of looking at things is so well established and familiar that anyone who challenges it is thought to be a fool.

	1-54.  Pacifism is at odds with militarism--and this ethical and philosophical enmity cannot be denied.  Pacifism is not at odds with the persons who are part of military organizations.  The point is not to condemn persons but to offer an alternative mode of defense of those values which deserve to be defended.

	1-55.  Every once in a while one hears what has come to be thought to be the ultimate reductio ad absurdum against pacifism: "But surely you would have to concede that war against Hitler was necessary!"
	The reply to such an argument is that it misses the point: "the war" was never fought simply to defeat Hitler.  The war was fought to defeat Germany, and Russia was literally "used" to do most of the fighting.  A restructuring of the strategic balance, not the destruction of Hitler, was the primary end of World War II.  England, France, and the United States had wanted to weaken Germany for some time, and their efforts in this regard actually created the preconditions for fascism.
	The allies, not Germany or Austria, gave birth to Hitler.

	1-56.  World War II was, like World War I, the war to end wars: it rested upon the same basic fallacy of thinking that building a huge war machine to limit the power of one state or another would result in peace.  The result of such thinking is merely the perpetuation of militarism, not a triumph over it.  Another state always rises up to become the next dominant power, and all dominant powers have the potential--almost the inevitability, it seems--of becoming the next aggressors.

	1-57.  One reason that the victors in one war too quickly become the aggressors in the next is that every dominant state comes to believe that its dominance is a reflection of its superior moral or racial character.  Upon arriving at that conclusion, such a state will insist upon exporting its culture through the use of force and economic domination--and believe that it has a great moral purpose to perform in doing so.
	At this point in history, the United States has decided that it has such a superior culture.  It thus follows in the footsteps of every tyrannical empire that has preceded it.  Although there is much good in this country, there is still almost unqualified faith in the morality of militarism as an instrument of justice.  This fatal flaw in the national character makes the United States a very dangerous force in world politics, more dangerous than the Soviet Union ever was.  Yet, both suffered from the delusion that it is justifiable to export their respective cultures through violence. 
	Both superpowers, that is, were cultural imperialists.  One has been destroyed.  The other is on the wane.  Technological stunts in recent wars distract Americans from the reality of decadence and decline.

	1-58.  All major wars, though touted as defensive measures, are always the first step in offensive preparedness for wars yet to come.  The cycle of militarism and cultural imperialism continues, and everyone who accepts its logic only helps to perpetuate it.  As long as young men and women can be convinced that arming themselves to fight "the enemy" is a noble thing to do, the cycle will continue. 
	If they would fight a truly noble battle, they would arm themselves intellectually against the real enemies in all wars: war itself, as well as the ethnocentrism and cultural imperialism which are its logical prerequisites.

	1-59.  Acts of war or violence may be categorically wrong, but it is entirely possible that total non-violence must be looked upon as a limiting ideal, not an absolute.  Yet, in expressing one's reservations one does not want to water down the idealist message of Christian ethics--it is surely the case that perfectly wise beings would always be able to find peaceable solutions.  It is conceivable that even ordinary human beings could always find non-violent and non-coercive solutions if they looked for them long enough.

	1-60.  Even if it should turn out to be the case that violence in exceptional circumstances ("hard cases") is unavoidable or justifiable, one must never stop measuring such exceptions or departures against the pacifist ideal.  One must not, that is, build one's moral principles upon such hard cases, for these are at best exceptions to valid principles.
	There might not even be such valid exceptions.  Can one imagine the Christ saying, "Turn the other cheek--except in hard cases"?  I frankly cannot.

	1-61.  The institutions of war and punishment are not hard cases.  They are routinized violence.  It is entirely conceivable, of course, that such routines began as exceptional appeals to violence made in hard cases.  Thus, although one does not want one's general defense of pacifism to depend upon the correctness of the assumption of an absolute prohibition against violence, it is possible that the cause of peace requires such a categorical prohibition: the divine logic may require it.

	1-62.  Even if it should be the case that one simply cannot find the ideal, non-violent solution in one instance, one is not justified in assuming that it did not exist simply because one did not find it.  Such a conclusion would encourage one to rationalize the use of violence or force in the next problematic situation.
	The result of this way of thinking is that, after a while, one tends to become accustomed to the routine use of force, threat, or fear.

	1-63.  If pacifism does imply a kind of moral absolutism (by no means an obvious conclusion), perhaps a categorical renunciation of the use of fear as a motivator is a better starting point for an ethic of absolute pacifism than is a categorical renunciation of coercion or violence.  Even better, at least as a starting point, would be a categorical renunciation of the punitive spirit or motive.

	1-64.  There are absolutely no circumstances under which the punitive spirit could ever be justified.  If this sounds reminiscent of Immanuel Kant's exaltation of good will as the only thing which is good in itself, let it be remembered that Kant nonetheless called for a "categorical imperative" of retribution.9  Kant thus claimed to be able to justify the institution of punishment while simultaneously calling "good will" the only thing which is good in itself.  It seems that, at a minimum, one should criticize this position on the grounds that "good will" is inconsistent not only with a punitive spirit but with any concrete instance of punishment.
	It would be a strange ethic which condemns the motive but sanctions the act!
	1-65.  The distinguishing feature of an authentic Christian ethical perspective is that it tends to reduce questions of "public policy" to questions of individual ethics: "What ought I to do?" 
	The question of "what the state should do" is seen to be nonsensical, or at least mythical: states do not "do" or "decide" anything, since the personified state is a reified concept bordering upon the mythical.  More precisely, the state as a personified entity is a fiction, and it takes whatever meaning it has from the fact that persons believe the fiction to be real.
	Nonetheless, when individuals do act in groups, each individual must still hold himself or herself to the same high standard of ideal means that limits individuals.

	1-66.  The central objection which Christian idealism has to meet is a simple question:  "But how can one imagine an ordered society based upon the pacifistic principles of Christian ethics?"  Christian idealism can meet this objection directly, but it is more useful to challenge the logic behind the question with another set of questions: 
	Why should one have to imagine a blueprint for society?  Why not instead simply ask how a moral person in any society or any situation could apply the principles of Christian idealism?
	There is no simple answer to such questions, but a creative pacifism will find the solutions and innovations as it needs them.

	1-67.  To any person who insists that a given society cannot hold together where persons do not punish or go to war to defend themselves, the Christian idealist has to ask whether such a society ought to hold together.  Perhaps a society that really is held together by punishment or war ought to be restructured, for what do punishment and war typically protect if not some form of institutionalized inequality?

	1-68.  What if Christianity did "weaken" Rome militarily.  Would that be an indictment of Christianity--or congratulations to it?  
	Perhaps Christianity succeeded in doing what force of arms could not do.  I do not necessarily think this to be the case, but Augustine was sufficiently troubled by this charge that he devoted considerable effort in an attempt to disprove it.  His proper response, I think, should have been:  "We would like to think that mere Christianity could have brought down a militaristic, parasitic empire, but perhaps you give us too much credit."  	Instead, Augustine--in spite of his greatness--gave us the "just war" doctrine, thereby helping to prop up many more Romes yet to come.

	1-69.  Could a widely adopted pacifism bring down the United States of America, in whole or in part?
	Should it?

	1-70.  A diagnosis of cancer might serve to induce a few person to seek God and to repent of their sins.  In the same way, it is possible that, for a few individuals, arrest and incarceration might provide the same impetus for repentance.
	Does this mean that cancer--death or the threat of death--is divinely ordained?   Of course not, and I think that the coercive state, which also deals with death and the threat of death, is not a divine institution.  

	1-71.  What is the church if not the "body of Christ" or the "community of co-believers"?  What, indeed?  Co-believers in what?  In a divine Messiah who came to accuse and humiliate, to punish and rule with a flaming sword?  Or a Messiah who came to show the obsolescence of the sword--and of every coercive and fear-inducing practice and institution which it represents?  	If I have to choose so starkly, I shall surely choose the latter.  If the Messiah did not have such a mission, would he really be unique and worthy of consideration of the claim of divinity?

	1-72.  Who are the most loyal of the loyal opposition?  Why, they are those who would render aid and comfort to the enemy.
	They are the most loyal to the nation of humankind.  Perhaps they are indeed traitors to this or that state.  The state, and all advocates of a lesser nation than that of all, certainly would define them as such.
	Who would God consider the traitor to his cause: those whose loyalty is to all humankind, or to only one segment of it?

	1-73.  If all we had of the story of Jesus driving the money changers from the temple were the three accounts in Matthew 21:12-13, Mark 11:15-17, and Luke 19:45-46, then we would only know that he drove the money changers out and overturned their tables.  We could only speculate as to whether or not he used force, fear, or persuasion to drive them out.
	The version in the book of John, however, goes further.  This version is often cited to show that Christ was at times a man of anger and violence.  In fact, the version in the book of John allows an understanding which is consistent with the view of Christ as a peaceful man, a view much more consistent with the other accounts of all facets of his life.
	Some confusion is engendered here by problems of translation.  The King James Version gives the following account, translated from the Greek in an uncharacteristically careless fashion:

Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: and when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables; and said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise.  (John 2: 13-16, KJV.  Italics supplied.)

Were this translation accurate, the passage would indeed imply that Jesus drove people out with the whip or scourge, along with the sheep and the oxen.
	A return to the original Greek (from which the King James was translated) gives quite a different account:

And the Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.  And he found in the temple those selling oxen and sheep and doves, as well as the money changers sitting; and having made a lash out of ropes he expelled all from the temple, both the sheep and the oxen; and he poured out the coins and overturned the tables of the money changers; and he said to the ones selling the doves: Take these things out of here--do not make the house of my Father a house of merchandise.  (Italics supplied.)

The above is a paraphrase of the literal English translation of Alfred Marshall10: I have changed primarily the word order of certain clauses so that the translation is somewhat more idiomatic.  
	The significance of the latter version is that it says only that "he expelled all from the temple, both the sheep and the goats."   That is, perhaps a correct, idiomatic translation is that "he expelled all of the sheep and goats."  One may surmise that it was not necessary to drive out the herders of these animals by force, since the mere driving of the animals out would suffice to induce the herders to go with them.  Of course, he probably did give verbal commands--or prayerful exhortations--to the herders to exit the building, but it is equally clear that verbal commands or pleas do not have much effect on sheep and oxen: the "lash of ropes" was a quick and harmless way to drive the animals out.  It was probably the same type of device used to drive the animals through the streets and into the temple in the first place: it would not have been perceived as a threatening instrument--much less a weapon--by the drivers of the same animals.
	Even more significant is the fact that he dealt differently with the money changers, as well as those who had the doves: he poured out the coins and overturned the tables of the money changers, which was surely inducement enough to leave.  As for those with the doves, he merely spoke to them:  "Take these out of here--do not make my Father's house a house of merchandise."  (Notice that there is not even a reference to a "den of thieves," as one finds in the other biblical versions.)
	The point is clear enough: surely the doves were in cages and could not be driven out with the lash.  Therefore, in order to get them out, he had to tell their owners to move them out.  Thus there is no record of his using force on those with coins or with caged doves, neither of which responds to the lash.  Nor is there any record, on this interpretation, that he used the lash to drive out the owners of the oxen and sheep: he only used the lash on the animals, not on their herders.
	If I am correct, there is thus no record in the New Testament of Christ's use of force.  

	1-74.  Why is it assumed that Jesus even spoke in anger to the moneychangers in the temple?  It seems more reasonable and consistent to assume that he spoke with anguish and dismay, perhaps with his hands against the sides of his head, saying something like the following:  "What are you doing?  Do you not know that this is a house of prayer, not a house of merchandise?"

	1-75.  The Luke version of Jesus' driving the money changers from the temple, by contrast, emphasizes not the use of force, but the use of words: he cites that passage from scripture saying that they have made a den of thieves out of a house of prayer.  (Luke 19:45)
	A man who quoted scripture as the means of "driving" people out of the temple ultimately can be said to have appealed to their consciences, not to force or fear.  The original Greek is apparently compatible with this interpretation.

	1-76.  Many passages in the New Testament clearly point to Jesus' aversion to judgment, violence, and domination:
	(1) Jesus responding to Pilate: "My kingship is not of this world; if my kingship were of this world, my servants would FIGHT, that I might not be handed over to the Jews. . ." (John 18:36.  Emphasis supplied.)
	(2) Jesus arguing to the men who stood prepared to stone the woman caught in the act of adultery:  "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" (John 8);
	(3) Jesus in Gethsemane, imploring his followers not to use force to prevent his imminent arrest: "All who take the sword will perish by the sword.  Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me  twelve legions of angels . . . ?" (Matthew 26:52-53);
	(4)  Jesus gently reproving the sons of Zebedee for wanting to occupy positions of power: "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them.  It shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant. . . ." (Matthew 20:25-28)
	I recognize, of course, that a mere recounting of such passages proves nothing about the historical accuracy of the Bible, much less about the claims of divinity for Jesus of Nazareth.  Given the evil committed by armed men in the name of Christianity, however, perhaps it is well enough to show that a coherent Christian ethic exists and that it is pacifistic to the core.  
	Those who opt for the sword in any manifestation will have to find  some other justification besides the account of the life and teachings of Jesus: it cannot be found there.  All that can be found is an ethic of peace and brotherhood and sisterhood, as well as the invitation to undertake the process of moral growth: "Be ye therefore perfect, as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." (Matthew 5:48)

	1-77.  If one is going to argue for the so-called "just war" doctrine on the basis of the account of Jesus' exhorting (or even commanding) the money changers to leave the temple, one is on very shaky ground.  Why would anyone want to try so hard to prove that the Prince of Peace believed in war?  There is absolutely no biblical warrant for such a thesis.
	More to the point, such a stance is a rationalization that makes absolutely no sense.  Perhaps the same may be said of all attempted justifications for the use of violence.

	1-78.  Consider the following passage:

And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion beseeching him, and saying, `Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.'  And Jesus saith unto him, `I will come and heal him.'  The centurion answered and said, `Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.  For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, "Go," and he goeth; and to another, "Come," and he cometh; and to my servant, "Do this," and he doeth it.'  When Jesus heard it, he marveled, and said to them that followed, `Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.  And I say unto you, that many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.  But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'  And Jesus said unto the centurion, `Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee.'  And his servant was healed. . . . (Matthew 8:5-13, King James Version)

	This writer has had this passage thrown up to him many times by military officers as Jesus' stamp of approval of military service.  "Why," it is argued, "did Jesus not tell the Centurion to forsake the military if Jesus' message is one of total pacifism?"  The question is a worthy one, and one must confess not to know the answer. 
	On the face of it, however, this passage can hardly be seen to be an endorsement of military "service," for it is quite neutral with regard to the whole question of the rightness or wrongness of such "service."  Yet, beneath the surface lies considerable meaning, and one must at least give one's opinion as to what it is.
	The first thing to be noted is that a request for a religious miracle has come here from an outsider, and not merely from a Samaritan but from one of the hated Roman officers, a leader of the occupying forces of the Roman legion. 
	Yet, is there any reason to believe that Jesus, with his universal message of salvation, would turn away a Roman anymore than he would turn away a hated tax collector (such as Matthew) or a prostitute?  Surely, the fact that Jesus healed or helped such people--and asked them to follow him--can hardly be seen as evidence that he sanctioned their activities.  Indeed, the entire point of this passage might be merely to show the universality of the Christian message of redemption: even the most hated enemy is yet a child of God.
	As for whether this passage implicitly endorses military service by failing to denounce it, it should be remembered that a Roman centurion would later be in charge of maintaining order at Jesus' crucifixion, and Jesus would not tell that centurion to forsake military service either--but that hardly means that Jesus thought that that particular centurion was in the right by carrying out the order to have him executed!

	1-79.  The context of the story of Jesus and the centurion indicates that Jesus was using the fact of this man's station--his being a Roman and a soldier--as an example of how universal his message of salvation really was.  He used it as well to indicate to the Jews that they should not be complacent in their assumption that they, merely by virtue of their birth, were and would always be the chosen people of God.  "Look," he seems to be saying, "Even this Roman officer has more faith than you do.  Throughout all of Israel I have found no one with more faith than I find in this commander of the hated occupying forces."
	Far from being an endorsement of the military, the argument being made in this passage might even be of the form, "Look, even in this lowest of human activities, we find virtuous men--foreigners at that."  Such an interpretation might be too strong, but it does remain a possibility: the profession of killing might well have ranked lower than prostitution and tax-gathering in Jesus' view of corrupt occupations.

	1-80.  God appeals to--and often uses--each of us within the organizational or cultural milieu in which he finds us.  Not only does he sometimes work through individuals who happen to be soldiers, but he also works through educators who (like it or not) sometimes more nearly resemble petty bureaucrats than teachers in their everyday duties.  This is not to say that he affirms the role of soldier qua soldier or of bureaucrat qua bureaucrat.  It might be that he achieves good through persons much of the time in spite of their formal roles.  May it suffice to say that every role, not just that of soldier, has within it the inevitable tensions between individual morality and official duties.  How best to resolve the tension for every profession is impossible for any person to say: it is difficult enough for a person to try to answer such a question for his own profession.  But surely the answer is not to be found in resigning from every organization just because it more or less often does things that one disagrees with.
	To condemn all officials would be not only to condemn much of adult society but to condemn the social matrix within which much good is accomplished--but very often by bucking the organization and sometimes, though probably not often, by resigning from it.  In no case, however, should working within an organization necessarily imply a sanctioning of the organization qua organization. 
	Yet, one must be wary of joining any organization which would presume that joining it means surrendering one's moral sovereignty to the rules or laws that govern that organization.  The buck does not stop at the top of the chain of command: it stops with each individual, and no myths surrounding laws or oaths of office can ever change that fact.

	1-81.  The argument is often made that the commandment not to kill in the Old Testament is really better translated as "Thou shalt not murder."  Linguistic and/or contextual arguments are advanced to show that the word used is indeed different from the one which refers to killing in general, or is used in such a context as to mean something different.
	This may be true, for all I know.  It is irrelevant in any case.  No Christian can accept the ethical standards of the Old Testament, based as they are on the retributive principles inherent in "an eye for an eye."  Whether killing another human being is wrong in any and all cases is a very good question, as the issue of voluntary euthanasia attests to.
	Even so, we will not get the answer from the Old Testament, for it has been superseded: "You have been taught an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I say unto you, that you resist not evil; but whoever should strike you on the right cheek, turn to him the other." (Matthew 5:38-39.  See the larger context of this teaching for an elucidation of the systematic nature of the Sermon on the Mount.11)

	1-82.  Pacifism may weaken a militaristic culture by hastening the crisis resulting from the conflict of ideas.  Until there is a challenge to the dominant elites by pacifist thinking, such elites are not apt to actively doubt their own methods or, alternatively, to try to prove or justify their methods by redoubling their militaristic efforts.  Once they do feel the force of the challenge, however, and if they do not change but persist or even deepen in their intransigence and coerciveness, then they themselves ultimately perform those actions which alienate and disillusion the populace, leading to a quicker demise for the regime and possibly the whole culture.
	Pacifist thinking thus brings a sword of division which hastens the onset of the moral dialog.  It hastens the lessons of history.  It does not destroy anything worth saving: false beliefs should be thrown out, as should institutions based on those beliefs. 
	It is ironic, nonetheless, that it is not the truth but the reaction against truth which causes regimes to become more brutal and rigid in the face of criticism.  It is ironic also that this reaction is ultimately responsible for confirming the illegitimacy of the regime and thereby hastening its demise.

	1-83.  To equate Christian ethics with pacifism would perhaps be to reduce the ethical core of Christian ethics to an ideology.  In a similar manner, to refer to "Christian pacifism" might appear only to contain reference to an ideology, but also makes the adjective "Christian" into a mere qualifier and thus subordinate to that ideology. 
	Nonetheless, I have used the terms "pacifism" and "pacifist" because I think these are valid and concise, if incomplete and imperfect, labels.  I cannot imagine Christian ethics being validly used to defend the institution of war, nor even any particular war, and thus it is correct to say that Christian ethics is "pacifistic" without yet saying that it is nothing more.
	Christian ethics is part of a comprehensive worldview which cannot legitimately be factored out from the general context of a religious faith.  In addition, even that part of Christian culture which is a valid expression of Christian ethics is not merely pacifistic in tone and intent: it is thoroughly altruistic and non-retributive, and whatever pacifistic strains it may contain are derivative of this ethical core of altruism and non-retributivism.  

	1-84.  If Christianity is at its ethical core pacifistic, and if the essence of Christianity is forgiveness, then perhaps the defining essence of a consistent pacifism is a forgiving disposition. 
	"Non-retributivism," whether in the realm of distributive justice ("forgiving" economic debts) or in the penal realm ("forgiveness" as finding alternatives to punishment), is the term philosophers have used, and it is a valid term.  Yet, it is perhaps well that it should be demythologized and brought down to earth: at its core, an ethic of non-retribution is simply an ethic of forgiveness.

	1-85.  There is nothing passive about pacifism.  "Pacifism" has its root in the Latin word for "peace," whereas "passive" has its root in the Latin word for "passion."  The two concepts have absolutely nothing in common, and those who think that pacifism implies passivity in the face of social injustice are seriously in error.
	It is an activist pacifism that one wants to espouse.

	1-86.  There will no doubt come a day when modern societies and their wars will be looked at with the same general revulsion and horror which is now reserved for those primitive societies which practice human sacrifice.  Indeed, war is human sacrifice, and the belief that such dying and killing will somehow promote peace is a superstition on a par with the proverbial belief that sacrificing virgins to the volcano god would prevent earthquakes.

	1-87.  Should we speak of "a path to peace"?  "Peace" as used in this work could indeed refer to a final state, but the relevance of a study of peace is for the present time, a time in which there is not peace.  The emphasis here is therefore on the path of peace, for peace is not a plan or a blueprint which any rational human being would try to impose upon the world, but a way of acting in the world.

	1-88.  If I were pressed to offer a justification of pacifism, I should have to say that peace is eminently practical and realistic, and that true justice proceeds not through retribution, nor through war nor through arrest and conviction, but through moral suasion and the moral perfection of individuals.  
	As for justice, the pacifist must affirm a conception of justice which is redemptive rather than retributive, forgiving rather than accusatory, and borne of both ideal ends and means, not mere good intentions and rationalizations for horrid means in the name of any end, however noble.

	1-89.  As a this-worldly conception, peace is definitely in the nature of an ideal, although I shall not go so far as to call it a "utopian" conception.  "Utopia" means literally "no place," and it is not self-evident to me that peaceful conditions and peaceful means of resolving conflict are nowhere to be found, nor that social harmony as an endstate is nowhere to be found: they are simply not to be found on an enduring basis or on a large scale.  That peaceful means are employed on a fairly sustained basis by some individuals seems clear enough, however, and there are those glorious interludes and events during which there seems to be a momentary attainment of the state of perfect harmony, albeit on a limited scale.

	1-90.  The officers of the state often perceive their role in noble terms.  They see themselves in their official capacities as protectors of those under their jurisdiction.  This protection is in the nature of a two-edged sword, however: the alternative to protection is extortion.  Those who refuse to accept the legitimacy of those in coercive positions will find themselves excluded and threatened.
	The logic of calling state protection "extortion" is that, even when the state does not overtly abuse those who refuse to give full allegiance, it systematically deprives of rewards.  This deprivation or withholding of rewards is de facto punishment, of course, and the punishment so inflicted can be life-threatening.  In all instances, it threatens the psyche and a sense of self-respect, and the state even in the mildest of its sanctions attempts to use the peer pressure of those who are "members" to exact pressure toward recanting.
	Where the state does not seek to destroy dissenters, that is, it tends to use any means necessary to "convert" them to the civil religion.

	1-91.  How can one be a pacifist, never being sure that the requirements of always returning good for evil will not leave one's loved ones vulnerable?  Would one sacrifice one's loved ones to some abstract idea?
	Ask Abraham, who was prepared to sacrifice Isaac if the will of God seemed to require it.12  One must have some faith that God, although subtle and mysterious at times, is not cruel: the story is no doubt mythical, but the larger point about faith in a divine Providence still has force.

	1-92.  I heard a man say that he has the decisive rebuttal to the pacifist: "What if someone should attack a member of your family?  Would you stand idly by and do nothing?"
	But did I not hear him say that his son turned eighteen yesterday?  Is he going to stand idly by--without protest--and let the state sacrifice a member of his family on the superstitious altar of war?

	1-93.  What should we say of an eighteen-year-old young man, a mere boy, who leaves the protection of home and of everything that he knows, to join the armed forces of his country?  Should we say that he is foolish, that he is naVve, that he is misguided, that he has been suckered, that he is brave?
	Whatever else we may say, we should have to say that he is indeed brave.  But what should we say of the larger group that would save itself by sacrificing its eighteen-year-olds?
	We should have to say that it is cowardly and selfish and not worthy of his bravery.

	1-94.  The French word l'enfant means "child."  From it we get the word "infantry."  The word is telling.
	War is a kind of mass sacrifice of the children of two warring societies who cooperate in the practice of their superstitious religious beliefs:  "We will slaughter our children to this war if you will slaughter yours."

	1-95.  Did I hear someone say that Christianity is against human sacrifice but is in favor of the "just war"?  Or did I just imagine that?

	1-96.  What does an eighteen-year-old boy want more than anything else in the world than to be thought of as a man?  Is there any human being more vulnerable in its need of an affirmation of its worth?
	The state is a vulture, preying upon such vulnerability, such earnestness, such innocence.  The young man of draft age is considered its legitimate prey.
	Why?

	1-97.  The most novel ideas must be stated ahead of their time if they are ever to have their time.  I do not, however, claim a novel moral insight here.  The moral view expressed here is that of the Sermon on the Mount.  It was ahead of its time two thousand years ago.  Perhaps it still is.  In any case, I cannot improve upon it.
	I think, in other words, that Jesus was--two thousand years ago--categorically opposed to the institutions of war and punishment.  In some ways, this book is little more than a sustained expression of astonishment that most of organized Christianity cannot see that after all these years.

	1-98.  Many of our institutional forms have outlived their usefulness, if indeed they were ever useful.  Defective or incomplete institutions always have  caused and always will cause human casualties, but the entire social order will not necessarily fall simply because of the defects of institutions, at least not until the institutional forms evolve to a certain point in terms of destructive potential.
	War and punishment, and their associated rationales, seem to have approached that critical point.  These two institutions, I would maintain, have alwayp been evil.  They now have the potential to destroy all of human society, everywhere.

	1-99.  Is nuclear deterrence exempt from Murphy's Law?13

	1-100.  War is nothing but institutionalized retaliation on a mass scale, just as punishment is institutionalized retaliation on an individual scale.  As retaliation is always wrong, so war is always wrong.  There is no such thing as a "just war."  All war is inherently unjust, although some wars are no doubt more unjust than others.
	Cannot the same thing be said of punishment?

	1-101.  One must reject the "idealist-realist" dichotomy.  The idealist and the so-called "realist" are not really opposites: the opposite of an idealist is a non-idealist, a person without ideals, principles.
	The idealist is the ultimate realist.

	1-102.  The only way to "conquer" an enemy is to convert him.  Then he becomes a friend, an ally.  Any lesser solution is a defeat: he has continued (and probably will continue) to repel one's best assaults--one's best ideas.

	1-103.  So you say that you have not--would not have--betrayed the Christ, the perfect Son of God?
	Well, would you betray, then, or have you betrayed one of the more imperfect children of God?
 	In how one treats any old human being--that is where the story is told.  Finding a perfect person to betray is difficult.  Most of us--all but the original twelve--must make do with someone else.  
	We are typically very good at that.

	1-104.  So you say that you are a pacifist because you are against global thermonuclear war?
	Friend, the problem of peace would be easy if the only war one had to refrain from was global thermonuclear war--or any other war between nation-states.  
	The real pacifist is at peace with his neighbor, his co-worker, and the members of his own family.  Show me a person who can get along with all of these, who does not bring accusations or threats against any of these, and I can show you a truly peaceable person.
	War may end in violence.  It begins with judgment, accusation, and threat.  Those who would end it would cut it off at its source, at whatever level.

	1-105.  An ethic of peace must protect and save not only the innocent, but the guilty, too--for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
	If an ethic of peace is going to save only the innocent, who is going to save us?

	1-106.  Political theory as it has been traditionally conceived is a set of exercises in legitimizing state coercion and violence, or in delimiting the realm of supposedly legitimate state coercion and violence.
	If state coercion and violence are categorically illegitimate, however, then political theory so conceived is also illegitimate.  This means that most persons who are attracted to political theory qua political theory are trying to find some way to justify state coercion and violence, and they are thus engaged in one of the most reactionary enterprises known to man.
	If one would challenge such a tradition, one at least ought to be advised as to what one is up against.  To be accepted into that  fraternity too easily could be a sign of failure as a truly moral philosopher.

	1-107.  Pacifism as a comprehensive social theory depends upon more than one premise, but one of its essential premises is the notion that the only lasting way to peace lies through appeal to the intrinsic sanctions of conscience, not to extrinsic rewards or punishments.
	The preceding is just a rather inelegant way of saying that the pen is indeed mightier than the sword: it is the power of ideas, freely exchanged and chosen, which will change the world, when the world is changed for the better on a lasting basis.

	1-108.  Peace has as much to do with interpersonal as international relations.

	1-109.  It is a cowardly country or culture which institutionalizes the sacrifice of its young people in war or prisons in order to maintain the given social order.  That would be cowardly even if one were doing so in order to defend an otherwise perfect social order.
	But to sacrifice one's young people for the sake of perpetuating the present, obviously unjust order?  That is not mere cowardice.  That is treason.

	1-110.  "Treason!  Why, these traitorous slime, who will not fight and defend their own country!"
	Tell me, you who talk like this, whom have you betrayed lately?  Whom have you sold down the road to enhance your own reputation--or self-image?

	Treason on the small scale, one or two human beings at a time--this is where the battle of faith and goodwill is being lost.

	1-111.  "But," I can hear you saying, you who have had this man arrested, this woman fired,  "This was not treason.  These people were the villains, the wrong-doers!  They deserved their punishment.  How much more is one justified in going to war against the enemies of one's country!"
	Tell me, friend, who does not belong to your country?  And who are the villains, the wrong-doers?  For are not all of us children of the same father, and have not all of us yet sinned?

	1-112.  The pacifist does not merely believe that violence or war should be used as a "last resort."  That is the basic premise behind the so-called "just war" doctrine.  
	The genuine pacifist has faith, a simple faith, that there is always a moral alternative to violence, war, and punishment--whether one sees that alternative or not.

	1-113.  Acting on the simple faith in alternatives to violence, the consistent pacifist does not spend time constructing contingency plans in case peaceful means fail.  The pacifist spends his or her time continuing to look for alternatives to non-violence--even after the atrocity has been committed.
	Is there a better way?  This is the divine obsession of the pacifist in ethics and foreign affairs.
	Was there a better way?  This is the divine obsession of the pacifist in history.

CHAPTER TWO
THE LIMITS OF LEGAL OBLIGATION:
THE CHRISTIAN AND SOCRATIC
TRADITIONS COMPARED

	2-1.  The following passage appears in one of the most widely used textbooks in political philosophy:

The rise of the Christian church, as a distinct institution entitled to govern the spiritual concerns of mankind in independence of the state, may not unreasonably be described as the most revolutionary event in the history of western Europe, in respect both to politics and political philosophy.  It by no means follows, however, that the political conceptions of the early Christians were in any way distinctive of them or specifically different from those of other men.  The interests that went to the making of Christians were religious, and Christianity was a doctrine of salvation, not a philosophy or political theory.  The ideas of Christians upon the latter subjects were not very different from those of pagans.1  (Italics supplied.)

One wants to challenge such a view in the strongest possible terms:  what is admittedly true for modern nominal Christianity was surely not true for the earliest Christians, and especially not for Jesus of Nazareth.

	2-2.  How radical were the views of Jesus of Nazareth on the classical problems of political theory?  For both his age and ours, they were radical indeed.  
	One can compare his views either to the Jewish tradition out of which he arose, or to classical Greek political theory as espoused by Socrates (and found in the writings of Plato).  Either comparison would demonstrate just how radical his thought was and is.
	Even so, the radical political and legal implications of his thought can best be seen by comparing his views to the Greek view, which is responsible for the dominant secular (and typically contractualist) tradition of Western political philosophy--and responsible in part for the secularization of Christianity through its accommodation with the violent, coercive state.
	2-3.  A serious and honest comparison of the views of Jesus and Socrates directs one first of all to a striking difference in attitudes about the moral status of the state--and thus about legal obligation.  Specifically, there is no independent obligation to obey the law on the original view of Jesus of Nazareth, whereas there is indeed such an obligation on the Socratic view, at least as expounded in the arguments of Socrates in Plato's Crito.2  
	In other words, if one has an excessive reverence for the violent, coercive state, then one will also have a correspondingly great reverence for the laws of the state.  If one does not have such reverence for the state, one's respect for its laws will also be less.  Since the peaceful teachings of Jesus of Nazareth were very much at odds with the violent and coercive state, his views on legal obligation reflect this philosophical opposition.

	2-4.  The problem of legal obligation on the Christian view admits of a very simple solution: when the will of "Caesar" (the state) and the will of God come into conflict, one is to obey God, since only the law of God, not that of the state, is seen to have binding force in and of itself.  
	Jesus' teachings cannot in any sense be construed as an endorsement of the state or its laws, as Paul seems to suggest in Romans 13.  What we glibly call "the law" is simply one more anthropological fact to be taken into account when making moral decisions.

	2-5.  Although the obligation on the early Christian view to do what the law requires can be quite stringent under the appropriate circumstances, such obligation is always derivative of some other ethical foundation quite independent of legal obligation per se.  That is, although there is no moral obligation to obey the law per se, it is certainly the case that in many instances there is an obligation to do what the law requires: yet, the legal and the moral are only contingently, not necessarily, congruent in Christian thought.  

	2-6.  Why does the Socratic view accord a vastly greater degree of respect for the state qua state (and for law qua law) than does the view of Jesus of Nazareth?  Perhaps it is because there was a virtual inability on the part of the Greeks to make a distinction between society and the state. 
	Yet, we must look even deeper: why should a statist conception of society have emerged in the first place?

	2-7.  The failure to make a distinction between society and the state resulted in a legalism which not even the enormous critical intellect of Socrates was entirely able to overcome.  As for Jesus and his attitudes toward the state, it is paradoxical but not necessarily false to say that Jesus saw loyalty to the state as competing with loyalty to God, even as he encouraged obeyal of the law under routine circumstances--that is, when nothing moral was at stake.  
	Thus could he recommend that Christians pay taxes: money had absolutely no value for him.  (Indeed, it was less than worthless: the love of money was seen by him to be the root of all evil.)  Christians are thus indeed "obligated" to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's: they are to give that which is worthless to the violent, coercive state, which is equally worthless.
	I repeat: contra Paul and nominal Christianity after him, Jesus most definitely did not endorse the state or its laws.  He was, shall we say, very disrespectful of "authority" in the secular sense, in part because he saw secular authority as inherently violent, and in part because he saw secular authority as challenging and usurping the inviolate authority of God: the right to judge.
	Jesus conceived of a society in all which all persons serve one another, and no person rules over another--except God, through his control of creation and through his indwelling Spirit in the conscience of each person.
	The secular view of the Greeks, by contrast, assumed that someone has the right and the obligation to rule over someone else.

	2-8.  Problems of interpreting the teachings of both Socrates and Jesus are enormously complicated by much more than the time which has passed since both men lived.  The underlying problem for any scholar attempting to address the views of either is that neither wrote down any of his ethical or religio-metaphysical views.  Socrates had his Plato, and Jesus in turn had the original compilers of the first four books of the New Testament, compilers who cannot necessarily be assumed to have been first-hand witnesses (especially in the case of Luke, who admits as much in the introduction in Luke 1:1 of his account of Jesus' life).  
	In Christianity there is of course the additional complication introduced by the personage of Paul and other writers of the letters, whose belated attempts to systematize the Christian teachings force the reader to decide whether or not their views were fundamentally in harmony with the earliest views attributed to Jesus of Nazareth, or whether instead they can justly be called the first "Christian revisionists."
	An even more formidable difficulty is that even those portions of the New Testament dealing with the life and teachings of Jesus (the first four books: the "gospels" of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) have been compiled from fragments of widely varying degrees of reliability and authenticity.  Even so, there appears to be sufficient coherence in the teachings attributed to Jesus that some kind of reconstruction is possible--but not so much by empirical verification as by logical inference.
	The impact of Jesus' thought on subsequent civilizations justifies the attempt to reconstruct his views, even though the possibility of error is very great.

	2-9.  The essential point of similarity between Jesus and Socrates with regard to the absence of a first-hand written historical record finds other well-known parallels in their lives and teachings.  Both men welcomed a final confrontation with the secular and religious authorities of their times, and both chose death over and above the recanting of any of their views.  
	Both were also found guilty (through trumped-up charges) of violating both secular and sacred law and of making certain blasphemous or sacrilegious remarks.  Yet, there are also very great differences.  Jesus offered absolutely nothing that could be construed as a legal defense, although he did admit and affirm that he had indeed made claims as to his own divinity.  ("You have said so."  Matthew 27:11 [RSV]  "Thou sayest" in the King James Version.")  The same admission had already been made before the ecclesiastical council, in the Matthew account.  (Matthew 26:64)  
	There is absolutely no evidence that Jesus thought that the state could possibly justify him, nor is there evidence that he thought that it would be appropriate for him to make an appeal to the secular or ecclesiastical authorities for the sake of justification.  In other words, he did not seem to expect justice from the state (or its theocratic variant: the ecclesiastical hierarchy).  Socrates, by contrast, made a lengthy and well-reasoned defense to the jury, recorded in Plato's Apology.3  Although he denied the validity of the charges against him, he went out of his way to affirm the legitimacy of the regime's right to judge and punish.  Thus did he submit to the punishment that followed solely out of a clearly stated respect for the legal system.  It is true that Socrates claims to have defended himself before the jury not for his own sake, but for the sake of those who would try him: "So far from pleading on my own behalf, as might be supposed, I am really pleading on yours, to save you from misusing the gift of God by condemning me. . . ."4 
	One might even argue that he used this one last opportunity to engage others in philosophical discussion in a public forum.  He even went so far as to say to the members of the jury that "I owe a greater obedience to God than to you."5   This would seem to minimize the force of legal obligation alone in Socrates' arguments, and to show considerable congruence with the Christian view.  Nonetheless, he also says that it is "wrong to disobey my superior, whether God or man."6 (Emphasis supplied.)  Such a statement implies a general and categorical obligation to obey those in official state positions.
	The real difference between the Socratic and the Christian views, however, is to be found at the very beginning of Socrates' defense: "I must obey the law and make my defense."7  Jesus clearly recognized no such general obligation, for he did not defend himself.  In addition, he did not try to dissuade his accusers from condemning him to death, although surely he, like Socrates, recognized that their killing him would be a misuse of their power.

	2-10.  Socrates and Jesus also differed in their expectations of  finding justice through a legal proceeding.  Socrates makes an implicit claim about the role of the state in dispensing justice: "The jury does not sit to dispense justice, but to decide where justice lies."8  Although Jesus was not tried before a jury of peers, there is nothing in the account of Jesus' trials (before Herod, the High Priest and his council, or Pilate) which recognizes any comparable duty or expectation from the state or the people.  That is, he could not have expected either the rulers or the people to tell him "where justice lies," whether in his own individual case or more generally.
	Other moral comments in the Apology indicate similarities which are worthy of note: the reference by Socrates to "so-called justice," implying a disparagement of the "justice" of the state,9  as well as the remarks at the end of the dialog to the effect "I bear no grudge,"10 which is similar to the Christian "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." (Luke 23:34)  
	In no case, however, do these similarities negate my central point--that Socrates seems to have recognized a much stronger moral claim to obey the law than did Jesus, and he seems as well to have recognized a legal and moral obligation to defend himself at his trial, which Jesus did not.  
	Jesus' views were thoroughly pacifistic, and Socrates' were not.  This essential difference could not but affect the way that they looked at the general question of the legitimacy of the state--and of its laws.

	2-11.  Another point of difference between Jesus and Socrates is Jesus' agony over the impending confrontation with the authorities and the likelihood of death.  There is every evidence that he would have preferred to have lived if he could have done so without forsaking his mission: "Father, if it is thy will, let this cup pass from me.  Nevertheless, not as I will but as thou wilt." (Matthew 26:39)  Socrates, by contrast, seems almost to have wanted to die, and Plato's account of his death in the Phaedo paints a picture of a man going a bit too serenely to his death, even to the point of taunting his friends a little for their expressions of grief.11  
	There is nothing in the Platonic dialogs comparable to the midnight scene in Gethsemane, where Jesus gently chides his followers for taking their ease amidst his agony. (Matthew 26:45)

	2-12.  If Plato's historical record is accurate, then Socrates could have conducted his defense very differently or even recommended his own exile.  There thus remained the very real possibility that he could have expected to have continued his life as a philosophical gadfly without compromising any of his views, if only he had agreed to have done so in another land.12  This he refused to do, not only rejecting exile but admitting to his friend Crito later that he could not have expected to have found a friendly audience anywhere else, either.  One almost gets the feeling that he thought that traveling to another land to continue his teachings was not only undesirable but unworthy: better, it seems, to have been prepared to die in Athens than to be forced to leave and carry his pursuit of truth to other lands.13 
	On the purely human level, one might surmise that Jesus would have welcomed a similar opportunity to emigrate to another land, at least if it could have been seen to have been compatible with his larger mission.  The authorities, of course, gave him no options whatsoever.  The point, however, is that Jesus' entire life can be seen as an attempt to extend the boundaries of moral and religious teaching beyond the boundaries of the Jewish nation.14  There is overall in the story of Jesus' life not only a greater affirmation of the value of life beyond the narrow confines of his own culture; there is also a virtual glorification of a truly transnational community, albeit spoken of (and now typically trivialized) as "church."  In this larger transnational community there is to be no distinction in social status between Jews and various Gentile groups--no nationalism comparable to the ethnocentrism either of the Athenians or of the Jews.

	2-13.  While it may be true that transnational themes surface from time to time in the Platonic dialogs, the arguments in the Crito do not exhibit any trace whatsoever of the transnational ideal.  Again, Socrates, for all his brilliance, does not seem in the end to have been able to transcend his culture and its ethnocentric bias sufficiently to realize the potential which is everywhere to be found in his teachings.  Socrates' retreat to arguments about Athenian citizenship in the Crito vitiate the force of any claim to universality in his perspective.
	Jesus' last acts, by contrast, indicated a willingness to die if so doing was the only way to spread his redeeming message of peace and forgiveness to all persons, and he sent his disciples to all lands to spread that message.  For Jesus, all persons were children of God and entitled to the same degree of loyalty and compassion.
	Jesus' transnational perspective, combined with his belief in the infinite worth of all persons (even violators of the law: "sinners"), impelled him to universalize the messages of peace and forgiveness.  Thus did these ethical themes become overt tenets of a political philosophy of non-violence, non-judgment, and universality of loyalty to all persons in all lands.  They also led him to disparage loyalty to the violent, coercive state, which would use evil means--and then only in the service of one small segment of humanity against all others.  
	This stance in turn led him to rely solely upon the rule of God and personal conscience as the basic mortar of society and the means of achieving and maintaining peace.
	Or, at least, one might so surmise in trying to reconstruct the evolution of his thought.
	2-14.  Socrates' unwillingness to choose exile and the opportunity to continue his philosophical enterprise in another land was linked to his acceptance of the death penalty. (This theme surfaces in numerous places in the Apology, the Crito, and the Phaedo.)  After being sentenced and imprisoned, he turned down an offer of escape recommended to him by his friend Crito.  The significance of Socrates' refusal to escape or to accept exile should not be ignored.  There seems to be no reason why accepting exile as punishment should necessarily have been seen to imply renunciation of his beliefs, much less admission of guilt: he certainly could have left under protest of his innocence.
	In any case, the Christians who were followers of Christ seem--like so many other exiles--to have accepted the reality of inequalities of power in accepting exile.  And, in accepting exile, they accepted it not only as personal sacrifice but also as opportunity to take their "philosophizing" to other lands.  The blessing by Jesus for doing so can hardly be taken to imply that exile was dishonorable; it expanded his followers' opportunities to reach new audiences.  In most cases, the de facto exile to teach in other lands often led to their deaths there--they did not typically flee for the sake of their personal safety.
	There is no reason given by Socrates in the Platonic dialogs as to why the option of voluntary exile would not have been a most honorable way to die, even for an old man.

	2-15.  Rather than looking like the heroic soul for accepting a punishment that he did not deserve, Socrates at times looks like the self-made martyr--or even the suicide.  The same charge has been made many times over the centuries against Jesus of Nazareth.
	Jesus did indeed come back to Jerusalem, either when it might be argued that he did not have to, or when the results could be seen to be predictable.  Yet, the nature of his teachings apparently made the offering of a choice to his own people essential: either God or Caesar was sovereign, but not both.
	His own decision to return to Jerusalem seems thus to have been based on a sense of obligation to make explicit an ethical dilemma, the question of ultimate sovereignty.  Whereas Socrates concedes the supremacy of God but also affirms the legitimacy of the violent state, Jesus seems to have felt compelled to confront his people with an absolutely dilemmatic choice: the way of "Caesar" or the way of God.  The point seems to be that the two ways are fundamentally incompatible. 

	2-16.  In the Crito, Socrates offered the arguments with respect to legal obligation which have generated controversy for centuries.  The dialog opens in Socrates' prison cell, where his friend Crito has come to try to persuade Socrates to escape.  Bribery of the jailers can be arranged, says Crito, and Socrates can escape to another land.  Socrates, rejecting the offer, emphasizes that he had the option of suggesting exile during the course of his own defense at his trial.  He goes on to make a number of arguments, including the argument that one should never render evil for evil.  	In this regard, Socrates seems to offer an early version of the golden rule, at least in its negative corollary never to retaliate against those who have injured us: "And tell me, is it right to do an injury in retaliation, as most people believe, or not?"  Crito:  "No, never."  Socrates:  "So one ought not to return a wrong or an injury to any person, whatever the provocation is."15  Socrates goes on to say that this implies that one ought always to keep one's promises (implying in this context that the foundation for the state is some kind of promise or contract).  He does not say that the injunction against injuring others implies that one should never punish or go to war, even though these also involve injury.
	It is interesting that what Socrates is arguing for is that one should never injure the state by violating its laws, even though one may do violence in war to foreign individuals in the name of the state, or to one's fellow citizens through punishment for violating the law.
	Is this not the foundation of a justification of war and punishment?  That is, is this not the beginnings of a formulation of a double standard between "public and private morality" which is the foundation of the "just war" doctrine, as well as a prop for the horrors of all secular systems of "justice"? 

	2-17.  Socrates' sole point in establishing the idea that one should never render evil for evil seems to have been for the sake of undergirding an extremely legalistic perspective in his reply to Crito: to escape from prison without official permission would be to violate the laws of Athens and thus to harm Athens.  Although he blames individuals and not the laws of Athens for his false imprisonment and death sentence, he nonetheless says that "warding off evil for evil is [not] ever right."16  	Jesus seems by contrast to have used his injunction against requiting injury for injury (the "golden rule") in conjunction with arguments that not only abjure the institutions of war and punishment, but which direct moral attention to the worth and welfare of every individual. 
	In any case, what appears to be something like the golden rule is never exemplified by Socrates with corollaries of a non-retributive nature such as appear in the Sermon on the Mount: injunctions not to judge (Matthew 7:1), not to retaliate (Matthew 5:38), to do good when we do not have to (Matthew 5:42), to lend or give without expecting a return (Luke 6:35), and to love one's enemies (Matthew 5:44).  

	2-18.  The crux of the "dialog" between Socrates and Crito is actually a monolog by the personified Laws of Athens on the evils of disobeying the law.  Socrates asks Crito to imagine that he, Socrates, is indeed about to escape from prison in order to avoid the death sentence.  The personified Laws of Athens confront him and ask him whether or not any state can survive if its laws have no power, "but are set aside and trampled upon by individuals."17  In this imaginary exchange, Socrates considers the objection that the state has injured Socrates and given an unjust sentence.  The Laws reply, "And was that our agreement with you?  Or were you to abide by the sentence of the state?"18  (Italics supplied.)
	The personified Laws continue their objection to Socrates' possible right to escape, even though he has been unjustly convicted and sentenced: "What complaint have you to make about us which justifies you in attempting to destroy us and the state?  In the first place, did we not bring you into existence?"  And, "[s]ince you were brought into the world and nurtured and educated by us, can you deny in the first place that you are our child and slave, as your fathers were before you?  And, if this is true, then you are not on equal terms with us; nor can you think that you have a right to do to us what we are doing to you.  Would you have any right to strike or revile or do any other evil to your father or your master, if you had one, because you have been struck or reviled by him, or received some other evil at his hands?"19 
	The Laws continue: "Has a philosopher like you failed to discover that our country is more to be valued and higher and holier far than mother or father. . . ?  also to be soothed, and gently and reverently entreated when angry, even more than a father, and either to be persuaded, or if not persuaded, to be obeyed?  And when we are punished by her, whether with imprisonment or stripes, the punishment is to be endured in silence; and if she leads us to wounds or death in battle, thither we follow as is right; neither may anyone yield or retreat or leave his rank, but whether in battle or in a court of law, or in any other place, he must do what his city and his country order him; or he must change their view of what is just: and if he may do no violence to his father or mother, much less may he do violence to his country."20 (Italics supplied.)
	Following this extended monolog by the personified Laws of Athens on what appears to be a virtually absolute obligation to obey the laws (qualified by the now traditional doctrine of civil disobedience), the Laws then offer an argument of the form "Athens--love it or leave it":  "[W]e further proclaim to any Athenian by the liberty which we allow him, that if he does not like us when he has become of age and has seen the ways of the city, and made our acquaintance, he may go where he pleases and take his goods with him.  None of us laws will forbid him or interfere with him.  Any one who does not like us and the city, and who wants to emigrate to a colony or to any other city, may go where he likes, retaining his property.  But he who has experience of the manner in which we order justice and administer the State, and still remains, has entered into an implied contract that he will do as we command him."21
	The Laws go on to emphasize repeatedly that, in escaping without permission, Socrates would be violating an agreement.  (The exact language varies from translation to translation, but the meaning is consistent with the language of modern contractual arguments against "free riders.")  It seems clear that the very foundation of the Socratic view of the state is just such an implicit contractual agreement.
	
	2-19.  There are perhaps no more reactionary--nor more influential--passages in all of philosophy.  
	For Socrates, the laws of the state have the status of "Father" and are claimed to be the source of all that is good: in the passages quoted above, the state has become God.

	2-20.  The strong statement of legal obligation quoted above from the Crito does not find any parallel in the teachings of Jesus, although Paul's statements in the thirteenth chapter of Romans are much more problematic.  
	What one can say with assurance is that no sayings attributed strictly to Jesus of Nazareth involve any stated obligation to punish or to imprison, nor any endorsement of war or of the state in general.  Indeed, all of his teachings against judgment and violence, as well as those passages which do refer to his temptations to resort to the usual methods of political power (Matthew 4:8-10) and to his reference to secular rulers "who like to Lord it over their subjects. . . . " (Matthew 20:25) imply that he saw himself as offering a radical alternative to the usual statist, violent way of dealing with the problem of evil in the world.

	2-21.  The early Christian view seems to be based upon the assumption that there is no essential difference between public and private morality: that is, it allows for the possibility that an officer of the state can and must somehow find a way to express his or her personal ethical ideals not only in his actions as a private citizen but in his actions as a nominal officer of the state.  There is absolutely no basis in the early Christian teachings for the now commonly held view that persons acting in public and private capacities can invoke widely differing ethical principles governing their actions in the two realms.  
	It is quite possible, of course, that Jesus abjured the holding of all positions of authority because of inevitable conflicts between private ethics and the supposed "duties" of office.  After all, he did not himself hold any office, either ecclesiastical or secular.  Yet, if this was his position, it is not obvious.

	2-22.  The Christian view precludes any obligation to wage war or to administer punishment, either in one's private capacity or in one's capacity as an officer of the state.  If that sounds entirely too radical, it is well to ask the Christian establishment what relevance Christianity is to have if it is not to offer a genuine alternative to every previous and every subsequent system of thought when it comes to how the individual, whether in public or private capacity, is to respond to evil in the world.  
	If the Christian's response to evil is to be no different from the response of the unbeliever, then Christianity is not only irrelevant: it is a monstrous hoax.

	2-23.  Contrary to the Socratic view set forth in the Crito, there is no stated obligation in the New Testament to fight or kill for the state, whereas there are many passages which can be construed as implying a virtually opposite obligation.  
	If the obligation to fight and to be prepared to kill for the state is so central to Christian ethics, then surely it would have been mentioned somewhere.  One has to strain mightily to read an endorsement of the institutions of war and punishment into the early Christian teachings.  Paficism and voluntarism are the literal reading of these teachings.  Their antitheses require much rationalization, which nominal Christian theorists--and much of organized religion--have been quick to provide.
	Orthodox Christianity, that is, typically distorts the more radical teachings of its founder in order to correspond to the civil religion, which is the true driving force of most of modern Christianity, especially in its more dangerous and anti-intellectual evangelical variants.

	2-24.  Many of the ethical issues addressed by the early Christian teachings point to issues beyond simple pacifism to the larger question as to how social order is to be promoted and maintained on the Christian view, and this problem points to the larger issue of punishment.  Throughout the dialogs Socrates never questions the necessity for courts and judgment.  
	Jesus' only teaching is to visit those who are in prison: there is no teaching attributable to Jesus which obliges anyone to put anyone there.  
	2-25.  In the account given in the Crito, violation of the law is seen to be an act of violence or injury against the state.  Jesus' life and the lives of his parents were (on the biblical account) a story of continuing disobedience to secular authorities.  Even the Wise Men are said to have been warned in a dream (presumably by God, thus endorsing the message) to return directly to the East without telling Herod where the Christ child was to be found (Matthew 2:12): they were in effect being told to disobey the secular sovereign.  Jesus' parents are said to have fled their country to go to Egypt in order to save their infant son, in a direct violation of Herod's will. (Matthew 2:13)  
	The arguments of the Crito would almost seem to suggest that Mary and Joseph should have stayed in Israel to obey Herod, even if it meant the death of the infant Jesus. 

	2-26.  Would the parents of Jesus have stayed if the entire community--and not just one jealous, insecure, and egotistical puppet king--had wanted to kill the young Christ child?  The answer seems too obvious: the will of the people would have been as irrelevant as the will of one tyrant.
	Jesus himself is said to have deliberately disobeyed the priesthood, which had a great measure of support from the people.  (Numerous references to his healing the sick or allowing his disciples to pick grain on the Sabbath come to mind.)  He also kept a good bit of his ministry secret until the time came that he decided to go public.  It was Jesus' practice for some time to urge those whom he had helped not to tell from whence their aid had come.  He seems to have had a rather pragmatic sense of timing rather than some kind of sense of categorical obligation to go public with every kind of disobeyal or challenge to authority.  Thus, far from getting permission to pursue his subversive ministry, he deliberately concealed it at times.  
	In no sense could Jesus be said to have gone "through channels" or "asked permission" to disobey the secular authorities.  Nor did he even engage always in simple "civil disobedience," for his refusal was at times private and secretive.

  2-27.  It is significant that Jesus finally did decide to go public with his claims of divinity in the biggest possible way, organizing an entry into Jerusalem in such a way that could not have escaped the notice of the Roman and Jewish rulers.  He rode into Jerusalem on "the foal of a beast of burden" (a donkey), but in such a way that the demonstration attracted attention: palm fronds waving, a caravan (albeit an incongruous one for a conqueror), and an obvious attempt in general to publicize his claim of divinity, which he had kept hidden for many years (a continuation of the prudence exhibited by his parents in disobeying Herod).  (Matthew 21:1-16.)  
	The irony of this deliberate withholding of the fact of his divinity until the time was judged to be right is not only that it might be seen to involve disobeyal of the law (whether as the will of Herod or the will of the priesthood), but also that it seemed to involve something like secrecy bordering upon deception at times by his parents and later by himself in keeping his identity secret.  Up until that moment of public confrontation, however, he seems to have kept his own counsel and at no point requested permission from the authorities regarding any aspect of his ministry, from its inception to its culmination.
	
	2-28.  It is perhaps most significant that when Jesus did decide to make a full public proclamation of his divinity in Jerusalem, he did so by riding into the city not on the white horse of the violent conqueror (the Davidic conception of the Messiah), but on a donkey, "the foal of a beast of burden."  His challenge to secular authority was direct: your way of kingship, he seemed to be saying, is to rule--my way is to serve.  My way, he also seemed to say by his gentleness, will show the inferiority of rule by force.
	Never in his teachings did he invoke hierarchy, telling the disciples that "The rulers of this world like to lord it over their subjects, but I tell you that he who would be greatest must be your servant."  (Matthew 20:27)  In another context, when asked before his crucifixion whether or not he was claiming to be "King of the Jews," he prefaced his affirmation of his divinity by saying "King is your word. . . ." (John 18:37)  This translation from the New English Bible is not literal, but it conveys the point better than the other translations: my way is an alternative to the way of kings.  The other well-known translations say merely that "You say that I am a king" or "Thou sayest that I am a king."  
	The alternative to kingship offered in the passage in John is that he came to "bear witness to the truth."  This suggests that, in some sense, truth, ideas, will be the means of his rule: the power of ideas, of true ideas, will order the world.  All the way back to the early passages of Matthew, when Jesus was first being tempted, his response to the temptation to rule over all the countries of the earth was to say, "Thou shalt worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve."  (Matthew 4:10)  There is no room for compromise or ambiguity in that quote: "Him only shall you serve."  The state thus had no hold over Jesus of Nazareth.  I think that he would consider it the height of absurdity to take seriously any suggestion that one has an "obligation" to obey the secular authorities: that or those who are called "the law."

	2-29.  The most radical statement of obligation espoused by Jesus was to do good to one's enemies (Matthew 5:44 and Luke 6:35) and to work for good until such time as the forces of secular domination are no more. 	This seems to be the eschatology of the Christ: the final end state is not only the resurrection and the end of sin and death, but the end of those institutions which use evil to check evil.  To say this and only this, however, implies a possible endorsement of the state during the present age.  The point should not be, however, merely to look forward to the end of the state when evil is no more, nor to look at the state as God's way of checking evil with evil--such would seem to be akin to a house divided.  Rather, the point is that Christian ethics offers an alternative to statist methods in the checking of evil in the world in its present condition.

	2-30.  The accounts in the book of Acts (admittedly of extremely dubious reliability) of the deeds of Jesus' followers are characterized by repeated accounts of escapes from prison, in obvious counterpoint to Socrates' refusal to escape.  In at least one passage in Acts, God himself is claimed to have intervened in order to help some of Jesus' followers escape from jail.  
	Overall, then, the biblical account is lacking in concern for permission from state authorities, as well as in concern for breaking the secular law in and of itself.  In this regard the entire account of the New Testament differs markedly and undeniably from that of the Crito in its degree of avowed respect for the secular laws.  
	If this is not an earthshaking conclusion, it may yet be significant in understanding the political philosophy of Jesus of Nazareth.

	2-31.  There is more to the differences between Jesus and Socrates than their differing views on legal obligation.  What one really seeks is a most fundamental theoretical reason for their differing attitudes toward the state and its laws.
	Perhaps one may say that the differing views on legal obligation derive from differences with respect to the ultimate foundations of moral obligation: the perfectly non-retributive and unconditional altruism of Jesus versus a default contractualism for Socrates.
	Perhaps Socrates, in spite of his own quest to know the divine will, was yet trapped in the essentially secular and contractual conception of society which was pervasive in ancient Greek culture, as well as in western, secularized culture in general.  

	2-32.  One might speculate that the very idea of a polis is a contractualist conception, and thus that the idea of society as contract was deeply embedded in Greek culture.  Even in the Greek version of the Christian New Testament, there are etymological hints that the term polis (city) might at one time have meant merely contract.  I refer to the term apolusai, the term for "divorce," in the Koiné (the common Greek) of the New Testament.  Given a contractual view of marriage, it would make sense to say of divorce that it was a negation of a contract.  Thus does one see the prefix "a" followed by something that resembled polis: the root -polusai.
	The usual translation emphasizes, to the contrary, "to loose from."  All that I am suggesting is that the ultimate origins of such usages might merit further enquiry by those who are capable of it.

	2-33.  If Christianity is a radical alternative to every other ethical tradition imaginable, then what is the very crux of that alternative?  
	It is not the claim of divinity, for other traditions have claimed divinity for this or that person.  Nor is it the claim of a resurrection or of eternal life, since other traditions have made those claims as well.
	Surely the crux of the difference is to be found in the agápe idea of unconditional goodness or commitment, a conception of moral obligation which we try to encapsulate as the golden rule.  While it is true that the golden rule or something like it has surfaced in a number of cultures, its full meaning can only be seen in the fuller context of what it supplants: the conditional commitment exemplified in the very idea of "contract."  Contracts also entail a retributive conception (a "payback"), which in turn is linked to egoism--and a concomitant adversarial legalism.
	That is, the conditional commitment of a contract means that one is disposed to withhold one's benevolent action contingent upon a reciprocated benevolence from others.  Any limitations upon one's benevolence are thus in the direction away from altruism, in the direction of egoism.  And, to the extent that one might be disposed to use the withholding of goods to enforce such contracts, one may even be seen to be acting retributively, even where one does not resort to overt punishment.

	2-34.  The secular law, nomos or convention, is typically (though not always) founded upon the conditional commitment of the contract, whether as a multitude of small contracts or as some (mythical) contract encompassing virtually an entire culture: the "social contract."  In such a system, both the individual and the community recognize limits of moral obligation.  
	By "limits" here I simply mean the idea that, on the contractualist perspective, we are not obligated to keep acting with good will indefinitely: at some point we may either renege or retaliate (which may be to say the same thing), whether privately or publicly.  I am so far from holding to such a view that it now seems to me to be quite barbaric, even though I recognize that most people see such behavior as the basis for civilization.  "What," they say, "would happen if we always treated all persons with good, including criminals and invading armies?"
	What, indeed?  To paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, the perfectly altruistic, perfectly non-retributive option has never been tried--at least not on a significant scale.

	2-35.  On a contractualist view (which most persons still affirm as being more or less self-evident), I am obligated to do good unto others only to the extent that they do good unto me.  If they do evil, then I may reciprocate in kind, whether privately or through the invoking of state authority, or else I may do so by withholding my own benevolence.
	The fact that appeal to the law for the enforcement of contracts is rationalized vengeance seems self-evidently true.  It is a shame that we insist upon calling it "justice," and that most persons can conceive of no higher conception or basis for social order.
	It is also a shame that Socrates, in saying that it was never right for individuals to retaliate against someone who had injured them personally, did not extend that insight to apply to groups and even entire societies.

	2-36.  In the words of John Rawls, a modern contract theorist, the conditional nature of moral obligation is manifested in the idea of "reciprocity," implying that agreements entered into in the name of "justice" are to be mutually advantageous.22  
	In another passage, Rawls goes even further and says that "The basic idea is one of reciprocity, a tendency to answer in kind."23  In other passages, the retributivist connotations and implications of a principle of reciprocity are generally more muted.24  No one, on Rawls' view, is seen to be obligated to commit himself to an enduring sacrifice for the sake of others.  Rawls' remarks, although directed at the utilitarians, can be directly as easily (and perhaps more appropriately) at the fullest expression of Jesus' view concerning obligation: "There must be no limit to your goodness, as your heavenly Father's goodness knows no bounds."  (Italics supplied.)  
	As part of a general social theory, this seemingly extreme Christian teaching does not imply that we are merely to turn the other cheek in the face of a trivial insult or injury, whereas if someone really wrongs us, we are permitted to destroy him (or at least sue or press charges against him).  The early Christian version of the golden rule, as exemplified in its corollaries in the Sermon on the Mount, urges us instead to be altruistic not only with regard to small injustices but with regard to large ones as well.  We are to endure not only small sacrifices without retaliation or retribution, but major, earth-shattering ones as well.  
	It is quite possible that the ethic being espoused represented a denial of the distinction between public and private morality in a much stronger sense than did that of the Greeks, especially if some of the more radical teachings of the Sermon on the Mount are taken at face value as applying to the foregoing of legal appeals: "If a man takes what is yours, do not demand it back." (Luke 6:30)  If this sort of teaching is taken seriously, then its implications are revolutionary for (and threatening toward) an ethic built around a presumption of state authority.  A refusal on the part of citizens to judge or accuse other citizens also threatens the legal system as we know it, by making it obsolete: no one would appeal to it, and its priesthood of lawyers would have to find honest work.

	2-37.  It might be argued that Socrates' version of the social contract did not rely upon the norm of reciprocity or mutual advantage and obligation.  The obligation to obey or to keep one's agreements might be seen to rely on unconditional commitment for Socrates, just as it did for Jesus, since he seems to have posited something like the golden rule.25   There is a sense in which this might be true, but it is the sense only of an enforced virtue through the judgmental and punitive hand of the state. 
	It is instructive that the golden rule argument dies on the vine in the Crito, being put to the purpose of propping up obedience to the laws of Athens, including those that require violence.

	2-38.  The modern legal tradition which is a central defining characteristic of secular thought is almost always derivative of contractualist assumptions.  The essential non-legalism of early Christian thought, by contrast, derives from the repudiation of contractualist rationales and their concomitant foundation in the principle of reciprocity, with its norms of conditional commitment and "mutual advantage," both of which are founded in egoistic concerns. 
	The agápe concept in Christian ethics, that is, emphasizes unconditional commitment derived from an unconditional altruism.  At least two important corollaries, that is, follow from the agápe concept: first, a principle of unconditional altruism transcends the conditional commitment of contractualist conceptions of obligation; second, a principle of unconditional altruism precludes violence, since violence is based in egoistic concerns, as demonstrated by the propensity in all violent acts to transfer risk to another party besides oneself or those with whom one identifies (such as members of one's family or nation).
	Agápe as unconditional altruism also precludes retributivism, since retributivism as a psychological and theoretical propensity also typically rests upon egoistic concerns--specifically the egoistic norm of reciprocity inhering in contract theory.  That is, since reciprocity implies only a conditional commitment, it is not completely altruistic.  In addition, to the extent that there is a link between retributivism and the norm of reciprocity in much contract theory, and to the extent that this linkage is derivative of a common foundation in a very primitive egoistic psychological and ethical orientation, the consistent altruism of agápe implies the rejection of both retributivism and contractualism.
	In any case, it is no accident that the same ethic which said that "One must lose the self in order to gain it" (a statement of altruism and a repudiation of egoism) also said that one must "Turn the other cheek" (a statement of non-violence).  That is, altruism and non-retributivism are linked in the strongest possible way, and both inhere in the agápe concept.  
	By contrast, egoistic tendencies surface as insistent claims that one's own shares and one's own protection be guaranteed.  This insistence upon delineation and protection of what is "mine" ultimately comes to its fullest theoretical fruition in legal orders: the modern secular state. 

	2-39.  It is surely true that living in a society in some sense implies the obligation not only to honor one's explicit agreements within that society, but also to act and live in good faith in general. 
	Whatever respect we must have for the law is only as an expression of the need to respect the wishes, expectations, and opinions of individuals, whether we disagree or not, and whether we believe that their wishes require us to abrogate our own desires and moral imperatives.
	Such obligation to respect others' opinions, however, most definitely does not translate into some presumed categorical obligation to obey the law, regardless of its content, until such time as one should succeed in changing the law.
  
	2-40.  Yet another fallacy of contract theory as the foundation of obligation--and of a just social order--is that there is no way that the contract of the individual with the whole society or with the legal system can be seen to be based upon that equality of power which is necessary for the ideal contractual agreement. 
	Contracts become instruments of extortion in settings of inequality, and in settings of absolute equality tend to wither away, since only prudence (on the best scenario) would impel one to enter into a contract when other, more fully altruistic forms of commitment and social relationship are available.  On the worst scenario, persons might enter into contracts because they expect to use economic advantage to exploit other persons, those who have little choice but to accept the terms of the contract, no matter how exploitative.  If the state can be characterized as contract, then the withering of the state, in whatever ideology or theology (in this world or the next), would see the withering of smaller contracts as well, as well as a concomitant withering of egoistic behaviors and rationales which define the culture of domination.  

	2-41.  In a perfect world, one might still have promises to keep, but whether one would still have contracts is another question: a contract is not most fundamentally a promise, as Charles Fried and others have claimed.26  
	A contract is best viewed not as a promise, but as a threat: if you do not do your share, I will not do mine! 

	2-42.  When an officer of the state commands one to act, she or he threatens one with physical or economic violence in order to ensure compliance.  Such violence or threat of violence never comes from God, for God is the author of no evil.  
	God, that is, is not the author of the state.

	2-43.  Since the state is not a person, it has no will.  Thus there is no "group mind," no "general will," nor even any "will of the people."  Only individuals, persons, have minds or wills.  Since there is not even such a thing as the "will of the people," the idea of a "democratic state" is nonsensical.  The only true democracy would be one in which individuals ruled themselves by appeal to divine guidance.
	Democratic theory is still in the eighteenth century.

	2-44.  Implicit in Aquinas' claim that the prince but not private individuals can legitimately declare war is the presumption that the prince (the earthly monarch or ruler) is ordained of God.  This view is not only a rationalization for domination, of course, but a rationalization for the most indefensible kind of domination--domination by a monarch or dictator.  
	Believers in democracy might, of course, justifiably want to challenge the idea that absolute monarchs are a form of "competent" or "legitimate authority."  I should like to go much further and challenge as well the view that coercive democracies are a form of "legitimate authority": there is no justification possible for any kind of institutionalized domination, whether by monarchs, dictators, or even by democracies.

	2-45.  To say that democratic authority has no right to declare war is indeed to make a strong claim, but it is the foundation of a critique of war in the modern age--the age of democracies.  This age shows ever so clearly that democracies have at least as great a propensity to wage war as do other regimes. 
	If one wants to challenge war, domination, and mass incarceration, then one is going to have to appeal to some higher authority than "We, the people. . . ."

	2-46.  "Authority" can be defined as Robert Paul Wolff defined it as the "right to command. . . [and] the right to be obeyed."27  All that this means is some presumed "right" to compel compliance with one's directives: a euphemism for rule by force. 
	But authority can also be defined in non-coercive language as "right judgment."  The two usages should never be conflated: one has to choose sides as to which concept of authority one would prefer to wield.  One of them, authority as the "right" to command, sounds strong but is the embodiment of impotence.  Authority as "right judgment," by contrast, sounds weak, but is the foundation of a stable and enduring social order.
	The conflation of both usages in some concept of "might for right" is the most impotent of all: it has given us not only militaries, but all political and ecclesiastical hierarchies, including coercive democracies.  "Authority," that is, as "force in the service of justice" presupposes that the just order is compatible with violence and force.  
	The just order transcends the use of judgment, violence, and the threat of violence: in the just order, persons use rational suasion based on "right judgment" in order to get others to cooperate and work for common ends.

	2-47.  Orthodox Christianity often uses Paul's statements in Romans 13:1-7 as a common justification of state authority:

	1 Let every soul be subject to the higher powers.  For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.
	2 Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.
	3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil.  Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power?  Do that which is good and thou shalt have praise of the same.  
	4 For he is the minister of God to thee for good.  But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid, for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.
	5 Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake.
	6 For this cause pay ye tribute also, for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing.
	7 Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour. (King James Version)

	Some--but not all--of the problems of interpreting the passage can be alleviated by substituting the word "authority" for "power"--a substitution supported by the original Greek (eksousia rather than dynamei).  The New English Bible does use the word "authority" in place of "power," thus avoiding the absurdity of claiming that anyone in power, including a Hitler, is a minister of God.
	Yet, even the substitution of "authority" (the word used in the original Greek) for "power" does not seem to me to solve all of the problems with this passage.  Besides, which conception of authority should be used?
	I would suggest that the passage can only be made palatable for the consistent pacifist if a definition of authority is substituted which is based solely upon the concept of "right judgment" (and the rule of conscience) rather than some presumed "right to command" (and the rule of force):

Let every person be subject to right judgment.  For there is no right judgment except from God, and that right judgment which does exist is instituted of God.  Therefore he who resists right judgment resists that which is of God, and he who resists will be judged by that right judgment.  For right judgment is not a terror to good behavior but to bad.  Would you have no fear of right judgment?  Then do what is good, and right judgment will approve.  For right judgment is of God, for your own good.  But, if you do wrong, be afraid, for right judgment does not bear the sword [of conscience] in vain: it is the minister of God executing judgment on the wrongdoer.  Therefore one must be subject to right judgment, not only to avoid the judgment of God but for the sake of good conscience.  For the same reason you also pay taxes, for those of right judgment are the minister of God, attending to your good.  Pay to all of those who are of right judgment their due, taxes to those to whom taxes are due, revenue to those to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due.

	That is, to Caesar pay taxes and revenue, and submit on other things when nothing of moral value is at stake.  But when that which is of moral value is at stake, submit to God, the author of right judgment.
	But did Paul mean all of this in Romans 13?  I think not, even though it was probably a deliberate choice on his part to use the Greek word for authority (eksousia) rather than power (dynamei)--Paul was, after all, a master of the common Greek. 
	Although I am not a consistent admirer of Paul's point of view on all points (given the evolution of his thinking even after his conversion), there is absolutely no question as to the authenticity of his letters.  Since this is not true on scientific grounds for any other book in the Bible (including the book of Acts which supposedly recounts his biography), Paul's writings deserve to be taken very seriously indeed.   	In any case, in the above, I have substituted the phrase "right judgment" not only for every reference to "power" (in the King James Version), but also for every reference to "rulers."  I have also softened other references to "vengeance" and "fear," harsh terms which are in Paul's original Greek.  And, of course, I have softened the reference to "the sword" by referring to the "sword of conscience" for the sake of congruence.  
	The harshness of Paul's statement cannot, however, be so easily rationalized away.  Paul apparently meant exactly what he said about the "sword," and what he said is surely the first significant revision of the gentle ethic of the original Christian teachings.  In Paul's defense, however, one must emphasize that at the time of the writing of the letter to the Romans, Paul was probably much more nearly under the influence of his training in the Mosaic tradition of divine wrath and an ethic of retribution than he would be in his later letters.
	While it is true that the Greek word (eksousia) which Paul used did not mean raw "power" at all, but "authority," there is little evidence that Paul meant authority only as "right judgment."  The overall thrust of the passage--in any respected translation of the Bible--connotes a somewhat too great respect for state authority.  Combined with other examples of Paul's authoritarianism, exemplified throughout his letters in such commands as "Wives, obey your husbands" and "Slaves, obey your masters," the message is clear enough: we cannot accept the Pauline passage in Romans 13 as a reliable guide to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.  
	Paul, that is, was inadvertently the first Christian revisionist.  Augustine and Aquinas--and after them Luther and Calvin--would follow his lead.

	2-48.  "Authority" and "author" come from the Latin roots, auctoritas and auctor, respectively.  If one believes in God, one must believe that God is the sole author and sovereign of all that is good in creation, as well as the author and sovereign of all right reason and right judgment.  (The roots of "authority" and "author" in Latin are yet morally neutral: one may be the author or initiator of either good or evil.  On etymological grounds, it makes perfect sense to speak of immoral authority, although I shall use the term "authority" to refer to moral authority unless otherwise noted.) 
	If God is the ultimate author all that is good, however, then one must conclude that one's moral accountability is finally to God, the only ultimate moral "authority."  Otherwise one recognizes someone else as supreme author and sovereign, and by the definition of sovereign ("supreme power") there can be only one.  
	2-49.  The fact that true authority (right judgment) is not at all a function of having the sheer coercive power to enforce compliance is self-evident, and yet one is amazed at how often this simple insight is forgotten by those occupying positions of power.  
	Even the moral authority of God does not derive from his omnipotence, but from his omniscience and especially his omnibenevolence: God does not rule by the principle that "might makes right," that "justice is the will of the stronger."  If the authority of God derived from his omnipotence, then any being who had more power than another would be entitled ipso facto to more respect.  Authority would indeed come to resemble Thrasymachus' definition of justice in Plato's Republic: "Justice is the will of the stronger."  But, as justice is not the will of the stronger, neither is authority.  Authority, as true moral authority, is the valid moral judgment which lies behind the just act.

	2-50.  Authority in the moral sense does not inhere in any office, and no officeholder is entitled to respect merely by virtue of the fact of holding office, for the holding of office is synonymous with the holding of power, and power is not synonymous with moral authority.
	Those who hold institutional positions of power not only seem to want to believe that authority inheres in the office, but to believe as well that authority, once established, is sufficient to command indefinite respect.  Insofar as any claim to authority is automatically suspect, however, each action and each decision must be assessed on a continuing basis for the worthiness of the judgment behind it.  
	In the strict sense, then, no person qua person is authoritative or "an authority," since authority inheres in the decision or judgment and not in the person.  Least of all does it inhere in the office, as those in military and statist bureaucracies would have us believe. 

	2-51.  Institutionalized applause and obeisance, as in salutes or protocols in a variety of institutional settings, are intended to give a sense of moral authority to judgments that may or may not be worthy of respect.  The demand for such obeisance, where required, may be honored, but not out of true moral respect.  It may be honored in the same way that one "honors" the insane, by humoring them.
	It is not typically deceitful to humor those in authority, for there is an understanding between those in power and those beneath them that compliance will suffice where actual respect is lacking.

	2-52.  The respect for the U.S. Constitution found in many persons is a form of scriptural inerrantism, except in this case the holy writ is not the Bible but an even more obviously man-made document.  
	This fundamentalist constitutionalism is as obviously idolatrous as Bible worship, but in this case the point of the "faithful" is not to find out what God willed or wills but what the state wills: to find out when violence or coercion may be "legitimately" employed.

	2-53.  Even some of the "procedural safeguards" founded in the Bill of Rights are of dubious value.  What is the greatness of a right to "trial by jury"?  Why not affirm instead a right to be free from trial?  Trial by jury was certainly an enormous step forward from "trial by fire" and other barbaric practices, but a trial by jury is still a trial and thus still a barbaric practice:  in this culture, trial is punishment.
	As for some presumed "right" to bear arms. . . .

	2-54.  The problem with trials is, of course, with judgment itself.  Our moral horizons are too small.  If we can only justify current practices by comparing them with past barbarisms, then we are in trouble indeed.  I envision a world in which persons are free from judging and being judged by others, and I can try to live by that ideal whether the world is ready to accept it or not.  I cannot, it is true, stop others from judging me, but I do not have to become a part of this nonsensical barbarism by responding in kind with reciprocated judgment.

	2-55.  What is this hoopla surrounding the right to be free from "cruel and unusual" punishment?  Why not posit a right to be free from all punishment?  Indeed, to say that we have a right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment suggests that we have a right to other kinds, a point made poignantly by the title of Jessica Mitford's excellent book, Kind and Usual Punishment.28

	2-56.  Challenge the institution of punishment in general and be prepared for looks of astonishment and indignation.
	Yet, the day will come when those who tell of an ancient era of war and punishment will be looked at with the same astonishment.

	2-57.  There are no more revered institutions in human cultures, even in the "civilized" West, than judgment, war, and punishment--these three, but the greatest evil of these is judgment, for it is the foundation of the others.

	2-58.  The conventional morality of "civil disobedience" typically exhibits far too much respect for the secular law, and not enough for the moral law or the sovereignty of God.  While it is true that respect for the  moral order often impels one to go public with one's disobeyal, there is no absolute or categorical obligation in this regard: nowhere is the injunction against "casting pearls before swine" more compelling than with regard to one's "obligations" before the secular law.

	2-59.  The "buck" stops with each individual who is trying to do the will of God.  Responsibility cannot be referred or remanded to any other human being, nor to the mythical "rule of law." 
	There is no intermediary in the chain of command between God and the individual: the bureaucratic ethos and its hierarchy of moral responsibility is the ultimate apostasy.

	2-60.  Allowing the moral judgments of others to be exercised in place of one's own in the name of the "rule of law" or the "legal-rational model of organization" (bureaucracy) is never authorized of God, and there is no circumstance under which a person may morally cede his or her moral sovereignty.  
	Indeed, one may go so far as to say that the most immoral act of which one is capable is to cede his moral sovereignty to another.  Unfortunately, it is also the most common act of immorality, and the most difficult to overcome because of the pervasiveness of the legalistic, bureaucratic mindset in all organizational life.

	2-61.  Lincoln Allison in Right Principles defines authority as the "right to command."29  This is a statist natural law premise, not unlike Aristotle's natural law assumption that some must rule and others be ruled.  It is the foundation of all statist natural law, even (perhaps especially) that which is called "conservative."
	Non-statist natural law (such as that set forth in this work) posits an opposing premise: that the law of nature and of nature's God is that no one should command or dominate another.  This is perhaps only a limiting ideal, but it is one worth keeping in mind.  In the scriptural context, it finds its expression in the sayings attributed to Jesus: "The gentiles like to lord it over one another, but it shall not be so among you.  He who would be greatest among you would be your servant."
	These two opposing natural law premises, going to the very heart of political philosophy, may be stated as the "command premise," on the one hand, and the "service premise," on the other.  The two premises are mutually exclusive, although committed individuals might well be able to occupy positions of power without succumbing to the statist role.

	2-62.  One owes respect to rulers as human beings: one owes them almost as much respect as one owes to the janitor, the machinist, the plumber, or others who perform honest labor.
	One should always treat one's boss as an equal--whether he or she is or not. 

	2-63.  Contra Paul in Romans 13, let us give God, not our rulers, the honor for all good things.

	2-64.  Let us never give the impression to any person that we respect or honor them for their power or position, or for the advantage which they might have over us.  
	We thereby do them, as well as ourselves, a disservice.

	2-65.  Although one wants to demythologize the human institutions of "authority," one wants to offer a serious moral caveat: the respect to be accorded to rulers as members of the human race is not to be disparaged.  In all worthy things that they ask or command us to do, they should be assisted.  If they ask or command us to do that which is immoral or unjust, then we should not, of course, comply.  We should not presume, however, that in assuming the right not to comply with unjust commands that we are granted thereby the right to commit injustice against such perpetrators of injustice.  While we do not have any obligation to comply with an unjust command, neither does the commission of an injustice by a ruler grant us any title to commit the same kind of injustice that he or she would commit by presuming the right to rule and command other human beings.  
	Since the fundamental injustice of rulers is that they tend to assume that they have the right to rule others, there is no good accomplished by teaching them the wrongness of such an assumption by trying to wrest rule from them and to take such rule onto ourselves, for we become in the process like them in their injustice.  This is true for both individuals and collectivities.  Any individual or group which presumes that to have the right to rule over others is guilty of an injustice.  This includes democracies, where they operate by the appeal to violence or the threat of violence, both physical and economic, rather than by appeal to a consensus of valid ideas.

	2-66.  Most persons attempt to resolve conflict by starting with an appeal to those in power. 
	It is far better, from a pacifist point of view, to confront the offender or the person with whom one disagrees directly.  There is some risk in this, but there is also opportunity to learn how to resolve conflict without the use of threat or coercion.  The appeal to those in power often serves merely to transfer the risk to the other party, as well as to forego such opportunities on the part of both parties to grow in their ability to resolve conflict.
	Where resolution is not possible, and where risk is disproportionate to what could be gained as a result of a possible settlement, there is nothing dishonorable about either silently enduring injustices or else fleeing the situation.

	2-67.  There are those who say that I should respect the President, and that, if I cannot respect the person who is the President, I should respect the office of the Presidency.
	Why?

	2-68.  A deceitful humoring of irrational or powerful persons is a good survival device, but such action reinforces their rationalizations and thus transfers the risks to others who might later fall under their power.  Therefore, one is obligated to confront one's abusers with truth, even at substantial risk to oneself.  Please note, however, the italics.

	2-69.  Although one does want in general to enjoin young persons to avoid working in the military if other options are available to them, and, although one certainly wants to enjoin them to refuse to do that which, in the military or out of it, is patently immoral, one does not want to put too much of a burden on those who now have the option, in this country at least, of being conscientious objectors or of otherwise legally pursuing non-combative roles.  When such legal avenues of moral action are available to them, one does not want to make them feel that their only moral course of action is imprisonment or some other form of predictable persecution, especially where such a course of action is unnecessary.
	The burdens of resistance to war, and the attendant hazards, are great enough for the young persons who feel the awesome power of the state and its military draft, without making them feel unnecessarily guilty for doing those things which are in themselves harmless or even good, such as serving as a medical corpsman.  The moral road while in the military can be a very narrow one, however, and anyone who thinks that it will be easy to do the right thing in the military, without the expectation of further persecution and abuse, should know that this is hazardous terrain indeed.
	There is, in any case, no obligation to accept the status of conscientious objector within the military if one's conscience tells one that the only conscientious course is to stay out of the military entirely: the courts cannot tell a man or woman that it is right that they should "serve" in the military simply because "the law" provides only certain options, especially when a divinely-guided conscience tells them otherwise.

	2-70.  To be subpoenaed to testify against someone in a courtroom proceeding is, for the consistent pacifist, akin to being drafted to fight in a war.  He is not being asked to use the sword directly, it is true, but he is being used to make accusations and to promote punishment.  Although the issue may seem trivial compared to that involved in being drafted to fight or kill, the basic issue is very much the same: one is being asked to participate in a process which is coercive and potentially violent in its impact upon those who are accused.
	Even to participate in such a process seems to violate the divine injunction not to judge other persons.  
	2-71.  Strategies for avoiding being "drafted" into the legal wars are even more complex than those for the moral avoidance of the military draft.  The most adamant refusal to testify against another will at the very least get one a contempt citation from the courts, and, if this kind of "protest" became commonplace, the state could probably get rough enough to convince most persons that they should testify. 
	Clearly, the best and most consistent (as well as most honest) course of action would be to refuse to testify in the first place.  This fact reminds one that one requirement of pacifism is the obligation to define one's loyalties in universal or transnational terms.  Clearly, once one puts on a uniform or takes the stand, one is being asked to stand with one segment of humanity against another segment of humanity.  For the pacifist, such a stance is a denial of the brotherhood and sisterhood of all persons, and thus the pacifist does well to stay out of uniform and off of witness stands.

	2-72.  Surely a true right of the free exercise of religion would involve not only a right not to go to war, but a right not to have to take sides or to judge, evaluate, or testify against others in any kind of adversarial proceeding.
	The state will perhaps never interpret religious freedom so broadly, of course, for the state could not survive if it could not convince other persons that it is a just and patriotic thing to betray or judge one another.

	2-73.  But what if one is the accused, and the only way to acquit oneself is to make counteraccusations against another?
	The ideal is to refrain from making those counteraccusations.  But make no mistake: this is not a situation in which one wants to be. 

	2-74.  Let it not be forgotten: the state claims the "right" to compel some to accuse and to testify against others.  Jesus of Nazareth, by contrast, enjoins us not to judge each other at all.  Only by universal adherence to this command could war and all oppressive social orders be defeated once and for all.  In the meantime, we may as individuals unilaterally retire from the judgmental fray without fear that we have damaged society in the least.

	2-75.  What is "state authority" and the secular law such that there is a moral obligation to clear our actions through them?  To the extent that the state can persuade persons to accept the lie of the moral authority of the state and its laws, however, the enslavement of the populace becomes a voluntary matter: the people become sheep in the worst possible sense of the word: their shepherd has become the state.

	2-76.  Would God have endorsed or ordained an entity which crucified the Christ?
	Make no mistake: the state is evil, for it is conceived in deceit and survives through violence.  It does not come from, nor is it ordained of, God.  The locus of moral obligation does not lie in its laws.   

						

CHAPTER THREE

MILITERRORISM

de-ter-rence\ L deterrere, to frighten\
2. the maintaining of vast military power, etc.

	3-1.  "Militerrorism" is a neologism, a "new word."  I shall use it as an inclusive term to describe all attempts to use fear to control or modify the behavior of others, regardless of the worthiness of the end being promoted.  
	Even though the term is inclusive of all formal organizations in whatever realm (including teaching, if the teacher relies upon fear), it still seems most appropriate when used to refer to military and paramilitary organizations, whether in democracies or in totalitarian regimes.  The original object of creating such a new word was to point up the hypocrisy of calling upon military or paramilitary organizations to "control terrorism."  Yet, the longer one works in any type of formal organization, the more one sees the problem with focusing exclusively on military and paramilitary organizations, so well established is the tradition of using fear as a social regulator.
	A consistent pacifist would have to be against the deliberate use of fear in all realms, of course, since some sort of violence or threat of violence is the means of inducing fear.  This is obviously true for military and paramilitary organizations, but it is also true for organizations which use economic violence in order to enforce compliance (such as the threat of withholding remuneration in bureaucracies, public or private).  Since the use of fear as a social regulator is so pervasive in modern organizations, it seems reasonable to expand the uses of the term "terrorism" so that there is some logic is referring to a "pacifism-terrorism" dilemma: those who endorse the use of fear in any capacity may justifiably be called "terrorists," whereas those who abjure the use of fear as a deliberate motivator in all types of organizations and social situations could be called "pacifists."
	
	3-2.  Calling such a wide range of activities "terrorism" is not going to automatically convince persons that all such activities are wrong.  Yet, this is exactly what Christian pacifism would like to do, and the creation of a term such as "militerrorism" might help to dramatize the point: one wants to deny most emphatically that the deliberate use of fear to modify behavior or enforce compliance is ever morally legitimate.

	3-3.  In spite of its inclusiveness, the term "militerrorism" would certainly have primary applicability to that great variety of organizational forms which rely upon coercion and fear as the primary methods of social control and manipulation.  Thus, even though "bureaucracy" in all of its rather routine manifestations could qualify, the primary focus would indeed be upon military and paramilitary organizations.  Among these, there would certainly be instances of militerroristic activity which would fit the bureaucratic model, such as the highly disciplined and bureaucratized SS of Adolph Hitler.  Yet, the highly disjointed and fragmented activities of the Weathermen or Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) during the 1960's would also qualify.
	The term "militerrorism" admittedly connotes a negative judgment of the morality of using fear as a method of enforcing compliance.  As such, its use is a standing moral indictment of a wide variety of actions and social practices--most of which are viewed by nominal Christianity as morally legitimate, including but not limited to those military and paramilitary organizations whose "essential services" involve the delivery of deterrent potential through overt violence or threat of violence: the military and police forces in every culture.

	3-4.  Although it may sound outrageous to say so, perhaps the archetypical example of militerroristic organization on a massive scale in the United States would be the United States Air Force.  While the U.S. Air Force is far from being the most brutal organization in terms of maintaining internal discipline (possibly less brutal than, say, IBM), its glib defense of the efficacy of nuclear terrorism ("deterrence") as the avenue to peace would surely allow it to gain the honor of serving as the paradigmatic model of militerrorism.  The fact that the U.S. Air Force also has the most highly polished public relations devices and euphemistic slogans for justifying its terrorist methods ("Peace is our profession") would also increase the dangerousness of its basic enterprise: one man's terrorism is another man's motherhood and apple pie, and what qualifies the Air Force for the dubious honor of paradigmatic militerror-istic organization is in part the masterful image-building which allows it to pass its militerroristic activities and missions off as the most wholesome and genuinely "All-American" of pursuits and professions.
	Many militerroristic organizations do not, of course, concern themselves with image or public relations, nor are they always well-organized.  These are the more likely to be perceived by the general public as "terrorist" organizations: the PLO, the SDS, and the Islamic Jihad are examples of these types of organization, which in fact seem to try to infuriate or thumb their noses at their adversaries.  The U.S. Air Force, by contrast, is concerned with maintaining an image which conduces to its lobbying efforts for increased expenditures.  Such an image also promotes its claim of defending democracy and thus serves to give it a cloak of legitimacy and dignity which its use of euphemism is intended to convey.  
	Even so, in the U.S. Air Force, the image of smooth professionalism and detached moral judgment hides the ugly reality of the greatest concentration of massive destructive power in the world today by any single organization.  On this ground alone, one might consider the U.S. Air Force as the archetypical case of militerroristic organization in this country--and possibly in the world.

	3-5.  "After college, my son is going to go into a career in mili-terrorism."
	Alright, so most persons will never adopt such a usage.  One hopes that at least a few others, however, will get the message and never adopt such a profession.

	3-6.  There are two broad ways of effecting change or maintaining order in the world, regardless of the scale of the action or its consequences.  One method uses moral suasion and is committed to peace not only as an end but as a means.  The other uses fear, which in turn implies the use of force or the threat of force.  
	There is a true dichotomy between appeals to moral suasion and appeals to fear, and thus have I referred to "the pacifist-terrorist dilemma."  Although there are many gray areas, the two methods are conceptually distinct. 
	The advocates of both methods (of pacifism and terrorism) speak of peace.  For the advocate of fear, peace is a state of affairs which refers as correctly to the graveyard as to a state of genuine harmony: wherever there is order and the absence of overt conflict, there is seen to be peace.  For the advocate of moral suasion, peace refers not only to the absence of conflict, however, but to freedom from want and fear.  This kind of peace cannot be brought about by fear and the concomitant use of force or the threat of force, for the appeal to coercive force is always an appeal to fear.

	3-7.  Are there justifiable uses of terror?  I believe that most advocates of nuclear deterrence are saying, behind the cloak of euphemism, that the use of fear or terror is at least sometimes justifiable, if the terror is used to promote someone's conception of "justice."  Otherwise the use of terror is mere terrorism.  (Is this not the implicit assumption of the "just war" doctrine?  	If we relabel it as the "just terror" doctrine, will there be any loss of meaning?)
	Terror can be used to promote a number of things, including property, privilege, and national security.  Justice, however, is surely something more than some end which can be promoted by any old means.  Surely justice has something to do with means as well as ends, and--just as surely--just means measured by the example of Christ would automatically preclude the use of terror.  
	The argument for nuclear deterrence is reducible to an implicit claim that the end justifies the means: one may use terrible means to achieve wonderful ends.  The argument has a raw utilitarian ring in its casual acceptance of an evil for the sake of a greater good.  And--make no mistake--the threat of annihilating cities or a whole people in the name of peace is an evil, whether one ever uses the weapons or not.
	The mere threat of the use of a weapon, physical or economic, constitutes an instance of terrorism.

	3-8.  Even the Islamic Jihad makes some claim of ultimate good in its defense of terror--most terrorist groups do invoke a moral cause.  They would not claim to be pursuing violence for the sake of violence.  Yet, though they may say that they are promoting justice through the use of terror, one may reasonably question whether or not it is indeed justice which is being promoted: "justifiable terror" is surely a contradiction in terms.

	3-9.  One reading of Paul in Romans 13 would appear to suggest justifiable uses of terror:  "Magistrates are no terror to an honest man, though they are to a bad man.  If you would avoid being alarmed at the government authorities, lead an honest life and you will be commended for it; the magistrate is God's servant for your benefit.  But if you do wrong, you may well be alarmed; a magistrate does not wield the power of the sword for nothing, he is God's servant for the infliction of divine vengeance upon evil doers." (Romans 13:3-4, Moffatt translation.)  
	Orthodox Christianity, to the extent that it affirms the retributive message and seeming endorsement of state violence on the part of Paul, demonstrates that it, too, is a terroristic organization--perhaps the most dangerous terroristic organization in the world, for it falsely invokes the sanction of God for such evil.

	3-10.  Although it may seem naVve and simple-minded to hold that war and punishment are never justifiable (or "just"), I cannot understand what the whole significance of Christianity is supposed to be if Christ's example is really indistinguishable from the usual worldly, statist way of responding to evil.  
	The example of Jesus gives us a particular conception of God, such that none more forgiving or more benevolent can be conceived.  God is no terrorist, and His Justice could not therefore be promoted by the use of terror.  My Prince of Peace is not one who advocates peace through preparedness for war, nor one who calls the condition of anxiety under the umbrella of nuclear deterrence "peace."  Such "peace" is mere stalemate by mutual threat.  
	Shalom, the biblical concept of peace, is more than the absence of conflict, in the same way that justice is more than mere "law and order."
	As for those who still believe in a God of retribution, I can only say that I find such a concept of God too small, too petty--and all too human.  A valid religious claim ought to distinguish itself from the commonplace, and the justification of routinized legal terror and punishment is too commonplace--not to mention too arbitrary and too cruel--to be taken seriously as a manifestation of the divine will.

	3-11.  What commonly goes by the name of "government" rests ultimately upon fear, terror.  Yet, to the extent that actual governmental organizations are composed of persons who to varying degrees employ moral suasion in lieu of fear, these persons operate by pacifistic methods.  Most organizations and most of the centers of power which we call "governments" do in fact rely upon both methods.
	Even so, many organizations would put the new wine of moral suasion in the old bottles of fear and threat.  Bureaucracies are, in their pure form, designed with an eye to the ultimate appeal to fear if moral suasion fails to persuade.  Such organizational forms are inherently terroristic, although to say so seems (but only seems) to make too strong a statement.  

	3-12.  What passes for diplomacy (at least since von Clausewitz) is too often terroristic: "Come, let us sit down at the bargaining table and discuss matters rationally.  If you won't, then we will bomb you back to the bargaining table."
	This is really only a slightly better dressed version of Don Corleone's conception of diplomacy in The Godfather: "Let me make you an offer you can't refuse."1  Translated, this meant, "Let us reason together; and, if you don't come around to our way of thinking, we're going to blow your brains out."  When Michael Corleone tells his fiancée that his father is no different from politicians and presidents, she tells him that he is naVve:  "Presidents don't kill people!"  His response?  "Who's being naVve?"2
	The pacifist accepts Michael Corleone's argument--not for the sake of justifying violence, however, but for the sake of demythologizing the state and its claim of legitimate violence.

	3-13.  Von Clausewitz's conception of "diplomacy" is a curious mixture: apparently a simultaneous appeal to moral suasion and to terror. 	What appears on the surface to be an earnest appeal to moral suasion is actually, in such circumstances, only veiled terrorism.  
	If new wine is put into old leather wineskins, are not both destroyed?  If moral suasion is backed up by threat of force, are not both messages weakened or destroyed?

	3-14.  What is peace that it may be referred to as both end and means?  Indeed, the only peace worthy of the term must be conceived of as both end and means.  That is, "peace" in any meaningful sense cannot be conceived of as an end state if it is presumed to be achievable by violent or coercive means: that would only be the "peace" of the graveyard or the "peace" of regimentation and political repression. 

	3-15.  The common usage of the term "terrorism" conceals a multitude of sins: the term has almost come to signify a certain selective blindness toward all but one sort of violence--revolutionary violence.  That is, persons who speak too glibly of "terrorism" typically use the term to refer only to that violence which is used for revolutionary ends.  Violence which is used for anti-revolutionary purposes is somehow praised and considered "legitimate."
	Of violence we may say that there are usually two broad rationales for its use by two broadly different types of persons: first, those who are basically satisfied with the existing or established order and who tend to react with violence to any perceived threat to that order; and, second, those who are basically dissatisfied with the established order and whose frustrations with their own social or economic standing impel them (with or without being incited by others) to revolt against the established order or its defenders.  
	The United States, today a very fat and satisfied nation, is sometimes seen as having changed from having been a predominantly revolutionary culture to being a profoundly reactionary culture.  There has indeed been some tendency in that direction.  Yet, although the use of violence has routinely been invoked in this country's history, that usage has seldom really been for truly revolutionary purposes: the only war even smacking of "revolutionary war" was not the Revolutionary War at all but the Civil War, which did result in a radical transformation of this country.  Most other wars in this country's history--and most obviously and notably the war against the native inhabitants--have been profoundly anti-revolutionary or reactionary.  As for the so-called "Revolutionary War," one may say that it was basically a war led by and for the established classes in this country.  The tendency to call that war and that war only the "Revolutionary War" is associated with a purely nationalistic conception of revolution.  By contrast, acts of war resulting from dissatisfaction with social and economic conditions have been seen instead as "labor violence," "anarchism," "communism," or "terrorism."  	Violence against the established order is thus typically derogated as being "incendiary" or "inciting," and has been cause for criminal prosecution.  Violence on behalf of the established order, by contrast, has been labeled as "noble" and "heroic" and has been cause for rituals of reward, commendation, and memorial: there is to my knowledge no memorial in this country to the innocent victims of war.  The state only rewards and memorializes those who have fought to maintain the existing order.  Thus, by both honor and remuneration the state succeeds in the purchasing or at least the long-term leasing of the souls of most of its "citizens," most of whom are not even aware of how short the bargain really is.
	The irony of all of this, however, is that by the most insidious process of reaction, "war" has been elevated into a noble institution commanding the immediate loyalty of the citizenry, while the less effective disorganized acts of violence have come to be disparaged by such derogatory terms as "anarchism" and "terrorism" referred to above.  And, in times of war, countries with more primitive and less organized instruments of war are not only mocked but are also more likely to be labeled as "terrorist" nations.  In war more than in any other institution, nothing succeeds like success--its advocates glorify brute national strength as if to say that justice really is nothing more than the will of the stronger.  Thus, the same primitive moral view that sees war as a wholesome exercise of divine justice through the arm of the state also tends to see national strength as indicative of national justice and righteousness of purpose.
	Greater opprobrium has been directed by nominal Christianity against revolutionary violence than against reactionary violence, which is typically applauded and defended as being very nearly the incarnate "wrath of God."
	From a Christian pacifist view of history, however, both types of violence--revolutionary and reactionary--are to be deplored.

	3-16.  There is a view of military organizations which sees them as relying upon a mixture of methods of achieving compliance with organizational goals, methods ranging from coercion to remuneration to moral exhortation.  (See Amitai Etzioni, A Comparative Analysis of Complex Organizations.3)
	Yet, military organizations do not merely mix their types of appeals, as Etzioni correctly says; they also use coercion to varying degrees in the teaching of moral ideals.  Since one of the characteristic features of the truly normative mode of control is the appeal to voluntary compliance, this mixture of modes of control in the socializing process works against the realization of that atmosphere of rational persuasion within which one may speak meaningfully of an appeal to truly moral modes of gaining compliance.  Since coercion sets the framework for the moral appeal, and since the limits of inquiry and intellectual response are set and enforced within an institutional framework maintained by coercion, certain types of moral arguments cannot be seriously considered, thus vitiating the appeal to rational persuasion which is so  central to moral appeals.
	In addition, in the case of the military, the institutional devices used in the stripping away of certain previously socialized norms are devices so filled with threat and coercion that one cannot take seriously as moral phenomena those lessons that are so taught.  The methods of instilling these norms so nearly border on the techniques used in "brainwashing" that one cannot respect the claim that any true appeal on the moral level has occurred.  One feels somehow that "programming" is the kind of "moral teaching" that has been achieved.

	3-17.  In a significant sense, the "institutional stripping" of military socialization attempts to reduce the individual to a "blank slate" status, a process which can never be completely successful, but which in any case can succeed to varying degrees in reducing the recruit to something of a moral infant.  If the recruit is already a virtual child, so much the better is the chance of achieving this goal.  Young persons--children--are chosen as recruits in the first place, of course, since they are much more malleable than older ones.  
	The etymology of the word "infantry" should not be forgotten: l'enfant, the French word for child (and going back even further, to refer to those who could not speak).

	3-18.  Policemen and soldiers are told that they are there to protect the public.
	What they are in fact being used for is to enforce the limitations on access to primary goods.  They are there to guard against the challenges to exclusivity with regard to these goods. Policemen and soldiers are thus the unwitting guardians, not of the commonwealth, but of exclusive wealth.  A true commonwealth would have no boundaries of status and privilege.  A true commonwealth would have no policemen or soldiers.

	3-19.  Equal access would mean the end of exclusivity.  Equal access would also mean the end of the jobs (and status) of those who enforce exclusivity.
	But this is not to blame the policemen or the soldiers.  The state touts the soldiers and the policemen very highly so as to use them--to exploit them for the sake of those politicians and citizens who enjoy the greatest access to those goods (and that status) which are most exclusive and most highly prized.  Thus it is that the state gives awards and  memorials only to soldiers but not to noncombatants who are also the victims of war: the soldiers must be deceived as to the gloriousness of their mission.
	The wealthy and the privileged will not share wealth and privilege with the soldiers and the policemen.  Therefore they pretend to share honor with them--they even seem publicly to give the policemen and the soldiers the greatest, most exclusive honor ("The highest honor your country can bestow. . . .").  The life of the common man, an earnest person, is often bought with many lies and few dollars--but with lots and lots of pretty ribbons and shiny medals.  
	They  gave the Indians trinkets, too--before they exterminated them.  They were noble beings, too, just as almost all soldiers are.
	3-20.  Beware when you let them pin that little trinket to your lapel, soldier.  It is not for what you have done that they wish to reward you.  It is for that use to which they might next have need to put you--or your children.

	3-21.  Yet, yet, if there is ever a memorial to all of the innocent victims of war, do not let them exclude the soldiers' and policemen's names from the plaques.

	3-22.  Since I abhor violence in all forms, I cannot accept the logic of those who might take it upon themselves to sabotage all nuclear weapons if they but had the capability.
	A true victory over the weapons of war lies not in the sabotage of those weapons, but in the subversion of faith in the moral efficacy of war.  Only those whom one has rationally converted to one's cause can be counted upon not to rebuild the weapons--probably better than before.  Sabotage only hardens the faulty belief system of the militarists.
	The most effective subversion of the violent state uses solely the "weapons" of ideas.

	3-23.  This country has counted its successes in the confrontational game of mutual nuclear deterrence in the same way that a novice dice-thrower crows about his successes at playing "double or nothing".  The game is fun while one is on a roll, but the exuberance of the "winning" novice is a cause of considerable scorn and disbelief among more experienced players as they wait for the odds to catch up--and for the ever-doubling pot go to the inevitable nothing.  

	3-24.  The analogy of nuclear war with a game of craps is only suggestive and far from strict: nuclear deterrence has a lot going for it which makes the odds very good in any given confrontation or "roll."  The prospect of disaster should also make any rational actor stop short of a nuclear exchange.  Even with very good odds on every roll, however, the pot will go to nothing quickly enough if one insists upon continuing to roll the dice.  The limited wars of the Cold War era always had some finite probability of escalating into full-scale nuclear exchanges.  The present situation still contains some finite risk of total disaster.
	Nuclear deterrence might have to work indefinitely to work at all, for all we know (or knew in the late 1980's).  It cannot work forever, no matter how low the odds may be for a given "roll" or confrontation.  It is an arrogant strategy that is presumed to be 100% successful, and nuclear deterrence as a long-range strategy obviously has a lower chance of success the longer it is depended on to work.  Perhaps it is this realization that impels many advocates of nuclear deterrence to talk about a "winnable" or at least "survivable" nuclear war: when "crapping out" (and losing the whole pot) is a virtual certainty sooner or later, the ones who want to keep rolling must have some way of denying the horror--and the near inevitability--of finally rolling snake-eyes.

	3-25.  Seen in the light of the crap-shooting metaphor, the very "success" of nuclear deterrence since WWII is thus cause for concern.  Its success (like that of the double-or-nothing crap shooter) tends to promote a greater boldness and recklessness.  Success in the real nuclear power game thus encourages the fatal miscalculation to occur at some point: one actor, inebriated by power and the illusion of the virtual impossibility of war, is likely to commit an act of aggression which is falsely presumed either to lie within a zone of indifference (or at least acceptability) on the part of the other side, or else which is presumed to be safe enough simply because "nothing has gone wrong for x years now."  The stage is thus set for the novice player to roll craps.
	The analogy with crap-shooting has it limitations, of course: if either side craps out in a bi-polar situation, everyone loses.  In the era of nuclear proliferation, however, the damage might admittedly be containable: only one or two countries might take significant losses in a given exchange.  Even so, the odds of somebody losing are very great.

	3-26.  Did I hear someone say that he thought that discussion of nuclear war is quite irrelevant since the collapse of the Soviet Union?

	3-27.  I have assumed that the use of terror is morally unjustifiable, but I have not argued for this underlying premise.  I do believe somehow that the premise is correct, but what kind of proof or reasoned argument would demonstrate its correctness?
	A similar problem faces those who would try to demonstrate the correctness of their claim that there are justifiable uses of terror.  Indeed, from the point of view of epistemological burden, theirs is the greater: they have to justify terror. 

	3-28.  The defender of the presumed "justifiable use of terror" (war, punishment) has at his disposal only arguments which are purely empirical and consequentialist.  He can surely offer no a priori arguments for the morality of using violence and terror.  About the best that he can do by way of his "practical" consequentialist arguments is to say that the end justifies the means (which is about all that raw utilitarianism amounts to in practice).  
	If terrorism is claimed to be practical on utilitarian or other conse-quentialist grounds, can its efficacy actually be demonstrated by empirical or a posteriori means?  I think not, and I am not aware of any a priori argument which one could possibly invoke to demonstrate its efficacy, much less its morality.

	3-29.  It would be very nice if the solution to oppression were as easy and as quick as dismantling either nuclear weapons or a mere physical wall of concrete and steel.
	Dismantling a wall of moral rationalization is a much more formidable challenge.

	3-30.  War, as the most insidious manifestation of institutionalized terror, is at once the most successful and most abjectly unsuccessful of institutions.  It is successful in that it continues to recruit new converts with every generation and promises to do so into the foreseeable future.  In terms of longevity, it is thus a very successful institution indeed.  
	On the other hand, if peace is the goal of war, then its success is very hard to document.  There certainly has yet to be a war which could be validly claimed to have ended all wars, and there never will be, for war feeds upon war as violence feeds upon violence and retaliation feeds upon retaliation.  
	War, that is, contains within itself the seeds of its own propagation.

	3-31.  Even if one concedes that war is unjustifiable, one might wish to insist that there are more limited and manageable uses of terror which are justifiable.  Although I have a lot of problems with any claim of "justifiable terror," I have to concede that the policeman does seem to have a stronger prima facie claim to the use of terror than does the soldier.  The policeman presumably threatens violence (and thus induces terror) for the sake of justice, and he can affirm that, in his attempt to uphold the law, he is only frightening criminals and is able to do so on a scale that is not only manageable but by methods whose consequences can be clearly seen.
	This argument, although powerful, still fails to be very convincing.  What the policeman upholds in the typical case is not justice but merely "the law," and the law is always the instrument of class interest.  Even if the interest is that of the middle class and of the majority of the people, the sad truth is that law enforcement terror falls dispropor-tionately upon the poor, the disadvantaged, and those of minority status.  In most cases, that is, the terror of the law falls upon either the innocent or the least advantaged--or both.

	3-32.  There is no justification for members of dominant cultures to label acts of hostility on the part of less dominant cultures or individuals as "terroristic" at the same time that they label their own reactions to provocation as "just" or "justifiable": both are terroristic, and neither is justifiable.  Not even wars of "national liberation" are "just wars."
	Yet, if one had to ask which was the greater injustice, one would have to say in general that violence on the part of the established class or culture is the greater injustice: "underdog" individuals or cultures often react with violence out of the frustration of suffering under one or another de  facto caste system, whereas dominant classes or cultures use violence in a calculated and deliberate manner to maintain their position of dominance or privilege.  Thus, although one does not want to condone the resort to violence, the resort to revolutionary violence is perhaps typically less evil than the institutionalized system of violence which maintains the de facto caste system.  (Race riots and wars of national liberation are cases in point.)  It is true, of course, that there are examples where both anti-revolutionary and revolutionary violence are for the sake of defensible values, even if the resort to violence is not truly defensible.
	This is not to justify violence on the part of either party: it is to say that there is no a priori basis in a given situation for saying that one or the other resort to violence is more nearly justified.  Even so, the tendency of the established classes to label uprisings by the oppressed as "terrorism" reflects the greater hypocrisy.

	3-33.  Beware the "expert on terrorism": the term "terrorism" implies not so much that any particular threshold of anxiety has been reached, but that a moral judgment is being made for one side's use of violence and against the other side's use of violence.
	The term "terrorism," that is, is a profoundly political term, a term more useful for propagandizing than for objective scientific analysis.  Thus, when we see some social scientist who is claimed to be an "expert on terrorism" being interviewed on television, we are almost certain to find someone who speaks on behalf of the status quo, someone who probably would defend the use of violence against the "terrorists" as being "justifiable" rather than "terroristic."
	Most analysts of terrorism, that is, are pawns of the established order, and the degree of respect which they are accorded is consistent with the established order's pattern of rewarding those who support its value system, its biases, and its position of dominance and privilege.

	3-34.  It is time to declare a war of reason on the military mind-set.  The military mind-set transcends national boundaries, so that this battle must be a global one.  Nonetheless, like guerrilla wars everywhere, this one must begin in occupied territory, which is to say at home.  The methods developed here can be transferred elsewhere easily enough, since they involve merely words.  
	In this war, at least, the pacifist has the advantage in the mobility of his weapons, not to mention their ultimate power.

	3-35.  In traditional warfare, one wages war on the other side.  When attacking militarism, the logical place to begin is by attacking one's own side or nation: self-criticism is a virtue, and what is the nation but the self writ large?

	3-36.  Military euphemism is used to distort reality.  What is the U.S. Air Force but the greatest and best-funded public relations organization in the world today?  In fact, anyone who watches television cannot but help wonder if the Air Force could possibly be as successful at waging war as it is at waging an advertising campaign.
	Unfortunately, it is very, very good at both.

	3-37.  Can the moral "war" against militarism be successful?  Consider that there was once a time in which there was only One consistent pacifist: God Incarnate.
	There are now quite a few.  Someday there will be millions more.  The nice thing about all of this is that the increase in sheer numbers is not a "show of force": no one should be frightened, terrorized, by a rising tide of international, transnational pacifism.
	Let all potential recruits into the struggle for peace, however, be reminded as to what they might have to give up in order to help wage this struggle: their countries, their families, their reputations, their lives.
	The faint of heart need not apply.

	3-38.  May heaven help the poor soul who believes (and expresses the belief) that the Marine Corps does not build men, but instead builds killing machines.  Heaven help anyone who admits that the Army might not be the best way to "Be all that you can be!"  As for the Navy, can there be any doubt that here is, at best, a gentlemen's club for its officers (at least when they are not engaged in organized rapine)?
	An assault upon the military is seen to be an assault not only upon the organizational culture, but upon its personnel, their wives and children and all who support them.  Criticizing the military is perceived to be a profoundly un-American activity, and woe to the person who is willing to risk any semblance of un- or anti-Americanism.  
	The fact remains that militarism is nothing more than organized terrorism, and anyone who criticizes the military can expect--sooner or later--to be terrorized. 

	3-39.  The metaphor of a "military virus" may seem flippant.  It is not, but neither does it demonstrate respect for the military mind-set.
	It is, of course, the mind-set, not the people in the military, which is the virus.  It is the mind-set, not the people, that one wants to avoid or destroy.  Yet, to attack the virus, it is necessary to associate with military people, to understand their thinking and their culture, so as to be able better to work against the virus without hurting the individuals who are infected with it.  One wants to be able to do all of this without becoming infected with it in turn.

	3-40.  A military triumph by the less militaristic culture or faction, the lesser of two evils, is analogous to the spread of a retrovirus: the triumph  by the use of military force sows the seeds for the glorification of the military among those who are presently less militaristic.  Thus does the virus perpetuate itself, even in democratic causes and regimes: it infects healthy cultures and uses their vital resources until the time comes for it to replicate itself in that culture and to spread beyond its original confines.  Generally, a threat from outside that culture is the trigger, although sometimes the threat which triggers it comes from a subculture.  The threat may be real or imagined.
	Although it can afflict persons of all ages, the military virus seems to have a particular affinity for the young, whose infantile power fantasies and lack of maturity make them more susceptible to it.  As a cultural phenomenon, it spreads most rapidly among those people and in those cultures most impotent and thus most susceptible to it.  In one form or another, however, it threatens everyone everywhere.
	The virus also "mutates," meaning in this case that it has ways of converting itself into forms which one may not yet be immunized against.  Almost everyone in this country, for example, is immunized against the kind of fascism personified by Adolf Hitler.  They are not thereby immunized to the variants of the virus found in the ideology of our own armed forces or in other paramilitary organizations.

	3-41.  Since the military virus is deadlier than drugs and disease, the remarkable thing is that we do not spend nearly so much time warning the young against it.  Indeed, the esteemed members of society typically lure the young into those activities and organizations infected with it: they are its "carriers."  This is its peculiarly insidious nature: many threats lie outside the individual and the healthy core of his or her culture.  The danger and power of the military virus lie in the very fact that it lies within the culture, is a component of the culture: indeed, the infected culture becomes the prime propagator.  
	The body politic is infected with it, and non-militaristic forms of organization tend to be either squeezed out by it or destroyed by it. 

	3-42.  When we offer militaristic rationales to young people, we are like parents who give their children serpents when they ask for bread.

	3-43.  Retaliation, whatever the motive, goes through at least an intermediary state of inducing fear in another person.  In simple vengeance, fear is the simple end or goal of retaliation: one enjoys another's displeasure, horror.  In simple deterrence, fear is an unfortunate means for achieving some higher end.  In either case of retaliation, however, fear is anticipated and yet accepted as either the end or as a necessary means for achieving the end.  The point is that retaliation condones the use of fear, even where it does not glorify it.  
	The overt retributivist does glorify fear: he believes either (out of simple vengeance) that someone ought to tremble, or he believes (as in a more principled retributivism) that such trembling is good for the soul, for the sake of inducing repentance.  The utilitarian-deterrence conception does not glorify the use of fear in quite the same way, but it certainly condones the use of fear: indeed, it perceives fear as being essential to the achievement of the goal, the modification of certain behavior. 
	Any philosophy which tries to justify retaliation, however, is a terroristic doctrine.  Noble ends do not change this fact.
	"For God has not given us the spirit of fear. . . ." (II Timothy, 1:7)

	3-44.  If the world were down to its last pacifist, and if the militarists are right in saying that such a weak person would be killed by unlawful men, then one thing is certain--that death would produce more converts to the cause.
	Have the militarists not heard of the one mustard seed which fell into the ground some two thousand years ago?  The death of one pacifist is a wondrous thing, for it sows the seed for many, many more.

	3-45.  Vis-B-vis Hitler, one often hears, "But would you not have fought against fascism?"
	Yes, I would have fought against it.  I am fighting against it now.

	3-46.  What is militarism but the defining core of fascism?  I would not have joined the military to fight against fascism.  I would not, that is, have joined fascism in order to defeat fascism.  Can one expect to defeat fascism by embracing its methods?  
	Is it by "demons" that we are to cast out "demons"?

	3-47.  If you believe in the power of conscience (or moral suasion) to change the world, then do not glorify fear: any threat or appeal to fear, however subtle, tends to produce anger and thus to interfere with the progress of reason, which is the foundation of conscience.
	Even God, I dare say, does not deal in fear.  Fear is the absence of God, or the absence of divine reason, or of the Spirit of God.  That Spirit is referred to biblically as a comforter (John 14:16-17), not a threatening presence.  One cannot simultaneously truly believe in God and fear God: "For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." (II Timothy 1:7)  If the God that one says that one believes in is the God of fear, then one does not believe in God at all, but in some idolatrous product of someone's imagination.  When we do fear God, that is, we are fundamentally deluded, for in God there is nothing to fear.
	When we say that we are going to "teach someone a lesson" or "put the fear of God" into someone, we are speaking what could be called "idolatrous" nonsense.  This is the ultimate "blasphemy" against the Spirit of God.

	3-48.  Threatening persons does not make them easier to control: it makes them mad as hornets and generally unmanageable and unpredictable.

	3-49.  What is faith in God but faith in alternatives to fear?

	3-50.  Perhaps we should radically redefine peace as the freedom from fear.  "Peace through deterrence" would then be seen as the obvious contradiction that it is: "peace through fear."

	3-51.  Peace as freedom from fear entails not only freedom from overt threat, but freedom from most methods of social control, including the fear of adverse public opinion--fear of becoming a social outcast.
	In a state of perfect peace, persons would be responding entirely to the intrinsic sanctions of conscience, not to any extrinsic attempts to coerce, bribe, manipulate, or threaten them with destruction, incarceration, or other punishment or deprivation of freedom.

	3-52.  John Paul II, in his World Day of Peace Message in 1982, posited not only a right of self-defense, but a duty of it as well.  Augustine was even more emphatic, arguing that it is a "Manichean heresy" to say that war is evil in and of itself: "War and conquest are a sad necessity in the eyes of men of principle, yet it would be still more unfortunate if wrongdoers should dominate just men."4  
	Whatever happened to the simple, humble ethic of the Prince of Peace?  What is "turning the other cheek" but a metaphor for abjuring a claimed right of self-defense?

	3-53.  How can we let a barbarian culture, such as the Nazis, overrun a peaceful and civilized culture?  This is the ultimate challenge for the pacifist, and there is more than one response to it.  One of them is that, if we must become barbarians in order to stop barbarians, then of what value is our own surviving culture?  Has it not become barbaric also?
	The questions are not hypothetical.  We did meet the Nazis.  We did defeat them.  Perhaps we even became the new barbarians, the nuclear terrorists, barbarians and terrorists on a scale never before seen, prepared to destroy the world for the sake of our own dubious security.
	Therefore, fear not the transgressor, the aggressor, or the barbarian.  If we must fear, then let us fear what we are or what we may become.  Fearing that, let us risk everything to become all that we might be.

	3-54.  In the face of organized aggression, let us demonstrate that we care less about our own safety than about the moral community that is even now emerging.  
	Let us demonstrate to the aggressor that we care more about her or his spiritual well-being than about our own physical and material well-being: let him kill us if so doing will cause him--someday--to rethink the error of his ways.
	
	3-55.  An assault upon the institution of war is perhaps the most mammoth undertaking conceivable.  For this project, and this alone, God himself saw fit to intervene directly, to come to earth in the form of man.  Beside this challenge, triumph over physical disease, building of the Suez and Panama canals, going to the moon, all pale by comparison.  There is nothing that captures the imagination like the idea of eternal, worldwide peace. 
	Yet, we do not act upon our imaginations--even at the level of interpersonal relations.

	3-56.  The assault upon the institution of war is in some ways a risky undertaking.  It must go forward without sanction from the state, for the state is born and maintained of war.  One might even say that the state has a vested interest in war: without conflict the state would be out of business.  Therefore we may expect the state to spend enormous sums of money not only to be prepared to wage war, but to promote the institution of war through promotion of the military and of nationalism.
	Against such massive efforts by the state, what chance does peace have, being capable of coming into being only by the actions of myriads of individuals?  The answer is surely that peace is the will of God, and the will of God surely cannot be frustrated indefinitely.  It is also my belief that peace on earth is the will of God, and that we do ourselves a disservice--and commit a disloyalty to God--when we say that global peace is not possible. 

	3-57.  Perhaps the cause of peace requires us to believe that peace is not only possible, but inevitable.  I do not accept this, however: it has the ring of Marxism about it, the assumption of the inevitability of the success of communism.  
	Somewhere between saying that peace is inevitable and peace is impossible lies the reality: peace is possible.

	3-58.  Consider the following fragments from a paper entitled "Peace Is Our Profession" by a former graduate student of mine, a very amiable and intelligent Air Force Academy graduate who went on to become the commander of a B-1 bomber crew.  Like all good students during the era of events preceding the bombing of Libya (1986), he was much appalled by and concerned with the problem of terrorism.  As was (and is) the case for so many reputable thinkers, he made a clear distinction between "terrorism" and "deterrence":

	I'll ponder what "right stuff" is found in people who wait patiently for the signal to launch missiles or drop bombs--"administrators" who can claim "Peace Is Our Profession" and without whom there could be no policy of deterrence. . . .
	Although the military man will establish and maintain cooperative behavior toward the goal of deterrence, a flood of new discretion roars in should deterrence fail.

This Air Force officer, no mere cog in anybody's machine, believed that nuclear deterrence helps to prevent nuclear war, and in his paper he expressed the idea that cooperating with the system (by obeying orders coming down the hierarchy) is the right thing to do as long as deterrence is working.  Yet, he grappled with the enduring intellectual and practical dilemma as to what to do if deterrence should fail:

	Once the system breaks down, a different set of processes allows new alternatives to be considered.  Should the weapons be sent on their assigned paths of destruction?  Those who control nuclear weapons. . . must convince themselves that nuclear warfare is not the greatest of evils--indeed, a giant step in rational thought. . . .  At first inspection, to find something more evil than nuclear war seems impossible.  However, closer examination forces the consideration of modern Soviet communism as a potentially greater evil. . . .
[A] thorough study of the predicted effects of a nuclear strike against the U.S. must conclude that much of the "free" world would survive unharmed.  Contrary to the widely publicized opinions of anti-nuclear groups, I'm convinced that much of the world's population would, in fact, be spared.  Without revealing any of my classified knowledge, I contend: 	
	1.  Total destruction of U.S. and Soviet population centers is impossible. . . .
	2.  Fallout will be the most widespread threat.  However, fallout is also the easiest to defend against. . . .
	3.  Most of the world's existing warheads will not be involved. . . .  At any one time, the vast majority of warheads are in storage.  A significant number will be destroyed by others targeted at the same location (called "fratricide").  Some will fail or refuse to be launched, and some will fail mechanically. . . .
	From these three points, I challenge the "nuclear winter" and "Armageddon" predictions bemoaned by those who either aren't aware of some critical facts, or prefer not to exercise logical examination of these facts.  I'm not making light of the seriously frightening aftermath of a nuclear war--I'm merely arguing the high probability that quality life will continue, forcing us to make appropriate decisions on how to protect that life. [Emphasis supplied.]

It would be easy to end the quote at this point and leave the reader with the impression that this particular officer is doing nothing more than simply trying to rationalize away the horrors of nuclear war.  In fact, he is trying to deal with the longstanding issue of the morality of following orders: the perennial problem of "administrative discretion," albeit in the context of nuclear deterrence and U.S. strategic policy.
	Ending the above quote out of context would not be doing justice to his arguments, which take a surprising twist and continue in a way that defies easy categorization.  He certainly is not arguing from egoistic premises, whether at the personal or national levels, for he goes on to argue that not only personal, but national, sacrifice may be the moral requirement for the larger cause of freedom for humanity:

	Consequently, a retaliatory strike against the Soviets would prevent them from forcing their will on others, even if the U.S. perished.  Biblical study reveals Christ refused to defend himself as an individual, but attacked evil when it threatened the spiritual life of God's people. . . . [Cites scriptural account of Christ driving the money changers out of the temple.]
	We could never tolerate inferior minds in control of nuclear weapons.  Those people who do have the "right stuff" must be encouraged to seek and remain in nuclear administrator roles. . . .  In today's world, without them there could be no peace.5

Although the arguments above can be best understood in the context of the Cold War, their continuing relevance is obvious with appropriate modifications to the post Cold War era.  Indeed, if anything, the argument in favor of the use of nuclear weapons is perhaps stronger in a world in which only limited nuclear exchange is likely.
	I must yet ask the reader of the above to consider several questions:
	(1)  If the above writer (or one of his colleagues or a counterpart in an updated scenario) were indeed to launch his weapons and inflict, say, 100,000 to 3,000,000 casualties (mostly civilians if the weapons were targeted against cities), would his good intentions prevent him from causing consequences more horrible than those caused by all but a handful of the world's terrorists, and would the resulting consequences justify calling him, a conscientious enemy of terrorism, a terrorist?
	(2)  If a member of the PLO were to put a gun to the head of an airline pilot but never fired it, or if the above officer were to aim his missiles at the Soviets but never launched, would either, or neither, or both, be de facto terrorists?
	(3)  How are the usages of such concepts as "terrorist" and "terrorism" shaped by ethical assumptions and normative linguistic frameworks?
	(4)  How are normative linguistic frameworks linked to empirical facts and associated empirical conceptual frameworks?
	In the answers to such questions lies the solution to the problem of the morality of nuclear deterrence, since what is really at stake is whether or not a teleological ethic of consequences is preferable to a categorical renunciation of violence and the threat of violence.  
	This is a general problem of ethical theory, and I shall return to these and related theoretical issues in subsequent chapters.

	3-59.  What is the nature of the profane in persons or in cultures?  I ask the question because it seems that we live in an increasingly profane culture.
	Perhaps one may generalize and say that what really typifies the profane person (in any social or organizational context) is a glorification of fear.  In the realm of action, the profane person glorifies intimidation and waxes eloquent about coercive forms of social organization and their sometimes brutal practices.  In the realm of sexual behavior, the profane person glorifies the forbidden, because the sexually profane person relishes the perverse stimulus offered by risk and its attendant fear.  
	Even in attitudes toward "authority," the profane person goes out of his or her way to antagonize those in power, not merely to challenge them: he enjoys the game, the sport, of baiting others because he knows that there is risk and thus a psychological "high" in doing so.  
	All of this is to be distinguished, of course, from those challenges which are the necessary ingredient of duty and sport.  Life without challenge would not only be dull: it would be meaningless.  But where challenge becomes mixed up with deliberate and unnecessary risk for the sake of the stimulation, even challenge and work itself may be profaned.

	3-60.  There is a conservative maxim which says that one should not criticize the existing order of things unless one is prepared to offer an alternative.  This is a very useful maxim, not only for those who control the existing order, but for those who do not wish to jeopardize their own position of comfort or privilege: the maxim reassures them that their silence in the face of injustice is not only permissible, but virtuous. 
	Can one imagine a physician who would not venture a diagnosis unless he already knew the cure?  Yet, those who disparage the critical social analysis of the uses of fear are saying that one should not diagnose a social pathology unless one can prescribe the cure.

	3-61.  The maxim which says that one ought not to criticize the existing order of things unless one can offer a concrete alternative is essentially a southern maxim.  It is, to be sure, known and revered beyond the South.  In the South, however, it is the Golden Rule of the slave owners and their spiritual progeny--the arch-terrorists of legend and fact.
	The South has been unadaptable to change, and the prime reason for this is that it has suppressed dissent and debate.  At the same time, southern culture has a strong propensity toward violence and militarism precisely because it does not know any way to deal with conflict other than to repress it: this has always been the formula for war.  It should be remembered that it was the southerners, not those who wanted to abolish slavery, who fired the first shots of the Civil War.
	The culture of repressed dissent is the culture of war, for it is by fear that dissent is repressed.  The South has been and remains a manifestation of repression and war.  The South, whatever else it might be, is the realm of reverence for fear as the ultimate social regulator.

	3-62.  In some ways, the culture which we call "Southern" is one of the worst in terms of denying any middle ground on the issue of criticism and conflict.  Southern culture is inherently authoritarian, and in this authoritarian culture ladies and gentlemen are "bred" to believe that controversy and conflict are dangerous and uncouth.  
	Southern culture is also the prime recruiting ground for generals and sergeants: the same attitude which encourages repression of words has never hesitated to use violence and threat to settle conflict.  One might even go so far as to say that Southern culture is backwards and primitive precisely because it does not know how to handle conflict in any way other than to suppress it, whether by the clucking of tongues or the cracking of skulls.

	3-63.  What we call "southern culture" is a backward culture, and its ladies and gentlemen are too often barbarians in Sunday clothes.  Its orphans and its disenfranchised are its true aristocrats, but many of them, being either black, poor, or liberal, are in exile.  Many do not wish to return.  When they do, they typically wonder why.

	3-64.  Ultimately, what one sees when one reviews repressive Southern attitudes toward social criticism is something akin to the taboo in other primitive cultures: the unspeakable.  Whereas the taboo usually proscribes only actions, however, the Southern attitude toward the unspeakable proscribes words.  
	The unspeakable: this is that which typifies Southern culture, which gives it its distinctive flavor.  Is there a problem with pregnancy among teenagers?  Then let there be no mention of sex education.  Is there racial discrimination?  Then let there be no mention of it in polite society, or let it be rationalized away as something else.  There will be time enough after dark to deal with social problems.
	The New South will not have been truly reborn until it forsakes its fascination with fear.

	3-65.  Southern culture has been from its inception military culture.  Nowhere is the warrior more revered, nor the pacifist more hated, than in the South.  As in all militerroristic cultures, the use of force and hierarchy is closely associated with the invocation of formal channels of communication: routinized methods of suppressing dissent.  
	Bureaucracy as a formal theory originated in Prussia, in what is now East Germany.  The agrarian South is the Prussia of the U.S.A.  In hierarchical culture, there can be no communication without permission.  (Communication with permission is what "channels of communication" is all about.)  Communication threatens to allow disparate and dissenting opinion, opinion which might lead to the collapse of the established order.  
	Joining the military is easy for the southerner because he has been there all along.

	3-66.  How did the South come to be the South?  How did the authoritarian mind-set come to be so deeply engrained here?  The institution of slavery was the prime culprit.  So odious an institution could only be maintained by terror, and only if ordinary moral sentiments were denied, or at least suppressed.  Language, which has the power to evoke such sentiments, was thus the object of repression: only if language could be controlled could such an odious institution be allowed to persist.  Only those opinions which supported the economically privileged class could be allowed.  
	This control of opinion created difficulties, of course.  The result was an elaborate set of protocols which established who could speak, when they could speak, and about what they could speak.  Whereas in most cultures such protocols would only be enforced rigidly within the military establishment, in the South they had first to be established within the home: the children above all had to be taught, and taught well, that all persons in positions of subservience must know their place, whether they were children, women, or black persons (which is almost to say the same thing, for all of these were kept in a state of moral infancy against their will).
	The natural sentiments and tendencies of children being what they are, however, the potentially most potent enemies of slavery were indeed within a man's household.  Therefore the children were taught first of all respect for institutionalized authority, as well as belief in the natural superiority of the white man.  This latter nonsensical lie could only be maintained by the strictest control over questioning and discussion: the bigger the lie, the more severe the repression.  The southern child learned quickly that there is no sin greater than speaking back to his elders.  Once the child had learned to constrain his opinions in the home over the institution of slavery, this type of "discipline" was quickly transferred to other issues and finally to social settings outside of the patriarchal family setting: the military.
	The slave owners were not put out of work by the Civil War.  They simply became modern military men.

	3-67.  It might be thought that Biblical inerrantism, not slavery or the rule of terror, was the source of Southern authoritarianism.  The reverse was true.  The lesson of unquestioning obedience learned in conjunction with protection of the institution of slavery became a deeply ingrained attitude which could be transferred to the study of history, ethics, anthropology, and theology: everything on which the Bible professed to have the final word.  
	In like manner, persons socialized to accept received opinion as true beyond question were halfway socialized into militarism already: all that was lacking was a rifle on the shoulder and a new set of badges of status and servitude.  The difficult part of military socialization--taking away the birthright of independent thinking--had already been done by Daddy and Sunday school.  Southern culture became the breeding ground of every reactionary tendency imaginable.
	The final travesty was, of course, the intrusion of Southern values into the realm of education.  Since the conflict of ideas was dangerous, those sporting souls who insisted upon maintaining their independence of thought were best advised to get out of the South--and many did.  Those who remained promoted, in too many cases, a conception of education which might be called "the transmission of culture" rather than critical analysis of culture.  Critical attitudes were frankly discouraged.  Positive thinking was encouraged.  
	Whitewashing was even better, if one could achieve it.

	3-68.  Through a process of unnatural selection, the ideas which flourished in the South were often inferior ideas.  Intellectual waves and currents from other parts of the country, or from those repositories of independence in Appalachia extending from West Virginia into northern Alabama (buttressed by a few independent souls here and there), did provide a counterpoint from time to time, but overall every idea (progressive or otherwise) which swept the country swept the South last.  The sixties finally arrived in the South sometime in the early seventies, and the twentieth century came not with the Wright Brothers in 1902 or the automobile a decade or two later, but with Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.
	Every milepost of progress in the South can be measured in terms of triumph over terror.  There is reason to believe that the same thing might be true everywhere.

							

CHAPTER FOUR

THE DIVINE CONSTITUTION:
A RADICAL RETHINKING OF THE 
CHURCH/STATE DISTINCTION

	4-1.  I shall define the church here as that set of social relations guided by the principles of unconditional altruism and non-retribution implicit in agápe love, whereas the state will be defined as that set of social relations guided by the principles of egoism and retribution (including those contractual relations guided by the profit motive and based on a norm of reciprocity, enforced by violence or coercion). 
	So defined, church and state are not confined to institutional entities or boundaries.  Furthermore, these definitions imply that all imperfect individuals sometimes operate within both realms, not by changing their formal roles or institutional settings, but by changing their modes of relating to other persons.
	The boundaries of church and state, then, are too ambiguous to conform to the usual institutional and legal niceties: wherever the ends and means are those endorsed by God, there is the church.  Wherever the ends (valid or not) are promoted by violent or coercive means, there is the state.  
	So defined, there can be no accommodation between the two realms, for they are differing realms of spiritual awareness and moral action, not two sets of institutions with differing legal jurisdictions.  

	4-2.  As for jurisdictions, God has jurisdiction in all realms, both material and spiritual.  Yet, those who act under divine sanction are constrained in the methods or means that they may employ in any realm: they may not employ the coercive and violent methods of the state in the name of advancing either their beliefs about God or religion, on the one hand, or their beliefs as to how social and material good should be allocated, on the other.
	That is, God does not endorse the use of imperfect means to advance even the most perfect ends, for God is a Perfect Being, and a Perfect Being would have us aspire to perfection in the way that we relate to one another, on every scale and in every situation. 

	4-3.  The church writ large is simply the realm of God in human affairs.  It is the moral community endorsed by God. 
	The church, so defined, does not and cannot depend upon the state for its protection.  The methods used by all who are within the realm of God cannot be the same imperfect methods or means employed by the state.

	4-4.  It is sacrilege to suggest that the state can "protect" religious freedom: the truest of true religions must find itself in constant opposition to the means employed by the state.  The church could not endorse or invoke those coercive means or methods without losing its identity and becoming indistinguishable from the realm of the state.
	This loss of identity is the present condition of Christianity.

	4-5.  The church cannot affirm that the methods of the state have any lasting power without thereby conceding that its own methods have no power.
	The church survives by the power which comes of God: the power to change minds and hearts.  Such power does not come from violence or the threat of violence.
	The church is not that which is called "church."  The "church" and the "state" represent two antithetical moral realms.  No reconciliation between the two realms is possible, for the apostles of each realm invoke different types of power to create their respective communities.

	4-6.  Let no person fear being excluded from the communities represented by the state, strictly understood as a mode of action based on egoism and retribution.
	Exclusion from the realm of the state is the beginning of all freedom, for one cannot belong simultaneously to the realm of the state and the realm of God, and one cannot be free apart from God.
	
	4-7.  The idea of "church" is meaningful without being easily identifiable or localizable within any enduring institutional setting: some who work for the organizations created by the state actually use the methods of the church, and some who claim to be "in the church" are actually far outside it in the methods that they employ.

	4-8.  The traditional definitions of church and state are based upon legal distinctions.  Thus the traditional distinction between church and state is typically defined and given meaning within the context of statist institutions.  This should not surprise us, since disputes between church and state (as usually typified) are usually refereed by the state.  An even greater irony comes from the fact that, as I have defined "church," it can scarcely make appeals within the legal context without itself leaving behind the norms governing "church" (as I have defined it) and embracing those norms usually thought to exist within the realm of "state."  I am assuming, in so saying, that the principles of agápe love governing those relations defined here as "church" are incompatible with the use of coercion and threat implicit in state procedures.  
	The true church is thus a precarious and sometimes ephemeral social entity, surviving largely within the interstices of society.  Attempts to protect the church by force tend to make it into its opposite.  Its institutionalized existence is fragile.  Conflict within religious organizations indicates just how fragile, since religious assemblies are often characterized by the kinds of power struggles which one might expect within overtly statist forms of organization.  
	Indeed, when power politics intrudes, nominally religious organizations are statist organizations.

	4-9.  We are told that the U.S. Constitution is the world's best, as well as the most enduring.  These claims are more than hyperbole: they are false.
	A constitution in the most general sense is the ethical foundation for a social order.  It is more than a legal order, much less a mere legal document. 
	The U.S. Constitution is a fallible document, written by fallible men.   It was intended primarily as device for protecting property, including persons as property.  Even as amended, it justifies war and other violent and punitive institutions.  It is thus fundamentally flawed as the foundation of a social and ethical order.  Yet, one might make a strong argument that the U.S. Constitution is the best constitution for a retributive legal order ever written.  
	It is a shame that it was obsolete almost two thousand years before it was written.

	4-10.  The world's best constitution is found in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew, chapters 5-7) and associated teachings.  The Sermon on the Mount, it may be said, is not a constitution: it is not even a political document but a "religious" one.  
	Yet, if the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount were constitutive of our entire society, we might be justified in being proud of our constitution.  To be proud of the present order, or to suggest that we could not do better, is not only to be pessimistic, but profoundly reactionary.

	4-11.  Consider the teaching, "If a man strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other." (Matthew 5:39)  Since the Kingdom of Heaven is to be a perfect realm where persons do not assault others, the teaching is clearly intended for this world: the recommendation to turn the other cheek would be meaningless if there were no possibility that one would be struck in the first place.

	4-12.  Consider the teaching, "Judge not, that you be not judged." (Matthew 7:1)  
	Such a teaching is antithetical to the entire spirit of legal orders, which institutionalize punishment and war; for what is judgment, if not the logical prerequisite to all forms of retaliation, retribution, and domination?
	The state is the realm wherein persons make and execute judgments of the worth of other human beings.

	4-13.  Biblical inerrantists, who will quibble over sprinkling or immersion, will not take seriously, much less literally, the most radical of ethically constitutive teachings of Jesus. 
	Christianity seems to have given up on its founder's goal of replacing all constitutions conceived out of greed and violence: nominal Christianity is like salt that has "lost its savor" and made its "peace" with the state.  Indeed, it has become little more than a prop for the state.

	4-14.  The person who is always predisposed to return good for evil, and to refrain from judging others, must be ready for the Kingdom of Heaven.  Yet, if one's "constitution" were so perfect that one would be disposed toward perfect goodness even in the face of widespread evil, one would be ready not only for perfectly moral action in the next life, but in this one as well.
	One would, in a word, have become "Godlike."

	4-15.  The Messiah's concern was to exemplify a constitution which is practicable for this world, this life.  Such a constitution would be a guide for human conduct at a stage in human development where the constitutive behavioral disposition is still far from perfect.  Although the "kingdom" will only be realized in all its fullness in the next life, it is nonetheless already in existence and already in competition with the secular constitutions of earthly princes, dictatorships, democracies, and every form of man-made government. 
	The Kingdom of Heaven is also already in competition with our natural constitution: our dispositions to return evil for evil, and to throw off all limits on the satisfaction of our various appetites.  When that struggle has been completed, perhaps we shall be ready for the next world, the next life.

	4-16.  Our overarching goals, if we take Christian ethical teachings seriously, should be to recognize the competing claims of earthly and heavenly "kingdoms," to accept the necessity to choose between them, and to choose the more noble and enduring.  The correctness of the choice will be justified in the end, and the derision we are likely to receive in the present age will someday seem to have been a minor burden.
	In any case, let no one think that I speak metaphorically when I suggest that the original (pre-Pauline) Christian ethical teachings represent the constitution which we all ought to live by, and to which we ought to affirm our unqualified allegiance.

	4-17.  The constitutive foundation of the secular state is based upon reciprocation and exclusion to varying degrees.  Judgmental tendencies quickly follow, as one has to decide who is included and who is not.
	While it is true that the Sermon on the Mount requires the full context of Christian ethics and the Christian example for its understanding, it does seem to contain within itself the general foundation for a social order, and thus to be worthy of the label "constitution."  It is the only constitution to which I would give unqualified allegiance: it is not based on judgment, violence, or exclusion of one person by another.
	The U.S. Constitution is a travesty by comparison.

	4-18.  The lawyers might say, "But your so-called constitution gives us no structure, no basis for allocating goods."
	Thus resting the case in their own minds, they exhaust their days trying to decide who will be excluded from the allocation of certain goods and privileges. 
	Exclusion: Is that not what the secular law is about?
	
	4-19.  One sometimes hears it said that, although a particular course of action is not strictly "just," it is nonetheless "justifiable."  This way of speaking is, of course, nonsense.  The only justifiable course of action is that which promotes justice.  The only just action is that which is justifiable.  The terms would be synonymous in common usage if the concept of justice were always used in its proper sense of that which is morally right ("justifiable").  The just action is simply the right action, and the just social ordering is simply the right social ordering.
	If we are genuinely in quest of "justice," we shall simply try to act in accordance with right principles.  We shall give up forever on trying to give others what we think that they are worthy of, and leave such judgments entirely up to God.

	4-20.  What if divine justice requires that Hitler or Judas should be our companions in the next life?  Are we capable of fathoming the limits of divine forgiveness?  
	If not, shall we be ready for the next life ourselves?

	4-21.  Was Jesus a political philosopher?  Perhaps he was in fact quintessentially apolitical.
	Yet, his teachings directly address questions about the individual's relation to those in power, as well as the problems of equality, hierarchy, domination, service, and other problems of political theory.  In addition, the pervasive emphasis upon "peace" in Christian ethics raises questions as to what kind of social order would indeed embody the full significance of the biblical concept of peace: shalom.
	Whatever else Jesus was, I think that it is thus correct to see him as a political philosopher, but with one important caveat: whereas traditional political philosophy almost always tries to justify the state and its methods of violence and coercion, Jesus espoused a social and political philosophy which would give us an alternative to the violent state.
	Those who deny this fact deny the real significance of his mission.

	4-22.  Two basic questions have driven this work:  First, if society can be constituted on divinely-ordained ideals rather than on human limitations (the Madisonian premise), then what would such an ideal society require of us as ethical actors?  Second, is it possible for an individual to operate rationally and practicably in the present non-ideal world without violating the divinely-ordained ideals.

	4-23.  Every legal system and every statist conception of justice contain the seeds of their own corruption.  They do so because the law's retributive solution to injustice and violence is always more injustice and more violence, always in the name of justice, but in reality for the sake of someone's interest at the expense of someone else's.
	The civil law and its punishment are corruptive of the society they would purify.  Compassionate acts by persons are redemptive.  We have heard quite enough nonsense about the "rule of law."  No such thing ever existed.  Only persons make decisions and act upon them.

	4-24.  Consider the possibility that God has so ordered the world such that the coercive state is indeed ordained and used by God.   Perhaps, that is, God has so ordered the world that evil checks evil: on this view, the state as Leviathan (an evil creature) is nonetheless useful in the divine scheme because it allows a way for evil to be destroyed by itself, rather than by the forces of good.
	Unfortunately, such a view suggests that the house of God is supported by the house of evil--albeit evil checking evil.  Could such a house stand?  I think not.  God may be capable of bringing good out of evil, but this is far from saying that he uses evil.  That is far too cynical a view of the nature of God.

	4-25.  The major framers of the U.S. Constitution thought that evil checked evil, whether they operated from theistic assumptions or not.  Not only is this doctrine visible in the basic structure of checks and balances, but it was explicitly stated in Madison's philosophy of power checking power and ambition checking ambition.1  This assumption is the most basic and fundamental of all tenets of American political thought, and it is the reason that the United States is a dangerous force for instability in the world and is likely to remain so for a long time to come.
	The theory of "checks and balances" implicit in the U.S. Constitution is very much along the lines of balance of power theory as formulated by the great German war theorist von Clausewitz.  So much for the view of the divine sanction of the U.S. Constitution: Jesus was a theorist--and prince--of peace, not war.

	4-26.  So you are inspired by martial music and feel goose bumps when you hear "Hail to the Chief"?  
	Who is the "Chief," anyway? 

	4-27.  The global historical legacy of checks and balances is balance of power theory in general: it is the history of Soviet nuclear weapons checking American nuclear weapons, Israeli tanks and airplanes checking Arab tanks and airplanes, ad infinitum, ad nauseam.
	Wherever the battlefield, the ruling god of retribution is invoked, and the God of mercy and forgiveness is forsaken.  Billy Graham had his prayer breakfasts with Richard Nixon, even while a powerful advisor was calling for the Christmas bombing of Hanoi to "put the fear of God" back into North Vietnam: the assumption on the part of both advisors seemed to be that God was clearly an American, a balance of power theorist, and a man of war, although not necessarily in that order.

	4-28.  When I think of the Madisonian civil religion, of evil checking evil through "checks and balances," the metaphor which comes to mind is that of a serpent consuming itself, or of two intertwined serpents consuming each other.
	Or are the serpents only mating and multiplying?

	4-29.  Even as the civil realm is given over to the faith of "evil checking evil," each individual life is a journey wherein the carnage of evil checking evil is finally found to be unsatisfying, a journey which finds one "lost in the wilderness" crying out for a better way.  Life is thus a journey whose ultimate destination is unknown and inconceivable except that one likes to think that one will not find evil, but goodness, ruling and keeping order.
	Is that too much to ask of an ultimate ideal?
	4-30.  Even hell, it is said, has due process.  In a better "place" (or state of mind), one hopes not only that there is no longer a perceived need for due process, but an outright repudiation of it: its true nature as camouflage for judgment and retribution will have finally been revealed.  
	That veil of camouflage, once torn asunder or cast aside, can never successfully be replaced: the image which is uncovered, of the dead corpse of retributivism, is finally too horrible and too graphic to be erased from memory.

	4-31.  It is not incumbent upon me to imagine or describe how a non-retributive society or culture would work in either its particulars or its totality.  
	God does not demand of me that I change the entire world.  He would, I think, be more than satisfied if I sought and found the courage and the reason to change myself--found a way in my own daily affairs, that is, to respond to evil with good, in the face of whatever contingency.  	Such behavior--universalized--would change the world.

	4-32.  If Gibbon was correct in saying that early Christianity weakened the Roman Empire, leading to its ultimate downfall,2 it is reasonable to ask whether or not a pacifism based upon an interpretation of early Christian writings might not do the same thing to the United States.  
	 Since Jesus himself clearly said that his kingdom was not of this world, even suggesting that his own kingdom existed in conflict with the rule of "those who lord it over their subjects," it is not unreasonable to say that to weaken the structure of domination ought to be the valid aim of any person who calls himself or herself "pacifist," and that, if this implies subversion, so be it.

	4-33.  Since the U.S. shows unmistakable signs of the arrogance of power which has always afflicted the mighty, and since the U.S. is the author and maintainer of the doctrine and practice of nuclear terrorism (nuclear "deterrence"), one should have to give thanks to God if, by his Spirit, one can share in the actions which might reduce such a power to the rubbish heap of has-been empires.

	4-34.  What does the cross have to do with the Constitution of the Peaceable Kingdom?  It has everything to do with it, for the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus established as the core constitutive principle of that "kingdom" the agápe idea of unconditional altruism, with its non-judgmental and non-retributive corollaries.  
	This idea of non-retribution is manifested most succinctly in the golden rule.  For in refusing to retaliate, even in self-defense, we do indeed place the welfare of an enemy above our own welfare.  
	That is what the cross is ultimately all about.

	4-35.  There is no greater love than this, that one lays down one's life not merely for one's friends, but for one's enemies.  Jesus taught the one, but he lived and died the other.  Yet, did he not consider even his enemies as children of God, as friends?
	"Friend" was the greeting he gave to Judas, the one leading the party that was coming to Gethsemane to crucify him. (Matthew 26:50)

	4-36.   The golden rule offers the substantive ethical message that one should always respond to evil with good.  There is much more in the principle than some recommendation of a procedure of empathic identification prior to action, as R.M. Hare,3 Paul Weiss,4 Alan Gewirth,5 and other modern ethicists want to emphasize.  Indeed, if one insists upon a purely procedural interpretation of the golden rule, then one must of necessity fail to see the fullness of its non-retributive substantive content, for the message of non-retribution is the message of forgiveness, and that message is  truly divine.  Nor can it be comprehended in purely secular terms, for it comes from God and can only make complete sense if conjoined with belief in the existence of a perfectly non-retributive God.  
	The golden rule qua the agápe principle of unconditional commitment to the welfare of others is the core constitutive principle of the divine, peaceable kingdom.

	4-37.  What is the church if not the "body of Christ" or the "community of co-believers"?
	What, indeed?  Co-believers in what?  A divine Messiah who came to punish and rule with a flaming sword?  Or a Messiah who came to show the obsolescence of the sword and every coercive order and institution which it supports? 
	If the Messiah did not have the latter mission, that of exemplifying perfect peace, would his claim of divinity really be worthy of consideration?  In what way would he be unique, distinct from secular rulers or other religious teachers?

	4-38.  A failure to understand the view that Jesus was pacifistic and did not accept the legitimacy of the coercive state has a grave consequence: continued acceptance among both religious and secular thinkers of the bifurcated concept of "realms of authority" in the essentially legal distinction between "church" and "state."  This simplistic dualism is associated with a resultant loss not only of awareness of the evils of hierarchy and coercion in both realms, but a loss of the original, non-hierarchical meaning and significance of "church" as well.  That is, the church in its fullness is simply a perfect moral community, one in which all persons finally share in a valid ethical consensus, and from which no one is excluded.
	The church is still being built upon the solid rock of the divine example of Jesus of Nazareth and his first convert, Simon Peter.

	4-39.  Moses recommended a punitive order.  Jesus did not.  Moses ordained a punitive order and called it justice.  Jesus called this conception of justice mistaken: "You have been taught an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.  But I say unto you, that to him who strikes you upon the right cheek, turn to him the left." (Matthew 5:38-39)
	The Mosaic Law, the basis of a theocratic society, combined what we would now call "church and state": it relied upon the sword to uphold sacred values.  The Law of God, in its fullness, denies the justice of using the sword to uphold sacred values.
	Sacred ends require sacred means, and there is nothing sacred about the methods the state employs through war, punishment, and domination. 

	4-40.  The state relies for its trump card upon war and punishment as the harsher half of retribution, although when it relies upon the seemingly more benign half of retribution--reward--it can threaten to bring about starvation, or at the very least extreme anxiety about potential deprivation of the means of livelihood.
	The church of the Christ relies upon benevolence, both when men are deserving of it and when they are not.  It thereby rejects, in its foregoing of retribution, not only the institutions of war and punishment, but meritocracies and reward systems of all sorts.  Social justice founded upon Christian ideals requires that the basis of distributive justice be the criterion of need, not whether one has satisfied someone else's criterion of worthiness.  If God would send his rain, his blessings, upon the just and the unjust alike, should mere mortals presume to do otherwise?

	4-41.  The "King" who rode into Jerusalem on "a donkey, the foal of a beast of burden,"6 surely wanted to distinguish himself from the Romans, riding on or in their stallions and chariots, the symbols of warfare and secular domination.
	He offered, that is, a tangible and symbolic expression of the real distinction between church and state: those who are disposed to serve, on the one hand, or to rule, on the other.
	No one ever "serves" by ruling: this is the ultimate, the most perverse, euphemism of domination.  The idea of "serving by ruling" is also the most common euphemism in modern organizations.

	4-42.  Very often the state masquerades in the clothing of the church, and calls itself Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian, or something else.  Much good is done by these organizations, to be sure, but their structure of formal accountability makes them more compatible with the state than their members think.  The Protestants look at the statist and hierarchical tendencies of the Catholics and think that they have escaped these tendencies, but these tendencies are always near the surface in all formal religious organizations, threatening to corrupt them into coercive bureaucracies or arenas for power struggles.  
	These dangers are all the more insidious where it is naVvely thought that a given tradition has purged itself of the statist disease through some litany about "the separation of church and state."  
	Those who talk the most about the "wall of separation" are often actually the most enamored of the state.  They are often its prime supporters.  Like as not, they worship its flag alongside the "Christian flag."  They glorify, more often than not, war and punishment, and, in spite of protestations about the "priesthood of the believer," many glorify human accountability in the church through democratic "rule."  They also practice exclusion, banning or barring individuals who have been judged by them as wrong or unworthy (quite analogous to the doctrine of excommunication among Catholics, although admittedly different in some theological respects).
	In this practice, they also resemble the state, which has a similar way of excluding those who do not accept certain criteria for citizenship.  Much of Protestantism, smug and secure in its superiority to Catholicism, is in fact an open sore, condemning the innocent and poisoning itself with its own bile.  Divided against itself, this kind of religion cannot stand indefinitely, and God will take it in season.  
	These believers are, of course, correct about salvation: they will be saved, but only after they have converted to Christianity--to the cause of Christ, the cause of peace.

	4-43.  Implicit in the most simplistic treatments of the church-state distinction is the idea that God has ordained that the state should govern the material realm, whereas the church should govern the spiritual realm.  
	The realm of church cannot, however, be confined to the realm of the spiritual.  Religious precepts require action which goes over into the realm of the material, and all lie under the control or governance of God.
	There is no room for power politics in either the spiritual or material realms.  God rules in both.

	4-44.  The redefinitions of church and state in this work require us to redefine or re-examine the procedures for effecting social change.  A vote, for example, would have to be seen at best as a voice (the expression of an idea) and nothing more--certainly not part of a majoritarian coercive threat to carry out its will by force if the vote qua voice is disregarded.
	A vote to raise taxes for a specific purpose, on the pacifist view, would only be a conveying of the idea that one consents to be taxed for that purpose--that one is willing to part with one's money for the good of others.  Voting against a particular tax, on the other hand, is the expression of the idea that one would prefer that one's money should go for something else.  Since most tax bills are not so specific, and since most tax bills are voted on by representatives, then the most that one could do in most instances is to try to vote for the person whose ideas most nearly correspond to one's own.  In like manner, one would not be prevented from holding office, provided that one could do so consistent with the application of agápe non-retributive principles.  
	Or am I rationalizing?  Would Jesus have bothered to vote or hold office if the option had existed in that culture?  Would he have in this culture?  The answer is not self-evident to me.

	4-45.  As a practical matter, the realm of the true church corresponds to the realm of voluntarism, free will, whereas the realm of the state corresponds to the realm of violence, coercion.  
	The market, on such a view, ironically falls within the realm of state, since it not only operates within a framework defined and enforced by legal coercion, but it operates by principles of distributive justice that are based upon the egoistic norm of reciprocity.  And, although such a conception implies voluntarism to some, I think that it is better to conceive of the "free" market economic system as being based upon institutionalized economic extortion and thus coercion: it exploits persons through capitalizing on their needs, their vulnerabilities.
	On this view, the market is not something which exists apart from the state: it is part of the state, for it is one of the purest manifestations of egoism and retributivism.
	If the "free" market could truly produce in abundance, then the price system of the market would collapse.  Its success thus implies its own failure, and it thereby negates itself as a claimant to the title of "allocator of justice."
	There is, of course, an "invisible hand" which allocates true justice: it is the hand of divine Providence, not the hand of the market.

	4-46.  Since all persons at some time in their lives operate altruistically, and all persons at some times likewise operate selfishly, there seems no basis for excluding anyone from the realm of church, much less any basis for debating who ought to have the right to be labeled as being a "member" of the church.  I should think that it would be better to say that all are sometimes members and sometimes not, depending upon whether or not they were relating to others on the basis of agápe principles or sentiments at a given time.  I hope that this does not sound too imperial: "church" so defined is not something one "joins" so much as it represents a metaphysical status (on my view) of being guided by the Spirit of God in one's ethical decisions.

	4-47.  To try to decide who would or would not "qualify" as a member of the church would disqualify one's own self from membership, at least insofar as judging the worth of another is part of that behavior which is not guided by the spirit of God. 
	It seems better to say that all human beings are members of the church, or, more precisely, that the good sides of all of us are members.  There is likewise a dark side to all of us which would not qualify for membership.  The wheat and the tares grow up together in each of us,7 for a time.

	4-48.  Church as conventionally described implies the idea of a mutual benefit association.  Those who are members typically are thought to be more worthy of benefits than those who are not.  The Southern Baptist Annuity system, a very useful retirement system, can thus also be seen as a club.  (Yet, conventional insurance companies, which exclude the most needy, would be similar.  That, of course, is the point.)
	I am not prepared to say that it is wrong to belong to organizations which are exclusive (although it may be), since all organizations are going to be imperfect in this regard to varying degrees.  (Consider the exclusivity implied in being a member of a university faculty.)  The point is that we should not define ourselves or our loyalties by virtue of such exclusive organizations.  In addition, we should try to make all organizations of which we are a part less exclusive rather than more.  

	4-49.  There is a paradox in the concept of a universal church: one must as a member of Christ's church advocate and advance values which are not held by all persons, while yet retaining loyalty and allegiance to all persons, even those who would have us limit our loyalty to some finite segment of the whole.
	This is the unique paradox of Christianity: it requires an advocating of the rather specific values of the true church, at the same time that it requires a commitment to the most general welfare of all persons, including the enemies of the church.

	4-50.  The church requires allegiance to the good of all, including the enemies of the church.  This fact points up the real difference between church and state: the state requires one to stand prepared to judge or destroy its enemies, and this disposition is the most basic requirement for membership.  The true church, by contrast, requires one to love one's enemies, including the enemies of both church and state.
	4-51.  Even the state's much vaunted  claim of "protecting" the rights of expression can be seen to be a hollow promise which the state cannot logically keep, for coercion is the greatest threat to the exchange of--and rule by--ideas.  
	To have the state be the arbiter and protector of "First Amendment Rights" is akin to setting the fox in charge of the hencoop.  Such rights existed long before they were recognized by human beings or were codified into the Bill of Rights, and they will exist long after the U.S. Constitution has gone the way of all secular orders.

	4-52.  Does ultimate allegiance to the church as nation absolutely preclude the traditional allegiance to the nation-state?  The answer is problematic.  After all, it seems almost impossible to accomplish anything without holding some office or membership of some kind in the civil or religious realms, or both.  Yet, every position of power has its stresses, and the temptation is always to respond to these stresses in statist fashion.  Yet, if both church and state are not structures but modes of action, it is possible to carry the more benign mode of action into any organization, providing that one is willing to pay the price for one's virtue.
	It is noteworthy nonetheless that Jesus apparently held no formal office of any kind, a fact which ought to give one pause.

	4-53.  In its best and true sense, the church is indeed not only a community, but a nation (properly understood).  It is also what Elton Trueblood called an "incendiary fellowship,"8 and the statists and militarists do indeed have something to fear from the emerging church even in its interstitial social existence. 
	Faced with any kind of threat, the state always demonstrates its obsession with "security," and it sees quite clearly that the chief threat to security is in the realm of ideas.  Thus it is that allegiance to the true church invariably impels one to a critical confrontation sooner or later, a crisis in which the state's attempt to control the realm of ideas finally brings its role of usurper into evidence.  
	Ultimately, however, the state cannot indefinitely suppress or control the realm of ideas anymore than the church itself can be limited, confined by organizational forms, or even destroyed.  The church operates and flourishes within the realm of ideas, and every repressive act of any regime only makes people think all the more--and the more they think, the greater humankind approaches the universal nation, the "kingdom" of God.
	The state, when it plays its trump card of violent coercion, thus sows the seeds of its own destruction.  The seeds of intellectual reaction to force may lie fallow for a time, but they are of such durability and vitality that no coercive regime can indefinitely survive the plant which springs forth.

	4-54.  As a legal distinction, the counterposing of "church" and "state" serves to give the legal authorities (in both realms!) a basis for deciding when an action falls within the purview of one legalist institutional realm or the other.  
	  Once one has decided to look to the state and its legalistic perspective for insights on things ethical and religious, should one therefore be surprised in finding oneself in a legal/constitutional impasse?  Legal theory is a fantasy, the product of a blind quest in which its high priests strive endlessly, futilely, for coherence.
	God and his church will never be explained away--or confined--by the whim of the state.  The realm of God is everywhere.  The "wall of separation" is a legal myth, as is the idea of "neutral" legal solutions and procedures.  On things so highly value-laden, legal neutrality will never be more than a chimera.
	Yet, the potential for misunderstanding here is so great that one must emphasize yet again that one must never use coercion or any other statist method to force others to either embrace or support one's own religious beliefs.  

	4-55.  As a valid ethical distinction, the chasm (not "wall") between church and state reminds us that there are two general ways of responding to social conflict and ethical dilemmas: the way of God, which is the way of peace and freedom, and the way of Caesar, which is the way of war, coercion, and economic domination.    
	As elements of a legal distinction, however, "church" and "state" have become similar but parallel concepts representing institutional forms which overlap considerably in their methods of operation.  To the extent that the word "church" in fact refers to some kind of bureaucracy or other secular (coercive) method of rule, the norms of Caesar have tended to govern many of the concerns that ought properly to belong to the realm of "church."   
	The irony is that, while the true church itself cannot be properly reduced to any of the particular social and institutional forms which are ordained in its names, all voluntaristic acts and organizations directed toward valid ends are part of the true church, whether their members know it or not.  There is no part of human existence which should not be part of the church, properly understood.  The church of the living God cannot be confined to some legal category (much less to a building or to a single congregation or denomination), nor can it be totally excluded from any segment of human affairs.
	The true church has a way of permeating all of social life, and, when it has leavened all realms of human action, the usual distinction between "church" and "state" will no longer exist, because the state will have been transformed into its opposite: force will have given way to thought, Reason.

	4-56.  The idea of an "ordained" minister can mean nothing more than an official minister or servant of God.   The ethical teachings of Jesus on servants and masters makes clear, however, that all who serve other persons, in whatever capacity, are ministers of the truth.  The real church and its real leaders are either the unofficial servants or else those who manage to serve in spite of some misbegotten official status.

	4-57.  Protestants who laugh at the Catholic idea of a "Pope" gulp down the concept of "ordained minister" without reservation, and both traditions tend to accept the Pauline nonsense of a secular ruler, armed with sword, as a proper "minister" or servant of God.  (Romans 13)  
	The Protestant confusion is manifested not only it its reliance upon "ordained ministers," but also in its general presumption that adopting majoritarian procedures can ensure that the will of God is being carried out.  This reliance upon majoritarian procedures can only ensure that the will of the majority is being carried out.  When majorities do that which is in error, then the error is multiplied, not sanctified.  The error is multiplied a thousand fold when they vote to expel someone from a congregation, as if they had the power to decide who was a member of God's family. 	
	These same people react with horror or even amusement at the Catholic idea of official excommunication, without seeing that they as Protestants are doing very nearly the same thing.  Both are usurping God's authority on the same point, differing only in the mechanism of de facto excommunication: majoritarian sacrilege on the one hand, bureaucratic sacrilege on the other. 
	As for Catholic atrocities, they have indeed subsided substantially since the days of the Inquisition.  Instead, we have now not so much the atrocity as the absurdity of the Catholic hierarchy and its formal priesthood.  
	But is the Protestant concept of "pastor"--shepherd--really any better?  
	4-58.  Did Christianity subvert Rome, or was it the reverse?
	
	4-59.  Ah, Protestantism!  If only the sacrileges of Christianity were confined to the Catholics or to others outside the mainstream Protestant tradition.

	4-60.  It is obviously true and yet one must say it nonetheless, so that one is not totally misunderstood: there are many true ministers of God who yet work within the more or less formal organizations of the Catholic priesthood or the Protestant ministry, as well as on the fringes of both.

	4-61.  Church as the "body of Christ," as an ethical and spiritual rather than as an institutional concept, is all of that which embodies the expression of non-retributivism, altruism, autonomy, or non-violence: everything derivative of the principle of the absolute worth of the individual in the eyes of God.
	Whereas value pluralism would see these as independent virtues, a Christian value monism would see them as various facets of the same logical whole, each of which, if pursued far enough, would imply the others through the locus of respect for the absolute worth of the most worthless individual, a value ordained of God.

	4-62.  If the state is the realm of retribution, it is also the realm of judgment or evaluation of persons which is the logical precondition of retribution.  Thus, the state's boundaries do not merely begin with overt retribution, but with the evaluative procedures which are the beginnings of retributive procedures: evaluation and judgment may thus both be seen to be retribution, for, although we might want to logically factor the evaluation from the execution of judgment based upon that evaluation, the fact is that any kind of evaluation of the worth of individuals is part of the realm of state, the ethical realm of retribution.

	4-63.  As evaluation is not only logically prior to retribution, but part of its essence, can it be any wonder that evaluation for retributive purposes is also condemnation and conviction?  The trial--the evaluative process--is the judgment or conviction or punishment.  The decision by the jury and the sentence of the judge are simply continuations of evaluation and punishment: for human beings, social beings that we are, to be accused, interrogated, and evaluated is to be punished.
	There is no such thing as a "fair trial."  The phrase is a contradiction in terms. 

	4-64.  Of theocracies we may say that there are two types: direct and indirect.  That which is typically called theocracy is indirect theocracy: God ruling through the state.  This is in fact a variant of statism cloaked in religious language and religious symbolism. 
	The more interesting possibility is direct theocracy, which implies direct rule by God and which is not taken seriously by many persons.  (Indeed, because the term "theocracy" already has such negative connotations, I hesitate to use the term at all.)  Yet, to the extent that God rules directly over the lives of individuals through the media of their consciences (as well as specific providential contingencies in the world), then one should perhaps be happy to be called "theocrat" in some novel and ultimately benign sense--although one in fact will probably be called an "anarchist". 
	The term "anarchist" is mistaken, of course.  "Anarchism" literally means "no rule," whereas the advocate of direct theocracy is adamant that there is very firm rule indeed: rule by God, the most powerful Being in the universe.  

	4-65.  As for direct "theocracy," it is well to look at the etymology of the term: "rule by God."  Surely direct rule by God is the least kind of rule to be feared, a form of guidance in which to rejoice and give affirmation.  Appeal to such rule, if universal, would spell the end of secular and ecclesiastical hierarchies for all time.
	This is another way of saying that the state does not really survive by its own sword in a country such as this: it survives only because persons continue to affirm either the necessity or the moral legitimacy of such coercive rule.  We are, as often as not, responsible for our own enslavement to the violent, coercive state.  It is we as a nation who have exalted the state, and we are paying the price for our idolatry.

	4-66.   Like a jealous god, the state tolerates no "blasphemy" beyond a certain point.  We may say that the U.S. government tolerates pacifist dissenters, but the reality is that it has rarely tolerated them well.
	Those who seriously challenge the state's civil religion or its highest religious rituals of warfare and judicial pomposity will find soon enough, during time of war, what hypocrisy there is in statist talk of tolerating dissent, or of protecting the right to dissent.  If you do not believe that, try burning your draft card or otherwise refusing to cooperate with the state-sanctioned military authorities during wartime; or try refusing jury duty in the name of "First Amendment Rights" while continuing to affirm the right to vote.  Then you will find out what the state is all about, as well as why it is ill-equipped to carry out its self-proclaimed mission as the guardian of individual liberties.
	The  state--even a democratic state--will forsake us in that cause in the end.  Why should we even think to turn to Leviathan to protect us from Leviathan?  What kind of madness is this naVve faith in the democratic state, this American mythology of "checks and balances" and "limited government"?

	4-67.  The term "holiday" originally came from "holy day," for in ancient cultures those days which were set aside in suspension of the usual activities were indeed religious holy days.  Today, however, we typically make a distinction between religious and secular "holy days."  We ought to look carefully at this quirk, for this is yet another place where etymological similarities can warn us that we are on dubious ground.
	It can be seen that the  distinction between the secular and the sacred loses its force when one looks at the state, for the state as a "secular" institution does in fact have its "sacred" personages and its "sacred" days, its high holy days.  All of these, which are honored in the name of what has been called the "civil religion," are being exalted into something like religious icons, representatives of yet another religious icon: the state itself.
	A "secular holiday"?  Whatever can that mean?  An unholy holy day?  No other phrase expresses so well our confusion about the distinction between church and state--or reflects as well the dominance of the civil religion.

	4-68.  If the state is that set of social repertoires wherein the road to justice is believed to lie in evil checking evil ("ambition checking ambition," force checking force, etc.), then the church is that set of social repertoires wherein the road to justice is believed to lie in good checking evil.
	The two realms are mutually exclusive: one cannot serve God and Mammon.

	4-69.  An expansion of the limits of national loyalty toward true universalism or internationalism could only occur through a legal system if there were something like a world-state, and this is unacceptable: a world-state would only universalize retributivism and rule by the sword, not true justice.

	4-70.  A universal nation, one which includes all human or even all sentient beings, is a utopia in more than one sense.  In the first place, it does not exist anywhere (the literal meaning of "utopia").  In the second place, it could not exist unless the values held to were indeed universally valid, for no nation of such size and scope could be founded upon either falsehood or that which is culturally relative.
	A social consensus based on "valid values" is the only possible foundation for a society held together by the power of ideas rather than by force.  Nor can such a consensus be achieved or maintained by force.  Force is ultimately superfluous for the emergence and maintenance of a moral community.

	4-71.  The concept of a universal and non-exclusive "nation" is almost inconceivable in human society in this life, although it is likely that the "Kingdom of Heaven" implies the possibility of a society or "nation" of some such type.  
	Such a heavenly "kingdom" (a metaphor one uses with some trepidation) implies at least one other thing, however: universal voluntary compliance with its constitutive principles (its "constitution"), not simply agreement with those principles.  It might be that, if there were a genuine universal consensus of conviction, persons would act in accordance with such deeply-held beliefs, and thus the problem of cohesion would not be a problem.  

	4-72.  The idea of "heaven" has always implied a sense of final triumph over temptation and sin, so that the idea of universal consensus and voluntary compliance is not really so far (if at all) outside the mainstream of religious thought as it might at first appear.  That is, the idea of a final consensus of belief and a derivative voluntary coordination of action is not unreasonable, nor is it unreasonable to believe that these would involve a final and universal triumph over sin and temptation; yet, one must realize that what is at issue here is the meaning and significance of the final perfectibility and perfection of the soul.
	Even if one conceded belief in such perfectibility, it seems unlikely that such could occur prior to death, especially on the broad scale needed to define universal nationhood.  Thus no nation on this earth in this life is at all likely to achieve such a perfect sense of nationhood, and, if no limited nation is going to achieve it, then certainly humanity as a whole is not going to achieve it.  
	The impracticality of attainment of truly universal transnational loyalty, however, does not prevent individuals from extending their loyalty to all of mankind, even where the rest of mankind does not reciprocate--as it surely will not in this life.
	Or am I too shortsighted?

	4-73.  Theocratic orders can be seen to fall on a scale from direct theocracy at one extreme (the Providential rule of God in each individual life) to indirect theocracy at the other (Orthodox Judaism, Islamic fundamentalism, and much of modern Christian thought as well).  We see in all of these the claim of the "rule of God" (the literal meaning of "theocracy), but only in the early church was there apparently any widespread belief that this rule is accomplished without the intermediary of the state or official hierarchies in any realm: "direct theocracy."
	The Thomistic view is apparently an example of a conception of "indirect theocracy," whereas the view being defended here could technically be referred to as "direct theocracy," since God is seen to rule directly through the consciences (the minds and souls) of all persons, without the use of intervening hierarchies in any realm, secular or ecclesiastical.  
	Even so, I prefer to relabel "direct theocracy" as "providential government," so that the negative connotations attached to the term "theocracy" may be avoided.  

	4-74.  It seems bizarre to have to say it explicitly, but I must, so that there is no chance that I shall be misunderstood:
	The idea that God does not rule the world through the coercive and retributive machinery of the state--that is either what I am assuming or that which I would like to prove.  It is certainly that which I want to affirm, that which motivates the present work.  I also want to reemphasize that I am advocating neither anarchism nor theocracy, as the terms are commonly used.
	4-75.  If God does not rule the earth through the retributive machinery of the state, then how does he rule?  To what extent does he allow persons to rule themselves and to what extent does his providential rule continue over day-to-day matters?
	My basic assumption in trying to answer all of these is that God, in giving Humankind dominion over the earth, did not intend to give Humankind dominion over Humankind.

	4-76.  The "chain of command" is from God to persons to nature.  It does not involve relations between persons, for all persons are created equal of God, and God is no respecter of the free and equal persons whom he created.  God did not institute domination of persons over persons, and thus God did not ordain or invent the state and its hierarchies.
	Are you listening, you Paulinists who parade as Christians? 

	4-77.  A student once remarked to me of another professor that "He doesn't even believe in government."  Although the student was wrong, and the professor was one of the greatest legalists I have ever known, the question still gave me pause.  What in the world does it mean to "believe" in government?
	I suppose the student referred to belief in the necessity of a coercive state.  If that is what "belief in government" is supposed to mean, then I guess that I am not a believer.  I believe instead in God, and I do not mean for that statement to sound flippant, or to sound like word play.  In a very essential sense one cannot believe in both God and the state: only One truly governs, and God does not rule persons indirectly through a chain of command which includes the state, or other persons, as the intermediary, as executors of divine authority.  God rules directly through the consciences of individual human beings, and, if one believes otherwise, then one believes in the state but not in God, whether one knows it or not.  
	One cannot have it both ways.

	4-78.  If one believes in a retributive God, then one believes in a fiction: one might as well be an atheist.
	If one does not believe in a providential God, who is in total control of his universe, one also does not believe in a valid conception of God; and one is going to default to statist methods when one is in a threatening situation.
	4-79.  Believing in God in lieu of the state does not mean trying to smash the state, for the state writ large is merely the body of persons who believe in the efficacy and necessity of coercive action for the existence of society.   One cannot try to use violence to smash the state without joining the state, for the state is the set of all violent and coercive relations among persons. 
	Yet, to the extent that belief in the non-retributive God and belief in the retributive state are mutually exclusive as I would define them (God ruling non-retributively, the state attempting to rule retributively), there is a sense in which a defense of this conception of God damages the state.  Thus every true believer in the state is a traitor to God, and every true believer in God is a traitor to the coercive state.  

	4-80.  Since money itself is a convention in the modern age, having no real value apart from state sanction, to yield money to the state is to yield nothing substantial.  It may be said that the state uses money to fight its wars, but in fact, if money did not exist, the state would simply find a more direct, less subtle way of coercing people to fight its wars.  Surely this is why Jesus encourages persons to pay taxes--not because he believes that every purpose supported by the state with money is just (which would be absurd), but because he knows that the state could resort to direct violence if money and its tempting manipulations did not work.  

	4-81.  Thomas Hobbes referred to the state as Leviathan, a terrible monster, the "King of the Proud."9  As with so many Hobbesian insights, this one bore no final fruit, and Hobbes himself worshiped the monstrous state to an extent rare among men.
	We might paraphrase "King of the Proud" as "God of the Proud": the state is the sovereign of the proud, by which I mean all those who refuse to submit to the real God, the one who is peaceful and non-retributive.  As no one can serve two masters, one cannot truly serve both the retributive state and the non-retributive God.

	4-82.  Belief in a retributive, remote, or non-providential God is perhaps not belief in God at all, but something else, belief in a fiction.  It may be belief in a false god, or at best only the beginnings of the search for the true God.
	This is a way of saying that one cannot determine the percentage of believers in God simply by asking the question, "Do you believe in God?"  All that one finds out this way, at best, is how many persons believe that a supreme being exists.  If they believe in a false conception of God, do they yet really believe in God?  Did not the idol worshipers have their "god"? 
	This is not an idle theological exercise: to the extent that persons believe that God is retributive, they  also believe in the divine sanction of the state, which is also retributive.  Those who defend the atrocities of the state, such as the bombing of Hiroshima or even the routine threat of deadly force through the police, are actually  attacking God (as least as I conceive of him).  They thereby also reveal their faith in Leviathan, the king, lord, and god of the proud.  
	In so doing, they deny faith in the true God.

	4-83.  The true believer in peace believes not only that there is a God, but in a God such that none more benevolent or non-retributive can be conceived.
	Such a belief does not encourage one to have faith in the coercive, retributive state as the ultima ratio to social problems.

	4-84.  The state is obsolete, an anachronism, for it is constituted upon the superstitious practices of punishment, war, and obeisance to those in positions of hierarchy backed up by the threat of violence.
	Those who believe in this anachronism seem to feel the need periodically to offer themselves and their children up to the state's highest, most glorious ritual: war.
	Would such madness come from God?

	4-85.  As noted above, any violent act to overthrow the state is a statist act.  The "smash-the-state" anarchists in the tradition of Bakunin would mistakenly use coercive means to try to abolish coercive institutions.  The violent anarchists are thus not so much anti-state (in spite of their protestations to the contrary) so much as they are pro-state, for their constitutive principle is still the principle of retribution.  
	The violent anarchists would take revenge upon the structural embodiment of violence and revenge, the state as commonly conceived.  In so doing, they contradict themselves.

	4-86.  In the course of espousing pacifist and voluntarist views, one sometimes comes up against objections which question how social order, security, and the delivery of basic services could prevail if there were no institutionalization of coercion or systems of organization based upon fear or manipulation of social, physiological, or economic need.  These objections then are transformed into an indictment of the pacifist or voluntarist as an irresponsible moral agent.  "But how would society survive?" is the basic question being asked, and the basic accusation being made against those who challenge routinized coercion is that the person who refuses to submit to or to promote or participate in coercive institutions (such as the military) is a parasite or "free rider."
	One response to all such accusations and assertions is that they rely upon the fallacy of misplaced responsibility.  The assumption seems to be that, because a person does indeed have a responsibility to all of society, that person also has a responsibility to offer (or defend) a plan for an entire society, or else to defend a particular man-made, coercive governing order for society.  
	The only obligation one has, however, is to see to it that one's own time and other resources are maximally used to promote that which is good.  How one's own efforts are to be coordinated with those of others is a separate problem, and, if one does not have the full theoretical answer to it, one is not thereby a parasite.

	4-87.  But how would society hold together without the coercive state?  One might better ask how it holds together now, for it is clear that no state can hold society together where there is a total lack of agreement about basic values.  
	The state is not even holding things together now.  Even in the present order of things, I am continually amazed that I can even remember to do the simple things that hold my own life together.  I am in such awe over such small things that I could not presume to say that I understand what holds the larger order together, short of falling back upon the idea of divine providence--admittedly as something of a residual category, a category of the unexplained.  Fortunately, doing so does not mean the end of keeping promises and other agreements.  One does not want, in emphasizing the providential force of divine reason, to separate it casually from human reason.  Yet, neither does one want to say that divine reason operates only through human reason.  God is not only God of our minds and spirits, but of material events in the physical and social realm as well: the same God who calmed the waters went immediately on to heal the men who were mentally ill ("possessed"), if the biblical account in Matthew 8 has any validity at all. 
	God, that is, is God of heaven and earth, of the spiritual and material realms.  There is order and purpose in what appears to us to be only chaos, randomness.  Perhaps the order is only emerging, but it is still there in the mind of God as the plan for his creation.

	4-88.  The basic, hidden question behind all of the other questions asked by the defender of routinized coercion is thus not "Who would govern in the absence of the state?" but "Who governs now?"  To answer quite simply, "God," is not to beg the question, although it does beg the question as to precisely how God governs.  That he governs partly (but only partly) through human reason does not hide the fact that the central coordinating force in every existing society does not lie with any human or group of humans.  It is necessary to posit a supernatural force or intellect as the locus of authority and obligation, as well as the basis for what is deemed to be good and worthy.  Without the positing of such an intelligence who has created a set of infinite benign contingencies (one way of looking at the concept of "providence"), there can be no possibility of order, harmony, or the meeting of basic needs.
	To say, therefore, that a providential God holds society together is indeed to affirm an article of faith.  Such an answer is indeed a general one.  It is not intended as a complete answer.  Even so, to the extent that one believes in such a higher force with the power and intellect to coordinate events in the world, including human power and intellect, the need to posit a coercive order seems somehow weaker.  Perhaps if faith in a providential God were strong enough and general enough, the reliance upon a coercive order would wither away completely.
	In the meantime, if one's own individual faith were strong enough, perhaps one might at least free oneself from relying upon the use of force or threat--and free oneself in the process from that heaviness of heart which comes with trying to plan for every evil that could conceivably come one's way by preparing contingency plans to respond in kind.

	4-89.  The defender of voluntarism/pacifism ultimately falls back upon the premises that God is and that God governs.  There is no room for a detached deism in such a view.  Deism is, after all, a product of the Enlightenment's moral schizophrenia: a desire to hang onto the idea of God, but to divorce God from any personal decision-making in the ongoing operation of his creation.  A God detached from his creation is no God at all.  The world is not God's orphan, nor his abandoned child.
	The alternative, that God is and that God governs, provides the basis for individual ethical action.  This is the only meaningful alternative to both deism and the philosophy of routinized coercion, and it is the only possible avenue of rebuttal.  
	That such a response is not complete is a way of saying that our knowledge of God is not complete.  Such lack of knowledge need not, however, impel one to put one's faith and one's trust in a coercive legal order: the state.
	Consider instead the teaching: "Blessed are those who wait upon the Lord."

	4-90.  What do we owe to the state?  Are we obligated to justify ourselves to those who use threat as the basis of their claim to authority?  
	I do not doubt that it is sometimes necessary and moral to appeal to the state (as conventionally defined) or to other persons in one capacity or another.  Yet, moral justification of ourselves to the state qua state as I have defined it is more than an appeal--it borders on idolatry.  This is a corollary of the more general premise that it is idolatrous to try to appeal to retributive practices and procedures in lieu of appealing to God.
	We are nonetheless obligated, of course, to explain our values and rationales to others where such communication is a prerequisite to a truly voluntary society founded on a genuine consensus. Without such explanations, we should never be corrected in our false conceptions nor able to correct others, and thus we should never arrive at a consensus.  But this attempt to explain oneself should never be confused with the more significant attempt to justify oneself to another who claims a coercive authority relationship with one.  There is a difference, and it is significant.  For justification one must appeal to God alone.
	The disciples of the state (and of group dominance in a variety of forms) will disagree, of course.  They are under the mistaken impression that they own one's soul.  On this point it is wrong to humor them or their claims to authority.  On this point one owes them not obeisance but correction.

	4-91.  Remember the silence of Christ before Pilate.  One man thought that the other was subject to him, and a gentle correction was in order.  Thus was the silence broken ever so briefly.
	What one would not do by way of legitimizing illegitimate rule can still often be done for the legitimate purpose of bearing witness to the rule of God.

	4-92.  It is never right to give unqualified allegiance to any party which lays claim to some authority to subjugate one's moral judgments to its own.  Yet, one may go further and say that, if one has offered some such unqualified allegiance, the oath is not binding: one has been either extorted or deceived into offering such an oath of allegiance.
	In the military, the ceremony or oath whereby such personal moral sovereignty is ceded is perfunctory and lacking in any obvious concern for whether or not the recruit really understands what is in the U.S. Constitution (that to which one ultimately swears allegiance in the U.S. military).  Indeed there is no concern to find out if the recruit has even read the Constitution, so that one could reasonably argue that the pro forma exercise whereby so many young men sign away their lives and moral birthrights to principles and persons yet unseen and unknown is indeed a very duplicitous act.  
	One may certainly say that the way that the ceremony is conducted, typically en masse and in a setting coercive and threatening, does not encourage the recruit to read the "fine print" (if, indeed, the recruit can read at all).  Nor is there reason to think that the typical recruit would understand the full moral implications of affirming such an oath of loyalty.  Nor are the military authorities inclined to have him do so.  Indeed, just the opposite is likely to be the case.  To encourage serious enquiry at this point could seriously interfere with military socialization down the line.
	More generally, one may justifiably say that such oaths of allegiance in the military have no moral force because they contradict the obligation to give unqualified and undivided loyalty to God.  In many, if not most, instances, the moral obligation may be entirely the opposite of that which the oath requires.  Therefore it is not only often permissible to break the oath.  It is typically obligatory.
	There is One Judge to whom one carries such appeals.

	4-93.  If a flag were sacred, then it could only mean that the state is sacred, for a flag is the symbol of the coercive, exclusive social grouping we call "state."  If the state were holy, then one might speak meaningfully of "desecrating" its symbol, its flag.  The deification of a flag parallels the deification of the state.  
	Insofar as neither has any divine sanction, however, the deification of either or both is idolatry pure and simple, and the concept of "desecrating the flag" is thereby nonsensical.
	One does not have to be a Jehovah's Witness to see that.

	4-94.  Perhaps the most powerful thing which one can do by way of expressing one's revulsion to the notion that a flag is a sacred symbol is simply to ignore it, to treat it with neither dignity nor contempt, but with utter indifference.
	One is justified, that is, in continuing to eat one's hot dog while the national war anthem is being played, and while the sons of Leviathan are going through their rituals of state worship in one's presence.  It is their actions that are revulsive and disrespectful toward true authority.

	4-95.  If an official prayer in the public schools is deemed to be unconstitutional, then why is not also some official pledge of allegiance to the great god of the sons of Leviathan: the state?  Is that not also some religious ritual imposed by the state?
	Ah, yes, of course, but we err greatly if we expect the state to extinguish itself.  The state and its high priests expect to be worshiped.

	4-96.  Punishing living, thinking, and feeling human beings for the sake of a piece of cloth is the ultimate in absurdity, the ultimate in displacement of goals.  Such a practice would suggest that the state is more important than the rights and welfares of individual persons.  It would also imply that a man-made symbol has more value than a child of God.
	Perhaps that is what idolatry is all about.

	4-97.  Many of the veterans' groups seem to be saying that the flag is sacred, that the flag is worth dying for.  Yet, I think that what they really mean is that the flag is worth killing for: human beings may be shot in the name of the flag, entire cities may be vaporized in its name, and hundreds of thousands of souls may be incarcerated in buildings flying those colors.  And yet it is the flag which is sacred?  I find such arguments unfathomable, incomprehensible.  Surely it is human values which are sacred, and the flag is a very obscure and indefinite symbol of such subtle and complex values.  If anything, what one is affirming when one says that the flag is sacred is that the sword is sacred, for it is the sword of the state which the flag ultimately represents.  
	The flag stands not for freedom, but for state coercion and exclusion.
	
	4-98.  If there is a general affliction of political theorists, it is the assumption that valid political theory must address the question, "What ought the state to do?"  Yet, this is a nonsensical question, for the state is not a person.  The essential question for the ethical realm is "What ought I to do"?
	Law and the state are "reified morality": both law and state are concepts which present themselves to us as actors.  This may be a useful shorthand in some contexts.  In general it reflects a fallacious way of thinking: only persons act.  
	States do not act and laws do not rule. 

	4-99.  It is well to remember that, in a given instance, I can only be responsible for seeing that my limited resources are used for good, either directly in my own actions or in convincing other individuals that their own resources would be better used in a certain way.  Any other reference to public policy or group obligation is possibly a miscarriage of logical and meaningful usage.

	4-100.  For the apostles of the state, solutions to problems are not to be discovered: they are to be created or imposed.  The same is true of their concept of peace: instead of trying to discover the peaceable solution which God has provided for every situation, they feel that they must "make peace," or impose it by force.
	All such efforts begin, of course, with the basic Hobbesian metaphysical assumption of the pervasiveness of natural conflict.  God's harmony (or harmony-in-process) is not obvious, but one must believe in it or believe that God is less than omniscient and omnipotent.

	4-101.  In cases where an appeal to the state clearly does not involve retributivist motives or de facto retaliatory outcomes, then appeals to officers of the state might justifiably be made.  Yet, overall, one must caution against appealing to the state, not only through formal lawsuits, but through informal complaints (typically to officers of the state) which serve to stack the deck against our opponents.  If we feel that the problem requires rectification, then we should if possible confront our adversaries directly, not call upon some man or woman whose office is backed up by the sword.
	I recognize how frustrating it must be for some to hear this kind of recommendation, since it seems to put the Christian entirely at the mercy of God and the good will of individuals: he has no statist card that he can morally play in most circumstances.  For those who are truly oppressed, it is apt to sound particularly depressing, since no quick solution to their problems can seem to occur but through state action.  Here, however, one wants to remind that such a recommendation does not preclude the possibility of making persuasive appeal to state officers to use morally legitimate means to rectify injustices, and such appeals can be the most effective means of all, especially over the long term.
	Yet, one must remember that the "long term" may, by the standards of human existence in this life, be very long indeed; and, in some instances, one may never be heard at all by those in secular authority.

	4-102.  The general doctrine of not appealing to the state is anathema to the statist doctrine, which sees the state as having not only a legitimate monopoly on the use of force but which also apparently wants every difference to be voiced through official state organs and channels.  That which is peaceably settled independently of the state demonstrates the inefficacy and uselessness of the state, tending thereby to vitiate its power and to withhold the kind of information which it can use to force compliance on any of its members.
	The way of peace typically proceeds "outside of channels."  Every solution so achieved weakens the perceived necessity for, and legitimacy of, coercive rulers.  They become more obviously irrelevant.

	4-103.  Is God a "balance of power theorist"?  That is, does he subscribe to the view that the way that evil is to be checked is by other evil?  Has he designed the world such that a cosmic system of checks and balances is in place, whereby the contingencies of the world are such that evil may be made to check evil, power to check power, ambition to check ambition?
	Let it be assumed that he is.  If so, then the authorities, like cancer and heart disease, are in his service, for the sake of bringing punishment upon the wrongdoer.  Let us assume that we, too, who would try to do his will, are to erect and operate retributive institutions on such a model, institutions such as military alliances and constitutional orders or some such, such that aggressors and violators of the law are to be punished.  We who would be officers of the state, on such a view, are thus to be in God's service when we check the power of evil by using the punitive powers of the state.  Evil as these may be, they are, on such a view, essential to the divine purpose, since without them there might not be an adequate check of those deliberate evils inflicted by human beings upon other human beings.  
	Let it further be assumed that we are thus virtuous when we check evil with evil: we are the instruments of divine retribution, for bringing down punishment upon the offender, as Paul says in Romans 13.  Is not such a view plausible enough (not to mention biblical enough)?  After all, if a house divided against itself cannot stand, then is it not reasonable that God has designed the world such that whatever evil arises in the world should be checked by other evil, so that evil is thus divided against itself and thus cannot continue to stand for very long?  How else could he possibly deal with evil but by being prepared to destroy it by using other, albeit necessary, evil?
	Such a view has a superficial plausibility--and a wide following, and not only among the Christian fundamentalist right.  Yet, it is not without its difficulties, for, if God has designed the world such that evil may be made to check evil, then God has himself created a house that is divided against itself, for his system of justice would seem to require resorting to evil in order to check evil.  He would thereby have to advocate that we should be disposed to do the same thing in the name of good.
	Why not design the world (and social institutions) such that good checks evil?  That would seem to be the divine way, and one wants to believe that that is in fact the kind of world God actually created.

	4-104.  What does one make of the claim that some acts entailing the virtual certainty of evil consequences may nonetheless be just, if the evil is inevitable or necessary?  The doctrine of "necessary evils" is, of course, what the balance of power (or checks and balances) theorist is advocating: some evils are necessary, some wars 
are necessary, punishment is certainly necessary, and perhaps even evil itself is a necessary part of God's creation, essential to its balance and harmony. 
	From such premises we have inherited not only the "just war" thesis, but the idea of "justice" as some kind of retaliatory practices set up by the state.  In U.S. Constitutional theory, we have gotten, by similar reasoning, the idea that coercive government is also necessary, since men are not angels.
	It is a seductive doctrine, is it not?  It is still nonsense.

	4-105.  Would God constitute or design a world wherein one evil could not be checked unless another evil came into being, a world where two wrongs make a right?  And, would he advocate that his lieutenants should use evil to check evil, and would he call their use of evil "good" and "virtuous"?  
	Was that the intent of the Framer of the Divine Constitution?
	No.  It was only the intent of the framers of a nation conceived in violence, slavery, and genocide of native Americans on a scale that makes the Nazi holocaust look like child's play by comparison.  When one considers that this country guarantees its own security by threatening that of the entire world, one wonders if perhaps one should be ashamed to be a citizen of this country.
	Do not tell me to love it or leave it.  God made this land, and it belongs neither to you nor to me, but to its Creator.  I love the land.  I only despise the violent and exploitative order that destroyed its native inhabitants and which is rapidly destroying its natural resources and beauty.
	This evil empire, like all before it, shall go down to the dust, because it was not founded on the Divine Constitution, but on a constitution which was obsolete two thousand years before it was written.

	4-106.  Why do we teach our children loyalty to the state?  Why have we given them a serpent when they have only asked for food?

					

CHAPTER FIVE

JUSTICE AS FORGIVENESS:
THE PARADOX OF THE GOLDEN RULE

	5-1.  The Christian version of the golden rule first appears in Matthew 7:12: "As you would have others do unto you, do you also unto them."
	This principle is the simplest expression of the agápe concept in Christian ethics: the idea of unconditional commitment to the welfare of others.  For purposes of explicating a system of Christian ethics, I shall further conceptualize the golden rule (the agápe idea) as a principle of both altruism and non-retributivism, with the latter derivative of the former.  That is, the reason that we should not retribute evil for evil is because of our altruistic concern for the other person, even if that person is the aggressor, the transgressor.
	On this interpretation, the golden rule is not merely a method or procedure for making ethical decisions.  It has substantive ethical content.  For example, there is the negative requirement not to avenge evil deeds, as well as the positive requirements to return good for evil in all circumstances, and to do good deeds without expecting any reward.  On such a view, the golden rule is much more than a simple principle of empathic identification with no substantive ethical content: it has non-retributive content, derivable from the requirement of perfect altruism.

	5-2.  As a constitutive principle for a social order on the Christian ideal, the golden rule can be considered as both a principle of justice and a principle of forgiveness, with absolutely no contradiction.
	In other words, "justice" in the mature Christian sense has nothing at all to do with retribution, but everything to do with non-retribution.  Since one aspect of non-retribution is "forgiveness," a society based on a constitutive principle of non-retribution would be society in which the just thing to do would be always to forgive others for their moral errors.  	The just society, so conceived, would also be one in which persons did not demand rewards as a condition of their benevolent deeds: their altruism would be complete and perfect.  
	
	5-3.  If the golden rule is the core principle of a conception of justice, then its non-retributive component can best be understood by counterposing it to its opposite: the retributive conception of justice found in the Mosaic Law (as well as in a variety of other ethical and religious systems).  On such conceptions, justice is a matter of getting what one deserves, whether that moral desert be reward for virtue or punishment for vice.  Christian justice, on the interpretation offered here, has nothing at all to do with the concept of moral desert.
	That is, the Christian conception abjures the idea of trying to allocate unto others their "just desert," emphasizing instead the requirement always to do good unto others, no matter how they have treated us, individually or collectively.  It is even conceivable that a mature Christian view must transcend the very idea of moral desert entirely, emphasizing the lack of moral understanding as the reason for sin.  It is possible, that is, that persons sin out of ignorance or lack of understanding, not out of any inherent perversity in human nature.
	Even Jesus is said to have "increased in wisdom" (Luke 2:52), and perhaps his wisdom culminated in his final teaching, in the idea that

persons sin primarily out of ignorance or incomplete understanding: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." (Luke 23:34)
	Since this interpretation presents difficulties, it seems safer for the moment to say that we should all be selfless and merciful simply because we should try to be more like God, who is the source of all goodness: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."  (Matthew 5:48)
	
	5-4.  Yet, if God is perfect, and if one ought to try to be as perfect as God, then one must ask what the divine response must be to evil-doing.  I believe that, even if persons are fully responsible for their deeds, God does not retribute evil for evil.  That is, a God who is so perfect as to be incapable of lying surely could never act in any evil capacity, including acting according to the primitive retributive conception of justice and thereby requiting evil for evil.  And, if God always retributes good for evil, then how could we are so much less worthy justifiably do otherwise?
	On the other hand, if persons first err from a lack of wisdom or understanding, the case for forgiveness and for returning good for evil is even stronger.  That is, if human folly derives from some original sin of ignorance, then the proper response to those lacking in understanding is to treat them with understanding, toleration, and patience (which may be all that "forgiveness" really amounts to in practice).  If this is the divine response to human folly, then could the human side of obligation justifiably be more severe?
	Regardless, then, of the degree of culpability in the moral failure of another, our response must always be the same: always to return good for evil, whether we are acting on behalf of ourselves as individuals or on behalf of collectivities.
	Therefore the golden rule is not merely an ethical principle for moral individuals, but a principle for moral communities, including entire societies.  It is a social and political principle as well.

	5-5.  What if persons are fully culpable for their misdeeds?  What if they do indeed know full well the scope of their evil, and yet persist in that evil?  If so, then they must rationalize their misdeeds as being other than evil, and thus false or incomplete moral learning persists and even deepens through self-deception.  Moral confusion results and the person feels "lost," truly no longer knowing what is right and what is wrong.
	The remedy here ultimately lies with God, for only God is qualified to look into persons' hearts and make the judgment of depravity, if such it be.  Therefore, if some kind of chastisement is required, only God knows what is required and exactly how the cure is to be effected.  My own belief is that, even in such recalcitrant cases, God's methods are not punitive but redemptive: they represent a kind of benign "surgery" on the soul.	
	No human being is capable of making such moral diagnoses or prescribing the cures: the role of inducing repentance is God's alone, and it is a sacrilege to suggest that it should be done by human beings or by their institutions.  The best that we can do is to try to offer a worthy example and our best rational arguments (and on a voluntary basis at that).  I believe that, in so doing, we follow the divine example of Jesus of Nazareth.
	There is much gentleness in divine chastisement: it is a wonderful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, for whatever pain we may feel during the process of divine correction results solely from the resistance which we exert in resisting divine correction, in rationalizing and defending our misdeeds.  God surely does not will the sense of punishment that we feel when we are on the verge of repentance.  God wills instead that we admit our error, recommit ourselves to the right course, and accept the blessings of spiritual renewal.
  Even in chastisement, that is, the concept of agápe is the expression of the infinite goodness of the divine Being.

  	5-6.  Human beings can presume to emulate God only in the requirement of trying to use the most perfect, most gentle means: human beings are not omniscient and certainly may not rationally try to emulate God in all things, especially not in assessing the worth of a soul, its moral condition, or the cure for its pathologies.
	Compare, however, the simple categorical teaching of Christ not to judge others (Matthew 7:1) with the revisionist view espoused by Paul in his confused and contradictory statements about judgment.  (See I Corinthians 6:2-3 and associated passages in particular.)
	The most powerful corollary of the golden rule is precisely this requirement not to judge others, for judgment is the foundation for punishment, war, and innumerable other abuses against other human beings.	

	5-7.  If it sounds preposterous even to suggest the possibility that our moral failings derive originally from our imperfect wisdom or understanding (implying that we are not yet fully responsible for our evil tendencies and actions), then consider how it might be that the temptation to sin could possibly be finally conquered if it were otherwise: it would be a strange heaven if the temptation to sin were not conquered once and for all, and it difficult to imagine how this final triumph is to occur if not through the completion of our moral growth and understanding.  Then we should be fully responsible for our actions, but perhaps with full moral responsibility would come perfectly responsible moral action: we should finally be beyond the power of sin or temptation.  No further apostasy would be possible.  In other words, heaven as a perfect state of being implies not merely the absence of temptation, but the perfection of the soul such that, even if external temptation should present itself, it would have no force at all upon the individual.  
	That is, heaven would not be a place or state of being where sheer will succeeds in winning the battle against temptation, but where the power of understanding has so vitiated the forces of evil that they no longer possess any compelling attraction for the psyche: there would be, that is, no desire to do wrong, and thus no real temptation in the psychological sense, regardless of what external opportunities might present themselves.
	It can be seen from these kinds of considerations that both our theology and our eschatology have ethical implications.  This is the central reason that a secular reduction of Christian ethics is impossible.
	
	5-8.  As "Jesus increased in wisdom," so does each one of us grow or progress.  Indeed, entire cultures and religious traditions likewise grow and evolve in terms of their moral understanding.
	For example, while it is true that retributive themes and language are present in various Christian teachings, it seems best to consider these as a residue of the retributive culture out of which Christianity evolved and is still evolving.  Some of these retributive usages in the New Testament may also be attributable to bad reporting by those who witnessed but did not understand the full revolutionary significance of the teachings of the Christ.

	5-9.  Not only the Mosaic Law, but the "modern" idea of the "rule of law" is an inherently retributive conception, since both rewards and retaliatory responses ("punishment") are used to enforce compliance with the law.  The non-retributive and altruistic principles inhering in the golden rule, by contrast, depend entirely upon the force of individual conscience, guided by the Spirit of God, as the basic force for ordering society.  (If such principles were universally understood and accepted, then we would have the "Kingdom of Heaven" in all of its fullness, a "kingdom" which already exists for those who choose to live by its tenets in an imperfect world.)
	It is possible to speak of the non-retributive conception of justice as supplanting entirely the older retributive conception of the Mosaic Law (as well as inhering in social contract theory and a variety of other conceptions).  In all truly retributive systems of thought, social order is assumed to depend on the expectation of some kind of payback (from "tribute," or "pay," which is the core concept of retribution: repay).  To the extent that the golden rule abjures any kind of "payback," it implies that one should not make a reward (a positive "payback") a condition of one's benevolence, and it implies as well that one should not "repay" evil for evil, as is the case in all instances of retaliation.
	It can also be seen that the non-retributive conception, in abjuring both reward and punishment, implies the end of manipulative and coercive practices and institutions: it implies, that is, a conception of the social order in which persons are as free as is possible, constrained only by a divinely-inspired conscience, not by the fallible judgment of other human beings.
	
	5-10.  If one says that it is out of fear that one achieves virtue, then one is, I believe, a retributivist at heart, whether avowedly so or not.  If one says, to the contrary, that it is out of understanding or wisdom that one finally becomes a virtuous person, then the retributive quest to determine blame and allocate punishment is seen to be misguided and likely to result in the perpetuation of injustice.
	All retaliatory devices employ fear as the ultimate motivator.  This reliance upon fear is thus the ultimate foundation of retribution.  (Even with "reward" systems, there is the fear that the rewards may be withheld.)  It is no accident that a retributive conception of justice derives from a theological tradition in which God is to be feared, whereas a non-retributive conception of justice derives from a theological tradition which emphasizes above all the redeeming and forgiving aspects of divine "justice."
	In actual biblical traditions, of course, both conceptions tend to be mixed up to some extent.  Although the non-retributive conception is attributed more or less consistently to Jesus of Nazareth in the New Testament, and the non-retributive conception finds it fullest explication in the Mosaic Law of the Old Testament, there are enough exceptions to these generalizations that one wants to be careful in assigning a strict biblical interpretation to either conception.
	These difficulties are compounded by realities in existing religious traditions: many Jews are pacifists, and many nominal Christians are retributivists with respect to both punishment and war.  

	5-11.  Perhaps one is on safer ground to claim to be expounding an "ideal type" Christian ethic, in the Weberian sense: what Christian ethics would be if one could find a perfect model of it, a perfect and complete expository statement of it.
	The Bible, compiled from fallible human witness with the assistance of other fallible human beings, unfortunately does not qualify.  There is reason to believe, however, that a coherent, consistently altruistic and non-retributive system of thought existed in the mind and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, if only we could reconstruct that system from the fragments which we do have, combined with our own insights and experiences.

	5-12.  Retributive practices and behavioral repertoires might have had some survival value in the earlier stages of human evolution (and might still), but God surely saw the end state which he wants human beings to achieve, and it is surely an end state which even now is often at odds with our natural propensities.
	A truly Christian ethic must posit the necessity for God to have taken human form in order to exemplify in both words and deeds the full meaning of forgiveness and selflessness inhering in the golden rule.  Secular reductions, or religious derivations based in retributive theology, have not succeeded.
	It is only in the personhood of the Christ that the golden rule can be completely understood, and even then only in conjunction with the subsequent trials and lessons of life.  Only with all of these do the truly revolutionary implications of the Christian message come to fruition in the moral understanding of each individual: if we are mistreated, individually or collectively, we are never to treat others as they do in fact treat us, but as we would have them treat us.  Against the aggressor, we may not aggress.  Against the trespasser, we may not trespass.
	Both war and punishment, that is, are forbidden by the agápe concept which we call the "golden rule."

	5-13.  At first I considered referring to the golden rule as "a categorical imperative of altruism and non-retribution," but such a label smacks a bit more of Kantian ethics than I would like.  Kant certainly thought that the simple statement of the golden rule in Christian ethics could be stated in more refined fashion as the Categorical Imperative: "Act such that the rule by which you act should become a universal maxim." 1  That is, let your rule of conduct be one that would have universal applicability.  
	A major problem with Kant's claim that such a principle would be a refinement of the golden rule was his claim to be able to derive a specific categorical imperative of retribution2 from the more general Categorical Imperative.  In addition, the implication is that one's altruism would be limited: one would, on Kant's view, have no true obligation to others beyond the limits of the keeping of contracts and agreements--or reciprocated behavior in general.  Anything beyond that which is mutually obligatory, contractual, or reciprocal might be good and worthy, but it would not, on Kant's view, be morally obligatory: it would be "supererogatory" conduct, action beyond the limits of duty and obligation.
	Yet, even the possibility of some supposed "supererogation" would be compromised by the requirements of the specific categorical imperative of retribution: those who treated one benevolently should, on such a view, be rewarded and those who did not should be punished.  This retributive emphasis, not that of supererogation, became the foundation of Kantian legalism, and this retributive emphasis is not the golden rule at all.  What Kant gave us is not a refinement of the golden rule at all, but of its very antithesis, the lex talionis: "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." (Exodus 21:24)  

	5-14.  Two caveats are in order if one insists upon using the language of Kant in referring to the golden rule: first, the idea of a general categorical imperative is substantively empty and can indeed be legitimately used to derive two possibly contradictory principles (in this case "retribution" and "non-retribution"); second, it is nonetheless appropriate (with qualifications) to refer to a principle of non-retribution as being a categorical imperative, as long as one means by that term merely a principle which one should like to see universalized.  
	The problem with Kant's Categorical Imperative, however, is that it is nothing more than the principle of universalizability, a component of every meaningful ethical system, even utilitarianism (through the principle of utility itself).  The Categorical Imperative by itself says very little and thus begs all of the substantive ethical questions: what is it, that is, that one should want to have universalized?  
	5-15.  The substantive void of the Categorical Imperative leads naturally enough to a kind of empty proceduralism, a proceduralism which defaults to an emphasis on due process and the rule of law--and a concomitant retributivism.
	Thus, even though the idea of a general Categorical Imperative allows for the possibility of universalizing either retribution or forgiveness, the substantive emptiness of the Categorical Imperative tends to create a void which our inherent retributive tendencies are all too eager to fill.
	Perhaps one may speculate that human nature in its present stage of development could not have seen the non-retributive option in all of its fullness.  (Those cultures which have offered something like the golden rule seem never to have understood its full implications.)  Perhaps it took divine intervention to show that God would universalize empathy and mercy, not judgment, vengeance, or a simple response in kind.

	5-16.  The ultimate legacy of Kant's restatement of the golden rule in the sterile, formal language of the Categorical Imperative is not only a justification of punishment and retaliation (within the limits of law), but also a strict delimiting of the obligation to others.  This follows from the emphasis on reciprocity or mutual obligation, an emphasis whose implications are brought out most clearly by John Rawls' A Theory of Justice,3 a work in the Kantian contractualist tradition.
	Jesus of Nazareth, by contrast, used the golden rule to universalize non-retributive conduct and unconditionally benevolent action (agápe love, altruism) as being obligatory to others without limits of any kind save that of ability: "Of those to whom much is given, much will be required."  In other words, one is obliged to do as much good as one can do, and always to forgive and thereby forego all opportunities to reciprocate evil for evil.  In addition, the Christian golden rule would entail such corollaries as "Turn the other cheek," "Lend [or give] without expecting a return," and "Love your enemies and do good to those who despitefully use you."  These would provide the essence of a doctrine that is perfectly non-retributive and perfectly altruistic.  (See Matthew, chapters 5-7 for the entire Sermon on the Mount.  But see especially Luke 6:27-6:37.  Here the golden rule is embedded in Luke 6:31, in the middle of teachings which are very similar to the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew.  In both versions, however, the specific altruistic and non-retributive teachings stand out as corollaries of the golden rule.)
	In any case, I shall label the original Christian interpretation of the golden rule as a principle of universalized altruism and non-retribution, a far more demanding conception of the golden rule than that to be found in the legalistic, retributivistic, and quasi-egoistic philosophy of Kant.
	But again, more simply stated, the essence of the golden rule might simply revolve around the requirement of perfect selflessness, manifest as a tendency to overlook the faults and shortcomings of others.

	5-17.  Kant's Categorical Imperative was seen by him to imply a categorical imperative of retribution precisely because Kant wanted to justify coercive laws and the coercive state: Kant was ultimately a philosopher of good Prussian law and order.  Coercive law in the form of a world state was to be his means of achieving his conception of "world peace."  Such a conception would require the continuation of military and police institutions as the means of instituting and preserving peace.  What is striking about the Kantian ideal of peace is how far short it falls of the Christian ideal: a proper rendering of the New Testament golden rule would bring peace not through the perfection and perpetuation of the violent and coercive state, but in spite of the state.  

	5-18.  Not only is it necessary to depart from Kant in offering a categorical imperative of non-retribution, but it is necessary to affirm from the outset that the conception of the golden rule which one wants to defend is laden with substance, in this case a principle and spirit of altruism and non-retribution.  It is admittedly necessary to offer addenda such as that contained within the phrase "a categorical imperative of non-retribution."  (The golden rule is, after all, an absolute requirement in Christian ethics.)  But this in only one possible addendum.  A full fleshing out of the golden rule is the whole point of Christian ethics as a system, a system in which the corollaries of the golden rule together make up the Sermon on the Mount and the very similar teachings in Luke.
	The conception of the golden rule to be defended here is not only quite different from that of Kant's, but it is different from that of modern linguistic philosophers.  Their debates over the golden rule are really over something like a simple principle of empathic identification, a principle unlike Kant's categorical imperative except insofar as both conceptions are devoid of substantive ethical content.  The Christian golden rule does require the principle of empathic identification, but only in the same way that every ethical system also requires the principle of universalizability.  If one fails to go beyond universalizability and empathic identification, one fails to offer a substantive interpretation of ethical conduct.
	Apart from affirming the worth of the individual, however, the golden rule does not specify the ends of ethical conduct, but only the means.  The ultimate ends of ethical conduct--broadly interpreted as the ultimate will of God--are vitally important, but ultimate ends are to be known independently of ethical means, and these ends are intuited directly by those of clear moral vision and a good conscience.  While Christian ethics has a great deal to say about these, it is not to be found in the golden rule or its corollaries.
	The golden rule, then, is about means rather than about ends, even though it should have applicability to the promotion of all worthy ends.  Yet, to the extent that we may understand the force of the golden rule even if we are not sure as to which ends are ordained of God, the deontological requirement of the golden rule has epistemological independence from the teleological problem of ascertaining the ends which are ordained of God.

	5-19.  The label the "golden rule," without further elaboration, is a label which admits of a variety of interpretations.  Most of these overlap and none are obviously or necessarily mutually exclusive:
	(1) the golden rule as a principle recommending empathic identification: "Put yourself in the other person's shoes and then act accordingly";
	(2) the golden rule as the popular version of Kant's Categorical Imperative: "Act such that the rule by which you act should become a universal maxim" (that is, "Act as you would have all persons act"--the criterion of universalizability);
	(3) the golden rule as equivalent to Jeremy Bentham's principle of utility: "Promote the greatest happiness of the greatest number" (or at least, "Promote as much happiness as you can");
	(4) the golden rule as a principle of non-retribution: "Do unto others not as they do unto you, but as you would have them do unto you";
	(5) the golden rule as a principle recommending constructive rationality ("problem-solving") in place of destructive irrationality (blame-seeking and scapegoating).
	All of the above conceptions of the golden rule do indeed to some extent embody some element of what we think of when we think of the golden rule.  Yet, the advocates of some of these find themselves in opposition with one another.
	Let us look at these in turn:

	5-20.  The interpretation of the golden rule as a principle of empathic identification, requiring us to put ourselves in the shoes of another, is the common sense interpretation, and it has a lot to recommend it.  It is not a complete interpretation, however, and stated so simply it is not without its problems.  Of the idea that one should try to act with empathic identification, one may say that there can be no doubt but that a necessary requirement of morality is to try to see the world through the eyes of other persons, to try to see what they want and expect out of life, to imagine what things might hurt them, and otherwise to try to identify with other persons so that we do not inadvertently act in ways that do hurt them.  
	This would perhaps be an absolute requirement of morality, but it is only a minimal requirement.  It does not tell us, for example, what we should do for others when we have imagined ourselves in their position: it does not tell us whether we should, upon imagining ourselves in the shoes of another, do that which they would want us to do or that which we believe ought to be done.  Much less does it give any kind of objective criterion of right or good which ought to be promoted.  The requirement of empathic identification, without any standard of good guiding its implementation, thus perhaps falls prey to a kind of relativism which would have us endorse and support all kinds of self-destructive behavior.  This seems to be the interpretation of the golden rule which has been either defended or critiqued by such theorists as R.M. Hare4 and Alan Gewirth.5 

	5-21.  Immanuel Kant and Jeremy Bentham both thought that their own principles were improvements upon the golden rule, but they found themselves at odds with each other on a number of points.  Bentham thought that the golden rule implied a concern for future consequences rather than an obsession with the past.  Upon that basis he applied the golden rule qua the principle of utility6 in order to call for the moderation of the severe penal practices in the Great Britain of the late eighteenth century.  In particular, he advocated a penal system based upon deterrence rather than retribution, so that the punishment inflicted would, it was claimed, help prevent future crimes rather than presume to requite past ones.  (He assumed, that is, a meaningful distinction between deterrence and retribution, a distinction which breaks down in practice: retaliation is the practical manifestation of both.)
	Kant, by contrast, thought that the principles which should guide us should be based upon pure reason, not upon the empirically-based calculations of expected consequences, as on the Benthamic model.  He also thought, however, that the principle of logical consistency which could give us universal maxims would also imply a categorical imperative of retribution--the idea that the criminal should be punished for no other reason than that he had acted criminally, and that the fallacy of utilitarianism was that it might absolve the criminal of some of his deserved punishment. 
	In general, the Kantian-utilitarian debate has centered around the whole issue as to whether or not the calculation of consequences can possibly give a substantial foundation for moral action.  Many have disparaged utilitarian-consequentialist rationales as implying situational ethics, ethics which are relative to time and place and which give no unmoving rock upon which to support consistently moral action.  Others have disparaged consequentialist rationales as possibly justifying the punishment of the innocent, if such punishment could somehow serve to deter others from committing crimes.  Still others have pointed to the virtual impossibility of predicting with any accuracy even the first-order consequences of actions, much less the long-term consequences.  Others have called utilitarianism a "raw" ethic which justifies compromise and trade-off and which is thus indifferent to the welfare or dignity of individuals.  Still others have critiqued utilitarianism's hedonistic foundations in the Benthamic version.  Within utilitarian thought itself, there has also been the important conflict between "act" and "rule" utilitarians.7
	In any case, the consequentialist emphasis of utilitarianism has drawn much fire from a number of quarters, even though its legacy remains strong in a variety of concepts in varying academic disciplines: balance of power theory in international relations, deterrence theory in both criminal justice and international relations, marginal utility and price theory in economics, and cost-benefit analyses in public administration.  The obvious difficulties with utilitarianism notwithstanding, its emphasis upon consequences can hardly be casually dismissed.  As John Rawls, a well-known critic of utilitarianism, has correctly said, not to be concerned with consequences is simply irrational, crazy.8  Rawls yet rejects utility and its consequentialist foundation as the basis for a coherent ethical theory. 
	Perhaps some of the more powerful criticisms of utilitarianism can be summed up as follows: whatever may be the requirements of dealing with consequences and of making decisions that involve compromise, it is surely fallacious to begin with a principle of compromise, rather than to start with firm substantive principles which might admit of the necessity of compromise in hard cases.  
	As for Kant, there is great irony that his "improvement" of the golden rule by restating it as the Categorical Imperative also impelled him to derive from it lesser but more specific categorical imperatives, one of which was a categorical imperative of retribution.  The irony of this is that the common biblical interpretation of the golden rule contained in Matthew 7:12 is clearly a non-retributive principle, whatever else it might be.

	5-22.  The conception of the golden rule as a principle of non-retribution is useful for systematizing Christian ethics.  On this view, the pillar of Christian ethics (and of all valid ethical systems) is the golden rule as a general principle which can be used to derive other principles, principles which might be interpreted as corollaries.  
	For example, the golden rule implies as one corollary not "an eye for an eye," but the principle of "turning the other cheek."  In other contexts, it suggests the necessity of not judging others who might nonetheless judge us.  In yet another, it suggests the necessity of lending or giving without any expectation of a return (a principle of non-retribution in the distributive realm).  In general, the non-retributive conception of the golden rule suggests an alternative to allocating either good or evil as "just desert" (that which is thought to be deserved, whether it be reward or punishment).  On this view, we should always treat others with good, whether they treat us well or badly.  Since retribution has both a positive side (reward) and a negative side (punishment), the golden rule as a principle of non-retribution abjures retributive practices in the realms of the distribution or allocation of both rewards and punishments.  If we are not to give to others with the expectation of reward, nor to retaliate against others who treat us badly, the logical implications of such a view could include everything from a critique of the market system (where all transactions are carried out with the expectation of return--an expectation implicit in any reciprocal arrangement or contract) to a complete renunciation of the penal system (where offenders are requited evil for evil, whether in the name of retribution or deterrence).  
	The golden rule could also, so interpreted, serve as the foundation of a categorical renunciation of the institution of war, on every scale.  The basic premises of this way of looking at the golden rule would seem to be (1) a belief in unconditional altruism (the agápe principle) and (2) a belief that perfect means must always be employed to achieve both individual and societal ends.

	5-23.  The conception of the golden rule as a principle of constructive rationality has more of a psychological rather than a purely ethical emphasis, but it also has the advantage of incorporating many of the ethical insights of the above conceptions.  On this view, the golden rule is a principle of constructive action giving guidance in the face of all of the frustrating situations which might confront one in everyday life.  In the face of violence (or threat of any kind), for example, one looks for a benign and constructive alternative, not to a course of action which  leads to an escalating cycle of injury and retaliation.  In the face of social alienation, one neither harbors resentful thoughts nor expresses one's frustrations through hostile actions.  
	Instead of the irrational impulse toward blame and retaliation, one seeks constructive rational outlets for one's energies, always striving to meet hostile or callous persons, as well as baffling and frustrating situations, with reasoned responses.  This conception might suggest the possibility of dispensing with the ethical legalism implicit in most of the religious conceptions of the golden rule, replacing it instead with a view which looks entirely  to human reason in lieu of divine commands.
	The problem-solving emphasis of this view suggests also an alternative to the guilt which is a by-product of legalism, suggesting the possibility of a sense of freedom from moral paralysis as well as an openness to meeting and responding to difficulties, challenges, and crises, secure in the faith that a reasoned and benign response can generally effect good consequences, or at least effect better ones than might occur without one's active intervention.  
	A religio-metaphysical interpretation of this view suggests the possibility of a God who does indeed ordain certain patterns as being inherently good (not as commands but as gifts, aspects of divine grace manifest through the divine will or purpose in creation), a God who does not punish but stands always ready to allow us to end our own self-punishment by admitting ("repenting of" in the original sense of "rethinking" or "rereasoning") our errors and rationalizations, thereby regaining the moral high ground as participants with God in the perfection of his creation, through the promotion and maximization of that which has been ordained by God as good.

	5-24.  The traditional statement of the golden rule as a simple recommendation of empathic identification is open to various interpretations, but behind these competing interpretations lie polar or dilemmatic choices.  
	Does one mean by the golden rule that one ought to
		(1) treat others as one would like to be treated;
	  or (2) treat others as one ought to be treated?
Or ought one to
		(1) treat others as they would like to be treated;
	  or (2) treat others as they ought to be treated.
Whereas (1) in the first dilemma is not reducible to (1) in the second dilemma, it would seem that both versions of (2) are effectively identical in both dilemmas.  So saying presumes, of course, that there are some universal goods--those ends which are good both for oneself and for others, good which have traditionally been described in the language of "natural law."  These are ends or goods which are universal goods because they are not relative to culture, because their point of reference is either human nature or the divine will, but not mere social convention or opinion.
	The second choice in both dilemmas is not without difficulties.  Yet, whereas in the first dilemma there is the risk of imperialism because of the presumption that one's preferences ought to supersede the judgments of others as to what kinds of treatment they should receive, in the second dilemma there is the risk of imperialism because of the presumption that one's judgments of right ought to supersede the judgments of others as to what kind of treatment they should receive.  There is an additional problem in the first choice in the first dilemma, since here there is also a possible problem of imperialism or paternalism: why should I presume that how I would like to be treated could possibly give me any guidance as to how others ought or would like to be treated?
	The answer to all of these problems is the same: the requirement of autonomy is not vitiated because one presumes that there are higher moral standards than preference or personal judgment.  Unless one is a relativist, one must presume that there is some identity of good for all persons in at least some areas of human activity, at least if the concept of "human nature" is thought to have any validity at all.  Indeed, the assumption that there is such a thing as human nature is in itself tied to a renunciation of ethical relativism.  This is not to say that the problem of imperialism is not very real when one tries to make judgments as to what extent one may rely upon one's own moral intuitions of good when acting for the sake of others.  Yet, if one may not use one's own moral intuitions of good, then whose? 
	To defend the golden rule as a principle of empathic identification is not, however, to concede the inevitability of ethical or cultural imperialism.  It is simply to say that application of the golden rule only requires us to ask what is inherently good before we make any decision affecting the lives of others.  It does not give us an easy formula as to what to do when our judgments and those of others do in fact conflict.
	The principle of empathic identification is hardly the whole of the golden rule.  Yet, one finds it difficult to imagine any conception of the golden rule which could succeed if not coupled with the capacity and propensity for empathic identification.

	5-25.  I do not mean to denigrate the significance of the question of autonomy and tolerance versus paternalism and imperialism.  There is surely some sense in which Kant, in his requirement of universalizability, has recognized that a respect for the personhood and autonomy of others is an important component of the golden rule.  So saying does not impel one, however, to accept a doctrinaire Kantian reduction of the golden rule, nor does it require one to accept Kant's process of deriving one form of the Categorical Imperative from other forms.  (I refer specifically to that form or version which says that one should always treat others as ends rather than simply as means.  The Kantian requirement of rational autonomy which comes into play in such a formulation is beyond dispute, but the identity of the various forms or versions is certainly debatable.)  
	Acceptance of the universalizability criterion of the Categorical Imperative also does not require that one accept the Kantian dictum that "Nothing is good in itself but good will."9  That is far too strong a claim, one that surely is false and which opens the door to moral relativism, as well as the disparagement of human nature and the will of God.  The full force of the golden rule can only be felt, in fact, if there is a recognition of the essential similarity of human nature and thus of human needs.  Recognizing that fact about human nature does not impel one to become a value imperialist.  It only impels one to try to ascertain what is really good or worthy before one embarks upon some program of action to improve society or the welfare or freedom of others.
	Any claim of social progress or benevolent action must surely presuppose some conception of good ends.  A meaningful, non-formalistic restatement of the golden rule must be predicated upon some judgment of the relative worthiness of competing claims to good.  The golden rule cannot within itself give us a theory of ends or goods.  Yet, contrary to the Kantian formulation, neither does belief in the moral force of the golden rule preclude the search for a coherent theory of good, a theory which presumes that there might be any number of things in addition to good will which are goods in themselves.

	5-26.  Does Christian ethics fall within the teleological or the deontological ethical traditions?  This is not an easy question to answer.  My own belief is that both good and right have epistemological independence in the parallel realms of ends and means. 
	With regard to ends, we may say that certain ends are ordained of God.  These are inherently good, since they come from the will of God.  Certainly we have some obligation to maximize the realization of such ends without presuming that we have to use a utilitarian decision procedure in order to tell us how to do so.  Any theory of ends is a teleological conception, by definition, and all rational persons must have some regard for the consequences of their actions and inactions in promoting certain ends.
	Yet, when contemplating the means whereby we may promote and maximize certain ends or goods, we are constrained by the agápe concept, which governs questions of right.  Any theory of means is a theory of right principles or duty, and thus a deontological conception, by definition.  Yet, if such principles are guided by certain theological suppositions (such as the workings of divine Providence, for example), then we are not going to be able to reduce all ethical judgments to empirical assessments of consequences. 
	In general, we may say that Christian ethics contains both teleological and deontological epistemological foundations.  It is certainly correct to say that we have an obligation to promote the will of God and thereby to promote and maximize the goods or ends which he has ordained, but we are simultaneously limited in the means that we may employ to promote such ends.
	This way of looking at the problem may be as close as we shall ever get to "bridging" the "teleological-deontological dilemma" of ethical epistemology.  That is, we have an obligation to promote the best ends, using the best possible means.  To say this, however, is less to offer a "bridge" than to say that there are at least two broadly differing epistemological problems with which all moral actors should be concerned.
	Finally, of course, both the best ends and the best means are ordained by the will of God.  Yet, ends and means are factorable, not to be mixed up together in some utilitarian calculus of "consequences" which blurs the distinction between ends and means.  Furthermore, if both ends and means are ordained of God, then they are both part of the divine telos, or purpose, which is synonymous with the will of God.  Yet, if it is our duty to promote both the ends ordained of God using the means which God has ordained, then our conception can also be called "deontological" as well as "teleological."
	These considerations suggest the possibility that the deontological-teleological distinction may have outlived its usefulness, being a product of the stimulating but ultimately unsatisfying debate between Kantians and utilitarians.
	Even so, to the extent that ultimate goods or ends can probably be known only through intuition, whereas right means can be defended by reason after being intuited, there may be some value in seeing the realms of the teleological and deontological as having differing epistemological foundations.  This is extremely problematic theoretical territory, however, insofar as the problem of ethical epistemological has never been solved, and I make no pretense of having solved it here.

	5-27.  A non-relativistic, non-formalistic interpretation of the golden rule does have practical implications for moral action.  It would tend to preclude, for example, giving wine to an alcoholic simply because that is the way he wants to be treated.  It would preclude acquiescing in the sexual request of a strange woman simply because she enjoyed having sex with strangers.  The suggestion in both cases is that the person making a request or stating a need ought to be treated in a fashion compatible with his or her own best moral and physical interests, not in a fashion that gives a kind of perverse pleasure, nor in a fashion that degrades that person's status as a human being, or takes advantage of weakness or emotional vulnerability.
	Is it presumptuous or imperialistic to act upon the basis of one's own standards when complying with a request or attempting to meet the need of another?  No.  It is simply responsible.  The requirements of toleration do not extend so far as to imply an obligation to sacrifice one's own moral judgments to those of another.

	5-28.  Formalistic versions of the golden rule (e.g., Kant's Categorical Imperative) are suspect precisely because they do tend to relativize moral choice and because they could indeed, in the name of respect for the autonomy of others, justify engaging in or at least giving moral approbation to such a dubious practice as acceding to others' requests to give them that which one knows or conscientiously believes to be harmful.
	What else could possibly follow from the relativistic claim that absolutely nothing is good in itself besides good will?

	5-29.  A hidden component of the agápe concept is a premise which cannot be restated as a "rule" or "law": the premise of the absolute worth of the individual.  It may well be that this premise is logically prior to the substantive principles of altruism and non-retributivism inherent in the golden rule.  Perhaps it can also help one to see why it is that there should be no conditions to one's benevolence: the absolute value of the individual requires such a conclusion.
	That is, once one has accepted the full implications of the  absolute worth of the individual, then it is absurd to say that one's benevolence toward that person should be conditional upon a further moral evaluation of the worth of that person, whether for the sake of punishment or reward: the worth of the individual is absolute, regardless of the present state of moral virtue or depravity of that individual, and certainly regardless of any human assessment of that virtue or depravity. 
	Here one sees how an injunction against judging others can also be seen to be a "corollary" of the golden rule--or perhaps it is strictly more correct to say that altruism, non-retributivism, and non-judgment are all ethical corollaries of the metaphysical premise of the absolute worth of the individual in the eyes of God.
	The irony of all this is that the premise of the absolute worth of the individual is a statement of good, not right per se.  Is it possible that behind all theories of right lies some kind of knowledge of good?  If this be so, then the theory espoused here is more nearly teleological than I imagined it to be.

	5-30.  To say that God affirms the absolute worth of the individual is to say something that has about it the air of a metaphysical rather than a simple ethical claim, for it implies that individual human beings really do have infinite worth which is willed by God himself.  This metaphysical claim, to have force, must be derived from yet another metaphysical claim about the omnibenevolence of God, which in this context means seeing God as always a redemptive and never as a punitive force, a conclusion which seems for many persons to fly not only in the face of scripture but of common sense.  
	Yet, just such an assumption would seem to be required: only an omnibenevolent God could will that beings created "in his own image" should also be omnibenevolent, should also always act in non-punitive ways reflecting a concern for the worth of other individuals.

	5-31.  It is clear that any theistic system of ethics and justice must be founded upon a conception of humankind which derives from the claim that human beings are created in the image of God, and it is equally clear that such a system would depend upon rather strong claims about human nature, not the weak claims which a contractualist such as Rawls would advocate.  Everything which Rawls would want to put behind the veil of ignorance would have to be brought out as strong metaphysical premises.  
	Contra Rawls, one may say that no meaningful theory of justice is imaginable without a theory of human nature, and no meaningful theory of human nature could be meaningful without a theory of the nature of the divine.

	5-32.  A sustained defense of a principle of non-retribution would raise all of the essential questions of a full Christian theology, for, if there is a truism in Christian ethics, it is that Christian ethics cannot survive if cut off from a Christian theology.  An ethic is a philosophical superstructure, not a foundation.  A true foundation of the metaphysics of morals would have to be a metaphysic of ultimate being, a theology.  Studies in ethics thus ultimately redirect us to a concern for the identity and nature of God.

	5-33.  What is a principle of non-retribution but a principle of forgiveness?  To categorically renounce war, punishment, and other expressions of retribution is merely to universalize the requirement of forgiveness.  Perhaps this idea--universal forgiveness--is what the golden rule is all about.  Perhaps this is why Jesus called the golden rule "the law and the prophets":10 it captures the essence of the divine, that for which wise men and prophets have always searched.

	5-34.  If one begins historically, the non-retributive aspect of the golden rule can be seen to have been offered in ancient times as the statement by Socrates in the Crito that it is never right to hurt anyone, no matter how much he has hurt us.11  This idea seems to be contained within (or implied by) the golden rule as it is found in the familiar Christian form, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."  Perhaps Hillel's negative formulation is logically equivalent: "Do not do unto others that which you would not have them do unto you."  Similarly, in Taoism, the golden rule or something like it is offered as the idea that one must always do good unto other persons, no matter how they might treat us.
	All of the above conceptions seem to reflect at least one common assumption: one's virtue should be independent of the virtue of others.  Unfortunately, this superficial agreement on the form of the golden rule is not borne out in a more profound agreement as to the essence of virtue.
	5-35.  Whereas in Christianity the golden rule has typically been associated with the imperative to forgive others, in the Judaic tradition of the law of Moses the idea of requiting evil for evil has been central.  In a similar vein, whereas Socrates used something like the golden rule in the Crito to try to justify a highly legalistic conception of virtue11 (getting permission from the state to disobey its laws, for example), the same cannot be said of Taoism.  
	In more modern times, the differences between Kant and Bentham again reveal a superficial consensus.  The debates among contemporary theorists such as Gewirth, Hare, and Weiss also indicate that no real consensus exists.  All of these disagreements indicate that the golden rule can only have meaning within the larger ethical context of an entire system of thought.  Perhaps one may thus say without ethnocentrism that the larger ethical and theological context of the Christian version of the golden rule does indeed make it a unique ethical conception.  It is false, that is, to see this great principle in the fullness of its implications as having surfaced in all cultures.  
	Jesus of Nazareth did have something unique to say.  To say this does not prove that he was right, or that he was the Son of God in some unique sense.  It does suggest that he offered insights which differ from those which have surfaced in other cultures.
	If this assertion sounds ethnocentric, consider the fact that I am critiquing the larger part of the Christian tradition, a tradition which is dominant within my own culture.  I am thereby challenging the moral foundations of that entire culture rather than claiming its superiority.

	5-36.  The theorist who does not attribute substantive non-retributive content to the golden rule is, in one respect, like the ethicist who does not predicate his system on the theistic premises of a non-retributive God: he becomes a retributivist by default.
	The utilitarians represent the most notorious case, of course.  The utilitarian "non-retributive deterrent theory of punishment" is sheer nonsense.  All retaliation, regardless of motive or expected consequences, is retributive in form and tends to be retributive in consequences.  The point of the principle of utility was admittedly to abjure retribution while still promoting punishment in the name of legal and penal reform.  As long as the practice of punishment was being defended, however, the evaluative and retributive consequences were often the same.
	Thus, by utilitarianism's own consequentialist criterion, whether one's motive is deterrence or retribution is quite irrelevant if the consequences of one's actions are the same: retaliation and all of the suffering that that invariably entails.  Utilitarianism thus refutes its own claim of having offered a meaningful alternative to retributive theories of punishment.

	5-37.  The motives of the utilitarian punisher are irrelevant.  It is as if one were to say, "We are going to execute you now, but please do not take it personally.  This is not intended as a reflection on your character, but is merely for the sake of deterring others."  
	Such is one side to the utilitarian nonsense: perhaps it is the most dangerously retributive philosophy ever expounded, precisely because it is not aware of its veiled retributivism.  Honest vengeance would perhaps be more wholesome--and quite possibly less destructive.

	5-38.  In spite of utilitarianism's "veiled retributivism" under the name of a deterrence theory of punishment, there is something about the boldness with which "act utilitarianism" has tried to unify all axioms under one overarching principle of right which has a certain appeal.  In addition to this quest for coherence through value monism, utilitarian thought constantly redirects attention to the future consequences of action, rather than being obsessed with past injustices, as on the classical retributive view.
	Yet, utilitarianism cannot quite bring off its grand claims.  It wants to redirect attention to ends or purposes at the same time that its denial of natural and divine law deprives it of any standard of good besides that of the hedonist.  The result is an ethical theory that has no God, no purpose, and no law except the law of hedonism: utility qua pleasure becomes the ultimate concern, the ultimate end, and the summation of moral law for the utilitarian, even as moral law itself is being disparaged. 
	Utilitarianism in practice seems to be reducible to a curious mixture of a Hobbesian metaphysic of natural conflict combined with the consequentialist non-ethic of pragmatism.
	5-39.  As has been noted, if one means by the "golden rule" a very strong principle of unconditional altruism and non-retribution, then that principle can be seen to entail a number of specific corollaries, among them "return good for evil," "turn the other cheek," and "give without expecting a return." 
	Are such corollaries applicable to the realm of what is called "public morality"?  Martin Luther thought not, and his legacy in this regard vitiated much of the moral force of the Protestant Reformation.  The result was a relegation of the non-retributive teachings of the golden rule to the realm of "private morality."  For the realm of "public morality," the norm of what was called "justice" remained the old retributive conception: evil was to be requited with evil.  On such a bifurcated view, private individuals could conceivably live according to the stringently selfless requirements of the golden rule, but the same could not be said for states or other collectivities, neither in their own self-defense in the arena of international conflict, nor in the adjudication of legal claims within their own boundaries.  
	The dualistic view of morality predates Luther, but, in his affirmation of a strong distinction between public and private morality, he perpetuated a dualism--an ethical double standard--which still afflicts the entire Protestant tradition.  Seen from yet another point of view, Luther perpetuated the central ethical doctrines of Augustine and Aquinas.  The organizational form of Christianity was changed through the Protestant Reformation.  Its errors based in part on Pauline revisionism and pagan Greek influences persisted.

	5-40.  The golden rule, along with its corollaries, is admittedly fraught with seemingly "practical" difficulties as a principle of "public morality."  A society of perfect altruists could not retaliate against another society, even in self-defense.  Nor could it retaliate against those criminal elements who are simultaneously members and enemies of the civil order.
	It is little wonder, therefore, that political philosophers have not taken the golden rule very seriously.  They have not, perhaps, really understood it.  Or perhaps they have understood it all too well and have simply rejected it out of hand.  Perhaps they have dismissed as totally unworthy of consideration the idea that the golden rule, as the embodiment of altruistic and non-retributive thinking, could possibly form the basis of an entire social order: a veritable constitution.
	This is the fatal flaw of most of that body of social theory which is called "political philosophy," that it dismisses as a fundamental premise that which could lead to its own redemption as a social enterprise.  As long as it rejects, in the name of "practicality" or "Realpolitik" or "public morality," any significant challenge to the modern state and its legalism, it will continue to stagnate, tending to be primarily a means of expressing and supporting not the forces of social progress, but of reaction.
	The worst of these is war.  The next worst is punishment, especially in its routinized, institutionalized form.

	5-41.  One must concede to the utilitarians that the quest for a principle of non-retribution was indeed a worthy quest, even if the principle of utility was not up to the challenge: it did not itself fully meet the criterion of non-retributivism, much less suffice to stand as the foundation for a monistic and largely empirical science of ethics.  It certainly did not achieve the goal of being an improvement upon the golden rule.
	With all due respect to the utilitarian reformers for their efforts in ridding the British penal system of some of its most barbaric practices of punishment and torture, however, a deterrent theory of punishment (with an eye only to future consequences in lieu of a concern for doling out "just deserts") was never "non-retributive" in any meaningful sense.  	John Rawls addressed this point indirectly in his early article, "Two Concepts of Rules," where he made the claim that "once one has decided to have laws, one has decided upon something which is retributive in form."12  (This would be the case even whether the rationales for enforcing the law were utilitarian or overtly, consciously retributive.)  
	That is, any system of legal practices is bound to employ a variety of devices for enforcing compliance with its directives, and those who do not comply will feel the force of retaliation and thus de facto retribution.  If Rawls is correct in his observation about the inherently retributive nature of coercive law, however, then what Joel Feinberg calls a "nineteenth century debate" between "retributive" and "deterrent" theories of punishment was indeed only a confusion.
	If only Feinberg could see the real basis of that confusion: a belief in the morality of retribution itself.13
	
	5-42.  The practical objections to the golden rule which most often arise are those which revolve around questions of retaliation and retribution: a failure to retaliate (whether by the individual or by the state) in the face of external threat might lead to the most enduring material sacrifices, including the loss of one's life, that of one's loved one(s), or the destruction of a culture. 
	Is it possible that refusing to retaliate could be justified solely out of regard for the welfare and moral growth of the aggressor?  I think so: perhaps only by making seemingly incomprehensible sacrifices can one demonstrate with the greatest sincerity the depth of one's concern for another--one who perhaps cannot be reached any other way.
	A perfect altruism might require such drastic sacrifices, and it might well be that only a perfect being could be capable of such sacrifices or know when they are justified.  I do not think so, however, since I think that the requirement to imitate the Christ does indeed extend so far: if Christ died for the most depraved sinners, and if he asked his disciples (who were also "loved ones") to do likewise, can we stand prepared to do otherwise?
	My guess is that sending his disciples away to virtually certain death was more difficult for Jesus than submitting himself to be sacrificed.  As he said on more than one occasion, however, his followers tend to think as man thinks, not as God thinks--and God would leave the ninety and nine sheep to go in search of the one who was lost.  
	If the worst criminals and sinners are not lost, then who is?  Perhaps we must risk the welfare of all of society for those who are most desperately in need of our help and our compassion--not our further abuse.

	5-43.  In order to be plausible as a requirement of altruism, an injunction against retaliation or retribution might have to be based upon demonstrable evidence that one's sacrifice would indeed achieve some great moral end.  What might that end be? 
	Perhaps the answer is that the ultimate and highest end of non-retaliation is the redemption of the aggressor, regardless of the material or physical cost to oneself or to those whom one holds dear.  If so, then the ultimate objective would have to be the conversion of the aggressor by the force of one's example.  Could one expect such radical conversion in a given instance?  Perhaps the answer is "no," although it is certainly true that individuals do change, and it is difficult to see how one could possibly know in a given instance whether one's act of non-retaliation would lead to such a change or not.
	Acts of selfless, forgiving sacrifice can have an impact far beyond the realm of what might be expected.  The lives of Jesus and Socrates demonstrate that fact.  It is possible to commit such an exemplary act of sacrifice that any number of lives might be changed.  
	Yet, even if only one life might possibly be changed spiritually, perhaps one's physical sacrifice would be required by the divine logic.

	5-44.  Utilitarian considerations aside, if the moral development of the aggressor--or of those who witnessed and were influenced by the non-retributive example--were one's primary concern, then one's reason for offering oneself as an exemplary sacrifice would be one's respect for the moral autonomy (or potentiality for such autonomy) of the aggressor: one would obey a categorical imperative of non-retribution for the sake of the aggressor as an end in himself.
	Implicit in this Kantian-sounding argument is a very non-Kantian conclusion: one opts for an alternative to punishment.  The crucial assumption leading to this conclusion is that sacrificing oneself is a more effective disciplinary (teaching) tool than punishment: altruistic action speaks louder as a moral teacher than does egoistic retaliation in the name of self-defense.
	Since the practical consequences might be both the moral development of the aggressor and whatever practical benefits might befall society as a result of such development and sensitivity, it would appear that both consequentialist and universalist arguments could be used in favor of non-retaliation, and that the use of both together would make a stronger case than either alone.  

	5-45.  Even if one were to accept the argument that one should be prepared to sacrifice oneself for the sake of some apparently "unworthy" person, the question naturally arises as to whether or not it is right or reasonable to call for others to make a comparable sacrifice.
	This challenge has the most force in those instances in which one's failure to act is concrete and personal--such as a decision not to use force to drive away someone attempting to kidnap one's own child.  Would anyone call for total inaction in such an instance in the name of "pacifism," the golden rule, or any other ideal?  I dare say that the answer is "no": total inaction would not be "pacifistic," but merely "passive."
	Barring total inaction, however, what types of action are consistent with the golden rule in such hard cases?  I believe that it is fair to say that even a pacifist could justify putting himself between the aggressor and the intended victim.  Yet, would doing so stop the aggressor, especially if the aggressor were armed and the pacifist did not avail himself of the use of force?  Is it possible that the pacifist could justify some kind of non-punitive restraint or violence, without violating the golden rule as defined?  
	I could opt out at this point by saying that perhaps it is safer to look at the golden rule as being a limiting non-retributive ideal rather than an absolute.  This might even be the best that one could do by way of deciding upon the efficacy of non-retribution in hard cases, but one feels the need to affirm one's principles as more than "limiting ideals."
	As for alternatives to violence or force in hard cases, the remarkable thing in most instances is how seldom persons search about for pacifistic solutions.  In a given instance, we probably have verbal resources and alternative solutions which we have scarcely tapped because we so seldom look for them.  It is at least conceivable that there is always a peaceful solution to the problem of aggression were we but wise enough to find it--but that would presuppose that we were patient and faithful enough to keep looking for it.

	5-46.  What does one do in the hardest of hard cases?  Does one merely say that one should use "violence only as a last resort," or that one should use "the least violence necessary" to achieve one's desired ends?  Are not such platitudes merely invitations to hold violence always in reserve, as a potential repertoire permanently at one's ultimate disposal?  If that is one's "policy," in what sense is it significantly different from the state's policy of deploying armies and police forces--usually in reserve, of course, but with a disposition to use violence if the situation seems to require it?
	Such is the problem with saying that pacifism is a "limiting ideal" rather than a categorical absolute: one winds up using one's energy preparing for the contingencies of retaliation and reciprocated violence, if non-violence fails.  
	Such is not the way of peace, but of preparedness for war.
	5-47.  Short of being disposed to use violence as a "last resort," what can we as peaceful persons do?
	If we are truly to "disarm" ourselves, I think that we must begin in the realm of ideas and plans or repertoires of proposed action.  We must, that is, be constantly looking for alternatives to violence rather than preparing contingency plans for the use of violence.  If we spend our time preparing such contingency plans, we shall surely use them sooner or later, whether there are other alternatives or not--in much the same way that armies are always used sooner or later, even if the rationale is usually to build and deploy them so that they will never be used. 

	5-48.  In general, I believe that, if we are truly committed to peace, God will indeed find a way for us to follow his example, even in those circumstances where we do not see in advance an obviously practicable alternative to violence or threat.  This faith in God is of the utmost significance in trying to defend pacifism within an overtly Christian framework: one must have some faith that the injunction issued by the Christ to Peter to "Follow me!" was meant to be taken seriously and was not the mere use of rhetoric for dramatic effect.  
	A complete and abiding faith in the Prince of Peace ought to be finally manifested as some settled disposition to act and think in ways different from those who have not heard or heeded his message. 

	5-49.  A viable ethic prepares us for the actual world, not the fantasy world of "hypothetical situations."  The real world, created and overseen by God, does not perhaps offer us the inflexible hard cases with which professional philosophers are so intrigued.  Similarities with real cases there may be, but the nature of such "hypothetical situations" is that they give us no moral "out."
	Such are the creations of humankind.  God can surely do--has done--better.  It is entirely possible, however, that the only divine way out of many bitter ethical dilemmas is through our own sacrifice.

	5-50.  In "Two Concepts of Rules," John Rawls argued that he could see the force of both deontological retributive arguments and teleological non-retributive ("consequentialist," "utilitarian") arguments.14  The result was a kind of rule utilitarian rationale which ostensibly tried to reconcile and account for the force of both deontic and consequentialist-teleological arguments.  Although Rawls went on to a more explicitly Kantian rationale in A Theory of Justice, his early attempts to resolve the dilemma within a broadly rule utilitarian framework still have much force.
	By the time Rawls wrote A Theory of Justice, he seems to have given up on integrating consequentialist arguments into a basically deontological framework.  A Theory of Justice thus represents not a grand synthesis of deontic and teleological theories, but the giving up on a battle which consumed him in his earlier writings.  Rawls' early goal of aspiring to resolve the teleological-deontological dilemma still has much appeal, and one cannot but think that the dilemma still hamstrings modern ethical theory, preventing it from realizing its full potential of giving adequate expression to a variety of intuitive insights from both traditions.  One has the feeling that the dilemma can only be resolved (if it can be resolved at all) if it is treated in the context of strong substantive arguments which go to the heart of ethical theory. 
	Unfortunately, Rawls' tendency to argue from weak premises has given us more proceduralism and more legalism: such is the Kantian legacy. 

	5-51.  What are the final implications of the doctrine of the infinite worth of the individual? One implication is that the recalcitrant individual who resists the efforts of God and man is presumed to have only a theoretical possibility of remaining indefinitely excluded (by his or her own choice) from divine grace.  
	The infinite power and majesty of God can surely outwait any mere human's recalcitrance: it is virtually inconceivable that any person could resist God's will indefinitely, eternally.  Even those who deliberately act wrongly find the Providential hand of God intervening over and over again, and they cannot help but learn, even in the worst of lives.  God, who knows all and sees all, would not create the individual known in advance to be doomed for infinite or eternal damnation.  God does not create any person so that that person can be sacrificed merely as an example for the righteous: God who created every person as a lamb of infinite worth is not a utilitarian who would consign even one person to torment forever so that others might be saved.  Caiaphas, the high priest who consigned Jesus to his death, gave a similar kind of argument as his excuse.
	God is a God, however, who was prepared to become a sacrificial lamb as the only way to demonstrate the depth of divine grace, for the sake of all others.  What he 
would not do with other individuals for the sake of the whole he would do with himself in human form, if by such a sacrifice he could make the divine Logos manifest, comprehensible to humans of finite intelligence.
	In so doing, he exemplified the highest expression of the golden rule: he was willing to sacrifice that which was infinitely worthy for the sake of those who were most unworthy in their present condition--but of infinite worth nonetheless.  He returned infinite good in the face of the most evil treatment imaginable.  He invites us to follow in his footsteps in our own trials, because he knows that we, created in his image, will also find spiritual gain more fulfilling than any physical or social advantage.
	Can any Kantian or utilitarian explain the mind of God?

		

CHAPTER SIX 

THE STATE AS PROTECTION RACKET:
ALTRUISM, CITIZENSHIP, AND EXCLUSION

	6-1.  The state is the ultimate "protection racket" because the price of its protection can be the highest tribute that may be exacted from persons: their souls, their moral autonomy.
	The coercive state, that is, often demands the moral autonomy of its citizens as a condition of its protection of their material well-being.  Many surrender that autonomy without a struggle, by gladly affirming the "legitimacy" of the violent and coercive hierarchies which rule over them.
	Why is this so?

	6-2.  If the officers of the state are ultimately only the enforcers of a protection racket, do we owe them honor and respect solely by virtue of their offices?
	No.  Their offices too often represent routinized hierarchy and domination.  In addition, the occupants of these offices are too often the most sophisticated and well-entrenched of the criminals among us.  Yet, even when they are, they are ironically victims, too, of a system and of a way of thinking.

	6-3.  From a purely ethical perspective, the problem with the coercive state is that it protects one group of God's children at the expense of others.  The realm ("kingdom") of God, by comparison with earthly states, offers universal "citizenship": no one is excluded by God.  (It may yet be safe to say that all of us exclude ourselves at times.)
	The state, that is, is not based upon altruism, but upon egoism, for it is always egoism that motivates individuals and groups to include some and exclude others.  Any serious critique of the state--the realm of all violent, coercive, and judgmental practices--must begin with an analysis of the egoism-altruism dilemma.

	6-4.  The first question that one must answer when coming to grips with the altruism-egoism dilemma is whether that dilemma can bear the weight that one would put upon it.  Therefore, one cannot fruitfully proceed in ethical analysis until one has answered the first question of ethics: is altruism really possible?  
	If it is not, if everything is simply veiled self-interest, then one has to ask what it is that impels us to try to extend our moral perspective such that we feel either a kinship or an obligation (hardly the same thing) for more and more sentient beings--why we feel compelled, that is, to extend the boundaries of the category of those to whom we feel loyalty.  If one admits that one is so impelled, what is it that impels one to try to extend the limits of loyalty, if not altruism pure and simple?  Surely it is not egoism which is at work when we make the group more inclusive, for self-interest is typically better served by exclusion rather than inclusion.  Some force seems to be impelling us to go beyond ourselves, and it  must be God, who surely did not create us for his own self-interest, but for our own.  
	If one starts from strong theistic premises, one seems to be on safer ground in assuming that a strong altruism-egoism dilemma is a valid one, one that cannot be rationalized away by reference to some kind of milksop such as "reciprocal altruism,"1  or by some appeal to "enlightened self-interest" or "mutual advantage."2  We do well to preserve a clear egoism-altruism distinction as the basis for our further analysis.  
	6-5.  The ultimate basis for all contracts is ultimately egoism: "What will I get in return?"
	Another problem with a contractual theory of obligation, as opposed to one based upon unconditional altruism, is that contracts are always between subsets of the set of all human beings, and benefits and entitlements are seen to be owed only to those who are members of the subsets which contract together.
	Contractualism as a general social theory is thus by its very nature exclusive: this is the nature of egoism as manifested in social practices and structures.  When contractualism is extended from ethics pure and simple to the realm of political theory, the exclusivist orientation of social contract theory is manifested as a bounded conception of rights and citizenship.  Some persons, that is, are the objects of loyalty and moral concern.  Others are not.
	Altruistic obligation, by contrast, is transnationalistic and universalistic.  It does not exclude.

	6-6.  Conventional altruism (or what passes for altruism) is usually circumscribed by familial, tribal, national, religious, or ethnic boundaries.  The soldier who falls on a grenade is altruistic and selfless toward his comrades, but not toward his enemy.  His altruism is to be applauded, for he demonstrates that he is capable of sacrificing himself for the sake of his fellow soldiers or his fellow countrymen.  
	Yet, to the extent that a soldier is prepared to die only for his countrymen while remaining prepared to kill those outside the limited bounds of loyalty, his altruism is circumscribed by the limits of the group identified as his own.  Indeed, whether we say that he is selfish in the limits of his national identification or altruistic in his predisposition to die for those with whom he identifies, the fact remains that he is not altruistically inclined toward all humankind.  
	The riddle of patriotism therefore remains: is nationalism, patriotism, an expression of altruism or of egoism?  What makes the issue problematic is the fact that the noblest patriot seems to be disposed to sacrifice himself only for those with whom he can identify.  It is not clear that his actions really should even be called altruistic in the first place: he seems to be prepared to sacrifice himself only for an extension of himself.  This limitation of his perspective allows him to kill others outside his group who are a threat to that which is dear to him, and so a nationalist perspective seems, if anything, to make the soldier more dangerous to humanity than if he were indifferent to the welfare of others.
	In any case, patriotism qua nationalism is not something that one wants to exalt: on the best interpretation, it is the result of an imperfectly developed moral perspective, whereas on the worst interpretation it is self-interest pure and simple.
	6-7.  Early Christian teachings may well be unique among altruistic systems of thought in that they require one to love all human beings, even those defined as "the enemy" (including, one presumes, criminals and other internal enemies to society).  All other religions and ethical systems require altruistic sacrifice for the sake of members of some group, to the exclusion of others outside the group.  Yet, insofar as the "others" are not universal, neither is the altruism complete or universal. 	In Christian ethics, one must even be disposed to make sacrifices for the truly evil: we are obligated to follow the Christ, and he died for the sake of all persons, including the most ungodly.  How is this is to be accomplished without furthering the cause of evil?  This is the paradox of Christian ethics, and it is a reason that Christian ethics has been a "stumbling block" to those who cannot accept the ideal of unqualified forgiveness or of universal altruism.

	6-8.  Why should one die for the sake of an enemy, an enemy not only of oneself but of persons and ideals which one may hold dear?  If so doing leaves these dear ones vulnerable, what has one achieved by one's sacrifice, if not the promotion of evil?  Is it not necessary to make a decision as to more or less worthy others and to be prepared to sacrifice accordingly?  
	This is an entirely reasonable position, and many nominal Christians have acted on the basis of some such rationale.  Yet, the early Christian view does not seem to support it.  For, having ranked others in terms of significance and worthiness, has one not only judged others but also indicated a predisposition to regress to the same exclusive nationalistic and ethnocentric impulse which feeds acts of war in the first place?

	6-9.  Even Jesus himself called for the sacrifice of his own followers for the sake of demonstrating his commitment to all humankind, even the worst sinners.  Since he loved many of his followers, did this not pain him?  Surely it did, but by his divine logic he had no alternative: if he as a human being was not to judge but to forgive and to be prepared to sacrifice, then was he not exemplifying the kind of universalist logic which is to guide and perfect our own altruistic impulses?
	Was he not also saying that even sinners are still "in the family," still children of God--no matter how wayward?

	6-10.  Perhaps it is not too strong to say that the main point of returning good for evil in hard cases is that one might find a way to change the evildoer, not merely reduce the level of conflict.  Even if the practical effect of a personal sacrifice is small or nonexistent, there may be long-term benefits of a non-material nature: persons do change when inspired by the examples of others.
	This way of looking at things could be in error, of course: perhaps we should always return good for evil simply because that is the divine imperative.  Either way, the proper response to any injustice is always to respond with good.  This is what many would call "coddling the criminal" or even "rewarding injustice."  Yet, original Christianity required one to return good for evil in the most literal sense, showing by one's actions that one's own physical welfare and social status are subordinate to the spiritual and material welfare of the person, group, or country which is threatening or injuring one or one's own.
	The requirement always to return good for evil would clearly preclude war or punishment as possible moral courses of action.

	6-11.  Returning good for evil is a powerful example because it has the potential to convince others of the sincerity of one's beliefs, and it does this by convincing them of the importance one attaches to their beliefs and to their moral condition or spiritual welfare.
	Giving one's life is a small thing if the possible result is a paradigm change in the thinking and behavior of others, a change which will prepare them to face God and to live in peace with all persons.

	6-12.  Christianity leads us to apparently absurd conclusions if it demands us to make vulnerable our loved ones, but any lesser predisposition to sacrifice does not offer a truly universalizable example: God is no respecter of persons, including one's loved ones, for all are loved by him.  It is possible that a Christian action may require one to leave vulnerable those for whom one has the strongest emotional attachment in favor of those for whom one has absolutely no emotional attachment, but whom one has reason to believe are nonetheless children of God.  
	If a predisposition to risk the sacrifice of the physical welfare of one to whom one is emotionally attached is required in order to promote the spiritual welfare of one to whom one has no attachment (and who might even be brutal toward oneself and one's loved ones), then the divine logic of spiritual priorities would seem to require that one might have to risk losing that which is more precious than one's own life: the life and well-being of those whom one most dearly loves.  If our willingness to suffer the loss of our loved ones demonstrates to those who call themselves our enemies the depth of our commitment to the spiritual well-being of those same enemies, then we have not only promoted their spiritual understanding but in the process contributed to their conversion and the subsequent saving of lives of other innocent persons.
	We must always remember that our "loved ones" are no more loved of God than are our enemies, or the enemies of society.

	6-13.  On such things as the willingness to sacrifice our loved ones, we tend, of course, to "think like men" and not like God.  The physical welfare of ourselves or our loved ones, as important as it is, is a small thing compared to the spiritual welfare of our enemies.  Jesus even knowingly called for his own loved ones to go out and be killed for the spiritual welfare of those who were enemies to his cause.  To drive home the point, he accepted his own execution--that of the most perfect human being--in order to prove his own unconditional love (even for his own tormentors), as well as to convert those who could not be converted by a lesser example of selfless sacrifice. 

	6-14.  This is the example of Christ: he not only died for all persons, but he called upon those whom he "loved" (to whom he was personally attached in a human sense) to make a comparable sacrifice.  This was probably his greatest sacrifice, although most of us are more impressed by his own disposition to die for those who were enemies to his cause.  The crucifixion gets our attention, but his willingness to encourage a similar sacrifice on the part of those whom he loved is, upon reflection, the most astonishing attribute of his divinity.
	
	6-15.  Jesus told Peter that in his old age others would come and take him where he did not want to go.  That he loved Peter is beyond doubt.  It is noteworthy that he still said to Peter at the last, "Follow me." (John 21:22)

	6-16.  Perhaps it is well to say, with Abraham, that we should be prepared to sacrifice our loved ones if that is what God requires; and, being prepared to do so, we may yet pray that we shall not have to.  God will provide the sacrifice--most probably in the form of ourselves.  It is thus reasonable to hope that we may be able in every case to find a way to sacrifice ourselves in order to save our loved ones, and thus to be true to the demands of peace and of universal altruism without being called upon to let our loved ones die before we do ourselves.  

	6-17.  In its typical chauvinistic but moralistic manifestations, the mutual security argument manifests itself as a claim that all persons have an obligation to be prepared to use force to protect some group (the family, the community or the nation) against outsiders.  Although the varieties of the argument differ, as do the settings, the general presumption is that the members of the family, the community, or the nation-state are or ought to be dearer to one than those persons or groupings outside of that family, community, or nation.  In addition, on such a view, being entitled to the benefits of that community or nation obliges one to do one's "fair share" by way of providing for the common defense.
	The mutual security premise thus leads to conclude that there is an "obligation" to do some supposed "fair share of the killing."   This is the foundation of all jingoistic arguments in favor or war and the military draft.
	Such is the final fruit of egoism writ large.

	6-18.  One part of the revulsion which the Christian pacifist feels in the face of the mutual security argument is moral: one feels strongly that moral obligation is of a very different nature from the idea of mutual protection and mutual advantage found in social contract theory, and one also feels that moral obligation has as its end something more significant than collective security for some exclusive group (even one as large as the nation), at the expense of others outside that group.

	6-19.  The mutual security corollary which calls for a moral imperative of violence also comes to fruition as hostility toward the pacifist, who is characterized as a shirker or a coward, or both.  
	Pacifism is thus a defense not only of the welfare of those excluded from one's immediate group, but also a defense of a higher conception of honor than that contained in any claim of an obligation to kill or punish.  Perhaps the pacifist should be above the capacity to be insulted, but there is no denying that those who tell the pacifist that he has an obligation to kill have insulted the foundation of his belief system.
	They have also, I think, insulted God as well.  Had they been around at the time of the Christ, they would have joined the chorus calling for his crucifixion.  He was not the nationalist zealot his countrymen had been led to expect of anyone who claimed to be the Messiah, and he wanted to include Greeks and Arabs in his family.  It was this denial of exclusivity which infuriated his own countrymen the most, for it was a denial of their special status in the eyes of God.
	Yet, his pacifism, too, must have played a role in inflaming their passions, for human nature has not changed in two thousand years, and the pacifist is almost universally hated and probably always has been.
	Why is this so?

	6-20.  A coherent Christian pacifism is averse not only to war and punishment as expressions of group egoism, but it is equally averse to the state's honoring of those are prepared to kill, those who accept the conception of honor implicit in the mutual security premise.  
	One may yet memorialize those who have died in war without yet honoring their actions.  Yet, if one does so, one must be prepared to memorialize non-combatants as well.  The state, however, tends to build monuments only to those who are prepared to kill.  It tends to remain indifferent to those who simply died.
	The state wants, that is, to encourage warriors.  It does not care about those who are simply victims of war.  It certainly does not care about those who died on "the other side."

	6-21.  Ultimately, of course, the state does not even really care about those who died as warriors.  If it did, it would not have sacrificed them on the altar of war in the first place: the group (the state in this case) uses some for the sake of its own survival.
	The monuments to veterans are too often not really for the sake of those who have died.  Such monuments are too often directed at the next generation, those who can be induced to serve the exclusive group by being prepared to kill and die for it.  We should thus look at monuments to warriors with a certain scepticism, and sometimes even cynicism.  Such monuments are not only valid memorials.  They can also be one of the means by which society recruits new sacrificial lambs--young men who will then go out and create other sacrificial lambs on the "other side."
	The state, that is, does not even honor its own dead unless they are warriors.  The state, in pretending to honor warriors, honors war.  It does not really care about the victims--including that class of victims who were combatants.

	6-22.  Jesus of Nazareth was telling his fellow Jews that their conception of a chosen people was faulty, that all persons were children of God.  He challenged, that is, the exclusivity premise which is the foundation of the mutual security position of all egoistic groups.  He was thus hated and misunderstood for trying to promote the truth of a higher, more inclusive standard of justice.
	Every pacifist should be prepared for the possibility of a similar fate: the merits of pacifism and universal brotherhood do not evoke insight and respect as often as they evoke perplexity and anger.
	Every pacifist must be prepared to die for his or her "country": the brotherhood and sisterhood of humankind.

	6-23.  What the pacifist also rejects when facing the advocates of mutual security and exclusivity is the taking of sides in a zero-sum game.  The pacifist thus never adjusts to the typical complacency about casualties in warfare and other conflict.  Regardless of whether or not these casualties be military or civilian, whether on one side or the other, the pacifist is concerned.  The advocate of mutual security and its exclusivist and egoistic premises, by contrast, is concerned only with casualties on one side while applauding casualties on the other.  
	Can one imagine God doing that?  Can one imagine God's applauding one group of his children for their abuses against others of his children?

	6-24.  A concern for mutual security leads inexorably to the taking of sides in such a way as to exclude others, and this is the foundation of war.  Any kind of social conflict can be war, even where overt violence is not used.  Even philosophy can be warlike if its goal is to humiliate or to make outcasts those of a differing persuasion.  The pacifist is thus opposed to fruitless social conflict, including but not limited to that which entails the use of force, punishment, and other violence.  Any practice or any social grouping which offers a de facto condemnation of those who are outside the circle is thus the kind of "war" which the Christian pacifist wants to abjure.
	What pacifism rejects, that is, is not only violence but a general manifestation of ethnocentric exclusivity.  In the United States, nationalistic exclusivity is manifested through much talk about something called "national security," the local variant of the mutual security dogma.

	6-25.  Patriotism is primarily a glorification of a mutual benefit association.  At its core it is thus egoistic.
	The disguised egoism surfaces in the euphemism of "military service."  Yet, what is this "service" but a disposition to kill for one's country?

	6-26.  Courage as a willingness to die for one's country has rarely been the true issue, as the patriot would have us believe.  In a nuclear age even babies and quadriplegics are capable of the dubious virtue of dying for their country.  What the group qua state is actually asking is for one to kill for it.  "Are you prepared to kill for your country?" is thus a more nearly correct interpretation of what is being asked.  
	Even here, however, the appeal to "country" hides the uglier reality of the claim: one is being asked to kill so that the group qua state can enjoy security and prosperity--even if so doing reduces the security and prosperity of other groups, not to mention those young people of one's own country who are the routine sacrificial lambs. 
	What the patriot is really asking is, "Are you prepared to kill for me and my group?"  The self-righteous patriot is thus a egoist in moral disguise--a scoundrel indeed.

	6-27.  In the best case, the call to arms means being asked to kill members of another nation so that one's own nation might survive.  At worst, the unwitting pawns of one ruling elite are being asked to kill the unwitting pawns of a ruling elite of a rival state so that one order can dominate the other--so that the elites on both sides can survive.

	6-28.  Patriotism in the usual limited nationalistic sense is as beguiling as a prostitute--pretty and wholesome-looking on the outside, but riddled with moral and physical disease and putrefaction of all sorts on the inside.
	Like most diseases, patriotism and other forms of group chauvinism often do not show their worst manifestations in their early stages.

	6-29.  If we should do good to those who persecute us and oppress us, then how are we to treat our ultimate oppressors, those who would dare to try to rule over us, to dominate us and try to control our very lives while claiming to be our "public servants"?
	Consistency would require that we try to treat them with good also.  The apparent absurdity of such a view can be countered by the positive side: the potential beneficial consequences of converting those so powerful are great enough to justify the likely sacrifice of oneself in a given instance.  Admittedly, those who would do good to those in power are not likely to convert them in any given instance, but the possibility is nonetheless real and justifies the likelihood that one may not survive the effort.  After all, one is not talking here about "being nice" to those in power: one is talking about talking straight to them with the full knowledge that one is likely to get into trouble that way, while still preparing no contingencies for retaliation.

	6-30.  But what about Hitler?  Should one not be prepared to knock off a Hitler?  
	No, but one should be prepared to talk straight to a Hitler, and one should expect retaliation from a Hitler.  There is only one consolation: against unjust rulers in general, one is morally permitted to speak and then run, or to speak on the run.  There is nothing that requires one, like Socrates in prison, to sit and go too easily to one's death, if a moral avenue of escape presents itself.
	On the other hand, one should not delude oneself into thinking that one is always going to be able to make a clean getaway.  How does one deal with a Hitler?
	Consistency requires that even a Hitler is worthy of one's sacrifice, if one's sacrifice can offer some small hope of showing him the error of his ways.  Even a Hitler, after all, is a child of God, regardless of the scope of his atrocities and his delusions. 
	If God is all-powerful, God can and will salvage all persons.  Can our attitude be less forgiving?

	6-31.  One's ethic is found out when one's own welfare or survival is on the line.  What will one do to save oneself--or one's reputation?  Who will one publicly declare to be the villain?  Who will one throw to the dogs?  How will one do all of this?
	The answers given to all of these questions are what distinguish the true pacifist from those who merely talk laboriously of peace, but who are as treacherous as snakes in their interpersonal relations.

	6-32.  Rather than promote peace as some end state, human beings do well if they learn to act and to achieve their more limited goals in the world by peaceable means.  They cannot guarantee thereby that others will do the same, although the strong presumption here is that acting peaceably as individuals is the best single way to promote a similar behavior on the part of others.  
	The motive for acting peaceably must not be so that others will treat one peaceably in return, for that would be a narrowly selfish motive.  Besides, the reaction to pacifist ideals is often hateful and violent, so that what one really must be prepared to do is to travel the path of peace alone: one's peaceableness should not be contingent on the reciprocated peaceableness of others.

	6-33.  The conception of ethics which I am defending can be called an exemplary conception: a conception which, if correct, would bear emulation and universalization in the behavior of all persons.  
	An exemplary conception is also one that would be worthy of being emulated unilaterally, with or without the reciprocation of others: God incarnate would not take a poll before deciding what is the right thing to do, and neither should his children.  Most of all, God incarnate does act unilaterally in the sense that he continues to act benevolently toward his children, no matter how they act toward him or toward each other.
	If God incarnate acts in a unilaterally benevolent fashion toward those who are unworthy, can we (who are the unworthy ones) do otherwise if we think of ourselves as his children?

	6-34.  The most fundamental kind of betrayal is that found in sacrificing another person or group for the sake of oneself or one's group.  Much that goes by the name of "patriotism" is betrayal of one segment of mankind for the sake of the survival of oneself or the group to which one belongs.
	In addition to the term "patriotism," an even more common and inclusive euphemism for betrayal is the so-called "right of self-defense."

	6-35.  The usual (including the statist) way of looking at betrayal is to say that betrayal is the forsaking of one group or person for another.  The pacifistic Christian, whose loyalties are to all persons and not to one group or person at the expense of others, must come up with another, more inclusive, way of looking at the concept of betrayal.  Thus is it necessary to see any sacrifice of another as a form of betrayal, and thus it is necessary to see why it is that what the state calls virtue is really vice: all violence done in the name of "patriotism," "self-defense," or "official duty" is really a form of betrayal.  

	6-36.  The first step in the process of the betrayal of God is to define another person or group as "the enemy."  Once this has been done, thereby imputing inherent evil and worthlessness to the other, the actual act of betrayal comes easily enough: the execution of judgment follows easily from the making of the moral judgment.
	That this process of betrayal occurs everyday, at the level of ordinary interpersonal relationships, should be obvious enough.  Indeed, betrayal begins on a small scale, with the so-called "minor" brutalities which persons commit against one another during everyday life.

	6-37.  One wonders how God feels when one of his children calls another of his children "the enemy."

	6-38.  The so-called "right of self-defense" is one of those concepts which is the product of rationalization.  Like all products of rationalization, the idea of such a "right" is very difficult to break down in the minds of those who have succumbed to it.  Thus a "right of self-defense" is thought by many to be more or less self-evident, perhaps because the primal instinctual urge toward self-preservation is so strong, or else (in truly pathological cases) because other rationalizations have so distorted a person's moral judgment that he or she exaggerates or even imagines the potential threat which another poses.
	Perhaps this latter evil can be seen at its worst in the tendency to scapegoat those who, from a state of moral and psychological distortion, are viewed as sufficiently threatening to one's survival that one must be prepared to exterminate (or at least to banish or incarcerate) them in order to feel secure.  
	The destruction, banishment, or extermination of other individuals or groups--these are what the so-called "right of self-defense" is really all about in practice.

	6-39.  Did Jesus of Nazareth speak of a "right of self-defense," or invoke such a concept in his own behalf?  Did he try, that is, to defend a "right" to do wrong?

	6-40.  What the right course of action is in the face of perceived threat might be very much in opposition to common sense and instinct: the right course of action might be to be disposed to sacrifice oneself for the sake of another, even for another clearly in the wrong.  
	Otherwise, how does one explain the behavior of Jesus of Nazareth?

	6-41.  Jesus of Nazareth sacrificed himself to those who were less worthy than himself, and in so doing communicated in the strongest possible way--with deeds and not merely with words--that the will of God does not require us to save ourselves at any cost, such as by accusing, judging, or coercing others, but requires us instead always to be a living example of the divine altruistic impulse, which can be counter to mere instinct--especially the survival instinct.

	6-42.  Did Jesus of Nazareth save himself from his accusers by engaging in counter-accusation?  Did Jesus save himself from those who threatened him by engaging in counter-threat?
	Why was Jesus almost totally silent before his accusers and before Pilate?

	6-43.  What is counter to instinct seems almost certain to cause some emotional distress.  Yet, one dare not confuse all such distress with a bad conscience.  Otherwise, one will not have the moral courage to do what must be done in those cases where one's sacrifice really is called for, when a given cup refuses to pass.
	6-44.  Without the rational intuition of the divine will, perhaps each of us could live well enough--as animals.  If human beings were animals and nothing more, this possibly would be enough to please God.  Therefore we might justifiably behave as ferociously as the most savage beast if we were attacked, or even remotely threatened, after the manner of truly wild beasts.
	Being neither beasts nor wild, however, human beings cannot justify as acceptable to God that which God might tolerate in other animals at their present stage of development.  Thus it is that human beings are called to aspire to a higher plane of existence, to an ideal which goes beyond the rationalization of the instinctual as "right" or "duty."

	6-45.  Does anyone truly doubt that other animals besides humans are also engaged in the evolution or development of "moral faculties"?

	6-46.  Betrayal can ultimately be understood in its most fundamental sense when it is seen in the simplest kind of social situation--one in which the welfare of one person comes into direct conflict with the welfare of one other person.  Group situations, by contrast, have a way of causing confusion as to the real meaning of betrayal, for the group makes claims upon individuals for violent defense of itself, claims which seem plausible because moral claims about the welfare of all get mixed up with egoistic claims.
	Perhaps that is how persons in most human societies have come to believe that killing for the group is really a virtuous act: the conviction has developed that killing is a thoroughly selfless act, as has the corresponding conviction that a disposition not to kill is a very selfish act.  Nationalistic prattling about a patriotic "duty" to kill in order to preserve the country or other group is the worst kind of double-talk and rationalization imaginable.  
	Individuals may actually help themselves (i.e., act egoistically) two different ways when they kill for the group: they may be really killing for themselves as members of the group, or they may be killing for the approval of the group, or both.  The fact that actual self-sacrifice might occur does not change the egoistic logic of the situation, even if a genuinely altruistic disposition motivates the individual actor in a given case.

	6-47.  If one kills others for the sake of oneself or the group to which one belongs, one betrays Christ, who died for all persons and not merely for one small segment.  
	If one kills one person to preserve oneself, one has also made the judgment that that person is less worthy of existence than oneself, and this is a judgment that is to be left to God alone.  One has, in any case, denied the infinite worth of that person.  

	6-48.  The pacifist who refuses to fight is seen by the patriot to be a traitor to the group, one who shirks or who leaves others in the lurch.  In fact, the principled pacifist simply refuses to betray the larger group of humanity and its Lord who died for all.
	One who calls oneself a "patriot" may well be the traitor to the "nation" of all humankind, the only nation ordained of God.

	6-49.  Pure altruists do not claim a right of self-defense, either individually or collectively.  Not recognizing such a right, they also do not encourage others to defend them through violence or counter-accusation.  Indeed, they discourage others from such a defense of themselves, as Christ implored his disciples not to defend him with the sword.  
	Christ was saddened, however, that his disciples did not stand with him.  Refusing all methods of defending him or sharing his fate was betrayal, as the story of Peter clearly shows.  

	6-50.  When children and those in obvious need of assistance are threatened, extraordinary defensive measures may be called for, such as interposing oneself between them and the threat, so that harm comes only to oneself if escape for all is not possible.  Diversion of aggression from them to oneself is perhaps the recommended way to protect them--and it may be quite effective.  One reason for this is that humans respond to obstacles to their aggression in ways that are similar to beasts: that which stands up to them either discourages the assault or enrages the aggressor and diverts his wrath against the one who interposes himself or herself, thus tending to lead to forgetfulness about the original prey.
	These arguments are not decisive for all cases, of course.  Such a strategy will not always work.  Where it would not work, one has to ask oneself why it is that one might be obligated not to use evil means to come to the assistance of someone in need.  Is it because there is always some creative alternative, or is there simply some categorical prohibition against the use of imperfect means?  Is such a prohibition absolute?  
	Such questions get to the heart of the problem of finding and defending a coherent pacifism.  The only coherent response seems to be the absolute prohibition against returning evil for evil.

	6-51.  "Nationalism" in the conventional sense implies not only allegiance but strict limits to that allegiance.  Expanding the limits of nationhood means holding onto the positive aspect of allegiance or loyalty while expanding the scope of those included in the concept of "nation."  How national boundaries are presently drawn, while not accidental, is nonetheless ethically arbitrary: which nation one is a part of is really a matter of which super-extended family one is a part of, and which family one is a part of is an accident of birth.

	6-52.  The fact that national or familial identity, like bastardy, is an accident of birth ought to alert us to the possibility and desirability of defining our allegiance and loyalty to the largest possible concept of nation, a concept whose limits are not arbitrary or exclusive.  
	The ultimate ideal is allegiance to God and loyalty to all of humankind.  Far from being "impractical," this is in fact the only practicable ideal, for it is the only conception of nationhood not likely to come to fruition in war.

	6-53.  God does not judge groups, references in the Old Testament to a "chosen people" notwithstanding. 
	As it became clearer to religious thinkers that there was no such thing as a nation which was favored in the sight of God to the exclusion of other nations, the whole idea of a divine judgment of nations rather than individuals lost its entire rationale.  Why judge nations if only individuals could be spoken of as having responsibility?  What point, that is, could there be in making claims about the virtue of groups when only individuals can meaningfully be referred to in terms of virtue and vice?
	"Is this the best country?" is a question which can only meaningfully be answered in the context of an attitude of self-exaltation--in this case extended to some group to which one might claim membership.  Since original Christianity forbade such an attitude, it forbade as well such a concern, rendering the question meaningless.

	6-54.  The foundation of peace is ultimately that no one is excluded.  The foundation of peace is also liberty, freedom, for when one is excluded one has only the freedom to starve.  To be outside the group, to be excluded, means that one does not exist in a state of peaceful harmony with those inside the group.  If one is excluded, one has been declared to be a de facto enemy, or at least a non-person.

	6-55.  The foundation of exclusion is judgment, and thus it is that the foundation of war is also judgment, especially that kind of judgment which excludes some as worthy of acceptance while including others.  The nation-state is the largest and most dangerous form of exclusive mutual benefit association (hereafter referred to as an "EMBA").  The nation state, and allegiance to its tenets of exclusivity, is thus the basis of the most destructive form of warfare.
	Perhaps nationalism or its equivalent is the foundation of all warfare: "I am inside; you're out.  I count; you don't.  I am worthy; you are expendable."

	6-56.  "The few, the proud, the Marines."  The message appeals to the worst in human nature, which is appropriate for an organization which exploits children (recruits) and glorifies brutality.
	Is it any accident that that branch of service which most appeals to pride and vanity is also the most likely to be used to defend Hobbes' "King of the Proud," the nation-state?  Here lies a problem: the Corps builds men (or automatons) who are loyal most of all to the Corps, not to the nation, for the Corps is the more exclusive grouping.  If everyone went into the Corps, the appeal of pride would be lost.
	One sees the same exclusivity in educational institutions, of course.  The military has no monopoly on arrogance and social exclusivity.  Educational institutions are also capable of violence, although they are more subtle about it.
	Perhaps that makes them more dangerous.

	6-57.  Hear the sad chant of the Vietnam veterans: "Why do they not honor us for our deeds in war?"
	The Memorial has been built.  The chant continues.  How does one, after all, compensate another for the theft of his or her youth?

	6-58.  How is allegiance to a universal nation possible or practicable?  	Perhaps it is possible to give allegiance to a nation which is in the process of becoming, of coming into being.  Such a nation would be composed of persons who shared enduring core values.  The values of the Christian ideal of the Sermon on the Mount and associated teachings of Christian idealism may be an example of the "nation" which is only coming into being, for it is not a nation that one expects to see achieving its universalist potential in one's lifetime.  It is nonetheless a valid object of allegiance in this life, provided that allegiance to its principles is not seen as an excuse for limiting one's loyalty to only that segment of humanity which believes as one does.  
	Otherwise, one's pretensions to universality would only come to fruition in the worst kind of ethnocentric exclusivity: religious bigotry.

	6-59.  Concepts such as "citizen" and "member" are implicit judgments of exclusivity.  To the extent, that is, that some are labeled as citizens or members, others automatically are not.  There follows an inevitable tendency among those who are among the officialdom of both realms to grant certain rights or make certain claims on behalf of those who are official "persons" in both realms.  
	Those who are excluded, and who are thus denied certain attributes of personhood by virtue of denial of certain rights, are thus for all intents and purposes "non-persons," beings who are treated as if they were lacking in certain of the attributes associated with personhood and rational autonomy.  The important point, of course, is not any claim that anyone is actually lacking in certain rights, but merely that they are treated as if they were. 

	6-60.  The state may profitably be viewed as an "EMBA," an exclusive mutual benefit association, or even an interest group writ large.  Only those who contribute to the state and who give a more or less exclusive allegiance to it are deemed to be eligible for the benefits which it bestows.  The state can thus be seen to be enforcing loyalty through its threat of exclusion and denial of benefits to those who refuse to grant it obeisance.  
	Such is the nature of "protection rackets": those whom they do not protect they tend to destroy.

	6-61.  The state is a jealous god, withholding its severest penalties for those who affirm that loyalty to God has priority over loyalty to the state and its laws.  Usually, of course, the state manages to co-opt potential religious objectors.
	The means by which this cooptation typically occurs is by convincing the citizenry that legal obligation is the locus of all moral obligation.  At other times, the state (in collusion with ecclesiastical authorities) propounds the doctrine of dual or parallel loyalty (Protestantism), or the idea that the state, subordinate to the church, is still in the service of God and thus in the chain of command from God (Catholicism).

	6-62.  By placing legal obligation at the locus of all moral obligation, the state manages to usurp the title of Sovereign or Most High: God had better not get in the way.  So clever is the way of thinking by which earthly rulers have duped their underlings (and themselves: this is no conspiracy theory) that persons are made to feel guilty if they do not consult the state before acting.  It is true that the U.S. Constitution has come closer than all previous legal constitutions to exploding the myth that rights come from the state.  It has done this through its almost unknown Ninth Amendment3 which affirms that there may be rights which exist whether or not the government recognizes them or not.  This is by far the most radical element in the U.S. Constitution, and when the time is ripe it will perhaps bring the next wave of significant constitutional interpretation and amendment.
	At present the Ninth Amendment serves to remind us that the source of rights (and of right) is not in the U.S. Constitution or any body of man-made law but in some higher law of nature or nature's God.  When that idea has reached its maturity, the Ninth Amendment will not have merely changed the U.S. Constitution: it will have helped demythologize it to the point that it will be seen to be totally superfluous and obsolete.
	Or does one think instead that societal perfection will come through perfecting the legal system and its coercive sanctions backed up by the threat of violence?

	6-63.  Breathes there a man with soul so dead who has never felt that the entire world is or ought to be his home, his native land?  Is there anyone who has not chafed at the limits of experience and fellowship promoted by the culture of nationalism?
	The irony of nationalism, of course, is that it is a transnational phenomenon.  It is transnational without being international. 

	6-64.  Collectivities have ways of preserving their exclusivity, of course, and one of these is the practice of conferring honor on those whose actions preserve the exclusive collectivity.  Another way is to confer blame and denigration upon those whose actions are a challenge to that exclusive collectivity.  Typically the collectivity is the state, but it can also be the local Rotary Club, a graduating class, or any other group which defines itself in exclusive terms.  
	The horror which seems to go unnoticed is how deliberate and manipulative are most schemas of both approbation and condemnation.

	6-65.  When the state honors its killers while never memorializing those on the "other side" who are killed by them, it affirms the Greatest Lie: the idea that only its people are valuable in the eyes of God.  In the domestic realm, this kind of chauvinism exalts the police, not the military, but the basic ethical problem is the same: someone is being either banished or destroyed so that someone else might live and prosper without inconvenience.
	And this is thought to be moral.

	6-66.  The violence employed to enforce exclusivity may not be physical violence.  It may be psychological, taking its typical form in a kind of symbolic ritual of banishment--being incarcerated, fired, or denied membership.
	Whether the violence be symbolic or substantive, however, it is manifested as exclusion, which presupposes a de facto judgment of unworthiness.  Such judgments are the essence of barbarism. 

	6-67.  Let those who would exalt nationalism remember to extend its bounds to include all persons, and then it will not have as its obverse the tendency to stigmatize the outsider: the "alien," the "foreigner," the "Jew," or some other group or individual which feels the irrational and hateful reaction of the group sooner or later.
	6-68.  In any social contract theory, the state can best be viewed as an exclusive mutual benefit association.  As with any such association, one either is a member or one is not. Some ruling order must, of course, be able to make the determination of membership.  Since benefits and privileges can be withheld on the judgment of the ruling order, it is not meaningless to say that those whose benefits are withheld are treated as if they had no rights, and thus as if they were not "official persons."
	An even graver problem with social contract theory is that claims of right or justice are based upon perceived group (or national) self-interest.  The result is that the ideal of "patriotism" becomes the rather sordid one of self-interest writ large.  Loyalty to the group becomes just another expression of self-interest, since compliance comes to be based upon a recognition that exclusion could mean the end of all benefits: thus the ultimate sanction is not even a limited altruism, but fear.
	This emphasis upon fear as a social regulator (in this case the fear of exclusion) goes to the heart of my claim that the state is the ultimate "protection racket," for all protection rackets depend finally upon terror.

	6-69.  The state as exclusive mutual benefit association (the contractualist view) typically limits its ethical concern to those who are members: it is not unfair to see the state on this contractualist view as a huge country club with incredibly elaborate restrictions.  Social contract theory in practice thus becomes de facto bigotry: the basis for exclusion becomes almost reducible to the place of one's birth, surely as arbitrary a criterion as skin color, religion, language, or any of the many other bases for exclusion on a smaller scale.
	"Rules of immigration" become in fact restrictions governing membership, and, as with all such exclusive associations, those who can offer the most to the group are the more likely to be admitted, and those who have the least to offer but are most in need are the more likely to be rejected: the poor, the uneducated, the diseased.  Those least in need are admitted, and those most in need tend to be rejected.  Membership is never universal on any contractualist view, of course, since the whole point of any mutual benefit association is the distribution of entitlements, and universal membership threatens a dilution of entitlements for those who already belong.
	The guiding principle is not altruism, but "reciprocity," which is nothing but reciprocated egoism.

	6-70.  Property being the first raison d'Ltre of any mutual benefit association, those who found a statist association can be expected to agree to arrangements which ensure their own healthy share.  Significant others (including those immigrants who can make a contribution through their cheap labor or professional services) are invited to join for the sake of strengthening the association economically and politically (akin in some ways to selling shares in a corporation to stabilize it at the risk of diluting its assets).  Beyond a certain point, however, the inclusion of new members obviously does not make the association more wealthy or secure, but less, and so acceptance and inclusion become increasingly more limited.  At every point, of course, the "national interest" is invoked to justify rationales of exclusion, so that those who support the pristine status of the association (state) are honored as being the true "patriots," those who are working for the "common good."  The "common good" unfortunately does not extend to all persons, of course, but only to those who are members.
	Such is the general egoistic legacy of social contract theory, the morality and logic of which seem to many persons to be very nearly self-evident.  Contract theory does seem, however, to be counter to the very principles of universal charity and concern which made Christianity such a radical force in its infancy.

	6-71.  Patriotism is typically defined as loyalty to one's country.  To the extent, however, that loyalty to one's country implies the absence of loyalty to other human beings outside one's country, then patriotism is nothing more than a kind of egoism: the self writ large.  The automatic anger that most persons feel when one of their own countrymen (or an ally) is attacked, at the same time that they remain indifferent to attacks on those not of (or allied with) their own country, indicates a kind of identification with countrymen combined with an indifference toward the welfare of others with whom one does not identify.  
	This simultaneous combination of apathy and outrage is characteristic of all chauvinistic impulses.

	6-72.  The process of identification with others is hardly evil: it is the moral foundation of family sentiments and fellow feeling for other human beings.  The problem is the kind of socialization which encourages it to be limited to some group smaller than the entire race of humanity.
	Loyalty in and of itself is, of course, a virtue.  Thus is the concept of "patriotism" usually thought to connote virtue.  The problem in real human situations, however, is that those who are vying for our loyalties are often (typically?) trying to recruit us to join or identify with one group in lieu of another: they wish us to take sides for (or advance) one group (of which they are, of course, a part) against some other group which threatens their positions of power, privilege, or prestige.

	6-73.  The problem with patriotism as a general virtue is that it is typically invoked at just those times that battle lines are being drawn, or else it is taught in terms of loyalty to one group in anticipation of threat to that group by some other group.  Thus the very "institution" of instilling patriotism qua nationalism is socialization for war, for it trains us to limit our perspective and moral concern only to those most like us--and to be prepared to oppress or destroy those who are different.

	6-74.  What is true of patriotism is likewise true of the concept of "solidarity," and woe to that person who believes that he or she can be accepted as neutral in a labor-management dispute.  If one tries to remain neutral, on the premise that taking sides does not promote the process of problem-solving, then one is automatically branded as traitorous.  
	This tendency toward banishment of the "neutral" or the pacifist is the most marked in all-out war, of course, especially after the opposing group or country has indeed committed atrocities.  To try to put these atrocities in perspective (by comparing them with the atrocities being committed by one's own group) is often interpreted as an attempt to minimize them or even to try to justify the actions of the "enemy," when in fact one's only goal is to try to reduce the polarizing tensions which exacerbate the conflict and lead to escalation.  
	When one tries to encourage persons to try to see things from the "other side's" point of view, one is, of course, open to the charge of "giving aid and comfort to the enemy."  This tendency is evident not only in international warfare, but in small group conflicts, such as post-divorce family squabbles and labor-management disputes.
	What all of these polarizing disputes have in common is competition for the loyalties of fellow "hate-mates."
	6-75.  The transnational perspective of Christianity ought to encourage the clear distinction between a Christian and a nationalistic perspective, but of course the distinction is not typically thought to be a valid one: thus do many churches have a "Christian flag" (whatever that is) displayed at the same time that they have a U.S. flag displayed.  They fail to see that, in a very essential sense, the claims of Christianity and the claims of nationalism are not only contingently opposed but necessarily opposed: it is one thing to cooperate with the state when its purposes are worthy, but it is quite another thing to identify with the state to the exclusion of loyalty to persons in other states.  

	6-76.  In the era of state nationalism, patriotism has tended toward a group psychosis deriving from a sense of impotence and lack of self-esteem on the part of more and more individuals.  Nationalism has become the glorification of power and force.  
	Not long ago, I had the personal misfortune of starting the day by turning on the television just in time to see and hear a U.S. Air Force presentation of the national war anthem, accompanied by all manner of Air Force weaponry.  This particular sequence was particularly unfortunate, however, for it ended with a beautiful profile of an advanced aircraft flying steadily along above the clouds in a scene of total serenity and peacefulness--interrupted suddenly at the end when the plane began to bank, displaying rather ostentatiously two missiles, one on each wingtip.  The picture was frozen, so that the last thing seen during the last bars of the national war anthem was the very pointed claim that the reason for the peaceful scene just witnessed was the missiles which had previously been hidden from view.
	Why the Air Force produces such patriotic vignettes for early and late night viewing is obvious enough: it intends further to indoctrinate the public with the view that the road to peace is paved with weaponry and preparedness of war.  It also further cultivates the image (in the crassest kind of way) of itself as the guardian of the rest of us--and therefore as our greatest group of heroes.  Were this simply Air Force public relations and rather devious lobbying for more defense dollars through the "public service" of providing tapes of the anthem for television stations everywhere, it would be obnoxious enough.  Unfortunately, it is more than that: it is a manifestation of the neurotic obsession with power by the military mind.  It is also self-glorification of the worst kind.  
	If the militaristic trend of the late twentieth century continues, this nation could become by far the most dangerous on the face of the globe, if it is not already.

	6-77.  As a form of pride, chauvinistic patriotism can best be exorcised by replacement with a sense of gratitude, not to the state or its founders, but to God from whom all blessings flow.  Patriotism is false religion of the worst kind, wholly incompatible with the humble, transnational message of equality before God.  To crow about the blessings of being an American is not to express gratitude so much as it is to exult in the good fortune which one enjoys, all too often a fruit of the exploitation of some (such as slaves, former slaves, and immigrants) or the extermination of others, such as the native inhabitants.
	It is ironic that the original inhabitants of this land were apparently more reverential toward the land than those who came in the name of "responsible Christian stewardship."

	6-78.  In spite of the fact that almost all societies differentiate between those who "belong" and those who do not, it is certainly conceivable that societies could exist which would welcome others totally and without reservation--and who thus in some sense would be capable of universalizing their own identity and membership to include all of humankind. 
	Another way of saying this is that it is possible to conceive of a society which had no limitations either on diversity OR on citizenship: all would be accepted.

	6-79.  If a society existed without limitations on citizenship, we should say that such a society did not "exclude," was not "exclusive."  What would be the logical preconditions of such a society?
	The only totally non-exclusive society conceivable would unfortunately be one based on a perfect consensus of basic values: there would be no barriers to acceptance because everyone basically thought alike.  Such a society is not a practical likelihood, of course, but it would be at least theoretically conceivable.  What is not so obviously conceivable, even theoretically, would be a society which tolerated totally divergent values but which still had no barriers to full and equal acceptance throughout all subunits of that society.  
	The theoretical limitation to such a conception is made obvious in the hypothetical case as to how a group which practiced human sacrifice could possibly be granted full acceptance (in any meaningful sense) in a society whose other members all believed in the absolute sanctity of human life.
	The example seems far-fetched, but it does remind us that the barriers to full and equal citizenship (that is, the foundations of exclusivity) seem to be ultimately reducible to lack of consensus on basic values: cultural differences.  Therefore, one may say that the first precondition of a truly non-exclusive, transnational society would be that there would have to be a consensus on some core basic values.  That being so, the first order of business for social and political philosophy must be the determination of what values are truly universal: what goods or principles of right are ordained of God.
	In this country, it is generally thought that the core values which can persist are the procedural democratic values which allow persons peacefully to agree to disagree.  Yet, this very belief is at the crux of the civil religion of American democracy.  As powerful a force as this consensus on legal procedure and basic rights is, it is still not sufficient.  We shall have to proceed to a different constitutional foundation if we expect to realize the truly just society.
	The United States will not soon attain this state of true justice because Americans seem to be complacent and blind to the inherent defects of the existing system.  Those who do not seek will not find.

	6-80.  If a genuine moral consensus--and not mere "toleration"--is an absolute precondition for a perfectly non-exclusive society, then the first order of political business in the quest for a totally non-exclusive society would be a corresponding attempt to forge a genuine, voluntary consensus on such values--a consensus based not on convention or blind acceptance, but on true moral understanding across an entire society.  It does not seem likely that such a society could ever come into being in this life, but that is no reason that one cannot work toward it.  Even existing societies are true communities only to the extent that they have made at least some progress toward the goal of a valid and meaningful consensus.
	The irony of all this is that, without the norm of toleration, the exchange of ideas necessary for the emergence of a true consensus would not occur.  The prime political virtue for the non-exclusive society must therefore ironically still be the virtue of toleration.  Such a virtue would not only make it possible to work toward a true consensus--it would also allow for a high degree of acceptance and community where the consensus remains highly imperfect.  

	6-81.  One may hope that cultural diversity and non-exclusivity are not totally incompatible values, since a non-exclusive society bought at the price of total homogeneity of all values would seem to be a very dreary ideal toward which to strive.
	Perhaps the point must be that there are certain values which have universal validity, whether persons recognize their validity or not, whereas there are other values which do not and need not have such universal truth or acceptance: they are simply a matter of personal or ethnic taste.  We should exalt both types of values, but first we have to know in which category a particular value really does fall--the category of universal truth, or the category of mere taste and convention.

	6-82.  The original Christian vision (revised almost immediately by Paul) was of a society constituted on the ethical ideal of tolerance and non-judgment of others, simultaneously combined with strong appeals to particular ethical claims as to that which was absolutely right or "best" among competing ethical values. 
	Thus there was the paradox of the original Christian vision: one could be enjoined to love one's enemies without embracing their values.  Thus could one be enjoined to be tolerant of (even gentle with) the offender without yet embracing the offensive practice.
	Such a vision of society seems to have been revised so early that nominal Christianity can be seen to have been universalist only in its evangelical mission: it wanted everyone to belong, but it tended in practice to specify certain terms of membership and thus immediately backed away from the goal of universality in the direction of exclusivity.
	The formal organization of Christianity led to the dilution of its core tenets.  The voluntaristic ideal succumbed to the coercive methods of the state, and "Christians" ever since have not hesitated to force certain of their values down the throats of others.  Other core values--those of peace and non-judgment--were lost sight of in the process.
	This is the essential failing of organized Christianity.
	6-83.  One thing that one absolutely must insist upon with regard to the fact of cultural diversity in the face of a quest for genuine consensus and the non-exclusive society is that, where significant cultural differences do exist, one cannot use force, violence, snubbing, or banishment in order to try to create unity out of diversity.
	The Christian message is quite clear on this point: the means one uses must be as pure as the end one envisages.  This is where nominal Christianity has failed to live up to the non-judgmental, transnational, and non-violent ideal of Jesus of Nazareth: it has tried to implement a literal Kingdom of Heaven through a combination of social ostracization and the sword.

	6-84.  It is possible to define the Christian church in such a way that it is indeed circumscribed by certain doctrinal beliefs (the content of which can be considered to be a matter of continuing dispute), at the same time that it holds to the even more central ethical belief that literally all persons should be treated as God's children, as members of humanity, even as they might not yet be considered to be members of the church as defined by adherence to certain beliefs.
	I believe that it is fair to say that some such paradox of simultaneous exclusivity and universality of membership was not so much the original ideal as it was the original reality of the early church.  There was thus the very real paradox of separateness from the world combined with unity or brotherhood with the world.  These two ideals existed simultaneously in Christian thought and organization, and what still tends to distinguish certain variants of Christianity from one another has been the relative emphasis placed on one value at the expense of the other.
	The true Christian community must affirm both, thus accepting the tension between them without surrendering to a vacuous universalism, on the one hand, or to an oppressive enforced homogeneity, on the other.  Christianity has coped no better with this problem in terms of its own self-definition than it has in terms of reconciling itself with those who are total non-believers, but who are thus entitled to all of the privileges of community and beneficence.

	6-85.  As for the concept of "privilege" itself, consider its roots in the Latin words for "private" and "law."  As Christianity either made its peace with the state or else organized itself in more or less statist fashion, the various "Christian" organizations, both Protestant and Catholic, tended toward exclusion: nominal Christianity, that is, has tended to be characterized as a great variety of EMBA's, exclusive mutual benefit associations.
	This tendency toward elitism and exclusivity has been the greatest for mainstream Protestant groups, which have clannish tendencies in their congregations.  The message of universality has, by contrast, been the great driving force for the Catholic Church and for the larger Protestant denominations.  On the other hand, too ready a universalism on the part of the Catholic Church and the large evangelical Protestant denominations has required too strong an endorsement of the civil order, with a corresponding watering down of core ethical tenets as the price of universal acceptance.
	I see no easy practical resolution of this problem: one can empathize with both broad traditions, since one sees the value of insisting upon the stringency of certain doctrinal tenets (and thus risking exclusivity) at the same time that one can see the value of promoting greater universality, sometimes at the cost of doctrinal integrity.
	The two largest groups in this country, Roman Catholics and evangelical Protestants, have tended to emphasize inclusiveness, sometimes at the cost of anti-intellectualism and of being all things for all persons.  The goal must continue to be to affirm the value of universalism without becoming some kind of "lowest common denominator" of belief systems and core values.
	Attainment of this goal is difficult enough at the level of individual ethical action.  It seems to be very nearly impossible at the level of organized entities. 

	6-86.  The institutionalization of Christianity, intended to promote Christianity, in reality actually served to dilute its ethical impact.  A nominal Christianity was the result, and the church as the (potentially infinite) spiritual body of Christ gave way to the idea of church as finite, exclusive organization.  In spite of this bureaucratization (a statist or political tendency), "churches" in this diluted sense could be and often were instruments of good will and benevolence to outsiders.  
	It is clear enough, however, that these nominally Christian organizations were also often the opposite: instruments of hatred, bigotry, and horror.  Such was the consequence of failing to face up to and deal with the paradox of membership and exclusivity: the so-called "churches" all too often became state-like instruments of human judgment rather than of divine salvation (in the practical, down-to-earth sense of rescuing those who had fallen afoul of the social and political order).
	6-87.  What possible justification can there be for accepting the prevailing limits on loyalty?  Why not insist from the outset that one is a citizen of the world first and a citizen of this country second (if at all)?  Why not insist that, no, indeed, there is absolutely no rational reason to assume that an American is more valuable than a member of any other nationality?  Why accept without comment or challenge the common indictment of "unpatriotic" which almost invariably follows one's attempt to define oneself as equal to--but no better than--the member of some other group or nationality in the eyes of God?  
	Is God an American?

	6-88.  What is this nonsense called "patriotism"?  It is loyalty to a "fatherland" (from patrios, "forefathers," which in turn is from pater for "father").  Well, if all persons have one Father, and if all land or lands belong to Him--and if no person can serve more than one master--then loyalty to some exclusive segment of humanity in lieu of loyalty to all of humanity is not only arbitrary and nonsensical from an ethical point of view: it is wrong.  It is also not truly "patriotic."  The best patriot (if one insists upon the use of the word) is the patriot whose father is God, and whose fatherland is God's creation. 

	6-89.  Parallel loyalties to God and the state are not possible: dual loyalty would be possible only if God were sovereign and the state were his agent.  This unfortunately seems to be the conventional view: it is the entering wedge of statism and conventional patriotism, the seeds of war.

	6-90.  When the state serves divine ends with divine means, then and only then can it be obeyed without reservation.  At such times, however, it is not really the state in any meaningful sense.

	6-91.  Although "citizenship" as the term is commonly used implies exclusivity, the concept of citizenship is not an inherently statist, nationalistic, or exclusivist concept.  One can, after all, reasonably think of oneself as a citizen of the world, emphasizing the fact that one is a member of humankind.  One would, of course, have to affirm one's unconditional acceptance of all persons before one could speak of a non-exclusive, non-statist grouping, no matter what its size.  If the implication of being a citizen of the world is that no one is excluded from one's loyalties, then it also follows that one does not exclude anyone from one's obligations, for loyalty implies obligation: if one is loyal to all persons, then one has obligations to all persons.
	Even where such obligations are negative (such as in the requirement not to kill or harm another), they are nonetheless significant.  In fact, of course, we have many positive transnational obligations of a humanitarian nature.  We could feed and otherwise assist persons all over the world, if only we could learn that the best way to do it is not at the point of a gun.

	6-92.  It is necessary to emphasize obligations when speaking of loyalties, because loyalty is a de facto way of describing the limits of one's sense of obligation: the limits of one's loyalties are the limits of one's obligations.  If there is no theoretical or practical limit to one's loyalties, then there is no theoretical or practical limit to one's obligations.
	An unconditional, universal citizenship thus implies a perfectly altruistic orientation, for a perfect altruism implies no limits to obligation except those limitations inherent in one's capacities.

	6-93.  To say that one is loyal to one state is really the same thing as saying that one feels a special force of obligation towards those who are members--citizens--of that state.  To the extent that one has a greater loyalty to some, one is presumed to have a lesser loyalty to others.  Although statists might recognize some general responsibility to others who are not citizens, they will at best emphasize that this responsibility is a lesser obligation, and at worst they will say that it is not an "obligation" at all.  One's responsibilities, where they exist on such a view, are not seen as "duty," but as what ethical deontologists call "supererogation," a concept born of the presupposition that virtue and attention to duty are not synonymous--a point of view derived ultimately from contractualist modes of thinking.

	6-94.  The state claims to secure our liberties and otherwise to protect us.  To the extent that we can be said to have made a deal or contract with the state, it is a rather Faustian bargain.
	The state offers "protection" in the same way that gangs offer protection: if you do not join the club, you not only will not get protection, but you will also have bad things happen to you.  These "bad things" may be overt, as in the case of gang beatings (as is the case for those who vocally challenge state authority in street demonstrations), or these "bad things" may be less overt but nonetheless real, as in the deprivation which comes with the withholding of those "privileges" which the state (like all clubs) extends to its members but denies to non-members.  Among these privileges, of course, are the rights to work and to eat.
	"Aliens" are, of course, denied these except as the state as collective and exclusive grouping deigns to drop them a few crumbs--for its own benefit, not for theirs.

	6-95.  If one joins or is otherwise accepted by the state "family" or "club," one will indeed receive its protection, within limits.  Yet, one's godfather the state will almost inevitably call upon one at some later date to reciprocate the favor, to perform one of its filthier services--being a party to the incarceration or extermination of some misbegotten member of humanity who has fallen afoul of the "family."
	If one is not obliging in returning the favor, the state (a variant of organized crime on a massive scale, after all) may indeed make one an offer one cannot refuse.  Since the state is a criminal association, a legalized "protection racket," the question for all of us is how we are to get free of it with both soul and body intact.

	6-96.  Once more, Da Capo:  If one's emergent country is all of  humankind, then whom would one kill in defense of it?  One of its own citizens?

				

CHAPTER SEVEN

A THEOLOGICAL METAPHYSIC
OF PACIFISM 

	7-1.  I have assumed that God is the ultimate source of all good, and that God is universally good, or omnibenevolent.
	If this assumption is valid, then it follows logically enough that God is incapable of any evil thing, including simple retribution, for retribution implies not only requiting good for good, but evil for evil.  That is, divine justice is not in the least retributive but is instead totally good and thus always forgiving.  Thus do we see the solution to the ancient riddle as to how God can be both infinitely just and infinitely merciful at the same time: God's justice is mercy, forgiveness, and everything else that follows from its core of unconditional benevolence.  All of this follows from the assumption of the omnibenevolence of God.
	God, as the author of all good and of no evil, would be as incapable of doing evil as he would of lying.  An omnibenevolent God would thus be constrained to use only good means in order to achieve his good ends.  God could therefore never retribute evil for evil, even for the sake of the most perfect end: God could not retribute evil for evil, even if the offense were against himself or against the most innocent of his children.  
	Does this imply limitations of divine power?  Does the claim of the omnibenevolence of God contradict the idea of an omnipotent God?  The answer is in the negative, but only if it is also assumed that good is more powerful than evil: in foregoing evil means, God relinquishes no power, for evil means do not have the power to promote lasting good.

	7-2.  A statist, retributive conception of justice, in comparison with divine justice, must entail the requirement to requite good for good acts, and evil for evil acts.  So conceived, God and the state embody different conceptions of justice.
	The retributive state cannot be the agent of the non-retributive God, for nothing that acts in an evil capacity could be ordained of a God who cannot do any evil.  Moreover, since by definition there can be only one sovereign, we must choose between divine and statist conceptions of justice, and thus between allegiance to God and to the violent, retributive state.
	Along the same line, belief in a non-retributive God forces one to reconceptualize the concept of a just peace: a just peace is one wherein the social order is achieved and maintained only by just means.  Since the conception of "just" or "justice" used here is a non-retributive conception, then the idea of "just means" would therefore preclude any act of war, violence, or threat of such.

	7-3.  From metaphysical assumptions we can go directly to ethical conclusions.  We can also go to the central problems of political theory, such as the morality of war and punishment, or the problem of the conflict between legal and moral obligation.  From a divine metaphysic, that is, we may derive conclusions of an ethical nature relating to the larger society:
	First, since war and punishment are inherently evil, we must conclude that they could not be sanctioned by the God of perfect goodness.
	Second, since sovereignty is indivisible, we must choose divinely-sanctioned individual conscience over the laws of the state as the locus of our moral obligation.
	Third, since retributive means are inherently unjust, a just peace is a peace that is achieved and maintained by perfectly non-retributive means.
	I have said earlier that a secular reduction of Christian ethics is impossible.  Since political philosophy is a branch of ethics or moral philosophy, I hope that the remarks above indicate as well that a secular reduction of the problems of political philosophy is likewise impossible.

	7-4.  In addition to the assumption of the omnibenevolence of God, I have also assumed in this work that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah.  Defending this metaphysical claim is very difficult, even more difficult than defending the assumption of the omnibenevolence of God.  	For the moment I only ask the sceptical reader to assume that Jesus believed that he was the Messiah.  Even the assumption that he so believed is not, however, without its problems: there is admittedly the possibility or even likelihood that those who might have embellished the story of his life with regard to incidentals also falsely attributed to Jesus religious claims that he did not make, or attributed to him powers that he did not have. 
	It is therefore possible that one might try to develop a pacifist ethic independent of all claims about the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth, while yet starting from the ethical insights attributed to Jesus of Nazareth.  This would be quite reasonable, of course, but the problem with such an approach is that some of the most powerful ethical messages in the New Testament are so intimately tied up with religious claims that the force of Jesus' ethical claims would be weakened greatly if one had to conclude that he did not believe in his own divinity.  
	For example, the story of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, "the foal of a beast of burden," loses all of its force if it is merely the story of a man choosing a donkey as his means of locomotion: the whole point of the story seems to have been that here was a man who not only believed that he was the Messiah, but who also believed that it was not appropriate for even the Messiah to ride into Jerusalem on the white steed of a conquering military hero--a ruler in the usual sense.  Here was a conception of the Messiah, that is, as one who came not to conquer and destroy, but to save; not to rule in the conventional sense, but to serve (more precisely, to rule by serving).
	Another example would be the account in Matthew where Jesus is being defended with the sword by one of his disciples against the mob Judas has led into the Garden of Gethsemane.  Jesus is reputed to have said, "Put away your sword, for all who live by the sword will die by the sword.  Do you think that I could not pray to my Father to provide me with twelve legions of angels?" (Matthew 26:52-53)  The interesting thing is that only the first part of this passage is typically quoted, whereas it in is the second part that Jesus clearly drives home the point that his methods are going to be different from those of all secular rulers.
	He might have said it another way without any loss of meaning: "If I am who I say I am, do you think that I could not be delivered from this unruly mob?  And, do you think, if force were the way that the world might be saved, that I could not muster as many troops as might be required?"  His deliberate choice not to use violence is here linked in the most direct way with a claim to his divinity: an all-powerful God could certainly have more destructive force at his disposal than all secular rulers, if such force were the means of saving the human race.
	If Jesus had not believed in his own divinity, then these two powerful passages--one involving his entry into Jerusalem on a donkey and the other involving his repudiation of the sword--would not be included in the account of his life.  These two most powerful ethical messages against domination and violence, that is, are linked directly to theological claims.  Again one can see why no secular reduction of Christian ethics is possible without great loss of force of the teachings themselves.  The conclusion is inescapable: if the accounts are even roughly accurate, Jesus definitely did at least believe that he was the Messiah.

	7-5.  It seems reasonable to conclude, as so many have done, that a person who actually believed himself to be the Messiah was either that which he claimed, or else that he was quite mad.  Therefore, if I have indeed offered a rational reconstruction of the political thought of Jesus of Nazareth, the question is whether the pacifistic belief system which I have attributed to him is also mad, the product of a deranged mind.
	That is, is it madness always to return good for evil, or to assume that God always does so as well?  The question is a reasonable one, given the obvious practical difficulties with the pacifist position.  One might, after all, conclude that one who offered opposing ideas, such as Nietzsche, was really sane while Jesus of Nazareth was utterly mad.

	7-6.  Why is Jesus of Nazareth not included in the usual anthologies of social and political philosophers?  Why are the secondary sources of Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, or Calvin included instead?  Perhaps my secularist colleagues could deign to answer this question.  Could it be because the latter four all justified the violent, coercive state and its practices of war and punishment, whereas Jesus was against the horrible practices that define the state?
	As I have tried to show, even the fragments of Jesus' thought which we have inherited demonstrate a very coherent underlying belief system, and there is no question but that these teachings have enormous relevance for the morality of the social practices which lie at the core of political theory.  Indeed, his teachings are a political theory, although one that is not held in wide repute among most political theorists: most political theorists are defenders of the barbaric practices of war and punishment.  Political theory in its most common manifestations is thus a very reactionary enterprise, and still political theorists marvel that they are not taken seriously in the mainstream of political science.
	Have we so conveniently pigeonholed religious questions that we have made the issue of the nature of God and his message irrelevant to all practical affairs?  Is the message of Nietzsche, whose works are in the sacred canon of political theory, more relevant to morality and public affairs than the message of Jesus of Nazareth?

	7-7.  I have affirmed belief in the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth as the foundation of all other arguments since I believe that the true persuasive force is not to be found so much in the formal teachings of Jesus as in his example: what we ultimately want to know from trying to reconstruct his ideas is something about the personhood of Christ.
	 The overall picture of Jesus of Nazareth that seems to emerge is that of a man so gentle and kind, and whose life and death are recounted in a manner so generally consistent with his teachings, that I find it difficult to believe that the story could have been fabricated (although I do believe there to be some historical inaccuracies in the accounts which have come down). 
	This is not to say that it is inconceivable that either the teachings or the account of his deeds could have been fabricated.  If so, however, it seems unlikely that the teachings and the life could have meshed so perfectly.  There still remains the possibility, of course, that both the life and the teachings could have been fabricated.  Yet, anyone who would have had the moral vision to conceive of such an ethical system and such a perfect life could not have had the moral depravity to have offered such a lie.

	7-8.  To the extent that the Christian ethical teachings support and complement the religious claims, it is not incorrect to say that both are defended here together, and I admit that it is not always clear which is assumption and which is conclusion.  Even so, I cannot deny that it could turn out to be the case that the specific ethical and religious claims might finally stand or fall separately.  All that I am saying here is that I doubt that that could ever be the case.  If I should turn out to be mistaken in my religious views, however, I still hope that the attempt to offer this particular version of an ethical system in the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth will turn out to have had its uses, if only as a corrective for much of what is wrong with modern Christianity and its glib mixing of religious teachings with the more pervasive--and still dominant--civil religion.

	7-9.  If there is a God, then we should certainly want to know as much about that God as possible.  The problem of the epistemology of religious belief is a problem for another chapter, and so here I will simply say that we must assume something about the existence and nature of God if we are going to be able to live meaningful lives.  Agnosticism risks nothing and everything at once: it is a cowardly approach to the existential experiment of life, the worst kind of fence-sitting in the face of a critical conflict of ideas and of choices for action.
	Surely even the most cynical sceptic must acknowledge that, if there is a God, that fact must be of some significance.  If God is the source of all goodness, we should certainly want to try to know God and emulate the divine goodness.  In our present condition, however, we do not even know to what spirit we belong; we think as human beings think, not as God thinks, and this impels us to tend to want to destroy our enemies rather than to assist, rescue, or redeem them.  If we would be guided by the Spirit of God, fully realizing our moral autonomy and self-control manifested in benevolent action, then surely we must try to learn something about the thoughts of God.  The Spirit of Peace cannot dwell in us, and thus guide us or cure us, if we do not think like God.
	7-10.  We must never lose sight of the linkage between spirit and thought: our motivations derive from our thoughts.  If we push aside the divine way of thinking, then our motivations are driven by unregulated passions and appetites.  Since these unregulated passions and appetites are the greatest threat to a peaceful order, we who would aspire to both a peaceful and a voluntary society must strive to know the mind of God, the thoughts of God, and to encourage others to do likewise.
	To what do we turn to know about God and to know the thoughts of God?

	7-11.  The truth about God and about ethics is not codified in the Bible: it is almost certainly trying to escape the pages of the Bible and the scholarly and ecclesiastical traditions which have created and stood guard over the Bible.  
	We must be careful not to confuse faith in God with faith in the Bible.  The Bible is sometimes, perhaps often, wrong.  God never is.  The Great Lie of most of organized religion is the claim that God inspired literally every word in the Bible.  Although this claim is never adequately defended, it persists with a stubbornness which defies explanation.
	Could it be that persons do not want to think for themselves?  What if it should be the case that learning to do precisely that is the ultimate reason for the trials of this life?  When we see or endure evil for no apparent purpose, we must ask what is in the mind of God.  What, that is, is he trying to teach us in a particular situation?
	We may take comfort from the fact that he never desires to destroy us, but to salvage us from our errors and to restore us to happiness and wholeness.

	7-12.  An omniscient God, by definition, can never be wrong.  Yet, if God is never wrong, then he never has to change his mind: his will is eternal.  What then are we to make of the doctrine of two laws or "testaments," one old and one new?
	One cannot have it both ways: either God and his will (or law) are unchanging, or they are not.  If they are unchanging, then it is only human understanding of God and God's will which has changed.  Biblical inerrantism is thus most fundamentally at variance with the idea of an unchanging God: God, say the inerrantists, gave us two laws.  	Is their God a God of shifting sand, or a reed blowing in the wind?  What kind of Rock is this, that metamorphoses over time?  What claim has it for being eternal if it does not differ from the physical creation which is all about us?
	The biblical inerrantists are fundamentally in error.
	7-13.  Biblical inerrantism is not the way that we know God or the thoughts of God.  Biblical inerrantism is a form of idolatry, for it absolutizes not belief in God or his will but belief in a particular, historically limited human conception of God and his will, specifically that found in the traditional reading of the Bible as a coherent and complete statement of the will of God.  
	It is precisely this kind of idolatry which allows the Bible to be used to justify the most reactionary of social practices and causes, not least of which are the institutions of war, punishment, and social exclusion or discrimination of all kinds.
	The doctrine of the so-called "just war" is one reactionary doctrine which is often buttressed by references to the wars of the Old Testament.  Persons of open minds cannot but see that many of the accounts of the Old Testament represent very primitive scientific, historical, and--most of all--theological conceptions.  Surely the same is true of the ethical conceptions contained there.
	It is no coincidence that these primitive ideas were resurrected and given theoretical justification during the Dark Ages.  The "just war" doctrine is one such medieval relic.

	7-14.  One cannot really simultaneously embrace the ethical teachings of both the Old and New Testaments without severe qualifications.  Nor can one reasonably suppose that the God of the Old Testament is, strictly speaking, the same God as that of the New Testament, except in the limited sense that the writers of both testaments were in search of the one true God.
	All that one can safely say is that the two "Laws" reflect two conceptions of God, conceptions that grew out of an evolving culture and which reflect evolving religious conceptions within and beyond that culture.

	7-15.  When one says that the law of God is simply the will of God, one wants to make a further point: this is not a law which, like secular law, provides for penalties if it is not obeyed.  Rather, the will of God is as a lighted path: if one chooses to get off of it, the fear and emptiness that one feels only impel one to want to find it again.  God, ever faithful and benign, eternally holds forth the beacon to rescue and salvage us.
	God does not punish.  We punish ourselves, and never more so than when we try to punish others.
	7-16.  The will of God is so perfectly good that it is the way of Being, of life, of spiritual harmony rather than fear and emptiness.  
	Anything outside of the will and thoughts of God is really not anything at all: it is nothingness.  The hellish fear that we face when we face that nothingness is not from God.  Any such punishment of the soul is that which we inflict upon ourselves as a result of rejecting God and his life-giving will or thoughts.  It is never God's will that we should do this, much less that we should suffer this self-imposed horror.  God wills only that we should stop, repent of, such nonsense and enjoy again the benefits of his grace and redemption: life in its fullness, everlasting.

	7-17.  Need we fear losing permanent sight of God?  I do not think so.  Although we may turn away from God, he is always there when we have had enough of darkness and decide again that we want to know and find him.
	In a vast sea of emptiness, the light that is God always shines out in bright relief.  God never hides himself--nor his Being and comfort from fear--from those who seek him and his refuge.  It takes a conscious, strong, and deliberate effort to block out the light which is the will of God, and even then it has a way of getting past our most stubborn defenses.  
	God seeks us out even when we seek to escape or renounce him and his will.  There is no escaping God--or his redemption.  There is yet anguish enough in losing sight of God if only for a season, and no rational person would lightly dismiss the dangers of doing so, whatever may be the length of that hellish season.

	7-18.  If one claims that Jesus was indeed unique in his relationship to God the Father, then what one means is either that he was God in human form, or else that he was a child of God in a different sense than the rest of us are children of God--or both.
	The image which presents itself to us in either case is that of the germ of divine inspiration growing and learning in the child and man during his own lifetime, finally reaching perfection in thought and action (probably not on the Mount of Transfiguration but on the cross), then working through the rest of human history for the full human appreciation and acceptance of the significance of his views.  All of this is to say that Jesus was not born with perfect wisdom, even if he was God Incarnate, and he did not receive perfect wisdom in an instant.
	The implication of these simple claims is that Jesus' understanding must have been imperfect up until very nearly the end of his life.  If so, then it is up to us to try to make the same journey more or less on our own, guided not only by the trends and directions which are most manifest in Jesus' teachings, but by the indwelling Spirit of God in all of us.
	"Have you been saved?" is thus a ridiculous question which the inerrantists shove into our faces.  We are not "saved" until we come to think like God, and we can no more expect that to occur in an instant than we could have expected Christ to have attained full wisdom in an instant.  The process of being "saved" is a lifelong endeavor.

	7-19.  In refusing to write anything down and in relying as much upon his personal example as on anything he said, Jesus expressed great faith in the power of ideas, ideas manifested in action.  Indeed, his faith in these ideas was so great that he believed that they would triumph even if many of his witnesses were illiterate, and even if individuals and officialdom, both secular and ecclesiastical, operated  deliberately to try to destroy his credibility.
	Perhaps Jesus was himself an illiterate man: "And the Pharisees said, `How does this man know letters, having never learned?'" (John 7:15)

	7-20.  The core of Christian ethics has had to survive not only new ways of thinking, but old ways as well which continue to afflict his followers.  The example of Paul is instructive.
	Paul's fundamental error was perhaps inevitable, given his own grounding in the ancient retributive Judaic tradition.  Paul's statement of the significance of Jesus' death and resurrection in retributive language (the sacrifice of the perfect lamb) is at best metaphorical, and at worst downright misleading, for it distorts the significance of the cross from being an expression of ethical and spiritual perfection into some kind of ritualistic nonsense which God had to endure in order to appease himself: "I would love to be able to forgive you, but first I must sacrifice myself to Myself."

	7-21.  True repentance comes only through the restorative powers of the Spirit of God working through human reason to induce us to rethink our lives and actions.  I would not be surprised if the ancient origins of this word "repent" were not originally very close to the origins of the word "pensive," which means "thoughtful" (but which surely had its roots in a verb similar to "think"--the Latin pensare: to ponder).  Thus, if we could go back not merely to Latin but to the probably prehistoric Latin root out of which one might speculate that both "pensive" and "penitent" arose, we might find that the origins of an act of repentance lie ultimately in the process of rethinking our earlier choices, rather than from the state of being sorry (Latin paenitere: to be sorry) for our misdeeds.  
	We are truly sorry for the victims of our injustices only after we have rethought, not before.  At the point at which we become capable of feeling sorrow, we also become capable of feeling love, and of being healed in an emotional sense.  The capacity for truly compassionate sorrow and thus for a corresponding compassionate love comes from rethinking, repenting, and thus being forgiven of our sins:  "Her great love proves that her many sins have been forgiven; where little has been forgiven, little love is shown." (Luke 7:47, New English Bible)

	7-22.  Where there is no rethinking, there can be no change of mind; where there is no change of mind, there can be no change of heart; and where there is no change of heart, there can be no capacity to feel truly sorry for what we have done.  We do well to remember that the wellspring of genuine emotion lies yet in the capacity for rational thought, not in some mechanism of mere physiology: human emotion and human reason are but two sides of the same coin, two aspects of the psyche.

	7-23.  What is this moral purification, this healing, that comes with both forgiving and being forgiven?  Why is it that the feeling of the psyche is the same both when we are forgiven by God and when we forgive others?
	The reason is surely that the restorative powers of the Spirit of God are operative in both cases: that which comforts us--that which purifies, forgives, heals--and then leaves the psyche at rest is the forgiving Spirit of God.  When we invoke that spirit in our dealings with others, we are transformed by it: it becomes the ground of true Being.  

	7-24.  The purification stage of repentance is not pleasant, but neither does it represent harshness on God's part: God's truth has simply let us see ourselves, and we do not like what we see.  In addition, its initial stage--the search process for what is wrong with ourselves--can be slow and painful, but painful only because of our own resistance to the Spirit of God.  After this self-diagnosis (with God's aid) comes the purgative phase, or perhaps the surgery of the cancer on the soul which is the false rationalization of wrong-doing.  This is often intensely painful, but brief.  It is perhaps not so much a separate phase as the culmination of the search process, when the false rationalization grudgingly gives way to the truth, tearing at us as if it were some demonic false self trying to hang onto the soul that it has afflicted.  
	In less metaphorical language, that anguished, horrible moment which is often the culmination of true repentance is perhaps an instantaneous glimpse of what we are compared to what we ought to be.  The pain of the glimpse is no sooner felt than it is gone, however, for we are transformed by the vision of what we ought to be, the divine vision brought to us by the Spirit of God, a vision which always comforts and restores.

	7-25.  In the restorative phase of repentance, the truth as to what ought to be done (and ought to have been done) comes flooding in as an instant balm.  We know at that point that we should not have done some evil to another person.
	When we are injured by another, we may also go through much of the same process if we lose faith in the worth of others, or if we lose faith in God and thus seek retribution rather than strive to understand and forgive.  The consideration of revenge we call "resentment," during which time the wound is picked at and the concomitant anger nursed.  This is itself sin, even if never acted out. 
	It is, of course, possible to be injured without wanting revenge.  In such a case, the indwelling power of God comforts the psyche during the external social trauma and then provides the restorative for natural recuperation.  (This salvation from revenge at the time does not, of course, preclude the possibility that later, in a moment of spiritual weakness, the memory of the injury may trigger resentment and the desire for revenge.)
	The healing, restorative process is in some ways the same in all of the three cases of injury: when we sin, when we are injured and sin by not forgiving, and when we are injured and do not sin.  The sense of sameness comes from the goodness of God,  which is unchanging.  Thus it is that, no matter how it is that the psyche came to be injured, and however it came to be purified (where that is called for), the healing or restorative phase is the same, and the sense of goodness or comfort coming from God is likewise the same.

	7-26.  God is always good, always redemptive, never punitive nor angry--never a God to be feared.  If we fear God, it is indeed out of a glimmer that we shall have to face the truth and let go of our comfortable rationalizations.
	Only in this very limited sense is it the case that "The fear of God is the beginning of all wisdom."  It is a foolish fear, for God is not the source of this fear nor of any threat which should induce fear.  In fearing God, the false self perhaps fears that which will lead to the end of its cancerous existence on our soul.  The true self is redeemed by the truth of God and has nothing to fear from God--and knows it.
	Trust in God is the completion of all wisdom.

	7-27.  It is instructive that the King James Version makes reference to not getting angry at one's brother "without cause." (Matthew 5:22, KJV) The implication is that, if one has good cause, anger is alright.
	On this point, however, the translators of the King James Version overstepped the valid discretion of translators and inserted their own views: the original Greek contains absolutely no linguistic referent which could possibly be translated as "without cause."  The passage in question is the more significant because the words are not those of this or that disciple or apostle: they are words attributed to Jesus of Nazareth.  Why would the translators take such liberties, unless they (like most persons) were absolutely convinced that anger is sometimes the appropriate response?
	It is noteworthy that the book of James abjures anger categorically: "A man's anger does not promote the Kingdom of Heaven." (James 1:20)  If God is not a God of anger but of compassion, however, then we, too, should make our decisions based upon compassion rather than upon anger or any other evil tendency.  Anger is, after all, a momentary lapse of rationality.  It should never be glorified, and it is never in any sense therapeutic.

	7-28.  In the Lord's Prayer (found, not coincidentally, with the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6: 9-15), there is the injunction to forgive others if we wish to be forgiven.  This is not to say that God would not forgive us if we failed to forgive others: it is to say that in some sense he cannot, for the peaceful spirit of God cannot dwell in us and inspire us to know and follow the way that leads out of peril if we block that spirit by harboring vindictive thoughts and motives, thoughts and motives which do not come from God.  God, in giving us free moral agency, has given us the choice to accept or not to accept him.  Even so, he knows that we cannot long endure the emptiness of life without him, and so he knows that sooner or later our choice will be to seek him again.
	God waits for us, and it is comforting to know that he has infinite patience for those whom he has ordained as having infinite worth: all persons.  In the meantime, the anger or resentment which we harbor toward others is our own self-imposed hell.  It does not come from God, nor does God cast us into such a hell.

	7-29.  It is noteworthy that, with regard to forgiveness, there are two teachings by Jesus which may represent the evolution of his thinking further and further away from the retributive upbringing of his culture and toward the non-retributive ideal which defines his unique gift to us.  First, in Matthew 18:15-17, Jesus offers a set of contingencies for dealing with those who have wronged us but refuse to repent, beginning with confrontation and culminating with exposure and public condemnation, and possibly even expulsion from the community: "Treat him as a pagan or a tax gatherer."  A similar teaching occurs in Luke simply as "If your brother wrongs you, reprove him; and if he repents, forgive him." (Luke 17:3)  In both teachings, there is a condition attached to forgiveness: our offender must repent and express sorrow. 
	The implication seems to be that, if another wrongs us but does not repent, we have no obligation to forgive that person.  It is true that Jesus seems very liberal here in saying that, no matter how many times our brother has sinned against us, we must always be prepared to forgive.  Yet, the condition is still there: "if he repents."
	In the account by Mark, by contrast, there is a far more liberal statement: "When you stand praying, if you have a grievance against anyone, forgive him."  (Mark 11:25)  No contingency is provided for here: there is not the condition, "if he repents."  Rather, one is simply always to forgive others, regardless of whether or not they have repented or expressed sorrow for their act.
	If this interpretation is correct, then the message of unconditional forgiveness seems to culminate on the cross, where Jesus forgives, without condition of any kind, those who are executing him and those (including the rulers and soldiers) who are continuing to taunt him: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." (Luke 23:34-36)  Is it possible that Jesus changed his mind, that he grew in wisdom even up to the moment of his death?  Or is it possible instead that the various witnesses and New Testament writers simply interpreted his teachings in different ways, because of their own belief systems?  I must suspend final judgment, since there is no way to prove an answer one way or the other.  I am inclined to think that even Jesus did not understand the fullness of the divine message until very near the end of his life: the process of "growing in wisdom" (demonstrated as a young boy arguing with the elders in the temple) continued either until his death or until a fairly short time before his death.  One can only speculate as to whether he began his ministry before or after he attained fullness of wisdom on the matter of repentance, or on any other matter. 
	On such questions hangs the ultimate significance of the life and message of Jesus of Nazareth.  There may also be implications here as to how different Jesus really was from the rest of us.

	7-30.  The most wonderful thing to which we may look forward in the next life is surely freedom from the judgment of others.  To the extent that one can live without judging others in this life, one is indeed an angelos  of God, which in the Greek means literally nothing more or less than "messenger."  (Strictly speaking, the transliteration from the Greek gives us aggelos, with the double gamma--our "gg"--nasalized in Greek as an English "ng" sound.)
	From that root we also get the word "evangelist."  The most effective evangelist, angel, or messenger is, of course, someone who exemplifies through deeds the benevolent and non-judgmental message which is God's requirement of us, one to the other.
	To be free of the critical judgment by others of our moral worth--that would indeed be heaven.  If we carry the message of non-judgment through our example, we shall indeed be carrying a glimpse of the Kingdom of Heaven wherever we go: we shall be messengers from God.  That is as close as we can get to being "angels" in this life.

	7-31.  God's judgment is always supportive, encouraging.  It is never condemnatory.  The same message of support, encouragement, is the only message which we are obliged to offer to others in the name of judgment.
	Our only moral obligation about judgment of persons is to judge ourselves and to live up to that judgment.  So doing will be sufficient reproof of, or encouragement for, others.  God will decide which is appropriate to their needs.  We are thus obligated to concentrate upon doing the will of God, freed of the perceived necessity of assessing the shortcomings of others.  It is not for us to decide whether another needs to be inspired or reproved.  Our good example may do either, and God will decide which function our example will perform.
	Make no mistake: the avoidance of judging others is not an easy virtue to perfect.  Perhaps it is the last virtue, since some say that being non-judgmental is the sin of the pious, those who have made great progress in conquering their other weaknesses.  One might as easily argue, however, that it is the first virtue, the foundation of all of the others: perhaps the least virtuous persons are the ones most disposed to judge and condemn others, often ruining their lives and reputations in the process.

	7-32.  It is well to remember that the role of accuser is not sanctioned by the God of the New Testament.  There is no constitutional foundation for the role of accuser, prosecutor, in the Peaceable Kingdom.  Those who accuse must invoke the retributive credo found in an earlier conception of the moral constitution, the Law of Moses.

	7-33.  Those who would understand the systematic nature of the Sermon on the Mount must consult Matthew, chapter five, verses 21, 27, 31, 33, 38, 43.  Each of these verses contains the phrase, "You have been taught. . . , but I say unto you. . . ,"  either contradicting or going beyond some earlier teaching of the Law of Moses, including several of those teachings which we call the "Ten Commandments."  Most of these teachings are obvious enough, but the one that deals with judgment is not.  Yet it is vitally important.  In the "Old Law," one was simply enjoined not to engage in false witness or judgment of another.  I would speculate that the actual sermon, as delivered by Jesus of Nazareth, was originally structured such that the teaching in Matthew 7:1 to "judge not" was counterposed to the commandment not to "bear false witness."  That is, whereas in the "Old Law" one was being enjoined not to judge falsely, in the "New Law" in Matthew 7:1, one is being enjoined to judge the worth of others not at all. 
	This is pure speculation, of course, but it does remind us of the possibility that Jesus is showing us an alternative to the statist way of handing injustice: no judges, no courts, no lawsuits, no counteraccusations, no attempts at self-defense, no attempt to reclaim what was ours before another took it.
	Is that too radical, or is that simply what we must infer from these teachings if we are to realize the fulfillment of the will of God?  It is interesting that these are the only parts of the Bible that biblical inerrantists do not take literally, and it is these teachings that go to the heart of the message of the Prince of Peace.  

	7-34.  If Jesus did not come to set right the incompleteness and imperfections in the Mosaic conception of justice, then why did he come?  His "sacrifice" has been made much of by the Apostle Paul, but it is necessary that the metaphor of "the perfect lamb that was slain for the remission of sins" be seen for what it was: a metaphor.  Not only was it a metaphor, but it was a metaphor which depended for its sense upon a retributive conception of justice: certain evils must be reciprocated in order to wipe out prior evils.
	This is the most blatant form of retributivism, what one might call the "cosmic imbalance" theory.  On this view, another evil is needed in order to cancel a previous evil.  This is Mosaic to the core, part and parcel of the world view which defended not only animal sacrifice to propitiate an "angry" God, but the foundation of the ethic of "an eye for an eye," quite a barbaric and superstitious conception of justice.  The so-called "New Law" clearly rejects this conception.  Paul perhaps used the metaphor simply because he believed that such a metaphor was needed to reach those reared in the retributive tradition.  Yet, there are several things wrong with this kind of rationalization.  First, there is every reason to believe that Paul meant literally what he said.  Paul himself was steeped in the retributive tradition of the Mosaic Law, even to the extent that his entire treatment of the state in Romans 13 is totally retributive in content. 
	 Paul, however useful he may have been to the spread of Christian teachings, also contaminated those teachings to a considerable extent by his retributive worldview.

	7-35.  If the mere sacrifice of Jesus had been needed to negate the sin of the world, then Jesus could quietly have jumped off of a cliff in the solitude of the mountains.  That act would have been witnessed by God the Father, who alone sees all things and who alone needed to be "placated," on the crudest retributive view.  No, the significance of the cross is not to be found in any retributive sacrificial nonsense: the significance of the cross is the total and complete repudiation of the retributive conception and its replacement with an ethic of perfect forgiveness.

	7-36.  If one ideal has guided all of my thoughts throughout this work, it is the ideal represented by the vision of a man perfect in thought and deed, but without any of the self defenses or other imperfect means adopted by ordinary mortals when confronted with either danger or falsehood.  The vision, that is, is indeed that of the Messiah, but a Messiah that I fear that many will be as unable to accept in this age as others were unable to accept almost two thousand years ago: a deliberately vulnerable being.
	Not many persons, that is, can be expected at present to make themselves so deliberately vulnerable as to choose not to use certain powers at their disposal for their own self-defense.  Perhaps we are unlike the Messiah in that we do not have certain powers at our disposal, but we may nonetheless be like him in that we may morally choose not to use our existing powers in certain ways, especially not for mere self-defense.
	Most persons, however, will yield to the temptation of self-defense when in desperate straits, even if it means destroying another, or accusing their accusers in order to save their own reputations.  Human weakness does not, however, vitiate the psychologically ("spiritually") redemptive power of the divine message.

	7-37.  If we cannot accept divinely sanctioned limitations on the means that we may use to defend ourselves, I can only conclude that we cannot accept God, for God by his nature is apparently constrained by his own goodness to use only perfect means to achieve his perfect ends.  If this is true of God the Father, it must certainly have been true of Jesus as the Son of God: he came, above all, to give us an example of what it means to be constrained by the requirements of divine goodness to use only perfect means for the attainment of our ends in an imperfect world.
	Jesus, that is, was constrained by his own goodness not to use deceit, violence, force, or any other evil to defend himself or to promote other aspects of his "kingdom" on earth.  This is what I mean when I say that we, as children of God, are likewise constrained by conscience to accept divinely sanctioned limitations on the powers at our disposal.  If we cannot pass the test of not using certain means to achieve our ends within the very narrow limits of present human power, we may be sure that God will not grant us greater powers.
	My presumption, then, is that we are being groomed to wield greater powers than we presently have, but that God cannot simply give us such powers until we have demonstrated in this life an acceptance of certain constraints upon the use of whatever powers we may already have.

	7-38.  If I reveal my doubts, do I open myself up to the charge that I have not the courage of my convictions?  Indeed, I am appalled by the vacillations of my faith and concomitant moral courage.  Yet, I must admit to my own intermittent misgivings: others must know that this faith is no easy faith to accept, so that they will not be discouraged if embracing it seems to bring only more suffering and self-doubt rather than the happiness which all of us so earnestly seek. 

	7-39.  Oh, to be perfect!  The aspiration seems so absurd; yet, without it what is indeed the meaning of all the doubts and sufferings that we presently endure?  Perfection surely must come at quite a price, and I mean not merely the sacrifice of Christ but our own long and winding search for the wisdom and understanding which could sustain our faith under any possible degree of duress.  Only so, as a hard anvil upon which perfect souls are to be forged, can the trials of this life make sense; but only so can our lives come to be consistent with the supreme goodness of God.
	There is nothing foolish or absurd about trying to live a perfectly peaceable life.  Perhaps the foolishness lies in trying to rationalize anything less as the will of God.

	7-40.  I do believe that one of the purposes of the life of Christ was to show us an example of self-government which is as far superior to common conceptions of democracy as his own conception of a divine "kingdom" was superior to every existing kingdom which he saw and could have emulated: kingdoms based upon domination, deceit, arrogant nationalism, and hierarchies of power and pride.
	I do believe that he came to show us an example of peaceableness raised to such a state of perfection that its attainment requires our continuous study in all of our interpersonal relations, not merely in the relations between nations, families, and larger groupings.  
	I do believe that he came to show us the most perfect conception of forgiveness, a forgiveness so complete that he was incapable of hating those who committed the worst atrocities against him.  
	I also believe that he came to show us the example of an unconditional love so great that it always took the initiative of good will, never waiting to anticipate whether or not such good will and good action would be reciprocated in thought or in deed.
	Most of all, for the sake of trying to understand the purpose of the life of Christ, I believe that he came to earth in the form of man for the overarching purpose of exemplifying the kind of life which I have just attempted to describe.  If, after all is said and done, the example which he gave us is not absolutely unique in its forbearance toward injustice, then I fail to see how or why he should be worthy of imitation, much less worship.  If such a life cannot be called "pacifistic" in some sense, then I do not know why we should call him the "Prince of Peace."  
	It was not, that is, so that he could forgive our sins that he lived and died, but so that we should learn how to forgive and get along with one another.

	7-41.  Let us define a first order evil as an evil which typically involves the choice to give in to an unworthy or inappropriate appetite or passion.  This encompasses a great deal, and these can be grievous evils indeed.  Nonetheless, there are also evils arising from a failure to repent of these first order evils, and these can be classed as second order evils.  They typically manifest themselves as an arrogant tendency to judge other persons, or as a hostile, vindictive, or blame-oriented psychological disposition.  All manner of abusiveness, narrow-mindedness, and downright meanness can be seen as falling within this category.  
	It is not at all clear that these evils classed as "second order" by virtue of their occurrence are actually lesser evils.  Indeed, they are probably the more insidious evils.  The label "second order" refers to the fact that these evils are derivative: they do not merely involve the lack of rationality and knowledge but involve as well overt and deliberate rationalization for prior evils.  They are generally manifested not only as rationalization for the first order evils but as concomitant tendency to project one's self-loathing and self-contempt onto other persons.  This predisposition, further rationalized, blocks one from admitting one's own failings and thus prevents being "saved" from (repenting of) one's own first order evils.  
	Those who are most abusive and judgmental of others may be demonstrating, for all I know, the depth of their own depravity, a vast accumulation of unrepented sins.  That is food for thought at just those moments when we are disposed to sit in judgment upon the shortcomings of others: it is our own failings that are gnawing at us from the inside.

	7-42.  In the Lord's Prayer, we find the appeal, "Forgive us as we forgive others," followed by the teaching that, "If you do not forgive others, neither will your Father in heaven forgive you."  The language about forgiveness here is indeed metaphorical, for God is always of a forgiving disposition.
	Such metaphorical language is useful because it reminds us that, unless we stop trying to justify our misdeeds, or stop judging others (projecting our own evil and self-contempt onto others), then we cannot get on with the business of examining our own faults and freeing ourselves from (being "saved" of) our own enslavements, addictions, and rationalizations that we use to deny our sin.  (I have no substitute word for this last concept, "sin," since it is as clear and concise a moral concept that one could wish for: it says it all, and with only three letters.  One is reminded of Karl Menninger's excellent little book, Whatever Became of Sin?1)
	The rule of God is different from that of earthly sovereigns precisely in that God, as defined as being perfectly good, does not enforce His will through evil.  If he used the threat of punishment to enforce his will, then he would not be morally different from earthly sovereigns, for punishment is always an inherent evil, no matter what good ends it might be used to try to promote.  Of God we expect not only perfect ends, but perfect means as well.
	God, that is, is always of a forgiving Spirit--even when we are in the depths of our depravity and torment and thereby far removed from his grace. 

	7-43.  That God does not punish can be seen in Christ's remark, "I came to save men's lives, not to destroy them."  There is, however, one final and important sense in which God does judge and thus does seem to punish: his Truth casts our own half-truths into relief, and his Truth shows as well our blatant falsehoods and rationalizations to be the utter darkness and meaninglessness that they are.  Even here, however, the ever benign providential sovereign does not undercut our rationalizations prematurely: he carries us many times when our rationalizations could not, and he chooses an opportune time to reveal his truth and thus to do his pruning.  

	7-44.  Is it possible that no one, not even God, can exist in perfect "emotional" (spiritual?) isolation from other sentient beings?  Is such an isolated, aloof God a stern, hoary conception of God akin to the Nietzschean conception of Zarathustra?2  Has Nietzsche, through his fictionalized character, given us an inadvertent vision of God--or of a monster?  Is God so constituted and so complete that he needs no other beings, but creates them solely for their own joy of existence?

	7-45.  Is one who lets evil happen as culpable as one who overtly commits evil?  If so, then what shall we say of God, who permits evil to occur in the world?  Shall we blame him for that evil?
	If not, then are we justified in blaming the pacifist for not using violence to stop (ostensibly) a greater violence?  The answer is not self-evident.  No glib answers will suffice or comfort.

	7-46. Perhaps God is limited to the use of the force of ideas, not the force of punishment, to achieve his purposes.  Perhaps he can no more punish (requite evil for evil) than he can lie.  That might be one reason that he allows evil to exist in the world: the same goodness that constrains him from lying might also constrain him from using other imperfect means.
	If pacifists are constrained by the same requirement--that they must use ideal (divine?) means to achieve valid ends--then are they not as justified as God in refusing to use force?  And does this not exonerate them from the charge that they are guilty of a sin of omission by refusing to take life in the name of saving life?

	7-47.  Is it possible that we really do not want to be like God, that we prefer the impotence of secular modes of power, of throwing our weight around, of intimidating others and showing our dominance?  If so, we shall find, I fear, that that is only the illusion of power, and in choosing it we cut ourselves off from the only true Power that Is.	
	Is arrogance not based on the illusion of power that we do not have?

	7-48.  Does God work through the state and other private command hierarchies protected and sanctioned by the police power of the state--our employers?
	By way of answer, let us return to the source of "employer" in the French verb employer: to use.  The employer is the user.  The employee is the one who is used.  Would God sanction the use of one human being by another?  Is that what Jesus meant when he said that, "Secular rulers like to lord it over their subjects, to make them feel the weight of their authority.  But it must not be so among you.  For he who is greatest among you would be your servant." (Matthew 20:25-28)
	In this age, our employers, public or private, are part of the command structure of the state, as defined at the beginning of the chapter on church and state.  They are among the "secular rulers."  They are--let us not mince words--almost always our tyrants, rarely our benefactors.
	It is for this reason, their propensity toward tyranny, that most are obsessed with maintaining what they call their "authority."  They want to preserve the system of domination of which they are a part, and from which they gain much in the way of material and social rewards.
	The psychological, spiritual, losses of such gains are, of course, devastating.

	7-49.  It is not too strong to say that state authority begins with the secular sovereign in each realm and goes down to our supervisors or bosses.  That is the real meaning of the chain of command for the state as a whole.  We err when we confine our discussions of it to the obviously public sphere: the sphere of private enterprise is also sanctioned or enforced by the public sphere.
	That is, private property is a public institution, an arm of the state, since it is sanctioned and protected by the sword of the state.

	7-50.  I respect another's right to his beliefs without thereby respecting the beliefs themselves.  If a man tells me that his religion practices infant sacrifice, I could not possibly say that what I feel for his beliefs is anything approaching respect.  Nor do I have the luxury of not criticizing his beliefs: although I might respect his right to believe as he will, I respect truth too much to allow his beliefs to go unchallenged.

	7-51.  Many defenses of "pacifism" are not labeled as such.  Quite a few, such as historian Stephen Ambrose's "revisionist" accounts of the Cold War,3 are not doctrinaire pacifism in any sense, and yet they do offer some arguments and historical interpretations which are compatible with many pacifist claims.
	Other variants of pacifism recommend something like a "world state."  Christian ethics, as I understand it, certainly would not be compatible with this view, since the state is inherently violent and retributive and thus counter to the whole thrust of Christian ethics.  One cannot but be alarmed by those who speak blithely about a "world state" or "world government."  Do they not realize that there is already One who governs?

	7-52.  I have claimed that the actual teachings of Jesus were perfectly non-retributive and perfectly altruistic, but the biblical account of his teachings does not seem to support this notion with anything like perfect consistency.  That is, even in the New Testament there are difficulties with a consistently non-retributive interpretation.
	Nonetheless, the appeal of a perfectly non-retributive vision from the story of the life of Jesus forces one to re-examine the Bible, and to posit it and not the vision as being in error.  As has been so often asked, however, what epistemological criterion is going to guide one once one starts questioning the legitimacy of this or that biblical passage while affirming the legitimacy of yet another?
	The rationalist will recognize the answer: the coherence criterion of truth.  The view of Jesus of Nazareth, if he was the Messiah, must make sense, and its sense or meaning must cohere around some central themes and acts which have the strongest intuitive appeal.  Passages which do not cohere with such central themes must be adjudged suspect, and so must the infallibility of their authors. 

	7-53.  Paul categorically says that the secular authorities are in God's service, for the sake of bringing punishment upon the offender, and that innocent persons do not have to fear such authorities.
	Why, then, did Jesus fear his crucifixion at the hands of the Roman authorities?  The story of Jesus in Gethsemane is quite clear as to what Jesus was feeling as he anticipated the trials that awaited him.  Was Jesus deserving of his fate?  If so, there is a reductio of the whole Christian message.  In addition, if persons always get what they deserve, then Paul's own repeated imprisonment was what he deserved rather than simple persecution in the course of service of God.  Since he clearly did not believe that his own imprisonment was always (if ever) any kind of divine punishment of him, it is not clear why he would have made such a categorical statement about punishment by the authorities ("in God's service") in Romans 13.  
	 Rationalization will not solve the problem of Paul's inconsistencies: Paul said what he said, and it is nonsense.  If what he meant was that persons should obey the secular authorities only when they are in God's service, then so be it.  He did not say precisely that.

	7-54.  As for moral desert at the hands of the secular authorities, did six million Jews deserve their fate at the hands of Adolph Hitler?  The idea is preposterous.

	7-55.  One important thing to remember about the passage in Romans 13, which seems to sanction the state as the instrument of God, is that it was written by Paul to Romans.  That is, it was written to Roman citizens, persons who surely were confused as to the implications of loyalty to Christ versus loyalty to the state: Caesar's state, the very state, in fact, which had executed the Christ.
	The relevant passages in Romans 13 for political philosophy are only a few lines in length, indicating that they were not part of a long and systematic treatment as to the role of Christians vis-B-vis the state: they were fairly specific injunctions to persons who probably wondered whether or not they should be in overt rebellion against the state.  
	At the very least, Paul was teaching against violent rebellion, and he apparently tried to buttress such an injunction against violent rebellion with some kind of rationale of state authority.  If so, however, he went too far--far too far.

	7-56.  Is it reasonable to expect Paul to have had the fullness of wisdom and insight of the Messiah himself?

	7-57.  If God does not rule through the coercive state, as suggested by Paul in Romans 13, then how does he rule?  The only possibility compatible with the vision of an omniscient and omnipotent God is that God exercises some kind of "providential hand" over both our minds and over events in the world.
	The issue of the nature of this divine providence is at once the most neglected and most important of concepts for political philosophy.  No political philosopher that I know of has tried to deal seriously with the concept of divine providence on a sustained theoretical basis.  
	Authoritarian conceptions of "natural law" have instead become the focus of the ultimate questions of political philosophy, and, where the issue of the divine hand has surfaced in treatises on political philosophy, it has been almost immediately swept into the hand of the state: ever since Paul, and thus since Augustine and Aquinas (and after them Luther and Calvin), the coercive state has been presumed to be the divine instrument not only of retribution but of ordering and coordinating human events.  
	Can such a view be correct?  Has not this elevation of the violent, coercive state meant a corresponding abasement of God, especially if God is perceived as being a providential God and if his providence is thought to work primarily through moral suasion--not through delegation of his authority to state officials whose office and status are protected by the sword?
	Is not a non-violent and non-authoritarian rendering of the natural law tradition possible?

	7-58.  It is not too strong to say that, when one speaks of God while minimizing the providential aspect of divine governance in human affairs, it is not really God anymore that one talks about, but something else.  That is, one who professes belief in God but denies any meaningful providential role by God in human affairs does not really believe in God at all, but in some purely fictional construct which goes by the name of "God."
	In the absence of a meaningful providential theism, a coercive statism tends to raise its ugly head, even in Christianity--or perhaps especially in Christianity.

	7-59.  Perhaps it is not too strong to say that the foundation of a truly coherent pacifism is a strong conception of the providential role of God in human affairs.  Only by positing a strong role for God in planning (willing) and enforcing (ordering) human affairs are the premises defended in this work at all plausible.
	Indeed, if there is a weakness in most theories of pacifism, it is that they have ignored this most fundamental metaphysical underpinning.  Such theories have failed, that is, to deal seriously with the problem of order in the absence of violence and coercion.  It is not enough to be opposed to war.  It is necessary to see one's opposition to war as being a manifestation of a more general opposition to state coercion, violence, and judgment.  Since this is all too often not seen, what is often found is a strident "pacifism" which is moralistic and judgmental to the core and which too easily invokes the law courts and judgment of persons over persons, even as it hollowly abjures war.  This failure is also part of the failure of pacifist "movements," which are based all too often upon a fleeting outrage at this or that war or state action but which have no intellectual coherence or spiritual sustenance for dealing with the perennial attempts of the state to repress dissent against war and other moral outrages.
	When the state does try to repress anti-war movements, flimsy pacifistic impulses cannot give persons the patience to continue to dissent peacefully.  The "pacifist" who loses his or her temper and perspective can all too easily become a mere terrorist, employing the very same methods at the individual level which are abjured at the larger societal level. 
	Such pseudo-pacifism may even tend to prolong wars, by undermining the legitimacy of all truly peaceful attempts at rational moral suasion, and by provoking a popular reaction against the cause of peace.

	7-60.  One may believe in the Trinity without yet believing that God exists in "three persons," or in any plurality of persons, for our God is one God, one person, which is to say one psychic Being.  God may yet exhibit or manifest his face in more than one way, and these various facets of God may correctly be labeled as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  The idea of "God in three persons" is a noble if perhaps simplistic attempt to comprehend the presently incomprehensible.  Such a formulation does not ultimately make sense, however, and it is not biblical: it is a line from a hymn.  

	7-61.  God is.  As Jesus said, "Before Abraham was, I am." (John 8:58)  God is surely not constrained by time, as human beings are, unless he chooses so to constrain himself by taking human form.  Nor is God constrained by space, for surely neither space nor time have any ultimate meaning or purpose apart from that assigned to them by God.  Yet, to be created by God in human form is to be constrained by the limits of space and time.  Some kinds of limitations are necessary for the definitions of human personhood and existence.  Only God can exist without limits.  Humankind, in trying to know or live an existence which is unbounded, tries thereby to throw off the definition of its own existence, the limitations imposed upon it by God.  
	To try to live as human beings without any limits is an act of self-destruction, spiritually as well as physically.  Indeed, to try to throw off all limits may the ultimate nature of sin.

	7-62.  If this life is for the purpose of divine teaching, then we might think of each part of our lives--especially the trials--as analogous to taking a course or courses in school.  Each course--or segment of our lives--has some essential point or points to be learned, and each is designed for the purpose of promoting that learning.  Every stage of our lives, every job and every relationship, every worthy project, and every significant thing that happens to us is surely such a course, or part of one or more "courses."  This is true even where God does not ordain such projects, jobs, or relationships.  He will still use them as epochs during which we may learn some essential point--but this is hardly to say that he did not have a better plan for our learning in mind than our folly and our suffering.

	7-63.  God's enemy in the learning process is within each of us, although I do not presume to understand the nature or source of this enemy.  To posit one evil one, Satan, seems to be an exercise in infinite regression, for, if one angel really fell from heaven, then we should have to explain why or how evil got a foothold in heaven, or in that being's life.  Was there a pre-Satan who tempted Satan, and a pre-pre-Satan before that, ad infinitum, ad absurdum?  

	7-64.  To explain the source of evil, it seems better overall to assume that there are forces at work in all incomplete personalities which resist the full development of those personalities.  These forces are surely, in part at least, the result of the immaturity which comes from incomplete knowledge or understanding. 
	One wants to believe that, when one's knowledge is complete, one will indeed be up to "the master's level" and that one will have no propensity to sin even as one retains the capacity of free will.  There seems to be a paradox here, but I think that it need not be any more problematic than many other paradoxes which occur in the context of religious writings.
	In any case, since all of us were, in one sense, created from nothing and are still not yet the fullness of that something which we are becoming, then it should come as no surprise to have to conclude that all of us have within us the seeds of evil, that remnant of nothingness which is being replaced by the meaningfulness which is existence and a partaking of the divine.

	7-65.  If there is a single metaphysical assumption (besides the existence of God) which lies behind the present work, it is indeed the assumption that the world is incomplete.  This assumption almost forces one to forego the process of judging the moral worth of others.  An incomplete creation implies also incomplete human beings, beings who have not reached the fullness of their potential rationality and wisdom.  Judging and blaming them for their failings is pointless: sin exists, but knowing when to assess blame is both impossible and pointless.
	Perhaps God never blames.  Perhaps that is a lesson that Jesus, God incarnate, came to teach.  Perhaps it was also a lesson that he, as a human being, had to learn.  Otherwise we should have to assume that he sprang forth "complete" from the womb.
	If Jesus did act in a retributive manner in driving the money-changers from the temple and in judging the Pharisaic priesthood harshly, then one must reflect upon the fact that these events were followed by his own greatest trials.  Is it possible that even the Christ had to have his faith in his teachings of non-judgment and non-retribution tested to the fullest, just as do other human beings?  I am not comfortable with such a conclusion, but it is a possibility. 

	7-66.  "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do."  If Jesus was wise, and if he also "increased in wisdom" (Luke 2:52), then these last words are the culmination of his wisdom.  If he increased in wisdom, then he did not always have perfect wisdom. 
	 Perhaps he only finally attained it on the cross.  Perhaps only there did he see the necessity of forgiving prior to repentance.  If we could learn that, we would instantly abolish penitentiaries, those places where we send persons to become "penitent," to repent.  What a sacrilege!  What utter human folly, that we believe that the best way to teach virtue is to brutalize further.

	7-67.  How does one survive psychologically--spiritually--in prison, or in the face of any kind of harsh judgment from others?
	Perhaps one finally learns that survival and redemption come not only from admitting to oneself one's failings, but giving one's jailers or persecutors the benefit of the doubt: Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.

	7-68.  Perhaps the metaphysical assumption of incomplete knowledge implies the ethical conclusion of forgiveness: from recognition of the fact that persons commit evil deeds out of incomplete knowledge and understanding comes the ethical conclusion that one ought thereby to forego judgment.
	Non-retributivism, an ethical conclusion, thus might have its foundation in a metaphysical assumption of the incompleteness of the divine creation, including the incomplete development of human understanding and of human nature.

	7-69.  The idea of God in his Providence as being in control of an Infinite Set of Benign Contingencies would have enormous implications for pacifism.  Those who do not "see their way clear" (in terms of predicting consequences) might yet take some comfort from knowing that God has provided contingencies for dealing with the supposedly blind and sometimes imprudent choices which all persons are called upon to make.  This moral comfort, which we call "faith," could provide the basis for self-sacrificial actions, actions which at the time of decision seem to imply no future for the individual.  In cases where death is not indeed the outcome (as it sometimes will be), the comfort of knowing that God stands in the wings with surprising (and surprisingly) peaceful solutions might be seen to imply that some otherwise "impractical" or "naVve" solutions (by the prudential standards of the self-proclaimed "realists") might be the ultimate in practicality.  
	Thus in a very literal sense one who has "no thought for tomorrow" or who stands prepared to "lose his life that he may gain it" is not necessarily an imprudent fool after all: God may have designed his creation such that those who are seemingly imprudent in the sense of indifference to their personal welfare as they try to promote the will of God may well be protected and backed up by infinite benign contingencies, implying a backup for every possible situation.  One wants to emphasize that this does not mean that such actors will always fare well or even survive by worldly standards.  It is only to say that, even when a course of action seems foolish or imprudent by worldly standards, it might well be in strict accordance with the will of God and thus quite wise and prudent in the ultimate and most meaningful sense.

	7-70.  If there are any implications about ethics as a result of speculations about time, especially the future, it would seem that consequentialist ethics such as utilitarianism are most suspect.  For, if the future is not yet, and thus is not, then neither are future consequences, and thus it is hard to see how that which is not can be the ultimate basis for ethical decision-making, as proclaimed by the principle of utility.  What we know of the future is that it seems to be subject to change, and it seems that, although we certainly must take account of expected consequences in moral decision-making and in all action, it would be a mistake to make that which is subject to change the ultimate basis of our choices.  
	It would seem far better to make the ultimate foundation of decision-making that which is eternal and unchanging: not expected consequences, but the ultimate and complete will of God, as well as we can ascertain it.  On the basis of our conception of the will of God, it would seem to be the case that we are obligated to try to bring future ends or consequences into being in accordance with that will, using means or methods which are also in accordance with that will.
	
	7-71.  There is a tradition, now the philosophical fashion, that says that philosophers should begin with weak metaphysical premises or assumptions, so that we can proceed with our arguments and discussions from "settled ideas" or "settled assumptions" (whatever those might be).  To posit the existence of God, or to speculate about his nature, or about human nature, is not seen by such persons to be a fruitful way to proceed: persons disagree too much about such things, we are told, as if we are being given a great new insight.
	I have one thing to say to that tradition: weak assumptions, weak conclusions.

	7-72.  Why do the true retributivists say over and over that only the "blood of the Lamb" washes away or forgives sins?
	They say it because such a belief saves them from the necessity of forgiving sins.  They can repeat the incantation and then get back to the dirty business of war, punishment, and social exclusion of all kinds.  By their retributive metaphysic of God they thus make all of their religious beliefs totally irrelevant for ethical action in this life.  True forgiveness would mean saving persons in the here and now, in practical everyday contexts. 
	This is the lesson that a mature Christianity must learn if it is to realize its mission of redemption and salvation in the world.  To speak of saving souls in the next life while being indifferent to the welfare of individual persons or souls in this life is the greatest folly of which a nominal Christianity is capable, and it is a folly which it achieves on a regular and predictable basis.
	Is there a war to be fought?  Then rest assured that "Christians" will come to the fray.  Are there wrongdoers to be apprehended and punished?  Then look for "Christians" on the forefront of this or that crowd hungry for "justice."
	For God came into the world, and the world knew him not.  Nor does it yet.

						

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE EPISTEMOLOGY
AND MORAL PSYCHOLOGY OF PACIFISM

	8-1.  All persons make a priori assumptions, whether they realize it or not.  If one posits the existence of God, then one has no more made an a priori assumption than if one posits the non-existence of God.  
	What one never really does, however, is make no assumptions about the Ultimate Question: the agnostic finally defaults to atheism.

	8-2.  Whether absurd or not, whether true or not, I have posited something like the following premises as the foundation of this study (although I am not sure which is really first and which are derivative): first, that there is a God; second, that God by his nature is not only omniscient and omnipotent but omnibenevolent and therefore non-retributive; third, that God came to earth in human form (that is, self-imposing certain limitations on his powers) in order to exemplify the right kind of conduct toward other persons.
	In other words, I have assumed, for all practical purposes, that Jesus was the Messiah, a Child of God in some unique sense.

	8-3.  I assume the divinity of Christ in part because the choice is there to make: one posits that Jesus either was or was not the Messiah.  It is also a matter of great import which of these choices turns out to be true.  If he was the Messiah, then we should certainly want to know what he really said and meant.  If he was not, then we should want to be free of a lot of myths.  
	In any case, we get nowhere by assuming nothing about the existence and nature of God: a premise is a first step.  One cannot move forward in practice or in theory if one does not posit that first premise, make that first step.

	8-4.  Some other premises would seem to follow from the assumption of the divinity of Christ: if one assumes that Jesus was God incarnate, then one might want to assume that, regardless of the incoherence and incompleteness of the fragments of his teachings which have come down to us, he had something coherent to say.
	Assuming coherence, one cannot rationally do other than attempt a reconstruction of his life and teachings, a reconstruction that must challenge the biblical account in many particulars.  One relies primarily upon the methods of rationalism, not empiricism, in attempting such a reconstruction.  As for simply trying to find out what Jesus really said, one certainly cannot simply quote the Bible, for that would not even be empiricism but dogmatism. 
	What one finds, in any case, is that both the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth and the Bible cannot both be presumed to be coherent.  An inerrantist view of the Bible forces one to an incoherent view of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.

	8-5.  I have assumed that religious faith need not be dogma so much as "working premises"--choices one makes as presuppositions for further action and inquiry.  In this sense one "chooses to believe" in a very literal sense: one chooses the premises upon which one will reflect and act.
	 Faith is not so much the substance of things hoped for as it is the essence of things posited--and acted upon.

	8-6.  "Faith" does not imply irreversible commitment that is closed to all new experience or argument.  It does have a quality of boldness in the face of uncertainty, but only because faith implies making a choice and acting on it--a choice that could be wrong, with consequences that could be disastrous, but preferable in any case to waiting passively for things to happen to one. 
	Nor is it only in formal religious faith that what one posits is that which one hopes for.  One also posits (and hopes) that an ordinary wooden bridge will not collapse as one drives over it.  That presupposition is also faith, for faith is only a rational premise for action.  

	8-7.  A bridge across eternity cannot, of course, be tested or examined empirically as simply as can a bridge across a river.  Nonetheless, one does not want to exclude any empirical knowledge that could conceivably bear upon the truth or falsity of any religious assumption of an a priori nature.
	Does all of this imply that a priori assumptions can be proven or disproven by empirical data?  The answer is certainly "no" at the level of single assertions, but within the grand rationalistic architectonic of a social theory based upon a priori assumptions, the congruence of the worldview with empirical evidence is vital.  If it were not so, then we would not be justified in resorting to what fragmented and flawed empirical evidence we have in the biblical account of the life and teachings of Jesus.
	Other empirical evidence is also relevant, however, such as fossils deposited over millions of years in sedimentary rock.  These seem to imply that the universe evolves, a conclusion which impels one to believe that God (if one posits the existence of God) is a God who continues to create.
	Above all, what Christian ethics and evolutionary theory working together seem to imply is that God might also still be in the process of creating and developing what we typically call "human nature."  One dare not presume that knowledge of either God or the empirical world is irrelevant for understanding the human psyche, either for what it is or for what it is becoming.

	8-8.  There is the possibility that the views of the best Christian commentators (such as Augustine and Aquinas) might be more important than the views of Jesus himself--if he was not the Son of God, God Incarnate.  
	Yet, if there is even a chance that he was the Son of God, then, abhorrent as it is to the secular tradition of political theory, we must take the leap and look--heaven forbid--at biblical exegesis as a valid form of inquiry in political theory.

	8-9.  Jesus as communist?  as anarchist?  as radical Jew?  as pacifist?  Well, the answers in the first two cases are maybe so and maybe not, depending upon one's definitions, but Jesus as radical Jewish pacifist going against the grain of an entire culture?
	On an existential human level, that is exactly what he was.

	8-10.  In the case of ethical systems, one must depend a great deal on coherence criteria as much as, if not more than, upon correspondence criteria: one assumes coherence for a Messiah, and, upon that premise, one perhaps allows the coherence criteria to override claims of fact where those are not strictly verifiable by empirical means alone.  (Conflicting or nonsensical scriptural accounts represent a case in point.)
	The epistemological problem does loom paramount.  It is such a forbidding problem that, unless one has a compelling moral vision or intuition, one is not likely to want to invest too much time in the kind of speculative theory which is necessary just to frame the questions, much less try to provide the answers.

	8-11.  The ethical paradigm offered here ought at least to provide the basis for a meaningful interpretation of history, one that is ultimately morally satisfying, internally consistent, and congruent with the facts.  Yet, it is not possible to work backwards and presume that one can prove the validity of one's ethical stance by simply pointing to the historical record.  History in itself "proves" nothing.
	The "lesson" of Vietnam, for example, seems clear enough to the pacifist, but a very different lesson appears equally clear to the militarist.  Perhaps one might speculate so far as to say that the wrong interpretation will ultimately prove morally and intellectually dissatisfying, but only because it goes counter to basic rational ethical insights, not because it can be proved to have been unjustified by empirical analysis.
	The exact interplay between empirical verification and moral insight is an ultimate problem and will not be resolved here.  I hope, however, that by emphasizing rational consistency rather than the historical record by itself, I will find a basis for rebutting militaristic interpretations of certain factually non-controversial events--interpretations generally lumped together as claims that this or that war was practically necessary and morally justifiable.  
	A valid pacifistic worldview, that is, ought to provide the basis for reinterpreting history and saving it from the dominant popular paradigms which presume to show the necessity and justification of war, punishment, and state coercion of every kind.

	8-12.  In terms of the formal theoretical foundations of pacifism, what one seeks is an ethic which comes the closest to being a reconciliation of consequentialist and deontological theories of ethics,1 or which at least tries to satisfy the essential insights from both traditions.  As a general rule, one wants to believe that the principles of pacifism, non-retributivism, and transnationalism (non-exclusivity) would tend to promote good consequences.  Yet, one feels the force of such principles even in those circumstances where good consequences either do not obviously follow or cannot be proven.
	One wants as well a deontological theory which does not lead into the quicksand of utilitarian theories, as well as one which does not leave one high and dry on the "empty formalism" of Kantian ethics.  One wants a deontology and a teleology, that is, but the deontology that one wants is not that of Kant, while the teleology that one wants is certainly not that of Bentham.

	8-13.  In Kantian theory the only thing good in itself (the only inherent good) is good will.  This doctrine is advanced in the name of "natural law."2
	The problem with this view of good, as well as with the conception of natural law that it represents, is that it posits a totally amorphous and vacuous theory of good.  If one believes that all good comes from God, then Kant's view implies that all that God wills for the world is good will--and nothing more.  Everything else is seen to be a matter of either rational personal choice or purely emotional personal preference.  The view is superficially attractive because it seems to promise each individual the role of value legislator.  It also "frees" one from the task of deciding what to do with the competing claims as to what specific things might be inherently good, as on the more traditional natural law view.
	Most problematic, however, is that this amorphous theory of good and natural law is seen to imply for Kant only that the moral law may be summed up totally in the requirement to treat other persons as ends in themselves, capable of making rational choices and contracting with other persons on mutually agreeable terms.  Yet, if all other ends are mere matters of taste or convention, then Kant's view implies that anything agreed to by consenting rational beings, and carried out in good faith and good will, is "good."  The resolution of these differences becomes then not an intuitive moral problem for each individual person, but a juridical problem for deciding between competing claims.  It is no accident that the theoretical relativity of ends in Kant leads to a sterile legalism in practice.
	Kant's legalism and concomitant retributivism, that is, are derivative of a certain type of relativism.
	
	8-14.  Does Kantian epistemology lead to a particular conception of God and of the Good?
	It should be remembered, of course, that Kant does not truly posit God, especially not the God of the New Testament--his system is one that stands on reason alone.3  There is thus not only a certain scepti-cism for Kant about the prospects of knowing God, but there is also a disparagement of the human need for divinely ordained structure and purpose in knowledge of particular forms of what is "good" or "natural."
	Empty formalism begets relativism, however, and relativism begets legalism.  Without the possibility of knowing the specifics of divine law, moral theory is transformed into legal theory, for legal theory derives from the presumption of irreconcilable conflicts, and legal theory must posit the state as the arbiter of competing claims.
	Kant was a legalist, a statist, and he was these things because of his weak and vacuous conception of the good, which in turn derived from his scepticist approach to the ultimate epistemological problem: the existence and nature of God.

	8-15.  What are some substantive questions that every natural law theory ought to address?  A few come instantly to mind:
	(1) Does God will that persons should rule over each other in hierarchical relationships, or is his ultimate will that persons should be capable of finding non-hierarchical and non-authoritarian forms of human association?
	(2) Does God will a specific pattern of mating and mate selection, even though the world evinces a multitude of varying patterns in this regard?
	(3) Does God will that humankind should use reason to develop technological devices that will allow persons to dominate physical nature and thus escape the constraints of the natural order, or does God will that persons should use reason to discover the underlying harmony within physical nature and to live in accordance with this posited harmony?
	Whether approached as problems of ethics or of neutral scientific enquiry, these issues at least point to questions of inherent value.  The Kantian view does not seem to allow these questions to be approached as other than matters of personal preference: such matters are for Kant within the "phenomenal" realm, and as such are not matters that are seen to be central ethical questions for him.  Indeed, the empty formalism of Kant's philosophy is in reality a denial of the significance of all truly meaningful natural law questions.  

	8-16.  Even those of us who must reject the Kantian system of ethics must nonetheless acknowledge that Kant has seen something quite clearly, and the clarity of his vision is useful: the linkage between retribution and the state.  Indeed, we may go further and say not so much that the state exists for the purpose for administering retribution as that the state is retribution: the state is the realm of all practices and beliefs embodying the principle of retribution.
	In any case, Kant was wrong in deducing from his general Categorical Imperative a specific categorical imperative of retribution.4

	8-17.  It may be noteworthy that Kant began with secular (or at least scepticist) premises, and that he concluded with a conception of the moral law containing a categorical imperative of retribution rather than one of non-retribution.  An overtly theistic, non-retributive conception of God, by contrast, impels one toward an ethic of non-retribution.  Perhaps one might risk so much as to say that, without the correct theistic premises, there cannot be valid ethical conclusions.  Human reason is relied upon in positing either premise, but in the one instance the premises upon which reason operates are either atheistic, agnostic, or retributively theistic, and in the other case they are overtly theistic.
	I am aware that there are some agnostics among those who consider themselves "non-retributivists."  I wonder, however, if they could accept the radical non-retributivism set forth in this work, or whether such a radical non-retributivism requires overtly theistic premises of a non-retributive nature.  I do not want to overstate the case of a linkage between theistic (or other epistemological) premises and ethical conclusions, since one can always find theorists who may serve as counterexamples.  Yet, if the arguments are coherent, one must believe that the assumptions must have something to do with the conclusions.

	8-18.  It is conceivable that God is a retributive God who yet thinks that judgment and retribution are too important to be left to human beings.  I do not think so, however, since I believe that God wills that persons should will what God wills.  A non-retributive human made in the image of a retributive God makes no sense.
	A retributive human made in the image of a retributive God remains a logically coherent possibility, of course.  I can only say in this regard that the only practical "proof" of the viability of the theistic assumption is the psychological viability of the ethic which is entailed by it.  I do not find a retributive ethic to be agreeable to the very core of my psyche, and the dissonant emotional state which reflects (or is) this spiritual condition is existential "proof" (or at least evidence) that the assumption is false. 
	This agreeability with the psyche is the most overt linkage between theology and moral psychology.  One assumes, that is, the epistemological significance of the condition of one's psyche, and one thereby takes very seriously indeed the congruence between one's emotions and intuitions, on the one hand, and the corresponding ethical and theological belief systems which seem to be correlated with them.
	One looks, that is, for emotional and intuitive feedback as means of testing one's rationalistic premises and conclusions.

	8-19.  How can we know the answer to the ultimate theological question: why do innocent persons suffer?  We cannot, but we can speculate and see what conclusions follow from our speculations.  
	Let us speculate that God allows suffering for possibly more than one reason, among them being the possibility that only the suffering of the innocent is sufficient to pierce the most hardened hearts.  Innocent persons tend to be valued--even loved--by other persons, even those whose capacity for love runs low.  The thought of the end of all innocent persons is perhaps enough to make even the most hardened heart reflect upon the meaning of life, for who would want to live in a world where there was no idealism and only cynicism?  
	One thing does seem clear: God does allow at least some injustices to exist, possibly so that we may learn to respond to them with good.  Beyond that one can only speculate as to what is in the mind of God.

	8-20.  I take it to be self-evidently true that much of the Old Testament is more in the nature of folklore than revealed truth.  This is most obviously true in the Genesis story of the creation of the Earth, as well as in the "historical" accounts from Adam and Eve to Noah and beyond.5  The early books of the Old Testament represent the early attempts of a nomadic people to offer explanations as to how the earth was created and how men and women came to live and die on it.  Like early accounts in most cultures, one finds exaggeration and speculation.
	Over time, of course, priesthoods were established to stand watch over the compilation and revision of such stories, especially as they began to be written down.  Formal priesthoods, of course, are typically somewhat reactionary organizations which can become concerned above all with enhancing the legitimacy of the office of the priests themselves, rather than to advance the cause of truth.  Priesthoods thereby tend to reject all attempts to challenge the total legitimacy of their received wisdom: what began as folklore and ethical and theological speculation finally comes to be bound up together as something of a "package deal" as far as truth is concerned.
	Anyone who challenges the moral authority of the priesthood in a primitive theocratic culture is going to get into trouble.  Thus it was when along came Jesus of Nazareth, challenging the traditions and biases of a priestly culture thousands of years old.6

	8-21.  It has been the priesthood itself which has been largely responsible for the infamous dilemma between blind, unquestioning faith and blind, unquestioning rejection of faith.  The priests have simply not had enough faith in the power of truth to admit of defects or limitations in the official versions of it.  The problem has derived largely from the presumption that the elders of a community should be entitled to respect simply by virtue of having been the elders.
	The most horrible paternalism has thus resulted with regard to intellectual enquiry.  Whether to insulate the faith of their "flocks" or of themselves, this priestly paternalism has resulted in aversion to parallel studies of a religious and scientific nature.  The often false dilemma between science and religion thus was not created primarily by the scientific community, but by the priestly community, which refused to accept any claims of science which came into conflict with holy writ.
	The result has been an often bitter and usually fruitless attempt by parties on both sides to defend either science or religion in opposition to each other: a more robust faith, in either, would have allowed for the possibility of reconciling at least some competing claims.  The progress of ethical enquiry depends upon respect for both religion and science.  There is nothing in either which requires the exclusion of the other.  

	8-22.  The epistemology of a meaningful, reasoned religion requires a receptiveness to empirical and non-empirical knowledge of varying kinds (reason, intuition, et cetera).  The empirical component cannot, of course, be set aside as applying only to those questions which are not religious or biblical: it is the Bible itself which must be subjected to the most intense empirical scrutiny, even though it is equally true that empirically-based knowledge will not prove the validity of what one might want to affirm on the theological plane.  One must nonetheless subject all religious knowledge to as much scientific scrutiny as possible, even if one finally rejects empirical science as the ultimate authority on religious questions.

	8-23.  Notwithstanding the valid concessions to science, it is still the case, as J. B. Phillips says, that "to any Christian these [biblical documents] are the most important documents in the world."7  He goes on to say that "anything therefore which makes the significance and relevance of the Personal Visit clearer to the reader is to be welcomed with open arms."
	By "anything," Phillips refers only to the content of the Greek documents which are our oldest sources of the New Testament.  I would go further and refer to science as well, whether linguistic analysis of the New Testament or scientific theories such as evolution which challenge the larger biblical tradition.
	Intellectual difficulties are admittedly introduced by wanting to believe portions of the Bible without believing all of it.  Yet, these difficulties with believing only parts of the Bible, as great as they are, are not as great as those which come with either accepting or rejecting the Bible in toto.  The dilemma must be bridged; the tightrope must be walked.  The study of the Bible must be a scientific enterprise, whatever else it might be.
	The scientific evidence to date does not show the Bible to be either totally true or totally false.

	8-24.  In attempting a reconstruction of the full ethical system of Jesus of Nazareth, my premise (or is it conclusion?) has not only been that the Bible contains only fragments of his teachings, but that the biblical version of his life and teachings is substantially flawed, both as a historical account as well as a statement of moral philosophy.  His disciples clearly did not fully understand his message, and this problem is compounded by the fact that he seems not to have written anything down.  
	Some very difficult choices were required of me in the course of this attempted reconstruction.  First, there was the question as to whether or not to take seriously the claims of divinity: could the ethical system be understood apart from its religious context?  I decided, with trepidation, that it could not, and so I assumed at the very least that Jesus did at least see himself as the Messiah.  Second, since neutrality on such basic assumptions also seemed unlikely to produce anything of real value, I also had to make a choice as to whether or not I would take the claim of divinity seriously: any attempted ethical reconstruction is bound to vary, depending upon whether or not one accepts or rejects the premise of the divinity of Christ.  Or, at least, so it seemed to me, and thus I decided to give what some would decry as the scientifically unjustifiable benefit of the doubt to the claim of divinity, at least as an operating premise.
	That is, the attempted ethical reconstruction here is one made by a believer, not a non-believer, in the divinity of Christ.  This premise of Jesus' divinity is the strongest epistemological assumption conceivable, and I must confess that it must be viewed as having been originally made on a substantially a priori basis, in spite of the flawed historical record of the Bible.  That is, the assumption of divinity was only a premise, especially during the early stages of inquiry.
	That the assumption of the divinity of Christ need not remain completely at the level of the a priori means that, once assumed, it admits of a high degree of rational confirmation through further analysis, speculative theory, and perhaps even some very limited empirical evidence culminating in the construction of a full theoretical architectonic of Christian ethics within the context of Christian faith.  Some of that "empirical evidence" is of a psychological nature, since one's emotional feedback upon trying to live the Christian ethic is a significant form of verification, even as it does not constitute "proof."

	8-25.  It is true that the claim of divinity of Jesus can be interpreted in weak or strong terms.  On the weak interpretation, Jesus could have been only a radical Jew who assumed that we were all children of God, and upon that basis he might have trusted his own conscience as a son of God to challenge the religious and political orthodoxies of his day.  On the other hand, he might have really believed that he was the Son of God in the stronger and more unique sense of being God Incarnate.  Those who have given us the record which we have clearly believed the latter, and I also have accepted this strong interpretation as to his own concept of himself.
	After choosing to accept the premise that Jesus thought of himself as the Son of God, another choice presented itself: was Jesus sane or not?  If he made the weak claim, the issue of his sanity would probably not arise; but, if he made the strong claim, then the question of sanity would indeed arise and would thereby affect the issue of coherence: we are not typically justified in attributing coherence to an insane man, and we certainly do not typically adjudge as sane those who claim to be God.
	In any case, the whole attempt to offer a coherent reconstruction of his ethical teachings led me more and more into the overtly religious teachings, so that I was finally unable to deal with the issue of ethical coherence without making a judgment of the man himself.  It seemed unreasonable to try to take his ethical teachings seriously if one could not take the man seriously: as he himself said, it is by their fruits that you shall know them.  No madman, then, could be expected to speak great truths, especially not in a coherent fashion.
	The New Testament ethical account is not entirely coherent on its face.  Therefore the choice arose as to whether or not to attribute the incoherence to the man or to the incomplete and inadequately understood record of his teachings on the part of his earliest followers.  I chose primarily the latter, again giving him the benefit of the doubt: there seemed to be a thread of a teaching not only so coherent but so compelling and inspiring that to do otherwise would have been intellectually dishonest.  I say "primarily," however, insofar as Jesus' thought may have changed significantly over the course of his life on earth.  I thus did not assume total coherence in all of his teachings, especially with regard to the retributive language that pervades many parables and metaphors attributed to him.

	8-26.  Given the force of Jesus' teaching, and the way that it was so tightly intertwined with the account of the man's personality (especially in the face of arrest and execution), I decided (or perhaps discovered) that the posited coherence could only be reconstructed by treating the life and the teachings as an indivisible whole.  The whole which emerged was so compelling that I found it hard, on balance, to say with any authority that such a message and such an example could likely have come from just another intellectual critic of the establishment.
	At this point, it occurred to me that my own biases do not matter.  Others might, after all, say that other important figures, such as Socrates or Gandhi, have demonstrated a comparable congruence of teaching and personality, and that therefore there is no reason to assume divinity for Jesus of Nazareth in any particular sense--especially not in the strong sense of being the Son of God.  
	I can respect that idea, but I also found that some of his most powerful ethical statements seemed to emanate from claims about his divinity.  These arose from particular accounts of temptation to use force--first, early in his career, when he was tempted to become like earthly rulers and to try to set up a secular kingdom (my interpretation of his being "tempted by the devil in the wilderness" in the fourth chapter of Matthew); and, second, very late in his career when he was arrested and is said to have responded to Peter's use of force by saying that he could, if he wanted, "call down twelve legions of angels" and thereby avoid the subsequent interrogations, beatings, and execution.  Such temptations are only fully intelligible if one is talking either about a madman or a Messiah.  
	The choice of merely radical Jewish intellectual did not make sense in the context of such claims of divinity: if he actually made such claims, he either was the Messiah or else he was crazy.  Again, a choice which was a de facto epistemological choice seemed to present itself.

	8-27.  There yet remained the possibility that the biblical account was so flawed that the above strong statements attributed to Jesus of Nazareth were simply false, the products of biblical revision over the centuries.  Since these were so central to his historical significance and the force of his ethical teachings, however, throwing these out as being false meant giving up on the project entirely: nothing of real significance would remain, except possibly the story of just another deranged person who thought that he was God.  The choice was therefore to presume the accuracy of at least some of the core teachings, necessitating thereby the dismissing of the possibility that this was just another radical Jewish intellectual.  
	Thus did I come to the stark choice: Messiah or madman.  Upon the basis of that choice, one made slowly and painfully over a period from 1973 to 1989, I very grudgingly accepted as an operating premise the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth in the strong sense.  Others may choose not to and may find other interpretations besides mine more compelling.  I can only say that, in my case, I came to these strong conclusions from a stance of initial adult agnosticism after having been raised as a child in a fundamentalist household.  
	The reconstruction of my beliefs on a more critical and much more liberal theological footing does not, of course, protect me from the criticisms of those who might see me as merely reaffirming some childhood dogma.  That might be true, but it also might not.  In any case, there is never an adequate defense against such a charge.  I can only say that my present ethical and theological views are greatly at odds with the teachings of my childhood.
	I can also say, however, that the reconstruction of my beliefs paralleled a reconstruction of my life.  The earlier fundamentalist beliefs had to collapse with the fall from innocence, and I believe that the reconstruction is more mature, more honest than either the early fundamentalism or the later agnosticism.  This is so in spite of errors of judgment or of interpretation that remain.  I am not assuming, of course, that my thought has ceased to evolve.

	8-28.  Christian ethics, so far from being a repudiation of reason, is founded in reason.  Indeed, it is not too strong to say that Christian ethics is based upon one most fundamental premise: that reason provides an alternative to force, threat, or manipulation.  Reason, that is, is not a mere instrument of truth but is itself a substantive expression or manifestation of truth.  To the extent that persons genuinely speak from or with True Reason, they speak to some degree from God, for reason in its fullness and completeness itself reflects the very spirit of God.  Thus everything that is truly spoken from reason can be said to be in some sense "divinely inspired."   
	Divine inspiration is, in any case, not something reserved to the writers of the Bible or to persons who make overtly religious appeals or claims.  Indeed, it is not too strong to say that much of the Bible most certainly is not divinely inspired, for the Bible contains much that is false and imperfect.  What passes for virtue in the false culture of religious posturing is little more than book worship: it is hardly the worship of God, for one cannot simultaneously disparage reason and love God.  Bible worship (which seems to be the defining essence of what is widely called religious "fundamentalism") is a variant of what sociologist Robert K. Merton has called the "displacement of goals":8 the Bible, which was a set of writings intended to try to record insight and truth and therefore to promote the fullest attainment of truth, has come to be confused with truth itself.   
	When we have faith in reason, in the fullest and truest sense, we demonstrate faith in God.  When we have unqualified faith in a book, by comparison, we betray a lack of faith in sustained rational inquiry.  
	8-29.  If it is true that there is such a thing as self-evident truth, then it is also true that there is a ground of knowledge which might be claimed to be prior not only to sensory experience, but to reason: a priori knowledge in some radically intuitive sense.  If there is not some kind of truth which is prior to conscious reason, then it is difficult to comprehend the meaning or significance of the claim that there is self-evident truth. 
	If there is self-evident truth, then it would seem that one might have to posit some kind of fundamental moral faculty which directly intuits that which is good or right.  This idea is hardly a new one, but it is not one which is presently held in high regard.  The idea that there is self-evident truth seems to imply not only that some things are known prior to both reason and experience, in the sense that those terms are commonly used, but it seems as well to imply a very important but also strangely disturbing corollary, a corollary that its advocates have not to my knowledge acknowledged.
	This disturbing corollary following from the existence of self-evident knowledge and truth would be that there are limits to the power of rational and empirical enquiry: some intuited goods, that is, cannot meaningfully be further argued for, much less proven or refuted.
	By referring to knowledge independent of conscious reason, it may be said that I am speaking philosophical gibberish, and perhaps I am.  Yet, we dare not suppose that the idea that something is self-evident means that something is self-evident through conscious reason, but perhaps only that it is self-evident to reasonable and sentient beings.  That is, the idea of self-evident truth seems not to be an endorsement of rationalism per se, but an endorsement of a way of knowing which is somehow pre-rational or even extra-rational: an epistemology of simple intuitionism.  Reason, on such a view, can at best try to express and communicate something about the content of those intuitions.

	8-30.  Intuitionism in the strong sense has about it that claim of conviction (or perhaps merely dogma) which is as close to being philosophically invulnerable as one might get.  Nor in calling it "invulnerable" do I necessarily praise it, for I mean only that it cannot be verified or refuted, either by empirical or rational means.  If it cannot be verified or falsified, either by reason or the senses, then it would seem to be not only beyond question, but it would seem that it belongs neither to the province of philosophy nor of science.  If it belongs neither to the province of philosophy nor to that of science, then it surely belongs either to the realm of madness or of religion.
	There remains the possibility that truths first glimpsed by intuition can be independently verified (in some sense) by reason, and perhaps by the senses as well.  The problem is what to do with intuited insights in the meantime.  
	A stronger claim for intuitive knowledge, however, implies that one simply knows certain things without knowing how one knows, with no possibility of further verification.

	8-31.  A doctrine of "invulnerable intuitionism" seems to be so absurd as to be totally indefensible, implying as it does a certain closed-mindedness.  It also suggests that there might be some things which are known in such a way that further examination or doubt is not only fruitless but potentially destructive.
	So stated, it would seem to be the kind of stance which one might expect to be held to by dogmatists and authoritarians of all kinds.  Yet, the claims of self-evident knowledge by Thomas Jefferson and others who have been predisposed to challenge authority suggest that the epistemological doctrine of intuitionism is not in itself the bulwark of authoritarianism, although its language could be used to buttress the claims of those who are authoritarian, such as the heads of ecclesiastical and political hierarchies.

	8-32.  If the ultimate intuited end is peace, and if this peace is also to be achieved through peaceful means, then how is the psychological disposition to be peaceable and to use peaceful means to be cultivated?  	No theory of the moral psychology of Christian ethics is complete that does not address this question.

	8-33.  The affirmation of pacifistic principles is necessary but not sufficient for the cultivation of the peaceable disposition.  We often desire to be peaceable, but our actual disposition is otherwise.  How can it be that our "desire," our spiritual aspiration, to be peaceable should be so much at odds with our actual emotional disposition to action?  
	The problem is perhaps one of a lack of faith, in the non-hackneyed sense of a lack of a coherent belief system.  A complete and perfected faith or belief system would perhaps come to fruition in a perfectly peaceable disposition.  Still, why is it the case that those with highly developed pacifist ideals can sometimes be as embittered and cantankerous as those who make no pretensions toward ethical idealism?
	Perhaps one possible explanation is that moral failure in one area can lead to the disintegration of character in other areas.  In practice, this could mean that a failure to be disposed to pacifistic action does not always come from a failure to understand pacifist ideals, but from self-contempt arising from moral failure in some other realm of action or belief.  The bad conscience or incomplete faith in one realm can surely affect behavior and general psychological disposition in all areas.

	8-34.  In Whatever Became of Sin? Karl Menninger seems to be saying that the unrepented sin has very serious psychological consequences.9  Perhaps one of those consequences can be a disposition to be suspicious, hostile, and aggressive even in the face of avowed belief in the principles of peace.
	If that is true, it not only suggests that certain varieties of psychopathology have a foundation in how persons cope with moral dilemmas, but it also suggests that one of the most horrifying possible consequences of sin is loss of moral insight and intuition.  That is a frightening prospect, indeed, for it implies at least the logical possibility of the death spiral of the psyche.
	Yet, is not the power of God greater than all such rationalization of unrepented sin?  Is our "free agency" so complete that God could and would only stand by and watch as we made a complete and irreversible journey to self-destruction?

	8-35.  The need for internalized safeguards to help guard against errors of moral judgment is obvious if pacifists are not to lose credibility among their more conventional fellow human beings.  Besides, those whose efforts are likely to take them afoul of official guidelines and sanctions had better be pretty sure that they can trust their own judgment before they put their lives and happiness on the line.
	Even the conventional wisdom holds that faith and judgment can be warped and distorted by sin and depravity.  No person, of whatever ethical persuasion, is immune to temptation and the subsequent rationalizations and desensitized moral disposition which are the consequences of moral error: sin.  Karl Menninger's idea of the severe or even grave consequences of unrepented sin is as penetrating an insight of psychology as may be found.  It suggests that sin in any realm can so damage or destroy judgment or a benign disposition that the mere claim to be acting in accordance with pacifist principles is certainly no assurance that one will, in a given problematic situation, (1) adequately and accurately size up the nature of the moral threat, (2) think of creative and benign alternatives to the use of force, and (3) exercise the requisite self-control and patience necessary for responding in a peaceable and constructive manner.
	The idea of the danger of "the unrepented sin" reminds us that the wellspring of all useful thought and action is a healthy psyche, one purged of the false rationalization which is the consequence of sin.  This means that the first course of action in any situation is to be sure that the mind is clear and that general ethical values are in order.  This means that the first principle is indeed to "Know thyself. . . ." in the most fundamental sense, so as to be eternally prepared for whatever nasty surprises may come our way.  We dare not wait for the crisis to burst upon us before we put our houses in order, before we "trim our lamps."  Otherwise we shall react with anger and shocked surprise, not moral insight and a benevolent disposition.
	 When Christian ethics seems to be failing us or we seem to be losing our faith in peaceful solutions and responses, we may be sure that not only does the practical situation need further analysis, but that even before this the purity of our hearts must be restored: "Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven. . . . "

	8-36.  To what extent can one achieve a consistently altruistic and non-retributive disposition, a disposition so gentle and good that one does not even stop to think of the prudential concern except insofar as it is instrumental to the moral one?  Is such a degree of altruism possible?  Can it be achieved by rational thought?  Is it a habit of thought?  Can one achieve it finally once and for all?  
	The growth of our spiritual selves, of the fountain of character, depends on answers to questions such as these.

	8-37.  Those who believe in the efficacy of force do not necessarily act from vindictive motives or from selfishness.  They are perhaps neither more nor less vindictive or selfish than those who claim to abjure the use of force or violence.
	The bitter idealist is a common enough phenomenon that it would be absurd to think that those who are more idealistic in their avowed beliefs are necessarily the more emotionally mature or the most benevolent in their dispositions.  Indeed, many avowed pacifists advocate peace on a global scale but operate out of pettiness or malice at the personal level.  If pacifists were more prone to such tendencies than others, then one would have reason to suspect that an ethic of pacifism itself is the corrupting influence.  Fortunately, this does not seem to be the case: pacifists are at least not demonstrably worse than others in the development of their personalities.  The question remains, however, as to whether they are demonstrably better.  
	Perhaps the personal foibles of pacifists are an indication that they either do not really believe what they are saying, or else they have yet to grasp the full implications of pacifism: that its locus of action is typically not global, but local.  In addition, many who call themselves pacifists are still believers in the necessity of making judgments about the worth of others, or else they are legalists or believers in the efficacy of punishment: they are just one or another variety of strident moralist.  In addition, there is the perennial problem of self-contempt and low self-esteem, which may come out as a hateful, suspicious, or aggressive disposition.  Are pacifists less likely to have greater self-esteem?  The answer is surely "no" when they make moral claims which they do not strive to live up to.
	I do believe that, in spite of such failures by individual pacifists, there can be little doubt but that a coherent and complete pacifistic ethic is a positive force which tends to integrate personalities over time, whereas militarism has the opposite tendency over time.  The young pacifist and the young militarist may resemble each other a great deal in their motivations and intellectual outlooks.  It is not clear that the same can be said for those whose lives have been shaped over the decades by one outlook or the other.
	This much said, there is nothing more common than the career military officer who has maintained or developed qualities of gentleness with age.  These are typically persons who have not been afraid to express their doubts about military solutions, persons who have sought alternative intellectual foundations for ethical action.  They have, that is, become more pacifistic in their thinking as well as in their emotional disposition.
	Where one does see the most troubling tendencies toward irascibility and authoritarian personality traits, however, is in those advocates of judgment and force who have closed their minds to alternative ways of thinking--those who insist upon defending the indefensible, suppressing their doubts even as they shrivel their souls in their desire to escape the truth.

	8-38.  Some "pacifists" do not so much advocate peace as they renounce war.  This in itself would be admirable if it were not part of a more general tendency to renounce everything, just another act of renunciation and cynicism.
	When no positive ethic of peace is offered in place of war, pacifism does not bear fruit either in constructive action or in the cultivation of a benevolent disposition.

	8-39.  Hateful "pacifists" do not love peace.  They only need someone to hate in order to feel superior, and the persons in the military are a convenient target.
	Much that passed for pacifism among some young radicals (including this one) of the late sixties or early seventies was simply a spin-off of the tendency of rebellion and renunciation.  There was much genuine idealism in the anti-war movement of that period, but there was also much that was simply cynicism, nihilism, self-indulgence, and what Marx himself called "left-wing opportunism."
	Yet, even the baser tendencies which came to light during the sixties and early seventies in the anti-war movement were to some extent a product of the culture of war.  The Vietnam War was not hated because it was unwinnable, but because it seemed so utterly pointless to so many persons.  The perceived purposelessness of the war became linked in many minds to the perceived purposelessness of the culture in general: throwing off the Vietnam War went hand in hand with throwing off the rat race of competition for grades and jobs--and often much else besides.  Thus did the anti-war movement come to be associated with the counter-culture, even though members of the counterculture were rarely principled pacifists.
	Notwithstanding the negative manifestations of much of the anti-war movement and the counterculture of the late sixties and early seventies, it is not at all clear that the renunciation was all in error.  The problem for most young persons who renounced the values of their elders was finding other values to affirm.  That many would go too far was probably inevitable: once certain values had become discredited, it was too easy to assume that the entire culture had been discredited, and many succumbed to the temptation of banal thoughtlessness.

	8-40.  The retributive tendency can be expressed in dignified language and theories as a "principled retributivism," but it is still a rationalization of the worst in human nature, tendencies toward irrationality, vengeance.
	If this is correct, then the implication is that, whenever one is prone toward any retributive judgment or act, one must (if one can) immediately challenge and check one's own judgment and actions.  This is the ultimate or final personal backup on one's own limited rationality.  If this backup fails, and one trusts one's irrational judgment of another, then one's blind assessment of that other person as an offending party worthy of retribution might mean that one has passed the last rational warning preventing one's total loss of control, resulting in the poorest decisions or even acts of violence.  
	It is important to recognize that the correctness of the judgment is irrelevant here: even were the assessment of the other's culpability correct, there would still be the problem of whether action based upon such judgment would ever be functional in a social sense.  Therefore, whenever one's anger rises, one must assume that one's rational thought processes have not up to that point been sufficient to deal with the situation in a problem-solving mode.  Full brakes must be applied to action at this point until one is certain that full rationality is being brought to bear.  The only way to know this for sure is to have the feeling of anger or retribution not merely disappear but be replaced by a sense of understanding and even compassion.  If the negative emotions are still present, then the decision is suspect, to say the least.  Rethinking is called for.  This may be the case where one disavows retributive principles and practices, while yet being driven by hostile or retributive impulses.
	All of this follows logically and practically from the equation of irrationality and retributive tendencies, even if the latter does not seem to be manifesting itself as emotion but as principled retributive rationales.  Rationalization is rationalization, and the more dignified is its cloak, the greater is its danger.

	8-41.  The words of Stephen, "Lay not this sin to their charge,"10 are said to have been uttered during a vision of Christ as he was being stoned to death.  The words are very similar to the words of Christ on the cross, "Father, forgive them; they know not what they do."
	This similarity has been oft noted.  Because Stephen is the more obviously human, his feelings invite direct identification--it is hard for most of us to identify with Christ on the cross forgiving his malefactors.  In Stephen's case, there seems to be a total absence of rancor, even a spirit of good will, that contrasts so strongly with the smug men who were stoning him to death, or with Saul of Tarsus who stood to the side watching with approval.
	Jesus also had to contend with smug men, and others who were downright treacherous.  We assume that his motives were at least as perfect as those of Stephen.  In assuming that he was divine, however, we may cease to be impressed at the retelling of the story.

	8-42.  If we measure our love only by our rational concern, and not by what we feel, then we do ourselves a disservice.  The capacity to feel is still the best measure of our spiritual vitality--and of our true rationality.  When we are losing that emotional capacity, when we see the first symptoms of spiritual death in either numbness or in resentment toward our real enemies, long before we feel indifference or hatred toward those whom we truly love, then we should be alerted that we are on the slope toward ruin.  It is then that we should be prepared to alter our present course so totally as to be prepared to give up everything that we have if such is the price that we pay for the regaining of the spiritual integrity whose value is in its own state of being as well as in its fruits for others.

	8-43.  Insofar as the divine telos or purpose in human nature is the endstate toward which present human nature is evolving, then we may yet speak meaningfully of a teleological conception of morals based on human nature, but only if we emphasize that this nature is in the process of becoming, and is not yet fully in being.  
	Evolving human nature is thus not seen here to be the ultimate standard of morals, but should rather be viewed as the end product of moral evolution guided by the unchanging will and spirit of God guiding action and subsequent genetic development.  What we call "human nature" is thus useful as a standard only insofar as it points to the ultimate will of God for human nature.  It is this will which is the only standard which is eternal and unchanging and thus a suitable foundation for morals.
	We are not, of course, at any endstate, either as individuals or as a species, and so even strong assumptions about "human nature" do not give us the ultimate rock promised by some natural law theory.  Our reason and our moral vision continue, that is, to outdistance our instinctual nature.

	8-44.  As a rationalist in the Christian tradition, I assume that we need not use some extrapolated human nature to derive our moral ideals.  Rather, we should extrapolate from our moral ideals (rationally ascertained with the assistance of intuition, emotion, and scripture) to figure out what our human nature may be becoming, at least in terms of dispositions to action and behavior (which latter two terms are not synonymous).
	That is, the recognition that human nature may evolve should make us realize that the standard of morals must be not in nature, static or changing, but in the spirit of God which is directing that change.  Thus it is in the realm of ideas, spiritual intuition, or reason that we are to look for the values ordained of God, and so we may measure our progress on the moral evolutionary ladder accordingly.

	8-45.  In purely practical terms, an unethical person will not bring to his or her stressful decisions that reservoir of conviction and self-esteem so necessary for good will and a predisposition toward rational and benevolent action and behavior.  Unethical persons will as likely as not try to cover up their own failures from themselves, by engaging in rationalizations which will affect not only a disposition to act but a disposition to judge clearly.
	There can be no reason for an unethical person to be capable of great rationality or good will when confronted with a stressful situation, whether or not that situation is substantively related to the source of guilt.	
	An unethical person, in other words, is an unpredictable and dangerous person, even where predictably evil.  Such is the fruit of a bad conscience.  Even so, one would rather be on the receiving end of such caprice born of the bad conscience than to be the author of such capricious and dangerous action.

	8-46.  The pure consequentialist, the utilitarian, is apt to see himself as a decisive "man of action," when what he really means is that he is a man of great impatience.  The pacifist, by contrast, is apt to be viewed as passive, when in fact his slow and deliberate appeal to rational persuasion simply reflects patience borne of faith.  The pacifist is above all a person who reflects upon the way that God has created and is creating the earth, with change so imperceptible that, were it not for the scientific evidence of evolution buried in millions of years of sedimentation, one could scarcely believe that the world is changing at all.

	8-47.  If belief in God is the natural and healthy state of the human psyche, then such belief is challenged by events such as the suffering of the just, and by nature "red in tooth and claw." It is conceivable that some persons--and even entire cultures--may choose not to believe in order to find some hedonistic excuse to escape the pain of the world as they find it.  
	If so, then it is religious unbelief which is the true "opiate of the masses," to turn Marx completely on his head.  Unbelief in such instances is an act of choice, possibly a rationalization to engage in some pain-killing but socially dysfunctional behavior--but choice nonetheless.
	It is difficult to believe, however, that unbelief in and of itself can be an escape from pain.

	8-48.  Some persons are more prone to carry grudges than others, and perhaps no characteristic is a better single indicator of character than is the capacity to suffer from an enduring injustice without succumbing to vindictiveness.  Perhaps the person of totally good will would not be prone to vindictiveness at all.  (Do such persons exist in this life?  Is the purpose of this life to produce persons of such disposition?)  Although persons of good will can certainly be injured by others, they do not compound the injury by dwelling upon it.  One who does so ultimately finds that the resentfulness is a greater evil than is any external pain inflicted by another.  Pain inflicted by another can indeed be excruciating, but rumination over the injury is literally "hell."  This is so whether or not such rumination ever comes to fruition as overtly vindictive acts: the vice of a vindictive disposition is indeed its own "punishment."
	Yet, we need not suppose that the "punishment" of being of a vindictive disposition comes from God or is sanctioned of God.  It is a product of renouncing God and his Spirit of perfect forgiveness.

	8-49.  It seems likely that embittered, vindictive people are not entirely responsible for their miserable dispositions, in the same way that some persons seem to be of good disposition simply because they have not had too hard a time of it.  It seems presumptuous and unfair to label every person of a petty and vindictive disposition as "evil" or "depraved," even as one is sure that one would not want to trade places with them.  What do we say of persons who seem to be trapped in such a state and who do not seem to be making progress toward total virtue?  Are they victims of perversity or ignorance?  Perhaps some of them have simply never been taught better.  Perhaps some of them have been brutalized beyond our comprehension.

	8-50.  Abuse tends to create or exacerbate a sense of self-contempt.  Thus is it possible to think of a vindictive person as being not so much "vicious" or "depraved" as victimized--and embittered.  After all, among the lower animals, we typically do not think that a grouchy cat or a vicious dog is really exhibiting a trait of moral character.  They are largely products of a hostile or abusive environment.  We humans may likewise, in either our gentleness or in our embittered vindictiveness, be largely victims of reinforced patterns of abuse and mistreatment. 	
	We do have the capacity to be self-consciously reflective, however, and thus we have the capacity to analyze and try to transcend an embittered or vindictive disposition.  Since the natural tendency to become vicious in the face of great abuse is so strong, however, I think that we do well not to judge those who are obviously embittered, vindictive, and generally troubled.  We might do better to try to see that they do not suffer further pain, and, if we dare, we might offer teachings as to how to transcend such a condition--if we know how.  The best lesson to teach is, of course, the lesson of personal example.  The last thing that an abusive person needs is more abuse, such as imprisonment or other social condemnation.
	Can one imagine the Christ further abusing an abusive person by subjecting them to the further abuse of accusation, trial, and imprisonment?  Frankly, I cannot, and neither can I imagine him endorsing any such actions any more than I can imagine him endorsing war: God, in whatever form we may best imagine him, surely could not endorse the state or its horrors.

	8-51.  Perhaps the best way of dealing with the most violently embittered or vindictive persons would be to shower them with benevolence.  That would be a radical approach to criminality and deviance: "Return good for evil."  Instead of putting the most violently vindictive in prison, perhaps we should give them extra love and concern, as we would an abused child.
	We seem to have tried everything else.

	8-52.  If we are to finally, fully escape the ethical morass of judgment and retribution, perhaps we should be prepared to say of the most vicious, vindictive, petty, or judgmental persons among us: "Father, forgive them.  They know not what they do.  Please do not punish them, but instead bless them so that they might know the fullness of divine mercy and salvation, in both this world and the next."
	Otherwise, we should have to assume that anyone would choose such an existence out of full knowledge and wisdom, and that is implausible in the extreme.

	8-53.  Two stories juxtaposed in the New Testament were surely not put next to each other by accident: the story of Jesus calming the raging sea, followed by the story of Jesus casting out "demons" from the man afflicted by so many of them.11  In the first instance, the message seems to be that God is the God of all nature, and of every apparently random contingency of "fate" and circumstance that could possibly bless us or afflict us in an external or material sense.  In the second instance, the message seems to be that God is the God of the realm of mind and consciousness, of every force and condition that could possibly afflict or redeem us in an internal or spiritual sense.
	God, that is, is the God of heaven and earth: he is the God of both the spiritual realm and the material realm.  He is not a force who operates only within us, comforting us only by his Spirit, while remaining impotent to control events external to us.  The Lord God is Lord of all.  Everything that happens is certainly not his will, but neither is it beyond his ultimate control.  The dramas and trials of human existence are surely not without meaning, even when they seem most devoid of meaning.
	Too many wonderful and mysterious things happen to be a matter of mere chance.

	8-54.  Biblical references to the "fear of God" are either Old Testament passages or remnants of Old Testament thinking in the New Testament.  It is God's warning that we should heed--we should fear the consequences if we do not heed God's warning.  This is not the same as fearing God.  Indeed, it should be the basis of praise, not abject fear, for God is telling us how to avoid the emptiness of the soul which is felt as fear.
	Even the women at the tomb of Jesus were in fear of the angel as a representative of God.12  Later, however, Jesus is said to have appeared to them in a more comforting context.13  The scriptures are replete with examples of divine injunctions to "Fear not. . . ."  God well knows that we tend to feel fear when confronted with his power or the power of his message, and he wants to reassure us that he is not to be feared but trusted.

	8-55.  If God is not the God of fear, but of a sound mind, then why does he create us with the capacity for fear?  The answer here is surely that the design of our psyches in order to detect a threat to our physical or moral existence is itself an act of grace, not of threat.  God, by building a warning device into our psyches, has not thereby himself threatened us: there is an essential difference between threat and warning.  Even the lower animals have the capacity for fear: perhaps one of the first functions of developing rationality is the capacity to comprehend the emptiness inherent in the threat of extinction.  In humankind this capacity has so expanded with the expansion of rationality that human beings are capable of comprehending threats to their psychic and moral, not merely physical, well-being.  

	8-56.  Is it possible to know what is right and still do wrong?  The question has been around at least since the time of Plato.
	I think that the question cannot be answered apart from specifying that what is really at stake is the possibility of  sin in the face of total knowledge of that which is right.  That is, as long as our knowledge and our faith are incomplete, we admittedly shall have the disturbing disposition to do wrong even when we know better, even in those realms where we believe that our faith is the strongest.  Clearly, however, if we are always going to have the disposition to do wrong even if we know what is good or right, then what promise lies in the concept of "heaven"?  If heaven is not a state of the soul wherein one has finally triumphed once and for all over evil and temptation, then how would heaven be different from our present temporary triumphs, followed by later lapses?
	Therefore I should like to argue for the possibility of a final full and total triumph.  Nor do I mean a Nietzschean triumph of the will: I mean a triumph of the will of God over our imperfect will through the perfection of our faith--our belief system--through God's truth.  When our faith and understanding are complete, perhaps we shall no longer be surprised and betrayed by our desires.  Nor will the desires themselves be at odds with our true being.  Out of total truth and total faith will come the total harmony of the soul.
	When our knowledge and understanding are complete, that is, we shall surely have absolutely no disposition to do evil: one wants to believe that it is not possible to comprehend right in its fullness and still do evil.  Otherwise, a final triumph over sin and temptation--heaven--would seem to be impossible in this or any other life.

	8-57.  The empty, hellish state of depravity triggers the psyche to engage in rational search for the cause of its own malaise.  It is fortunate that the ensuing re-examination of past incorrect moral choices is aided by Reason, the omnipotent Spirit of Truth, which has power to rescue even the most depraved soul from the depths of his or her own mental hell.  If God could not rescue the most morally self-deluded, then the necessary implication would be that our own delusive thoughts, our own "devils," would be more powerful than the eternal thoughts of God.  There is no person, no matter how depraved, who can withstand the truth of the omnipotent God indefinitely.  Sooner or later, every knee shall bend, every head shall bow, to the Truth--and be the happier and the better for it.
	The implication--that every soul shall ultimately be saved--yet remains abhorrent to those whose religion is a source of pride rather than of salvation: they would rather be among the "chosen few" than among the "brotherhood of man"--the brotherhood and sisterhood of humankind.

	8-58.  The theological concepts pointed to by the concepts of "Eden" and "heaven" are similar but distinct in some enormously important respects.  
	Eden implies a past state in which either mankind or individual human beings are seen as having been (however transiently) in a quasi-paradisiacal state characterized by abundance and innocent hedonism, but a state also seen as having been corruptible and thus ephemeral to varying degrees.
	Heaven by contrast implies a concept of full and true paradise, a paradise in which whatever it is that human beings are becoming has been achieved in an incorruptible state which is everlasting, eternal.  Most significant from a moral point of view is the level of moral consciousness or awareness in the two concepts.  In the idea of Eden there is the idea of a very nearly innocent partaking of the pleasures of life without much conscious thought, reflection, or commitment.  In the idea of heaven we have the idea of persons who have perhaps tasted Eden, but who, having become aware of moral choices which have the potential to corrupt them, have rationally affirmed and committed themselves to those values which are ordained of God, finally achieving a level of knowledge and moral perfection such that they attain an enduring and final triumph over those forces which threaten such a state.  Heaven may thus be seen to be more than Eden, of course, but in a very real sense it may be seen to be its final realization and attainment.
	The force of the concept of Eden is that it seems for many of us to describe, more than a biblical concept, an actual experience of limited duration (typically in youth), followed by failure and disappointment, both in oneself and in others and in the external world in general.
	The force of the concept of heaven, by contrast, lies in the hope, paradoxically, that the state of "Eden," of lost innocence, can somehow be regained.  Its force is thus founded at least partly in memory, but with an intuition of that which Eden itself only pointed to: a completion or satisfaction of those goods only tasted in Eden, combined with a transcendent spiritual awareness of the will and goodness of God.
	The concept of heaven, symbolizing all of our ultimate aspirations, is thus a motivating force which will not leave us alone.  It recurs over and over again to destroy complacency with any merely "satisfactory" temporal arrangements, inducing us to reaffirm commitment to a higher state, one satisfying spiritually as well as in all other respects.

	8-59.  When we see someone who is totally and thoroughly obnoxious (in whatever manifestation), our first reaction ought to be, "There goes a person in need of reassurance."
	That would be (and is) the divine reaction.  Unfortunately, the all-too-human reaction is contempt or hostility or arrogance--reciprocated obnoxiousness, in any case.
	We do not have enough faith in our "spiritual" powers, in the ability to lift and inspire others to greatness.  Is it that we prefer to feel superior in our judgment and condemnation?

	8-60.  Where human relationships (of whatever kind) are concerned, reciprocated evil or indifference is always dysfunctional for the future of that relationship--and no failed relationship (in the sense of lasting hostility or total indifference to another's personhood) is ever acceptable.  One's psyche is the richer for every door left open to another's essential humanity, the poorer for every one closed.

	8-61.  One hears frequently a glorification of "expressing anger" or "channeling anger."  The rationale commonly offered is that so doing is more healthful psychologically than suppressing anger.  Yet, it must be remembered that anger is a motive which prepares one to fight.  If one does not use that anger to fight using physical violence, but using verbal violence such as judgment or accusation, one is nonetheless fighting, aggressing against another.
	The real goal when confronted with a situation which produces anger is to engage in a rational problem-solving process which helps to solve the problem peacefully at the same time that it utilizes the reason which can triumph over anger.  This may be what some persons mean when they recommend "channeling" anger in a "constructive" way.  Yet, one may be sure that if one is actually motivated by anger as one works or fights, one is only hurting oneself and quite likely hurting others as well.  One is, in any case, not solving a problem rationally when one is using anger. 
	One's feeling of anger is less reliable as a signal that one is threatened from without than that one is threatened from within: the emotion of anger is a warning signal to rational beings that they may be about to make a serious mistake.  Let no one therefore glorify anger, and let no one remain silent in the face of such claims.

	8-62.  Although it would be a grievous error to say that sin causes all (or even most) mental illness, it is equally true that sin always impairs mental health to some degree.  That is, the fullness of mental health is not compatible with the fact of sin, at least as the suppressed guilt which accompanies continuing or unrepented sin.  If sin has truly been put behind one, on the other hand, then there exists the greater likelihood that mental health may be restored.
	It may be claimed that I am confusing mental health and spiritual health, but I confess that in many instances they are so bound up together that I truly cannot tell which is which.  It is the psyche that one is talking about, in any case, whether conceived of as mind or soul.

				

CHAPTER NINE

VEILED VIOLENCE:
THE EUPHEMISMS OF ORGANIZATIONAL
AND SOCIAL CONTROL

	9-1.  Throughout this work, I have defined war not merely as violence, but also as coercion, which is the attempt to control and dominate through the threat of violence.  Thus someone who never strikes me, but threatens to do so, or who threatens to take away my source or means of livelihood, has committed an act of war against me.
	War as both violence and the threat of violence--coercion--thus implies that, where coercion is appealed to as the basic mortar or society, there is not true peace: "peace" has been reduced to a euphemism for domination.

	9-2.  In the most general terms, the only alternative to war as a means of promoting ends is the power of ideas, moral truth, for this and only this is totally lacking in any kind of violence or threat of violence.
	Coercion, which depends upon the threat of violence, represents a restriction upon someone's freedom.  Any social order maintained by coercion is thus neither totally peaceful nor totally free.  We cannot speak of any "freedoms" or "rights" in this country being defended by coercion, unless we mean that the freedom or rights of some are attained at the expense of those of others.  Nor can we speak of peace being maintained by coercion, for "law and order" through threat of force are not the same as "peace" in any meaningful sense.  Only through the power of ideas, moral suasion, is it possible to speak of a truly free and peaceful social order. 
	In defending an idealist pacifism in the Christian tradition, one is not only condemning violence or the threat of violence (coercion), but one is also defending the power of ideas and the value of a society governed not by coercion but by the power of ideas freely communicated and manifested in action under the providential control of a benign God.

	9-3.  While one cannot say that the power of moral suasion is always sufficient over the short haul to get persons to do the right thing, the consistently faithful Christian does not ever give up on the power of ideas, even in the face of death.  
	Yet, even one's death in the face of superior force is a statement of an idea; and, even though it be one's last statement, it might well be one's best: one's seemingly meaningless death may be the only way to convert another from his or her faith in force.

	9-4.  Faith in the power of ideas, of moral suasion, is the essence of what pacifism is about--indeed, it is what faith in the One True God is all about, for his Spirit of Truth is that to which we appeal when we forego the appeal to force or violence.  It is this Spirit which providentially rules the social universe through its influence upon human decisions and actions.

	9-5.  There are at least three types of war: war between or among nations, war between or among individuals, and war between some collectivity or organizational entity and the individual.  This chapter emphasizes the last of these.  It is a sad commentary that most discussions of war do not even include this most pervasive and insidious form of warfare.  
	In its most common manifestation, this third form of war is simply that of the bureaucracy against the individual.  In this war, overt violence is rarely used, but coercion--the threat of violence--is virtually ubiquitous.  Indeed, it is not too strong to define bureaucracy as routinized threat.  This is its essential defining characteristic, and everything else that commonly defines bureaucracy is derivative of this coercive essence.

	9-6.  An army is a bureaucracy.  In fact, Max Weber derived his "ideal type" bureaucracy from his observations of the Prussian military.1  Yet, even IBM and GM may be seen to be as bureaucratic as the military.  Indeed, in some ways, their production orientation may make them more rigid and authoritarian than any army.  Although they may not routinely use the force of arms to maintain control, they do employ their own coercive measures: threat of deprivation of the means of livelihood, a form of economic violence.
	It might be objected that one is always free to leave private (and most public) organizations.  Yet, if the freedom to leave means only the freedom to starve, there is no true freedom.  And, if the freedom to leave means, if not starvation, then a reduced prospect for a meaningful and prosperous life, then the organization's power over the means of livelihood is, if not total, nonetheless substantial. 
	The bureaucrat rules by threat.  Anyone who forgets this forgets the first premise of organizational survival.  He or she is also likely to be surprised at just how dirty bureaucracy can be: the bureaucrat who cannot coerce with one sanction will typically find another, licit or illicit, according to the conventions of that society.  Power is rarely relinquished casually.

	9-7.  Since the most violent thing that the ordinary bureaucrat is likely to do is to "fire" or terminate a member of the organization, it is well to examine this action.
	Termination from the organization is an act of violence because the person fired is being deprived of the means of livelihood.  Anyone who denies this need only consider the limiting case of someone who would not only be fired but blackballed from further employment of any kind (obviously implying a totalitarian social order).  It is clear that the only modes of survival open to that individual would thus be escape or becoming an outlaw.
	The fact that most firings in democratic societies do not commonly result in such horrendous consequences (for must of us: let us not forget the very grave economic prospects for those who are disadvantaged) should not blind us to the fact that firing or any other kind of social banishment is an act of violence, regardless of whether or not it is sanctioned by the laws of that particular society.
	It is difficult to imagine that such violence is consistent with the laws of a God of Peace.  Would God banish?  I dare say that the answer is no.  And, if salvation is thought of only in other-worldly terms, then have not we not missed something essential about the etymology of the word--salvation as "salvaging"?  For modern organizations, however, the employee is merely an expendable, exploitable commodity.  

	9-8.  Before an army can go to war against a foreign country, it must first go to war against its own citizens.  It can do this through deception (the primary method of military recruitment and socialization), or it can do it through conscription--the draft.  In the former case, the army does what all bureaucracies do: it lies.  If that does not suffice, then it uses its superior force to make individuals do its will: it conscripts.
	But make no mistake: no military order ever attacked a foreign country before it first attacked its own society.  The fact that it attacks more often in the lying manner of the seducer than of the rapist should not hide the fact that it does attack and does abuse its own people for its own ends.  
	Lying itself is a form of coercion, for, although it does not depend upon overt force or threat of force, it assaults the rational autonomy of its victims.  Lying, like the threat of more obvious violence, is ubiquitous in bureaucratic life.  Only lying, violence, or the threat of violence could possibly impel persons to accept the hierarchy and domination implicit in bureaucratic orders.  In criticizing bureaucracy (military or civilian) from a pacifist point of view, one criticizes the coercive/seductive aspects which are the foundation of all its other evils.  In criticizing bureaucracy, one is criticizing the coercive, violent, and deceitful state.

	9-9.  The state and its bureaucracies--both public and private--are coercive because the very foundation of state coercion is violence: "If you do not do what we command you to do, then we will either kill you or put you in a cage or banish you from any means of making a living and feeding yourself and your family." 
	Public and private bureaucracies exist in a symbiotic relationship with each other.  Public bureaucracies directly enforce the laws of the state, whereas private bureaucracies live under the state`s umbrella and feed wealth back into both the public bureaucracy and the dominant elements of society which support that bureaucracy.  So total is this symbiosis, however, that the really meaningful distinction between public and private is sometimes not discernible.    	

	9-10.  The seductive form of state control--deceit, lying--is promoted not by overt violence nor by the threat of overt violence, but it is violence nonetheless.  It is coercive because it vitiates (or attempts to vitiate) the knowledge and rationality so vital to autonomous action.
	Whereas this deceit is sometimes rather bald, it is more often so covert that it deludes even those who employ it: the quintessential bureaucrat, a master of deceit even more than of coercion, may ultimately be the most unfree person within the organizational structure, if by "unfree" one means deficient in moral understanding and rationality.

	9-11.  The bureaucrat lies most often by coming to believe her or his own euphemisms of power.  The most common such euphemism is the taking of the term "administrator" as the self-appointed label for bureaucrat.
	"Administration" is a euphemism which draws its force from the fact that the Latin root of "administration" is ad + ministrare, which means "to serve."  The term "administer" does not mean any single thing in common parlance, of course, but it has come to mean "manage" (or "direct") more than "serve."  The term "bureaucrat" is more honest, for it is literally derived from the French root of the word "office" (bureau) and the Greek root of the word "rule" (-cracy).  
	Over time, the euphemism which gave birth to the term "administrator" has begun to lose its euphemistic effect.  Nonetheless, the euphemistic usage persists in the equation of "administrator" with "public servant."  

	9-12.  I should be on shaky ground indeed if I did not concede that many managers do indeed do more than manage or direct: they also serve.  Nonetheless, it does become obvious that "administrators" are more generally rulers than servants in many or even most contexts.  In such contexts, the term "administrator," like all euphemisms, is the velvet glove which covers the iron fist of naked force.

	9-13.  If one dropped all euphemism about modern "administrators," one would have to admit that they are often little more than white collar law enforcers--and often very brutal ones at that.
	As one progresses up any hierarchy (or even at the base of the bureaucratic hierarchy in such fields as police work or corrections), there is a virtual certainty of running into situations which force the administrator into a law enforcement role, if he or she is to fulfill the job description for the relevant position.
	The "administrator" by definition exists in a superordinate relationship to many members of the organization, at least in certain capacities and situations.  This superordinate status is logically linked to the law enforcement function, whether admitted or labeled as such or not.  "Law enforcement" in this context might be as innocuous as seeing that federal grant monies are spent in accordance with law, on the one hand, or as harsh and unpleasant as firing an employee, on the other.  The legal or institutional pressures upon the administrator are often such that the unpleasant roles cannot be avoided, consistent with meeting the job description.  
	The administrator who does not want to resign or be transferred (which in this context usually implies a demotion) will therefore carry out these law enforcement duties.  Failure to do so will result in dismissal or at least complaint, typically from below as well as above.
	Most persons tend to go ahead and do whatever harsh things the institutional rules or laws require.  One empathizes with their plight, since they, too, would like to continue to feed themselves and their families.  If the degree of evil is less for the typical "administrator" than for a member of the Third Reich, the numbers of bureaucrats and their cultural dominance in nominally "free" societies make the institution of bureaucracy approach the evils of the holocaust, if not in actual lives lost, then in terms of lives disrupted, careers frustrated or ended, and persons treated generally indifferently and inhumanely as means rather than as ends--or simply as non-entities, unworthy of consideration or even communication.  Yet, even in terms of lives lost, how can one calculate the psychological and physiological costs of working in such an environment, an environment which is endemic to Western culture?
	As I have stated elsewhere, the fact that I cannot offer a blueprint for the perfect society does not mean that I cannot diagnose the ills of this one.  As noted previously, to say that I should not offer such a criticism unless I can offer the solution is akin to telling a doctor, "Doctor, don't tell me that I have cancer unless you are also prepared to tell me that you have the cure."
	Bureaucracy is a cancer, and, though one may not be able to offer a cure, it is quite clear that one will not find the cure as long as one denies that there is a disease.  Diagnosis is both logically and temporally prior to treatment.
	The problem, of course, with the above indictment is that in the modern age it is an indictment of almost all of us.  Yet, does that fact make the indictment any less valid? 

	9-14.  To say that one has no alternative to bureaucracy in modern life is not quite true.  One can, after all, occupy bureaucratic posts without resorting to the violent or threatening methods which most bureaucrats routinely employ.
	One should nonetheless be aware that, if one refuses to carry out a coercive or violent order from above, then one must be prepared to take the consequences.  One who does so is what we might call the "bureaucratic pacifist," for such a person demonstrates a rather extraordinary propensity toward personal risk for the sake of the welfare of others.  We should not expect many more "bureaucratic pacifists" than we find pacifists in the military.  For, although positions of true service are everywhere around us, opting for them in lieu of some office which promises greater social and economic security is about as palatable for most persons as turning the other cheek in the face of a threat to one's life.
	It is quite false to say that we have no cure for the evils of bureaucracy: the cure is that everyone would treat everyone else with perfect respect and equal dignity.  The practical problem is that one who does this when others do not reciprocate might not survive very long.
	Yet, has the pacifist solution to war at any level ever guaranteed personal survival or success according to worldly norms?

	9-15.  One who is violated by the officers of an organization has the option to resort to state-sanctioned violence: lawsuit, disciplinary proceedings, criminal indictment, or threat of such.
	The consistent pacifist who forgoes such "legitimate" retaliation and who then suffers at the hands of bureaucrats is thus not unlike the pacifist who suffers at the hands of someone's military: he or she is going to be tempted to use the coercive measures at his or her disposal, in the same way that one who is attacked by the military (whether that of a foreign country or of one's own country) will be tempted to join a violent group in order to defend oneself and one's country or to try to overthrow the existing regime which threatens one.
	Is it any wonder that consistently pacifistic solutions, rare enough in the face of overtly violent threat, are even less likely to be invoked in the bureaucratic setting, where the threats are more subtle and where the rationalizations for employing counter-threats of a legal nature are so abundant--indeed, where such legal countermeasures, so essential and ubiquitous to formal organizations, are cloaked with an air of moral and social legitimacy.  ("Fighting for one's rights" is, in such a setting, usually a phrase of approbation, not disapprobation.)
	Bureaucracy is, after all, the "legal-rational" model of organization, to use Weberian terminology.  Those who live and work in it cannot be expected to see too easily and too clearly the violence that inheres in any merely legal solution, anymore than they are likely to be able to admit to themselves that the power, wealth, and prestige which they enjoy simply by working for any bureaucracy--especially at the higher levels--tend to come at the expense of those who are oppressed in order to maintain the organization's survival and dominance.
	Is it any wonder that the Prince of Peace held no formal office and had no place to lay his head?  

	9-16.  Lest I sound as if I am indicting administrators unfairly, let us remember again that we are all administrators now.  This includes teachers: is the giving of tests and the recording and "turning in" [!] of grades not a bureaucratic action?  I have often told myself that I merely offer the grade as my personal assessment of competency, that I cannot be responsible if others use the grades as part of recruitment and selection process that is at best exclusive and at worst discriminatory.  Yet, is this really true or is it not one more rationalization for maintaining a position of power and dominance over somebody--in this case, one's students?

	9-17.  If we would imitate the Prince who had no place even to lay his head, we must all be prepared to surrender a position of relative prestige and wealth if the requirements of peace demand it.  Nor can we, I fear, even defend our reputations in most instances without sullying someone else's by making counter-accusations: at the very best, we are usually calling someone else a liar when we merely speak the truth.
	Is it any wonder that Jesus was silent before Pilate, except to affirm his own divinity?2

	9-18.  Dare one speak of the "banality of evil" as the defining characteristic of bureaucrats?  What is the great evil which they are typically guilty of, if not mere thoughtlessness?
	Perhaps we all tend to have more in common with the Eichmanns of this world than we like to admit.  No wonder that organizational life seems to be associated with its own malaise of the soul.

	9-19.  The question for administrators of pacifistic and voluntaristic proclivities is whether a given organizational role can be morally accepted, as well as what circumstances are likely to arise in which one can have sufficient discretion to avoid punitive and coercive solutions.  In limiting cases, one must ask which situations bring such conflict between institutionally-defined duties and moral ideals as to require resignation or special status.  The most obvious example of "special status" might be that of conscientious objector in the military.  
	The typical administrator, however, does not have such an escape clause.  Since most do not resign or seek transfer when confronted with an order of dubious humanity, most sooner or later become resigned, even hardened, to the more unpleasant side of their formal duties.  (Again, this is also true of teachers, as in the case of flunking students who then lost draft deferments--and then their lives.)  After a certain point, they (we) are no longer merely thoughtless in their mindless carrying out of inhumane orders.  They (we) have now learned to think all too well--to rationalize inhumanity in the name of duty, and to pass along such dubious socialization to the next generation.
	The evaluative component is always the foundation of other violent administrative actions, and, in those truly sick organizations where evaluation is ubiquitous, violence in some form is endemic; and rare are those administrators who have the courage to lead the way toward a less evaluative, less horrendously judgmental organizational culture.

	9-20.  Any study of bureaupathology would be incomplete if it did not deal with the problem of bureaucratic callousness.  More mental and emotional energy is probably expended for the sake of rationalizing the "morality" or at least the "necessity" of the unpleasant (and sometimes obviously immoral) requirements of a job than for all other aspects of the job combined.  In the worst cases, the process of rationalization is so insidious that the rationalizer is not conscious of it.  In other cases the person feels uncomfortable with the discrepancy between reality and ideal without yet having any clear guide as to what to do.  
	One can only empathize with sensitive administrators facing tortuous decisions.  Yet, if their torture is a function of pride and ambition, it is well to remember that no human being has a moral obligation to "serve" by ruling over other persons.

	9-21.  Do I sound callous?  After all, is not the bureaucrat also a victim of bureaucracy, in the same way that the soldier is a victim of war (conventionally defined)?  Therefore, when one judges the evil of either abomination, one must be careful not to let the judgment of institutions too easily become a judgment of persons who are trapped within them, who perhaps protest the actions required of them, but who all too often do not even find colleagues or peers who understand their moral discomfort with bureaucratic norms.
	If bureaucrats knew a better way, would they not pursue it?  Perhaps, but sometimes persons know better and still refuse for a time to do it, because they find some convenient rationale which maintains the stability of their lives while upsetting or destroying the lives of others.

	9-22.  Since all persons have their testing grounds as moral beings, the temptations and pressures upon administrators are not essentially different from those upon other persons facing ethical decisions.  The scope of the consequences, as well as the publicity factor, possibly do nonetheless serve to make the crucible of building character more hellish for those in such situations and offices than they do for those who have less to lose, socially or materially.  The costs of power and privilege can be high--sometimes too high.  
	Yet, if the crucible is so unbearable, would many prefer to jump into the crucible of poverty--or of road maintenance, or brick-laying?  (Jesus was a carpenter, I am told.) 
	In the Faustian bargain for power, what the bureaucracy too often demands is one's soul.  It too often gets it.

	9-23.  Has not "democracy" become a euphemism in most contexts?  After all, what is called "democracy" is really not rule by the people at all.  The legal rational model would tell us that the people rule because the officials in power are accountable to the people.  Formal accountability to the people is thus seen to be synonymous with "rule by the people," even though the linkage is quite tenuous: at the federal level, for example, from popular elections of Presidents and Congressmen we get (with senatorial confirmation) presidential appointment of the highest bureaucrats, and the others are responsible to either the President (those in cabinet level departments) or to the Congress (those in, say, independent regulatory agencies).  These members of bureaucracy then make most of the routine, daily governmental decisions which affect our lives, and they are presumed to be accountable to the people because the persons who appoint them, legislate their scope of action, or oversee such actions are popularly elected. 
	This formal, legalistic linkage from the people to the elected officials to the appointed officials is thought to mean democracy, rule by the people.  Only a lawyer (which Madison was) could see democracy in such formal lines of accountability.
	
	9-24.  The term "self-government" refers, or should refer, not to pure or representative democracy but to personal autonomy, self control by individuals over their own lives, guided by the Spirit of Truth, under the authority of "right judgment."  
	Is such a conception of self-government conceivable?  One may say that it is not even conceivable unless one posits a providential God to coordinate the activities of individuals with each other.  Even then, one would surely not be freed of the necessity to use reason to work out arrangements with other human beings.  Self-rule, even in the most ideal conception, should never be thought to imply isolation or withdrawal from society.  How far human beings could progress toward such a state and still remain social animals cannot be known a priori.

	9-25.  It is admittedly difficult to conceive of an entire orderly society which does not depend upon force for the successful implementation of needed plans and objectives.  At the organizational level, it is also difficult to conceive of an organizational structure in which force is not used.
	Yet, as unrealistic as it might seem to some, one might more profitably seek a solution to the problem of order in society through the quest for an ethical decision procedure for individuals in lieu of a quest for the perfect organizational form or structure.  This does not mean that one would be indifferent to organizational forms, but it does suggest that existing organizational "forms" are in fact reducible to rather cynical "ethical" decision procedures which perpetuate domination by declaring individual moral judgments sanctioned by conscience to have no force when they come into conflict with the individual judgments of elected officials, police officer, bureaucrats, or others whose judgments are backed up by the threat of coercive force.  
	The prevailing ethical norm of bureaucracy, of course, is the nonsense which is commonly called the "rule of law."  Such a norm is nonsense not only because only persons, not laws, can make decisions, but also because the phrase is a veiled ethical endorsement for a coercive, hierarchical order.  It is no accident that the bureaucratic order is also called the "legal-rational" model of organization.  One might go beyond Max Weber and call it not so much "rational" as simply a rationalization for the domination of many persons by a few.
	Implicit in my critique is the view that "social structures," to the extent that they exist anywhere at all save in our minds, are merely the product of routinized ethical norms, such as the norm that it is "right" for some to exist in a hierarchical position of advantage over others, for example, or the norm that some have the "right" to evaluate others or to control information flow.  These and other "defining characteristics" of bureaucracy, such as the division of labor, are thus not descriptors at all, but a set of authoritarian prescriptions or ethical judgments as to the means by which essential goods, services, and privileges are to be allocated.
	There is, in any case, nothing "value-neutral" about bureaucracy: it is not so much a neutral instrument as a set of routinized ethical decision procedures.  Why not replace the veiled ethical norm of coercive hierarchy (and everything that goes with it as "bureaucracy") with the explicitly ethical norms of equal respect, dignity, and access to information, not to mention the explicit abjuring of coercive hierarchical relationships between persons?
	At the very least, one may say that we shall never achieve the ideal of a voluntary society as long as we are blind to the norm of domination implicit in our existing institutions and practices--and as long as we continue to revere the "rule of law," which is mere window-dressing for the naked reality of the violent, coercive state and its practical day-to-day manifestation which we call "bureaucracy."

	9-26.  "Peace is our profession."  So says the U.S. Air Force, which may not be the best public relations organization in the world, but it is not far behind NASA in its facility with euphemism.  
	May God forgive, but I cannot but remember the Challenger disaster of 1986, which was to have been the greatest public relations coup of all time: the crew consisted of seven persons, who among them represented men, women, white people, black people, Asians, Jews, and--good Lord--a school teacher.  Unfortunately, as public relations gimmicks go, this one blew up, and NASA has never since been quite the same.  It might or might not be noteworthy that the previous mission had been the first secret NASA mission--one containing a military payload at that.  This shift in the mission of NASA (previously referred to publicly as a "civilian space agency") was more or less obscured by what was intended to have been the crowning achievement of NASA public relations.
	
	9-27.  "Public relations" in the military context means hiding the harsher side of military service.  The devices range from euphemism to memorials.  Examples of euphemism include not only the Air Force motto of "Peace is our profession" (which logically ought to belong to ministers, ordained or otherwise), but also the "Peacekeeper Missile."  The sincere assumption behind many euphemisms, of course, is that preparedness for war really is the best avenue to peace, an a priori assumption which is neither self-evidently true, nor supported by the empirical data.  	
	Yet, one cannot help but wonder: are the most powerful persons of all perhaps aware of the manipulative and deceitful usages of euphemism?  That is, are they truly sincere (as are many of their lesser operatives), or are they conscious and deliberate manipulators of groups and even entire cultures for the sake of preserving their own privileged position in society? 
	Perhaps if the lie is big enough, it can only be told through euphemism.

	9-28.  Even the concept of "military service" is a euphemism, for what is called "service" is allowing oneself to be regimented by an organization which measures its effectiveness in terms of the power to kill.  The more dubious the enterprise, the more suffocating are the euphemisms.
	"Service" indeed: do we serve God by cooperating in the slaughter of his children?  Do we also serve God by teaching our children to gulp down such a monumental lie with smiles on their faces, a song on their lips, and hands over their hearts?  What is this nonsense that is called "patriotism," and why is it that so few persons can see it for the lie that it is?
	9-29.  As for the euphemism "memorials," when was the last time that you saw a statue or a monument dedicated to the most perfectly innocent victims of war, children and non-combatants?  
	The state tends to honor and memorialize only those who will cede their moral sovereignty to the war-making apparatus, as if there were something honorable about turning over one's free will to an organization whose sole purpose is to make one part of a killing machine.  One hates to say it, but to call such persons our "heroes" is perhaps the ultimate euphemism--the ultimate lie.
	The bravery of such persons is not in question.  What is in question is their final and enduring contribution to improving the human condition.  The state, in erecting monuments to them, does more than memorialize them--that would be justifiable, for, if they are not necessarily heroes, they are surely victims to varying degrees.  Monuments, however, typically are more than memorials: they convey a message of approval, honor, and exaltation.  The idealization as heroes of those who have been duped by the state only compounds the original lie which led to their deaths in the first place.

	9-30.  "War is the extension of diplomacy by other means."3  Von Clausewitz committed the ultimate in military euphemism with that characterization of "diplomacy." 
	As for war, it has been more accurately and honestly equated with hell.  If war and diplomacy are, as von Clausewitz said, a part of a meaningful continuum, then Don Corleone's "Let me make you an offer you can't refuse"4 can meaningfully be called "moral suasion."  All of this reminds one of a recommendation made to Richard Nixon to "Bomb Hanoi back to the bargaining table."  Bombing someone back to the bargaining table is akin to holding a gun to someone's temple and saying, "Come, let us reason together.  And, if you won't, then we are going to blow your brains out."  To call such warlike threats "diplomacy" is the ultimate lie of the so-called "Realists,"  the advocates of the so-called "Realpolitik" (another euphemism, another lie).  
	Overall, the moralist's insistence upon a strict distinction between war (violence) and diplomacy (rational moral suasion) seems preferable to the so-called "realism" which spits at moral suasion and claims that war and diplomacy are inseparable, if not identical.
	One might as well say, "War is peace" or "Truth is falsehood."  But perhaps this is too strong: military men do not claim that war is peace.  They only claim that war causes peace.

	9-31.  Perhaps the most revered of military euphemisms is that which has the sanction of much organized religion and cloaks itself in philosophical language: the "Just War Doctrine" of Augustine, Aquinas, and many more nominal Christians.  Indeed, the "just war" doctrine is still the official doctrine of the Catholic Church--and the unofficial doctrine of most Protestants.

	9-32.  The unwritten rule of the leaders of nation-states is that it is honorable to kill the common soldiers of an opposing regime, but it is one of the gravest evils to engage in assassination attempts against heads of state.
	The choice of the term "assassination" for only the latter case is a reverse euphemism, and the message is clear: killing heads of state is not only "murder," but murder by Arab hashish addicts (the actual original meaning of "assassin").  Killing mere soldiers, by contrast, is something which all good Christian white knights ought to be prepared to do for the glory of God and the advancement of Christian culture: it is duty, and success in this duty is called "victory."  (At least, so said the signs in front of many "Christian" churches after the 1991 war against Iraq: "Thank God for the Victory.")
	The rule against killing heads of state, and its supporting euphemistic distinction, is all well and good for heads of state.  It is not good for common soldiers, nor for any society which comes to believe that its rulers have more inherent worth than the common people.

	9-33.  The greatest of the great euphemistic lies is that "the common man" has a moral obligation to defend the institutions which enslave him: the norm of "patriotic duty."  Of this great lie, one of its greatest practical corollaries is the euphemistic lie that says that one has an obligation to die for a given system of domination. 
	What the euphemism conceals is the more revulsive claim: one has an obligation to kill for the sake of perpetuating a coercive governmental system, one to which one is sufficiently enslaved that one believes that killing upon the command of one's oppressors is precisely what one ought to do.
	9-34.  By placing the burden of responsibility upon the individual, Christianity offered an inversion of Harry Truman's favorite motto: "The buck stops here."  Well, the buck stops not at the top but at the bottom, in the middle, everywhere.  No one is permitted to excuse oneself for one's actions by saying that the state, the law, or one's job description required one to do it. 
	While the moral responsibility may tend to be greater at the top than at the bottom of the chain of command, there is responsibility throughout, and no one should allow oneself to be duped by the excuse that "I was just following orders."

	9-35.  If the military mind-set were one of true courage, the Defense Department would still call itself the "War Department," and the Air Force would freely admit that "War Is Our Profession," which it is.  Policemen would not call themselves "peace officers," but "guardians of the status quo." 
	Executioners would call themselves "murderers" or even "assassins," since they are typically engaged in political murders, acts of violence against the disadvantaged classes in the name of the state's conception of "justice."  Punishment would be called "torture" (which it is), and what passes for discipline would be called, at the very least, "regimentation" or, better yet, "dehumanization."
	Intelligence gathering would always be called "spying" or, better yet, "routinized invasion of privacy."  Basic training would be called "indoctrination," "programming," "brainwashing," or "institutional stripping."
	The Universal Code of Military Justice would have to be called simply another contradiction in terms--as well as a negation of basic rights.

	9-36.  "Channels of communication" is one of the more clever euphemisms.  It is part of the repertoire of euphemisms which we often call "administrative theory."  On such a "theory," orders are to flow down the chain of command, and, at the demand of superordinates ("superiors"), other information flows in the other direction.
	The phrase "channels of communication" is, of course, a euphemism for the grim reality of "permission to speak."  In bureaucracy, typically part of the executive arm of government, the right to express oneself, officially or unofficially, is most highly regulated.
	If information flow could not be regulated, then virtually all other aspects of bureaucracy would break down, for information is the foundation of all other power, at least in a rational-legal context.  Those who honor the bureaucracy's claim to legitimacy in controlling information flow thereby prop up the hierarchical form of social control which has been dominant since the rise of the Industrial Revolution.  This form of social control operates in both the private and public realms alike, and it is the essential and ubiquitous form of domination and control in modern society.

	9-37.  Are the "official secret" and "channels of communication" really compatible with democratic rule?  And, if the "official secret" is only marginally compatible with majoritarian democratic rule, how much less is it compatible with the even higher ethical ideal of a truly voluntaristic society governed by moral ideas pure and simple?

	9-38.  What is the purpose of capitalism?  Is it to produce profit for the capitalists or abundance for society?
	Let the best motives be assumed: the purpose of capitalism is to produce abundance for society.  One should immediately have to say that, if such were its end, then it could not be too successful in achieving this end without destroying itself as an institution.  That is, with unlimited abundance would come an excess of supply over demand and the collapse of prices and thus of the market structure. 
	Perhaps one must conclude that the purpose of capitalism is not so much to produce wealth as to manage it and limit it.  (Another way of saying this is the obverse: the end or purpose of capitalism is to manage scarcity.)  If this is the case, then the ultimate end or motive can only be the profit motive, for, without scarcity or limited abundance, no one could make a profit.  

	9-39.  The antithesis to the love of money is utter indifference to money, to recompense or reward.  There is some irony in the fact that capitalism really could not tolerate too much altruistic benevolence: if too many persons worked for free (or for far less than the market value of their labor), or gave away any of their material commodities, then the market system would collapse from an excess of supply over demand.  Therefore every friend of charity is an enemy of the institution of capitalism, for every gift given reduces the scarcity--and therefore the profit potential--of every commodity.
	Let those who would abolish capitalism pick up not the "sword," but the "plow": let them wield their productive tools without regard for fair recompense, without expectation of return.  They are neither "scabs" nor fools: every good deed that they do is a blow against a corrupt institution which would enslave every person to someone who enjoys an economic advantage--someone who can extort another's labor by taking advantage of his or her state of deprivation and relative economic advantage.

	9-40.  It has always struck me as curious that socialist trade unionism has always condemned those who would work for less than their peers, or who would cross picket lines when others refuse to work.
	When workers unite to bargain collectively with their capitalist bosses, they perceive themselves as doing something quite radical and unselfish.  In fact, all that they do is to support the perpetuation of the institution of capitalism while gaining for themselves a greater share of its profits.  
	To work for less than one's market value, however, is to strike a blow not only for a particular interest group but for humanity as a whole, for the most radical thing that a person could do would be to work for nothing.  It is an indictment of this culture that persons who come close to doing so are not exalted as heroes but are seen as suckers, scabs, or fools.

	9-41.  The bureaucratic co-optation of the right of persons to resolve their own controversies is generally seen as a benevolent force, for it means that persons do not "take the law into their own hands."  Bureaucracy, however, wants more than to resolve conflict and keep order: as an arm of the state, it wants to legitimize the use of coercion and to monopolize the use of such "legitimized" force. 
	The most insidious aspect of the bureaucratic propensity to usurp the conflict resolving function, however, is that it not only encourages appeals to legal solutions, but it also tends to perpetuate moral infancy by discouraging persons from amicably confronting each other to work out their differences through rational moral discourse.  Where the legal-rational (bureaucratic) model has become dominant, individuals have given over their own birthright as agents of truly peaceful change.

	9-42.  Insofar as both capitalism and socialism depend upon the state for their maintenance and growth, both are inherently dangerous.  Does a coherent pacifism, in its abjuring of the retributive state, require neutrality in the struggle between them?  Or does one or the other have a basic defect apart from the fact that both are state enforced?
	Perhaps one may say that, without the state, a voluntary socialism is still theoretically possible, for it is based upon an ethical ideal derived ultimately  from the New Testament.  Unfortunately, it is usually heard in the context of the version found in Marx: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."5  I say "unfortunately" because, as an ethical ideal for individuals, the maxim is beyond reproach, but the overall context of Marxism is rocky soil for such wonderful seed to take root and come to fruition.  When conjoined with the coercive (and especially with the totalitarian) state, the maxim becomes an excuse for the worst kind of terror in the name of social progress.
	Even so, voluntary socialism is at least theoretically conceivable, even though it  sounds a lot like the Kingdom of Heaven.  Even when not universalized on a societal level, there is nothing to prevent individuals from living by such a beautiful maxim, regardless of how others act. 	Capitalism, by contrast, is almost inconceivable, even at the individual level, without the state to set and enforce property boundaries and other rules for the making of profits.  There is great irony in this fact, since  capitalist culture has produced a lot of rhetoric about freedom, much of it worthy and inspiring, and much of it built around the euphemism of "free enterprise."  Capitalism, however, is not merely bartering nor even a money economy, but a system of making profits by exploiting labor and manipulating scarcity and prices.  There is nothing free about it.  It is based ultimately on the norm of extortion, not freedom.  In addition, capitalist firms are bureaucracies (large or small), organizations based upon routinized coercion, not freedom.  Finally, capitalism is based on collusion with the coercive state in a variety of possible ways, not least of which is the threat of violence against human beings for violating property rights--violations which themselves are often a result of deprivation.
	Is capitalism credible in claiming to be consistent with a free social order when its own firms are organized around the principles of hierarchical coercive control (bureaucracy) and the exploitation of economic disadvantage through the price structure which is both its theoretical and moral core (the profit motive)?

	9-43.  Socialism as we know it is no panacea.  I do not embrace any form of statism, whether it exists to support a capitalist order or a socialist one.  I also know full well that it is possible to live according to Christian values in a capitalist order.  Yet, the relationship between Christianity and capitalism is metastable at best.  Since I am a Christian pacifist, I must emphasize that I do not advocate the violent overthrow of capitalism, nor do I look forward to its violent overthrow.  Even so, neither do I advocate trying to prop up the moribund capitalist order by the use of the military and the police.  If it is not military action against capitalism which is morally required of us, however, it is even more the case that it is not military action for capitalism which is required of us.

	9-44.  Does capitalism as an institution depend for its survival upon the institution of war?  If so, then it certainly is not compatible with Christianity.  But the truth of the antecedent is not obvious.	
	At least it is not obvious to the morally blind.

	9-45.  The time will come when the prop of religion for western capitalism will be looked upon with the same kind of moral outrage and astonishment that are presently associated with our review of the Spanish Inquisition or the Third Reich.

	9-46.  "From each according to his ability; to each according to his need."  This saying, which is the moral core of the socialist appeal, is, without state enforcement, fundamentally Christian in orientation.  It implies that of those to whom much is given much will be required.  It implies as well that our concern ought to be primarily with those in need, such as the widows and the Lazaruses of the world: the poor, the naked, the imprisoned, and the otherwise disadvantaged.
	The concerns of capitalism per se are not with these, but with wealth and self-aggrandizement.  What trickles down to the least advantaged is a matter of coincidence and moral indifference, except insofar as it keeps them working and placates their dissatisfactions sufficiently that they are not disposed to threaten the existing allocation of property and privilege. 

	9-47.  Charity survives in spite of capitalism, not because of it.  What passes for capitalist philanthropy is often merely the giving back to the common people a portion of what was previously stolen from them.

	9-48.  One wonders whether any use of property for the sake of making a profit, even in the best of contractual business relationships, is not ultimately reducible to some such wielding of the weapon of fear based on another's need.  The greater the degree of necessity associated with a commodity, the greater is the fear associated with failing to acquire it.  So seen, capitalism is legalized extortion.

	9-49.  Another pervasive euphemism associated with capitalism is the concept of "positive incentives," especially as it relates to the profit motive.  This seemingly benign phrase almost invariably means the institutionalization of various manipulative devices in the guise of alternatives to coercion and punishment.  Punishment and reward are actually two sides of the same coin, however, since those who threaten to withhold such rewards are really appealing to fear as a motivator.
	When they are not, they are typically appealing to greed.

	9-50.  Why is the language of "incentives" inherently reactionary?  While it is true that most persons thrive on encouragement instead of threat of punishment, there is more to a "system of incentives" than mere encouragement: there is an institutionalized system of contingencies--contingencies not merely of rewards or incentives, but of deprivation of necessities for survival.  
	By the withholding of rewards, any system of "positive incentives" can be a de facto punitive system: the "carrot and stick" model is of a piece, for the carrot and the stick are used in tandem, not as opposing strategies.  Systems of both reward and punishment are ultimately founded in the manipulation of fear.

	9-51.  The manipulation of the human spirit through a system of rewards and punishments implies that "encouragement" itself is being withheld unless the activity "encouraged" is congruent with the will of the dominating individual, group, or class.  Since the root of the verb "encourage" is the noun "courage," it can be seen that the whole point of incentive systems is to "inspire" or give courage to persons on the one hand, or to deprive them of inspiration or courage on the other.  One can thus see why a system of incentives can be an extension of the application of the use of fear--for what is fear but the loss of spirit or courage?  
	What is the withholding of encouragement in an institutional setting but manipulation and intimidation for the sake of breaking the spirit of independent actors so that they might better conform to the will of the dominating individual, group, or class? 

	9-52.  When a dominating person, group, or class institutes an order in which belonging, recognition, and remuneration are predicated upon satisfying the will of that dominating entity, there is little that genuinely "encourages" persons.  Instead, over the long term, the likelihood is of a breaking (or at least a withering) of the spirit in those who come to rely solely upon external incentives as the basis of motivation.  
	The ultimate legacy of the incentive systems of either the "free market" or of socialist bureaucracies is thus not only a loss of motivation, but a loss of self-esteem and an increase in the sense of powerlessness.  Bureaucracy is endemic to both capitalistic and socialistic coercive orders.  It is destructive of the spirit in either economic incarnation.
	Should we expect more of a system that is based ultimately on either fear or greed as the great motivators? 

	9-53.  Fascism is not easy to define.  It seems to be a combination of elitism (typically qua nationalism) and militarism, with a strong emphasis upon solidarity within some group and a strong tendency toward xenophobia and exclusion of those outside the group--combined with repression of those who do not  or cannot identify with the group.  It also typically glorifies power and wealth, as well as the legal and social hierarchy which enforces existing property arrangements and other legal entitlements.  In addition, it invariably makes overt the linkage between corporate wealth and the state which exists in all capitalistic cultures.  It is surely the most profoundly reactionary of all large-scale social systems.
	What we call capitalism or even "democracy" can also contain fascistic elements.  These might better be labeled as "statist" tendencies, but the distinction is possibly not meaningful: fascism in its full-blown manifestation entails the corporate state.  Fascism afflicts almost all social organization to varying degrees, so that the label "fascist" is probably not misused when applied in limited social contexts, or when applied to limited shortcomings.  Fascism admits of degrees, and it is well to recognize it in any manifestation, no matter how subtle.

	9-54.  The "free market" posits a society in which everyone is trying to "buy low" and "sell high."  It is not logically possible for everyone to do this, of course, meaning that it is inevitable that the successes of some will be subsidized by the failures of others.
	A "just" system characterized by what is now called the "free market" is thus not possible, at least not within the limits of present rationales and motives driving such markets.

	9-55.  "Peace," as used in this study, refers to the way persons relate to persons, both as individuals and in groups.  The size--or the organizational structure--of the group does not matter particularly for the purposes of this study, since the point is to find principles which would apply to all individual and group relationships, regardless of size or complexity.  The emphasis, that is, is on ethical solutions, not organizational solutions.  
	The focus is on individuals because no organizational or social system, no matter how perfect, can succeed without ethical individuals.  Without ethical individuals, that is, no social system can promote either justice or peace.

	9-56.  On the level of peace studies, we do well enough to "muddle through" without any certainty as to what kind of organizational or social structure we are going to end up with. 
	Yet, while a full description of an endstate in "the peaceable kingdom" is not possible, the analysis of ethical principles ought to be able to tell us something about the characteristics of such an endstate.  Thus, although knowledge about ethical behavior and action is not the same as a blueprint, it should surely give us some intimation of the divine plan of ultimate peace.  If we can come to know anything at all about such a plan, we should see clearly where our own actions and our own institutions do indeed fall short.

	9-57.  Among the many meanings which are conveyed by the term "fair" or "fairness," the one which seems to have an obvious intuitive appeal for many persons is the idea of "carrying one's  weight" or doing one's "fair share."  Even Marx, who claimed not to believe in transcendental concepts such as "justice,"6 came very close to relying upon something like a kind of fairness conception, albeit through its obverse: "exploitation," unfairness in the allocation of both societal goods and burdens.
	Such conceptions of fairness (or unfairness) are usually invoked in discussions of the equitableness of schemes of distributive justice, although one hastens to add that non-retributive facets of fairness, such as "impartiality" or "equal treatment", can also have application to the realm of distributive justice.  (Aristotle's conception of impartiality comes to mind here: "Like cases should be treated alike and different cases differently.") 
	The conception of what we might call "fairness as impartiality" or "fairness as equal treatment" is clearly a very different conception from the idea that goods should be allocated on the basis of some notion of "just desert" or "equitable reward" or "recompense," or some criterion of non-exploitation.  The point here is that the term "fairness" often does double duty, referring to two very different concepts, one essentially procedural (the impartiality or "equal treatment" criterion) and the other essentially substantive: the positive retributive conception of a "fair share," "a fair day's work for a fair day's pay," or simply "non-exploitation".
	  Popular usage often does not make clear which of these very different conceptions is being referred to, nor is it clear that many persons are even aware that they are using the term "fair" in two very different senses.  It is equally clear, nonetheless, that most persons not only understand both meanings but tend to use the two terms more or less appropriately for varying situations.  (There are some contexts, in fact, in which a more inclusive conception of fairness no doubt depends on a simultaneous appeal to both of these conceptions of fairness.)
	I shall assume that the idea of "fairness as impartiality" needs no further theoretical defense, and in what follows I shall address the more obviously "retributive conception of distributive justice": fairness as non-exploitation.

	9-58.  Exactly what "carrying one's weight" means is not as simple as it appears.  The most crudely retributive conception of fairness might be seen to imply doing work or carrying a load which is precisely equal to that which one consumes or takes.  Although such a crudely retributive conception of fairness is seldom advanced in such a "pure" form, the basic idea of a "fair exchange" often does presuppose some kind of rough balance between what one gives and what one receives. 
	In spite of the broad appeal of the essentially retributive conception of fairness, a basic question comes to mind, a question which reflects a fundamental challenge to fairness conceived of as "a retributive conception of distributive justice."  The essence of that challenge is this: why not define at least one half of "fairness" as simply doing the best that one can, or (even better) as "from each according to his ability or capacity"?  This is "half" of the socialist maxim, the half which can be argued as presupposing a conception of obligation.  It is an answer to the enduring question, "What should I do?" (The other half, "to each according to his need," can be seen to be at least theoretically factorable, thus separating the problems of "production" and "distribution" in a way that the market cannot do: the market conception's inherently retributive basis for "distributive justice" is seen not only in its concern with "payment for services rendered," but in its overall linkage of what one gets to what one does.)
	One is motivated by at least two concerns in offering a challenge to the retributive conception: first, defining "fairness" as "doing the best that one can" allows for a conception of obligation based less on a "response in kind" (Rawls' definition of reciprocity7) and more on a Christian agápe conception (one which is indifferent to personal return or recompense); second, it allows for the possibility of a reduction of political theory to individual ethics.  That is, rather than relying on statist or market schemas, one relies instead on appeals to the consciences of individuals as the basis of motivation to work.  One does not appeal to some expectation of reward--recompense, retribution, "just desert."
	Such a redefinition is hardly indifferent to questions of exploitation.  "Exploitation" is simply redefined to mean any individual action or style of life or any social structure based upon persons doing--or having the opportunity to do--less than they are capable of.
	There is thankfully no way that such a conception of fairness could ever be enforced by law, for only individuals know when they have done their best, or the most that they are capable of.

	9-59.  The non-retributive ideal of obligation goes further than a theory of "socialist" obligation ("From each according to his ability. . .").  There is also the other half of the coin: "socialist" distribution ("To each according to his need.").  Nor is there anything wrong with the so-called "socialist" maxim: an ideal requiring that one give in proportion to one's ability to give (rather than in proportion to what others give, or in proportion to what one expects to get in return), and requiring as well that one should take only what one needs (rather than taking in proportion to what one has given or worked for).
	By now, however, the significance of the socialist maxim should be more evident: what really differentiates it from the capitalist maxim of the marketplace is its fundamental conception of fairness.  One is essentially retributive, the other non-retributive, in its scheme of distributive justice.
	Dare one say that the socialist maxim is more compatible with the Christian conception of agápe or unconditional love, benevolence which expects nothing in return?  Surely one can say precisely that and, as long as the socialist ideal is enforced solely from within by the sanctions of conscience, there should be nothing frightening about saying so.
	The point is not to disparage the concept of fairness, nor to try to reduce it in every instance to some conception of impartiality or equal treatment, but to say that, in addition to such a procedural conception of fairness, the substantive idea of fairness must be redefined from the retributive bias inherent in capitalism to the non-retributive bias inherent in a voluntary socialism.

	9-60.  Ironically (and to the chagrin of the true believer in "free enterprise"), both the market and the bureaucracy can be seen to operate retributively.  Nor should this surprise us: the rise of modern capitalism and the rise of modern bureaucratized society occurred not only simultaneously, but out of strict necessity.  Capitalism and bureaucracy are logically linked at the most fundamental level, the level of social organization.
	They also both rely on the same conception of fairness--the retributive conception.  This latter statement can be misleading, however, since in bureaucracy the retributive element is present procedurally through the legal (and thus inherently retributive) methods used to enforce compliance, whereas in the market the retributive element is present in the substantive content, in the notion of "payment for services rendered" or "a fair day's pay for a fair day's work."

	9-61.  Why not a conception of fairness that is a matter of doing all that one can?  Why not a conception of fairness that is completely indifferent to how much others contribute?  Why not a conception that disparages taking more than one needs?  Why not a conception enforced by the sanctions of conscience rather than by those of either the bureaucracy or the market?
	On such a conception of fairness, there is no necessary conflict between the ideals of freedom and equality.

	9-62.  It might yet be objected that, in attacking the retributive foundations of the market, I am thereby committed to defending socialism.  Unfortunately, what are called "socialist" orders are typically statist and bureaucratic at least to the extent as are capitalist orders.  ("State capitalism" is, in fact, the preferred term for such so-called "socialist" orders: the state, not private individuals or groups, accumulates and invests capital.)
	Present "socialist orders" (so-called) are not founded on a consistently non-retributive conception of fairness.  The orthodox Marxists unfortunately placed the new non-retributive wine of a socialist conception of "fairness" within the old retributive wineskins of legal-rational organizations (the ultimate of which is the totalitarian bureaucratized state).  Both the wine and the bottle are thereby lost.

	9-63.  The idea of a legal order and what is "fair" (retributively) within that order is ironically pretty much the same whether the avowed principle guiding the social order is the socialist maxim, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" or the capitalist maxim, "Payment for services rendered."  The latter is typically thought of as a purely capitalist conception but is in fact a norm inhering in all legal-rational systems, for all bureaucracies are based on extrinsic incentives and thus the expectation of reward.  The bureaucratic state enforces both conceptions of fairness, and thus the state is the ultimate enforcer of the retributive conception, whether in capitalist or socialist orders.  
	More to the point, once one has put a socialist order within the context of specific practices and legal orders, the substantive non-retributive content of the socialist maxim seems to be overridden by the retributive procedures inhering in every legal system and thus every bureaucracy. 

	9-64.  If one really wanted a totally non-retributive social system, then one would have to posit a theory of justice which did not operate through any coercive legal order, any form of the state, but one which instead operated through the actions of particular individuals operating voluntarily within the interstices of legal orders--and beyond them as well.
	A final result of pursuing a non-retributive conception of fairness would be that one would reduce obligation to what is just or moral or right, and this would have to be developed entirely independently of a conception of justice which was bound up to the coercive and procedural requirements of legal systems.  

	9-65.  Once addressed from the perspective of the individual's unilateral obligation to others, as  opposed to the reciprocal and thus bilateral or multilateral obligations imposed within the context of legal orders, the question of fairness in production can be seen to be soluble on a voluntary basis.  Individuals, not groups or their laws, can assess their own fair share of the work based on their own assessment of their own capacity, regardless of what others do, which is to say without regard to the requirement of reciprocity or fairness in the petty sense.
	In the same way, with regard to a fair share of the distribution of social goods, individual persons can also be seen to be the best judges as to what they truly need.  If their judgment is sound, they will not take or ask for more than they need, and so the problem of scarcity would not arise.  Coercive systems of distribution or allocation (for the sake of managing or solving scarcity) would thus be superfluous.
	While it is unrealistic to expect society to be ordered in such a way in the foreseeable future, it is not unrealistic for individuals to operate by the Christian/socialist norm of giving according to capacity and taking according to need.  Such an approach, universalized, would surely provide the only lasting voluntary solution to the problem of both scarcity and the fair allocation of work and primary goods.

	9-66.  Even Marxism's appeal to an ethic of contribution based upon the capacity to give and an ethic of distribution based upon the degree of need owes much more to the Christian parable of the talents, to the story of the widow's mite,8 and to the story of Lazarus9 than it does to Marx's labor theory of value and surplus value. 
	Unfortunately, in terms of motivation, Marxist theory depends not only upon its Christian roots but also upon resentment.  As a result, coercive legal orders were instituted in its name to enforce a fair distribution of both work and goods, and those old retributive legal wineskins could not hold the new wine of the socialist maxim.  The coercive socialist orders collapsed as a result, discrediting the valid ideals of socialism and resulting in a right-wing capitalist reaction which is likely to be equally disastrous.
	When socialism is tried on a voluntary basis, one person at a time assessing his or her own capacities and needs, then and only then will socialism succeed.  If and when that occurs on a large scale in this life, we shall no longer have to call it "socialism," but simple responsibility and charity--rather old-fashioned (but still valid) Christian virtues.
	
	9-67.  Somewhere under the general category of euphemism ought to be the specific category of excuses for the sins of omission and procrastination in the public realm.
	There are in private life all kinds of justifications for procrastination and outright sins of omission.  Similarly, in matters relating to public institutions, there are rationalizations and justifications for deferring (or avoiding entirely) action promoting the welfare of the least advantaged.
	The most elaborate of these rationalizations are simply excuses as to why money and effort should not immediately be used to remedy the greatest suffering--why, instead, money should in some sense be "invested" in the rich, from whence it will supposedly trickle down to the poor.  Rather than direct action to alleviate the social need, action in the opposite direction is taken.
	Are the poor hurting?  Then let us subsidize the rich, and let us do it in the name of the "free market."

	9-68.  The theory of the Invisible Hand10 of the market is the fundamental lie of capitalism: if every person pursues his or her self-interest, so goes the lie, the welfare of all will be automatically promoted by the invisible hand of the market.  This doctrine euphemizes greed and calls it virtue.  
	This sacrilege of the "providential" hand of the market is used, of course, in lieu of a providential assumption about God: it is not too strong to say that the market has become a false god for the disciples of this type of economic theory.  Their god, of course, is the god of greed rather than the God of compassion. 
	God, that is, is no capitalist.  God might well be a voluntary socialist: of those to whom much is given much will be required, and to those who are in need assistance should be rendered, directly and immediately, without procrastination, delay, or rationalization.

	9-69.  Vis-B-vis the euphemism of the "just war" and related ideologies, Jesus cannot be seen doing a number of things: (1) carrying a rifle in Vietnam, (2) flying a B-52 and dropping bombs upon command from higher up, (3) sitting and waiting to push the button to destroy hundreds of thousands in the face of an order to launch nuclear weapons, or (4) giving ridiculous excuses about spin-offs and trickle-downs as the solution to the problem of human need.  
	How is it that those who call themselves his disciples can do so?

	9-70.  "The guilty and only they should be punished."  "Punishment is punishment only where it is deserved."11  Such are the canards of modern retributivism, which defends the institution or practice of punishment for the sake of allocating moral desert.  There are both theoretical and practical problems with such glib formulations.
	The foremost theoretical problem with punishment is that retaliation is retaliation, and injury is injury, regardless of the worth or culpability of the one doing being injured.  The impact on (or consequences for) this person, the object of retaliation, is also the same whether the injury is done in the name of retribution or in the name of the utilitarian (ostensibly non-retributive) norm of deterrence.
	The foremost practical problem with punishment is that, in actual practice, it is never only the guilty who are punished.  Wives, children, and parents of the guilty are also punished.  (In the case of those solitary souls whose punishment really does not affect anyone else, one can only say that their entire life has been a form of de facto punishment, and one should not want to add to it.)  Thus, by the very requirement of the retributivist, the institution of punishment cannot be implemented without violating its own most sacred tenet: that the guilty and only they should be punished.  
	Perhaps this inevitable problem at the level of practice is a sufficient reductio at the level of theory.  Punishment serves no benign social purpose.  It is evil compounding evil, and such a formula can only mean more rather than less evil all around.
	9-71.  Retributivists recognize that innocent people are sometimes convicted and incarcerated, even as they recognize that innocent persons die in so-called "just" wars.  Their defenses of the institutions of war and punishment against the charge of injustice (even according to their own retributive standard) might be that we should at least try to approach the retributive "ideal" in practice: we should try as nearly as possible to see that only the guilty suffer.  
	Yet, if Kant is correct in saying that "ought implies can," and if it is clear that we cannot institute a system either of war or of punishment which would only cause the guilty to suffer, then it is seems abundantly clear by Kant's own standard that we have no obligation to punish or kill.  The maxim that "Ought implies can," that is, would seem to be binding, even where the barrier to consistency is merely contingent and not a matter of logical necessity.

	9-72.  Even if one's bad theology impels one to believe that a perfect God must believe in punishment rather than forgiveness, this conclusion hardly helps one to decide what imperfect human beings must do: human beings are on very weak ground indeed in presuming to judge and punish others, if only for the simple reason that no human being is perfect.  This insight is summed up in Christ's teaching regarding the woman who was about to be stoned for being caught in the act of adultery: "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."12   The point of such a saying was not lost on those who had armed themselves with stones, preparing to stone the woman.  
	The moral force of such a teaching is indeed problematic, but I am inclined to think that its force depends on nothing more nor less than the requirement of consistency: it is foolish for us who are imperfect to demand the punishment of others who are imperfect unless we are willing to accept punishment in our own case.  Unfortunately, those most willing to punish are usually the most certain that their own failings are minor.  Their failings are not minor, however, and thus it is that those who would dominate and chastise the rest of us are the greatest threat to human decency and long-term order of a truly peaceful nature.

	9-73.  Although some say that they are willing to accept the requirement of consistency, thus accepting punishment when it affects them personally, one notices two things: first, either such persons are really so priggish that they think that nothing that they have done could possibly be very bad and therefore that the punishment which they deserve could not possibly be very severe; or, second, those who most assiduously do affirm the retributive ideal with the most vehemence tend to change their minds when the "required" retribution applies in their own case.
	Indeed, it is the moral force of having to take one's own bitter medicine which finally seems to be the great teacher for many, who seem incapable of admitting the folly of retribution until it threatens to be applied in their own case.  They do not learn from the punishment, however, but from finally seeing the contradiction. 
	As for those who do finally change their minds when faced with the contradiction, we should not crow about their hypocrisy for backing away from their retributive ideals in such circumstances.  We should welcome them gladly into the family of non-retributivists.  Virtually all of us who are human have come to non-retributivism by the same route, by contemplating our own failings and asking whether punishment could make us better.
	All of us seem to be born retributivists.  Growing up seems to entail forsaking such bad teaching.  In the face of death, everyone cries out for forgiveness.  Retributivism as a philosophy fails the ultimate test: even if some seem to be able to live with it, no one seems to be prepared to die with it.  

	9-74.  To the incorrigible retributivist, one wants to ask one question: what is the point of punishment if it does not make persons better?  The arch-retributivist (such as Kant) will say that that is not the point of punishment: the sole requirement is that of consistency, because the criminal has acted criminally13 and thus deserves his punishment.  (If this makes no sense to the reader, then may it be noted that neither does it make sense to this writer.)
	It is possible, however, to prefer a consistency based upon non-retribution rather than retribution.  If one must be consistent as to how to respond to evil, then why not consistently and categorically affirm that one should return good for evil rather than evil for evil?  This choice was available to Kant, and he took the wrong fork in the road.

	9-75.  One must ultimately decide whether one wants to adopt the role of defender or prosecutor.  If one wants to play the latter role, then one is not on the side of the Christ, who came to defend, to intercede, to redeem.  Moses, the legalist, is our accuser, said Jesus (by which he meant that the Old Law of retribution accuses).
	One cannot have it both ways: the roles of defender and prosecutor.  The roles are mutually exclusive: God has not designed a tortuous adversarial legal system and euphemistically called it "justice."
	Only fallible human beings would think of doing something like that.

	9-76.  If Christian justice is not retribution, and if forgiveness is the universal requirement of Christian justice in the face of wrongdoing, then what does forgiveness really entail?
	The final triumph of forgiveness lies in the capacity to become the defender of one's offender or persecutor.  I do not mean by this that one ought to try to defend the offense, but that the defense must be of the person rather than of the action.  If one can actually become a sincere advocate of the welfare of one who has done one a great wrong, then one has approached the divine fullness of forgiveness.  If one can do that, one will not feel hate, and one will not be driven by vindictive thoughts or tendencies.  
	One will also truly have mastered one's own spirit.  In addition, one will understand why it is that one's rational and persuasive powers, not reciprocated punishment, are called for: if one is to help another to change, then one must ultimately convert that person to the cause of good.  Retaliation weakens one's moral legitimacy, evokes resentment, and thus delays or vitiates the force of the message and lesson of forgiveness. 

	9-77.  If the point of Christian justice is not punishment but redemption, then let it be remembered that there is no redemption except through conversion, and no conversion except through persuasion.
	A punitive conception of justice promises some short term benefits for society.  Yet, if it works against God's ultimate purpose of the redemption of individual souls, then it has no ultimate value and cannot be claimed to be ordained of God.

	9-78.  Does one glory in the fact that one has the power to destroy another, whether by gunfire or by malicious gossip?  Is one proud of one's capacity to destroy, or--worse--of one's record of destroying?
	If so, then let one remember one thing: destruction is so very easy.  It is so easy that no rational person would accept it as a noble challenge or undertaking.

	9-79.  One must not forget that most horrible of euphemisms: the "penitentiary," a place where persons are presumed to be most likely to become virtuous (to "repent") when subjected to more insult and abuse.  The whole idea of forcing persons to become good by doing evil to them is, of course, quite bizarre when one thinks about it, even though it is still the popular conception of justice and moral "correction" (another euphemism).
	What if it should be the case that lavishing good upon those with anti-social tendencies should turn out to be the only way to change them on a lasting basis?  One wonders, that is, what would happen to the soul of a sick or even evil person if everyone who could were to offer their support and encouragement, rather than condemnation.  If one universalized Jesus' command to visit those in prison, that might in fact be exactly what the world is obligated to do.  Letting them out and making every effort to integrate them into society would be even better.  The results might be dramatic.  In any case, we have to find radical alternatives to our present approaches, for we have become a society in which the dominant method of control is overtly coercive and brutal on a scale exceeding that of many avowedly fascist regimes.  

	9-80.  When one considers the scope of violence and the rate of incarceration in this country, one must conclude that our moral blindness to our own personal and cultural defects is revealed most clearly in our most arrogant national euphemism: ours, we think, is "the land of the free and the home of the brave."  
	If we are so free, then why are so many of us in prison?  Is this the way that we defend ourselves from crime, by incarcerating more and more people?  If we are so brave, then why do we promote our own self-defense by being prepared to destroy massive numbers of women and children with nuclear weapons? 
	Those who would risk nothing in the name of "self-defense" risk everything.

							

CHAPTER TEN

SEXUALITY AND THE
HARMONIOUS SOCIAL ORDER

	10-1.  It has become fashionable to say that there is no natural law, especially not a natural or divine law of monogamy.  Many scholars have studied many cultures and found many patterns, and on that basis alone they have pronounced all to be of equal validity.
	Yet, did they not notice that when they found polygamy, it was almost always polygyny (a plurality of wives), and almost never polyandry (a plurality of husbands)?
	Polygamy, that is, is almost always associated with the social and economic exploitation of women in patriarchal cultures.  Polygamy, that is, is part of the culture of domination.

	10-2.  Why is sexual ethics within the purview of political philosophy?  Why are discussions of sexuality relevant to any discussions about the peaceful and harmonious social order?
	There are several reasons.  Perhaps first among them is the fact that the family (or its logical prerequisite, the primal sexual bond between a man and a woman) is the basic unit of society, and as such cannot be omitted from any meaningful discussion of general social and political theory.
	A second reason is that, if one does believe in the divine or providential hand as a force in human sexual relationships (the idea, more or less, that "marriages are made in heaven," or the belief in "one right person"), then one has posited the existence and meaningfulness of a transcendental force which orders human affairs in at least one realm of human activity.  If such a providential force can order and coordinate human affairs in a benign and voluntaristic way in one realm, is there any doubt that it could do so in all other realms of human existence?
	The same providential God, that is, who has the power to lead us to one mate amidst the chaos of indiscriminate natural lust for a myriad of potential sexual partners is the same providential God who has the power as well to lead us peaceably through all of the chaos and conflict of the many other choices confronting us over the course of our lives.
	That we do not lead lives of perfect sexual innocence and perfect peaceableness is obvious enough.  That we could not do so is not at all obvious.

	10-3.  The sexual revolution has generally been thought to involve a gradual (or even a sudden) liberalization of ideas and behaviors concerning human sexuality.  If one insists upon seeing revolutionary change as a rapid process, this view of liberalization as revolution would make sense, for most of the rapid change in sexual behavior seen in the last quarter century has indeed been in the direction of greater promiscuity.  
	Anything which makes society over into something that it once was can hardly legitimately be called "revolution," however, whether the change be fast or slow.  In addition, revolution deals with the scope, and even the direction, of change, not the rate of change.  
	One may thus doubt whether there has been a genuine sexual revolution over the last quarter century.  It seems more likely that there has been a reaction in sexual ethics, a reaction which represents a regression in general social consciousness about sexual ethics.  
	The most widespread and sweeping changes of a lasting nature in the realm of sexual ethics are indeed likely to be coming about slowly, so slowly as to be almost indiscernible--and they are in exactly the opposite direction from what most persons think of when they think of the "sexual revolution."

	10-4.  Many persons tend to think that ideas involving chastity, fidelity, and monogamy are old ideas, ideas that we are moving away from simply because our oldest religious and ethical writings make reference to such ideas and ideals.  There is reason to believe, however, that they, like romantic love, are relatively new ideas on the world stage: an emphasis on exclusive monogamy is a fairly recent development, and it is logically linked to the rise of romance.
	Early human beings (or their precursors) might well have been sexually indiscriminate, and almost certainly not romantic.  Those who seek romance by seeking new partners are attempting the impossible: the mystical sense of rightness which the romantic justifiably seeks lies in the other direction. 

	10-5.  Why should one believe that the first human beings were monogamous?  Would one cite the folklore of the book of Genesis to prove one's point?
	In warm climates, the earliest human beings were surely not inclined to the wearing of clothes, and might well have been indifferent to any sense of privacy or modesty regarding sexual behavior.  Although the anthropological record is mixed, much of what we know about ancient and primitive cultures involves elements of ritual sexuality, often in the nature of festivals and ceremonies of a public and promiscuous nature.  That such rituals may occur today in this or that context of "festival" seems clear enough, but they have an increasingly bizarre atmosphere about them.  When they are not merely "wild parties," they take the form of such strange occurrences as the "Miss Nude America Pageant," or sex clubs such as Plato's of New York City.
	Reaction sometimes takes on pathological forms.

	10-6.  If one takes the long historical view of the development of sexual ethics, it seems plausible to say that we seem to be heading in the direction of a greater regard for, and reverence toward, sexuality.  That we have seen very recent trends in the opposite direction should not blind us to the possibility that larger trends may be operating in the more positive direction.
	While some changes of a cultural nature can perhaps be documented, there is no evidence as yet of any change of a genetic nature associated with any cultural changes.  Genetic changes affecting behavior are thought to involve those behaviors which persist over time and which have a greater survival value for the species, and usually for individual members of that species as well.  Although we cannot yet prove the direction of genetic change, if any, regarding human sexual behavior, one might speculate that those patterns of sexual behavior which result in more secure and sustained child-rearing and child care have the survival advantage for the species over those which involve the fragmentation of the family and the abandonment or traumatization of the young.  
	In addition, sexual behaviors which increase the incidence of infection (with infertility and death being the likely consequences) are surely likely to result in lowered survival chances for the practitioners of such practices or behaviors, as well as for their possible progeny.  More precisely, such persons are less likely even to have progeny, and what progeny they might have are less likely to survive.  Over very long periods of time, patterns which promote personal survival and the survival of children are likely to be reflected in the survival of those representatives of the species which have a predilection for monogamous patterns of behavior.
	Evolutionary theory, then, implies the strong possibility that those patterns which promote health and longevity are those which are precisely in the opposite of what has been called the "sexual revolution."

	10-7.  Where changes of sexual behavior are concerned, evolutionary theory based upon survival of the species is only half of the story, and quite possibly the least significant half. Even more significant are those changes in behavior which might be freely chosen for the sake of the emotional well-being of the actors.  Here, too, evolution could play a part, encouraging the long-term survival of those patterns which lead to more tranquil and relaxed lifestyles.  The gradation here from simple biological Darwinism to Social Darwinism is complex.  Not only are those representatives of the species who prefer the more rational and tranquil lifestyle more likely to survive through their progeny, but they are likely themselves to select cultural patterns which are more emotionally fulfilling and thus to be taught to successive generations.  Cultural factors, possibly in combination with genetic factors, may thus tend to lead slowly to the conscious affirmation of ethical norms which will be selected, taught, and perpetuated simply because they are more fulfilling and not because they knowingly increase survival chances for the species as a whole.
	If such social developments are not random, then some larger, purposive force would have to be in control of what is deemed to be emotionally fulfilling or not.  If God willed a particular pattern, then it seems reasonable to believe that persons would find such a pattern more agreeable to their consciences and their nature, and thus ultimately to their emotions, than those which are contrary to the will of God.  This line of argument assumes, of course, that the will of God is at least partially discernible as well as that the will of God is not entirely unrelated to what we think to be the will of God when we follow our consciences.  That is, our consciences, though hardly infallible, do indeed tell us something about God's will; and, if pursuing those patterns of behavior which we believe to be the will of God gives us a clearer conscience, then we are going to find ourselves enjoying a more agreeable and tranquil emotional state, one which we cherish and seek to regain again by finding those patterns which produce those agreeable and tranquil states and teaching those patterns to our children.
	On the whole we would expect to find emotionally satisfying cultural patterns and values to be more significant than genetic factors per se in determining which patterns are likely to survive, at least once the organism has reached a certain level of rationality.  This is not to say that subsequent genetic developments would be unimportant.  It is to say that they would be of overwhelming importance to lower animals but less significant to animals which had highly developed capacities for reason and conscience.  Even so, it is possible that over the very long term we might come to see both cultural and genetic factors working together to create what we might want to call "changes in human nature."  That is, it is quite possible that, over the long term, those representatives of the species would survive who had less and less of a propensity to engage in sexual adventurism, with all of its risks for the individual and for the species.  
	Over the very long term, we might even expect to find the possibility of change from what we might call the "disposition toward sexual temptation."  We might expect human beings, that is, to develop an even higher innate sense of monogamy and fidelity than they presently exhibit.  We might expect, that is, such a highly developed sense to become more instinctual over time.  The same may even be true for transnationalistic and pacifistic tendencies, since these would also, over time, have greater survival value for the species as a whole (although admittedly possibly not for particular cultures).  
	Humankind's highest aspirations in terms of conscience thus might, through a processes of supernatural selection, be reflected in actual changes in what human beings desire, so that healthy patterns of activity according to rational and harmonious ideals should become less and less based upon a sense of duty at odds with desire and disposition but more and more in line with evolving patterns of desire and disposition.
	A further implication of this view is that each triumph over the temptation toward either violence or promiscuity in our present imperfect state might have some finite probability of promoting the more nearly perfect state or disposition for the species as a whole.

	10-8.  It has been said that homo sapiens is the only animal to have emotions about emotions, desires about desires.  We are capable, that is, of being revulsed by our own petty impulses and by our own baser desires.  This is our saving grace, of course, but it is not only a reflection of the divine in human nature but an indication of the remaining human imperfections as well: we often feel that which we know that we should not feel, and want that which we know that we should not want.  I refer here not merely to sexual desire but to the desires for vengeance and power, as well as all of the other impulses which have demonstrated the limitations of human reason over the greater part of the evolutionary struggle.

	10-9.  Jesus of Nazareth affirmed the basic sacredness of sexuality.  Views which deny the sacredness of sexuality may justifiably be called "pagan" or even "profane."  
	Reverence for sexuality seems to be associated with a serenity of mind and the cultivation of a benign disposition.  By contrast, no peaceable culture seems likely where sexual openness and unbounded sexual indulgence are glorified.  It may even be that no individual can attain the mastery of anger without first mastering the sexual impulse.  While it may be true that sexual deprivation can increase irritability, sexual promiscuity in either thought or deed can generate a very dangerous tendency toward self-loathing which too often comes to fruition either as violence or as anger projected onto other persons.  
	The person who is indiscriminately sexually indulgent is a dangerous person, whether in terms of irascibility and "natural" propensity toward violence, or in terms of tendencies toward vicious gossip, scheming, or other varieties of social evil.
	In many ways, then, sexual ethics is central to all of ethics, and virtue in things sexual way well be central to virtue in general.  Persons who are reverential and disciplined with regard to sexuality may admittedly be capable of other types of atrocities, but no triumph over all of the baser human impulses is possible unless there is first the proper attitude toward sexuality.  Another way of saying this is to say that perfection in sexual ethics is a necessary, but not a sufficient, criterion for perfection in other realms of ethics.  The virtues are not isolated facets of the personality, but are intimately related to each other.  Sexual ethics is central to the development of all of the virtues, precisely because sexuality has more value than being an instrument of either reproduction or raw pleasure.  The highest affirmation of sexuality is the ultimately sublime experience, the ultimate act of communion between two persons.  There is no reason to think that it will become obsolete in the next life simply because reproduction will no longer will be called for.
	Sexuality, that is, has more than instrumental value.  It has inherent value, possibly the greatest inherent human value that human beings qua human beings can affirm.  Since its value transcends the functions of reproduction and of pleasure, sexuality at its most sublime is an affirmation of the spiritual nature of humankind.  It is never, as a moral phenomenon, a mere "bodily function."

	10-10.  How is it that we see what we call "Old Law" being transformed into what is called "New Law"?  Has God's law changed, or have human reason and understanding simply progressed to the point that we can see the larger end which God has willed for us?  I choose the latter.  
	We think that we see a God-given nature "red in tooth and claw" evolving into something higher, when what we in fact see is a developing nature which, through the divine gift of reason, is not satisfied with its present state of development, which wants to be better than it is.  The paradox as to how a benign God is possibly to be reconciled with a God-given nature which is quite brutal is thus perhaps overcome: the Lord God made both Nature and human nature, but he made them with an end in mind.  Perhaps God creates the world and life in stages because nothing, not even God's creation, springs forth from nothing: God is a creator, not a magician.
	All of this is, of course, highly speculative, but there must be some explanation for both the madness of a violent natural order and the frequent madness of human relationships.  One gets the sense that not only our souls are being built in this world, but that the world itself, with all of its inhabitants, is still under construction.
	Or is the World just an incubator for life forms which will reemerge in the next life, while this earth is doomed to be consumed by a supernova?

	10-11.  It is perhaps no coincidence that the era of emerging consciousness of the so-called "sexual revolution" was that of the late twentieth century onset of the cult of self-assertion, with its egoistic and retributivistic ideals.  These too were a re-embracing of ideals long outgrown, ideals based upon the moral reification of mere appetite.
	The amazing thing is that ideas so old that they even predate the level of awareness known as the "Old Law" could be thought to be "revolutionary."  In their egoism they represent the ultimate in reaction: the use and abuse of human reason to rationalize as good a state of existence that was scarcely more than raw impulse, that denied, if indeed it even recognized, the spark of the divine or the direction in which it pulled us.

	10-12.  If one takes literally the biblical account of Jesus' teachings on divorce, then no one should ever remarry the divorced mate of another.1  Rather than look at this rule as an absolute maxim, one feels compelled to look for the logic and purpose behind the rule.
	First, it would appear that Jesus is referring to something very sacred, to a bond formed by God himself2 and not to every union that happens to have been sanctioned by the state or by the ecclesiastical "authorities": a true union, not a casual or misguided one, even if apparently "official."  The teaching should not be taken, I think, as an absolute prohibition against the dissolution of a marriage which is sanctioned by officialdom, whether clergy or state officials, but which is not sanctioned by God.  (I am assuming that some such category of unions exists.)
	Presuming that a particular sexual bond is formed or sanctioned of God, however, then the force with which Jesus emphasizes the sanctity in so many passages nonetheless reminds us that something of absolute value characterizes those bonds which are truly sanctioned by God.  Perhaps everyone knows whether he or she has been or is in that kind of divinely-bonded relationship, although the capacity for indifference and self-deception makes such judgments precarious, to say the least.  	A union sanctioned by God is surely precious and should not be violated or abused under any circumstances.3  One is almost inclined to say that, if one was once bound by God (whether officially or not) in such a relationship, then it takes precedence over every prior or subsequent relationship which might have occurred.  This is another way of saying that those other relationships should never have occurred, but it is also a way of saying that, if one divorced the one to whom one was truly bonded by God, then any subsequent official marriage or casual relationship could be dissolved for the sake of restoring that original relationship: it is not the ceremony which is sacred, but the bond created by God which the ceremony is instituted to reinforce and protect.  (See footnote three above.)
	To say this presumes that God does indeed form such unique and eternal bonds.  I think that he does: indeed, I think that so doing was the highest purpose of creation for the sake of humans.  "In the beginning created he them male and female. . . ."4  The biblical story, in spite of its simplicity and its fictions, has about it an air of awe in attempting to explain the mystical nature and significance of sexuality.  It is also a reminder that God could have made us in some different form, could have made us to reproduce asexually in some form or another if only procreation and nothing more were at stake.  We could also have had other sources of closeness and intimacy programmed into us had social cohesion and the raising of children been the main point.  	Jesus' quoting from Genesis indicates that the single most important point and purpose of creation, for the sake of humans, was the creation of male and female as companions for each other.  This sexuality, followed by a pairing forged by God himself, was the highest and supreme end of creation, from the human perspective.  Indifference to this highest purpose of God for his human creation is an example of the greatest blindness and callousness of which we are capable.  If we have lost the spark of knowledge of some special quality for the one to whom we are bound by God, then we have lost something very great and wonderful indeed.  Can we not remember the greatness and wonder of true love?  Remembering, how can we be so cruel and callous?  How can we really presume that any other match could be so meaningful?
	Nonetheless, it seems clear enough that persons do forget or become confused.  It is difficult to believe that they ever forget completely, however, and thus it is difficult to believe that God, once having formed such a bond, ever forgets or gives up on that bond.

	10-13.  In the face of fear and suspicion over chastity as well as the possibility of enduring commitment, one happens upon Matthew 1:20, where the angel of the Lord says to Joseph: "Fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost."
	The obvious reference is to the divinity of Jesus.  One yet wonders if there is not an analog in the love between a man and a woman which is conceived of, ordered by, God himself.  When love is so conceived or ordained by the Holy Spirit of God, rather than by the random forces of rampant lust or insecurity (or whatever else can drive persons into sexual relationships), then surely it has a sanctity which cannot be permanently tarnished or frustrated by anything that happens before or after--premarital or post-marital infidelity.
	Thus it is that one can finally set one's mind at ease on matters that can afflict one: such things are spiritual, not physical, in their ultimate origin and are thus invulnerable to the power of evil to destroy them once and for all.  Like God incarnate, they are capable of being resurrected through faith in God and repentance of sin.
	In all such spiritual things, there can be no final defeat.  God has ordained otherwise.  A union with the one right person is unique among all possible unions in that it is conceived of God.  We need have no fear that it can be destroyed or damaged forever, and so we do well to look to maintaining its sacredness, or, having lost it, to restoring it.

	10-14.  Chastity is a state of mind or soul, not of body.  The redemption of the soul through repentance implies the restoration of chastity.
	Therefore there is no reason to get divorced because of unchastity.  The only possible reason ever to get divorced is in those cases where one should never have been married in the first place because the union was not of God.
	10-15.  A mate whose infidelity takes the form of "mere" indifference not only threatens one's self-esteem.  He or she thereby threatens one's own faith in the highest human good: the sexual bond between mates ordained for one another.
	One should caution (with a qualifying reassurance) that the person who is trying one's own faith is one whose own faith is burning low, one who is in desperate need of emotional replenishment: what he or she most fears is one's own indifference.
	This mutuality of either trust or mistrust can be a vicious cycle downward, or a glorious spiral upward.  The essential point to be kept in mind is that, here more than anywhere else, destinies are tied together.  One is not only responsible for the replenishment of the relationship, but one can also be assured of success if only one's own faith does not fail.
	When both are full of faith (what being "faithful" literally means) that the relationship is divinely ordained, then there is a sense of meaning.  The reason that relationships become less meaningful is not age, time, or boredom, but loss of faith in the divine sanction of the union.  One's faith must be invested in the psyche of the other person in order to break free of indifference, for it is indifference which is the seed of all failed relationships, the first sign of grave and ominous peril.
	Fortunately, deepening indifference is not inevitable: if the match is the right one, and if one's own faith can take the assaults of hurt and indifference while continuing to reciprocate good for whatever evils may come, then the final victory of total and eternal union is assured--or so I believe.

	10-16.  Whatever happened to the term "mate"?  It has been replaced by the emotionally sterile "partner."
	The latter term connotes nothing so much as a business deal, just another contractual arrangement between "consenting adults," without the bonding force of the divine sanction.  "Partners" are also interchangeable in a way that mates are not.

	10-17.  If a unique bond ordained of God exists between two mates, what can we say about the power of death over such a bond?  Can death possibly dissolve the bond?  Paul seems to have thought so, for he counsels the morality of remarriage after death,5 but there is no evidence that Paul was ever married or in love.  "There is a great mystery here. . . ."  Indeed there is, Paul, but not for lovers, who, in the words put to a melody by Borodin in Kismet,6 "know all that there is to know."  What they know is that there could never be another match like this one.  Those who are truly in love in a relationship ordained by God understand the total uniqueness of their match, and they know as a corollary the futility of trying to find such meaning elsewhere.  Paul understood something about the sanctity of marriage, but he understood it imperfectly, or else he would never have advocated remarriage after death as a way of "managing" and controlling lust.  Even so, it is interesting that he could endorse its morality without truly recommending it as the best possible course of action.
	Surely the primal bond and the marriage ceremony which promotes it are more than institutions of lust management.

	10-18.  Can death destroy that which is truly worthy and eternal?  Surely it cannot, or else all of the teachings of Christ about the resurrection are meaningless.  If God creates a bond, are we to presume that the bond is so fragile that mere death vitiates it?  Where, then, is the omnipotence of God? 
	Does God form such a unique sexual and spiritual bond or not?  "In the beginning created he them male and female.  For this reason should a man leave his parents. . . .What God hath joined together let not man put asunder."7  "That which is bound on earth shall be bound [literally in the Greek: `the having been bound'] in heaven."8  (The Greek, interpreted idiomatically, says that that which is bound on earth is that which is already bound in heaven, not the reverse.  The error comes from failing to recognize the subtle uses of the participle in Greek.)
	That which is bound or chosen of God is not for humans to presume to reduce to mere convention or contract.  Contracts are negotiable.  By mutual consent they can be dissolved.  "Marriage" as a mere contractual relationship in which women are little more than chattel will indeed end with death, if not before: there will be no more contractual marriage in heaven.
	Perhaps the bond will nonetheless remain forever between a man and a woman who are ordained as mates by God.  That bond, not the contract nor the vows, is the will of God.  As the will of God is eternal and immutable, so is the bond which God has joined.  We must have faith in its power of endurance--and even resurrection.  Like life itself, the bond can be extinguished or eclipsed for a time.  It cannot be extinguished, suppressed, or otherwise damaged or compromised forever, if the Original Will of God in creation is ever to be realized.
	Or so I believe.

	10-19.  It should not be thought that sexual jealousy can always be reducible either to pride or to low self-esteem and resultant insecurity.  These are indeed found in its pathologies and its excesses, but even a perfectly well-adjusted person would feel threatened by the imminent loss of that which he or she holds dear.
	Sexual jealousy is the most prevalent and insidious form of jealousy precisely because the primary sexual bond is the highest manifestation of good that we know.  A complete denial of any disposition to possible jealousy could only be effected by saying that sexual infidelity does not matter.  This denial can be a temporary coping mechanism, but its long-term psychological effects are horrendous.  One cannot deny the highest human good and remain--or become--fully human.

	10-20.  Those who would deny the significance of the distinction between adultery and fornication9 as the grounds authorized by Jesus for divorce are telling us a lot less about the Bible than about their own indifference to the value of chastity.
	By this I mean that, apart from the issue of what constitutes valid grounds for divorce, there lies the issue as to whether or not there is a strong and meaningful biblical distinction between fornication and adultery, with the former referring to wrongful premarital sex and the latter referring to wrongful extramarital sex.
	Semantic arguments aside, surely one does not want to say that wrongful premarital sex is a matter of no consequence.  The reasons that it is a matter of the greatest consequence are no doubt complex, but at the very core of the argument against wrongful premarital sex is the fact that it hurts people, and it seems to hurt them in a unique way: there is some grave disappointment that one's mate has not shared with one the crossing of a most important existential frontier, with all the goods that go with such sharing.  There is spiritual damage as well, which makes persons insensitive to the meaningfulness of the relationship.  Carried to extreme (which may ironically be common enough), this might mean an inability to recognize the right mate even if one meets, or even if one is married to, the right person.
	Wrongful premarital sex is thus not only an evil in and of itself (because of the injury to one's true mate or future mate), but it is also an evil because it reduces one's own moral sensitivity and increases moral blindness in an area where sensitivity and insight are of the greatest significance.
	10-21.  One may say that anyone who is hurt by the prior sexual experience of one's beloved has no business being hurt.  Some even say that such prior events are none of one's business.  This is fatuous.  If people care about such things, then they care, and if they are hurt, then they are hurt, and these are simple facts, anthropological data to be accepted and explained rather than to be scoffed or sneered at.  Besides, the fact that some persons can be hurt by things that may even have occurred in the distant past is a good indicator that something very important is at stake here.  We call it the value of sexual "chastity."  Exactly what that value is, or from what it arises, is not exactly clear, but it is important, whether it manifests itself as a concern for past, present, or future possible fidelity or infidelity.
	I do not interpret such a valuation as simply the expression of an insecure personality, although it is true that insecurity can give it pathological manifestations, as with an obsession with past infidelities and premarital chastity, or with obsessive jealousy in the present.  Yet, even in its pathological forms, perhaps what the disturbance of the obsessed person is trying to tell us is that something very important is at stake here, and that such persons are disturbed in large part because their faith in the divine sanction in such matters has been gravely threatened.  There is no more severe blow to the psyche than those words or acts which claim or imply that that which is of the highest significance is of no particular value at all.  I do believe that those who exhibit a variety of forms of infidelity are often trying to tell us that their faith in the possibility of a true and lasting union with a divinely sanctioned mate has been shattered.  Their shattered faith may also be one significant source of their insecurities.

	10-22.  It is not clear why some persons have great sensibilities about sexual fidelity and chastity, while others have varying degrees of indifference.  There are many complicated issues here, but two things must be affirmed: first, some of the most morally sensitive people are those who have these ideals and expectations about chastity, and this is a prima facie reason for taking these expectations seriously as manifestations about human nature at its highest and most developed; second, the fact that some otherwise sensitive people do not have the capacity for sensitivity on this issue may not reflect a grave character defect per se, but may reflect simply the fact that such persons have had the capacity for that sensitivity destroyed as a result of some prior hurt, guilt, disappointed expectations, or some other causal factor which may or may not be of their own doing.  (Or perhaps they never developed such sensitivity in the first place for one reason or another.)
	In any case, whether or not others value it, one must affirm that, when one is able to value sexual chastity, then one can also be capable of the highest possible joy--and the deepest imaginable sorrow.  This is not to say that one is thereby invulnerable to temptation--or to the spiritual damage which comes with giving in to it, even to the point of losing (one hopes temporarily) the sense of meaning in a relationship truly ordained of God.
	One may yet have faith that the meaning which the relationship once brought can be restored to varying degrees in this life, and to perfection in the life to come.

	10-23.  One does not want to belittle one of humankind's truly noblest desires: to have a faithful love who will never stray, and to have that love come to him or her afresh, so that the two may not only discover certain emotions together but to cherish that which is truly divinely ordained.
	The affirmation of the value of eternal, perfectly monogamous chastity is integrative to the psyche.  This affirmation admittedly does not answer the problem as to when premarital sex is wrong, but it does tell us that those who come to a relationship expecting freshness, innocence, and fidelity, and who make a vow of commitment (public or private) to the beloved before being comfortable with sexual intimacy to any degree, are affirming something so important that one can only refer to it as sacred, that which is a tangible manifestation of the divine will.

	10-24.  Hannah Arendt's remarks about the banality of evil, and about Adolph Eichmann's casual attitude toward human life,10 remind one that a casual attitude about the sacred is itself an evil; and such evil attitudes sooner or later manifest themselves in evil actions.
	As in so many forms of evil, there is often great banality in sexual depravity or in any degree of loss of sensitivity about sexual chastity.  It is, in fact, the casual or profane attitude about such matters which is the essence of this banality, that which is the most disturbing aspect of this particular spiritual dysfunction.  
	If reverence for sexuality bespeaks a noble character, then a casual attitude about sexuality bespeaks the triumph of the profane in our lives.  It is this triumph of the profane which, when complete or pervasive, is the true incarnation of evil, whether the manifestation be sexual or of some other type.

	10-25.  If God were a utilitarian, ethics would be so much simpler in theory, albeit much less satisfying in practice.  Sexual morality would be reducible to trying to promote the greatest pleasure of the greatest number.  Marriage, if it existed at all, would be an institution of lust management.  Sexual libertinism would become the supreme virtue.
	A truly integral person finds no appeal in a sexually open society where hedonistic norms reign supreme.  Integral persons revere exclusive sexuality in ways that many persons find incomprehensible.  Many young persons, for example, are revulsed by the behavior of their elders (and their peers), and many long for a faithful and loving mate in a relationship that would never end.  The young and inexperienced are not, of course, the only idealists.  The same intuition of the sacredness of sexuality is manifested in a rather idealistic way of looking at marital fidelity by many who have been widowed.  Their idealism is constantly under siege from those who cannot even comprehend how sexual fidelity after death could possibly be valued.  
	In any case, we must find some basis besides procreation, child-rearing, or lust management to account for our continuing respect for marital fidelity in couples after children are grown and on their own.  In addition, grown children, who are often shocked and devastated at the divorce of their parents, are telling us something about their intuitions of the value of that which lasts.  We ought to listen to them.

	10-26.  Even the snake oil variety of counselors and ministers have joined the secularist chorus on sexual ethics, forgetting the rather obvious message of the author of the Genesis allegory: that God created them male and female first of all for companionship, and only secondarily for procreation.  Otherwise we might encourage the communal family, so that frequency of sexual intercourse would be assured and thus the likelihood of pregnancy would be increased.  The salesmen of religious pablum also forget the message of the scriptures: that God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.11  If one really wanted to be true "as long as. . . both shall live," one might want to reflect upon the fact that, according to the account of events on the Mount of Transfiguration, those whom we call dead still live, are still in the "bosom" of a timeless God in some ultimate sense.  If true love is for as long as they both shall live, then one wants to remind that eternity is a very long lifetime: eternal life implies eternal love.  The purpose of God's creation will surely not be frustrated indefinitely.
	This way of looking at things runs into the theology of the retributivists, who insist that some are going to hell while the chosen few are going to God.  Clearly, one cannot believe this and believe that every true union is finally going to be consummated for eternity.  One must thereby insist not only that an omnipotent God is not going to lose anyone irreversibly to the forces of evil, but also that his ordained sexual pairings will all finally be consummated--for all time.
	NaVve?  Wait and see.

	10-27.  The quest for the right mate is really a lifelong quest.  I mean by this that the real quest is for certainty and the full realization of the significance of the quest--fullness of faith.  The most poignant element of that quest often comes from a wistful awareness that one or both parties has come (or has yet to come!) to a belated, or at least uneven, awareness of the significance of the right person.  (I know of what I speak.)
	Nothing is more common, however, than to find persons who fall in love at different rates, or who encounter each other with differing levels of moral sensibilities.  For some, the crisis  of sensibilities comes early, as when they fail to recognize the significance of someone who clearly "recognizes" them as the right mate to a higher degree: the familiar phenomenon of "unrequited love" in varying manifestations. 
	The real casualty of the unrequited phenomenon, however, may be the person who falls in love with great initial certainty with a person who is the blind one: this can lead to such a degree of subsequent doubt that the one who first recognizes the value of the relationship can then become the chronic or lifelong doubter, the hardest person of all to finally and fully accept the significance of the match--or its divine ordination.  Paradoxically, the one who was at first blind can then become the one who endures the longer trial of "unrequitedness" qua unfaithfulness.
	Another threat to the mutuality of realization (which the real spiritual consummation is) is the puzzlement over previous sexual experiences of the other.  The apparent randomness with which many persons have their first sexual encounters seems at odds with the idea of a truly providential God who makes matches in the first place: if there really is such a God and such a match, why cannot God get it right the first time?
	This last question is, of course, nothing more than a restatement of the problem of evil in yet another form: if there is a God, why is there evil in the world, specifically (in this instance), tragedy, disappointment, and heartache in sexual relationships?  Perhaps this seems a trivial question when one  considers the larger context of the problem of evil: why is there death, famine, disease, or inequality, if there is a providential, benign God?  Yet, the tragedy of mismatches is responsible for an incredible amount of human unhappiness, indicating that the quest for the right mate is a lot more significant theologically than an "objective," scientific analysis would indicate.

	10-28.  Is wrongful extramarital sex ("adultery") or premarital sex ("fornication") a valid ground for divorce?  I shall try to answer this within the larger context of Christian ethics, not by appeal to legalisms of any kind.12
	The ethic of agápe found throughout the various accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus implies unconditional commitment to others, no matter how they might treat us.  On such an ethic, the bond between a man and a woman in the "Kingdom of Heaven" (a "kingdom" which already exists in a spiritual sense) is more than a contract, more than mere "marriage."  It is a divinely sanctioned union that is not to be broken by human beings.  Conventional conceptions of marriage as a reciprocal or contractual relationship do interpret adultery or other violations of that contract as nullifying that contract, thereby providing grounds for divorce.  If Jesus was only arguing that anyone who breaks the marriage contract by committing adultery is thereby releasing the other party from the terms of that contract, then he would merely have been offering the usual contractualist rationale for when we must do good and when we need not: we are obligated to do good unto others when they do good unto us, but we are relieved of any obligation to do good if they do evil to us or do not otherwise do good to us.
	This clearly is not the message of the Sermon on the Mount, for its foundation in agápe love clearly implies a non-contractual  approach to moral commitment in all human relationships.  In the context of a sexual relationship, I can only conclude that this would imply that, if the match is ordained of God and founded in love, then there are no grounds for failing to offer unqualified, unconditional love, in spite of the moral failings of one mate or the other: there are no moral grounds for divorce in such an instance.  If the match is not ordained of God, however, then the question of the contract or the ceremony would seem to be irrelevant.

	10-29.  Where are the principles of pacifism in all of this?  Let us remember that the foundation of pacifism is the agápe concept of unconditional altruism and non-retribution, a propensity to do good to another no matter how he or she might treat us.
	When one speaks of that which "God has joined together," one is not speaking about something created by human beings through a contractual agreement or a "church" ceremony.  One is talking about that which is inherently good because it is the will of God.
	Divorcing an unfaithful person who is yet the one ordained of God as one's mate (the "right person") would, of course, be returning evil for evil, but the New Testament message clearly requires returning good for evil.  The good of that original match does not change simply because one person or the other has been unfaithful, or because one or both parties has lost sight of that good.  If the relationship is ordained of God, then it is obviously good for both parties to stay in it: such a relationship is exclusive and unique, for no other person could take the place of the one so ordained.
	This also addresses the issue of those who might wish to separate permanently by "mutual consent."  The fact of consent is a necessary but not sufficient criterion of the validity of a relationship, or of its termination.  One cannot force another to love one against one's will, but it is certainly possible for both parties to grow hardened and lose touch with their original feelings and intuitions of the goodness of a relationship.  If these feelings and intuitions derive from a knowledge of God's will, then the relationship is intrinsically or inherently good and does not depend upon the opinion of human beings as a condition of its rightness.  "Mutual consent" will not justify trying to set aside the will of God.  Therefore, the mere fact that both parties agree to the permanent separation is no guarantee that they are making the right judgment.
	As it is obvious that persons sometimes have their first sexual experience with someone with whom they should not have, and under circumstances that were not ordained of God, it is surely just as obvious that some persons had no business "getting married" in the first place.  Neither the ceremony nor the vows make the union, whether the ceremony be religious or civil: the union is neither more nor less meaningful than some illicit tryst in a motel room or in the backseat of a car.  A "church" wedding cannot sanctify such a misbegotten match.  If the relationship, of whatever duration or legality, was not and is not ordained of God, then one not only has the right to get out of it: one has an obligation to do so.
	I could, of course, be wrong on all of this, as on everything else.  But to say so is to state the unspoken first premise of this entire work.

	10-30.  If one is never justified in breaking a relationship between a man and a woman which is ordained of God, why is there that scriptural escape clause: no divorce "except for fornication"?13
	One possible answer--a slight variation on what has already been offered--is that it is quite possible that Jesus was referring to a case of newlyweds who thought that they were in love based upon a false conception of each other.  When the facts are known, however, and the relationship is seen to have been based on a total illusion (which the discovery of premarital involvement could conceivably dispel), then perhaps immediate separation is justified.  Even here one wants to be extremely careful, however, for feelings of jealousy upon such a discovery would seem, if anything, to strengthen the claim of the rightness of the relationship rather than to prove its meaninglessness.  One should never divorce from jealousy, that is, especially that kind of jealousy and conflict that come from finding out about a premarital lover.  If the discovery of premarital activity is linked to revelations that do not cause jealousy so much as disillusionment, however, then it may well be that the disclosure of the premarital sex is a blessing, for it allows both parties to see that, even though they have been through some ritualistic ceremony which we call "marriage," there is not and never really was that bond between them which was ordained of God.
	In other words, the discovery of "fornication" conjoined with a general meaninglessness in the relationship might imply that the relationship never have had any foundation in the will of God.  If it is still not willed of God, then there seems to be no reason to remain committed to it, for surely one is not obligated to remain committed to that which is not ordained of God.  Again, one wants to urge caution, however, since in this area what is illusion and what is not is not easily proven, even to oneself.
	10-31.  The question as to exactly when God ordains a match between a particular pair remains very much an open question, even though I tend to believe that, once he has made it, he does not ever break it.  There is nothing in scripture, of course, which impels one to this conclusion: the teaching that man must not tear asunder that which God has joined together leaves open the logical possibility that God may indeed tear such a bond asunder--whether in this life or in death.
	If so, however, one wants to ask why he ever would.  Are all of our highest aspirations and ideals about "eternal love" nothing but sentimental nonsense?  I do not think so, nor do I seriously think that God will someday make it possible for us to have the psychological or physical ability to add other mates to that union.  That, too, remains a logical possibility, but it goes against the ideal of exclusive fidelity tied up so closely with our ideals of eternal love.  Our intuitions do not lie in that direction when we are really in love, and it is the mystical insights which occur during true love which seem both to offer the greatest promise for the future and to give the greatest meaning in the present.

	10-32.  When it comes to knowing who is one's mate, no one else's opinion has any force at all--not even one's mate, if such a person is momentarily deluded.  This does not mean that one can force another to be one's mate, make another faithful, or deny a separation if another demands it.  It simply means that one must be prepared to endure until the other comes to his or her senses--even to one's death.
	That is what agápe or unconditional love is all about in things sexual, and why it applies to marriage and yet goes so far beyond the usual contractual conception of marriage.  "You may be faithless but I'll be true."14  This is the expression of the non-retributive, altruistic agápe concept as it applies to sexual matters.  This is the application, that is, of the principles of peace to matters of the heart.

	10-33.  Those who see mates as interchangeable just because genitalia are essentially interchangeable will not like what I have had to say about "one right person," of course.  All that I can say is that the obvious physical similarities do not hide the fact that the identities of persons are quite different.  It is a person with whom one mates, not a body.
	The fact that some persons have such strong intuitions as to who is the right person is an indication that there are ways of knowing which imply the possibility of a truly providential order.  Once one has accepted this premise in sexual ethics, its extension to larger social structures follows naturally enough: the existence of a providential God is not only a logical precondition for meeting the right person from a virtual multitude of possible partners, but a precondition as well for the holding together of the social order without the perceived necessity of some coercive state.

	10-34.  Will there be no "marriage or giving in marriage"15 in the next life?  If not, so be it, for marriage is, as has been noted, a mere contractual relationship.  But as for "weddings" or the unions which they affirm, who can say?  A "wedding" implies more than a contractual arrangement: it implies a true union.  Can what has been joined together by God ever be permanently dissolved by human beings?  If it has been joined together by God, does God change his mind, his will?
	Perhaps the idea of "one right person" does have scriptural sanction.

	10-35.  What does  one make of the confrontation of Jesus with the Sadducees, who, in order to demonstrate the absurdity of the idea of the resurrection, gave the example of a woman who was married to seven brothers, in accordance with the provisions of the Mosaic law providing contingencies for a man who dies without having children, such that his brother(s) should marry his widow and raise up children in his name.16
	On the surface, the story only seems to be an affirmation of the idea of the resurrection.  Yet, the idea of eternal existence does present a logical problem for sexual ethics if one believes that the union of a man and a woman continues "as long as they both shall live."  If Jesus, in saying that "God is not the God of the dead but of the living," is saying that scriptural references to the "God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob" mean that these men still live in spite of death, then cannot the same be said of a man who has died, leaving a widow or widows?
	One can only conclude, that is, that the man has no more ceased to live than have Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob (as recounted in the scriptural account alluded to).  If this is literally so, can it not be said that, when Jesus says, "You err, for you know not the scriptures, nor the power of God," he might not only have been referring to the Saducees, but to Moses himself as having erred?  After all, there is no doubt but that the Saducees interpreted Moses correctly.  Moses, on this point as on so many others, cannot truly be said to have understood fully the power of God.  If he had, he would not have given us the Mosaic Law, but the Sermon on the Mount.  Nor would he have given us rules about divorce (as other scriptures indicate), but he would have given us instead reasons to affirm the enduring value of that which God joined together.  Perhaps Moses did not fully understand the scripture in Genesis (2:24) which Jesus was fond of citing about the joining of the two into one--and which Jesus may well have thought of in prophetic rather than historical terms.
	It is conceivable that Jesus was also saying that, since the man did not "die" in any ultimate sense, he did not truly leave a "widow," but only one who was temporarily separated from her one true mate by the "inconvenience" or delay caused by his death.  It may be, that is, that Jesus  might have been challenging the Saducees not only about the resurrection but also about remarriage after widowhood, as a corollary of his point about the resurrection.
	Marriage as a conditional commitment or contract will no doubt cease to exist in the next life, and Jesus perhaps says as much in this very passage, but dare we assume too glibly that this means also that unconditional spiritual unions, including those having a physical component, between pairs of men and women, are destroyed by the mere fact of physical death or by the transcending of merely contractual marriage relationships in the next life?  If the souls live after death, then why not the union of souls which occurred in this life?  If so, would not such a union exist on a higher plane than that of mere contractual marriage in the Mosaic tradition?
	In reaffirming the resurrection, perhaps one affirms not only life eternal, but love eternal.

	10-36.  An ethic for mate selection based on trial and error is not acceptable if one values chastity, since a particular conception of chastity is itself damaged by error: trial may be the error.  One therefore wants to be able to know the right person in advance of sexual involvement and to be able to avoid the wrong person: but how is one to know anything at all about the right person without some experimentation, some trial and error? 
	The answer surely lies in knowing when going ahead is alright and when it is not, and the answer to this is just as surely not to be found in anything having to do with formal ceremonies or public rituals.  Many person have married the wrong person in a "church wedding," and many persons have become intimate at the right time with the right person without the "benefit" of such service.  I do believe that mutual vows and mutual commitment are in order, but are not these the essence of marriage?  Must there be an official third human party present?  Surely the answer is "no."  As for trial and error, I admit, of course, that one does not typically just hold hands until one is ready to make such a lasting commitment.  Even so, I am not convinced that the spiral of escalating passion and meaningfulness must be a matter of trial and error.  Indeed, it is the meaning which seems to feed the passion, and the meaning is surely not a matter or trial and error.  One feels the hand of God in the way that one meets the love of one's life, and in the particular way that events unfold.
	Relationships neither start nor end with vows: the vows tend to be part of the developing relationship.  Therefore, given that one is going to become more and more involved with a person not only after the vows are made, but also up until that time, then there must (unless chastity is of no value) be some way to know at every step whether one is going too far too fast and whether the person with whom one is becoming more involved is indeed the right person.

	10-37.  If our present method of mate selection ("courtship") based on trial and error is inadequate, then the genuinely epistemological problem as to who is the right mate is a question of the greatest importance--and the greatest difficulty.  It is also a practical epistemological problem, not like many of the more esoteric epistemological problems with which philosophers typically struggle.  It is yet as rigorous and demanding as any, and it is one which all persons find, or should find, to be interesting and relevant.  How, that is, does one know when one has found the one right mate, if such there be?
	The first thing that one would say in this regard is that young people ought to be alerted to the fact that herein lies one of life's greatest puzzles: finding the right mate is obviously important, and yet, apart from a few dogmas and canards, society has not done well about warning its young people as to how this puzzle is to be solved without great pain.  The result is that young persons might interpret a policy of silence by parents and other older persons as an indication that trial and error is the only way to proceed.

	10-38.  With regard to mate selection, young persons are justifiably apt to listen more seriously those adults who are lacking in hypocrisy.  About the only caveat that one wants to offer here, however, is that some who might seem hypocritical have been confused by abuse and bad luck.  If they speak about anguish, then they do merit being listened to, since they no doubt know something about which they speak, although every young person would want to be discerning enough not to follow their (or anyone else's) recommendations in this area without great scepticism.
	An even greater caveat is that some great hypocrites are also those who have risked hypocrisy as the price of having high ideals and standards to live up to: they are to be listened to and taken more seriously than those who do live up to very low standards.  Indeed, it is problematic as to who are the greater hypocrites. 
	In consulting others with regard to mate selection, one may therefore say at a minimum that only those with high ideals and standards deserve to be taken seriously.  The mere fact that their ideals have survived decades of a cynical world where temptation is rife (and failure is common) is evidence of some strength of character--and some wisdom as well.
	Perhaps every saint is a former hypocrite, because one must formulate and affirm the ideal before one is capable of living up to it.  The continuing hypocrites, however, are those who are merely self-righteous.

	10-39.  As for the epistemological problem of identifying the right mate, once one has been alerted to the fact that there is an epistemological problem and that some ostensibly "respectable" people are nothing more than "whitewashed walls," the point that must be reiterated, especially to those who are very young, is that the answer to this epistemological problem lies within themselves, not with their peers or their parents.  If one is assuming a match made in heaven with one right person, that is, then it is obvious that it is to heaven that one must appeal in verifying that match.  One has no alternative but to trust one's own conscience.
	Given this rather obvious fact, that one must trust one's own conscience in this and in all ethical matters, the problem remains as to how to sort out the true voice of conscience from all of the other signals that one gets in interpersonal interactions with members of the opposite sex.  That which is emotionally satisfying on a temporary basis, that which is pleasant, and that which is comforting (for periods of varying duration) are all bound to be found in the beginnings of sexual activity with the right person, but they are also likely to be found in sexual activity of varying degrees of intensity with the wrong person as well.
	That which is going to provide emotional comfort, harmony, and satisfaction over the long term is, of course, what one wants to find, but one cannot, without begging  the epistemological question, offer it as the solution at the level at which it is more grievously needed: in the early to intermediate levels of a relationship.  At that stage, one does not know what is going to work over the long term, and, if one did, then one would not have to trouble one's intellect further.  One could just follow one's instincts.  That, of course, is precisely what one cannot do, and  the fact that one cannot simply follow one's instincts is a fact about being human: all human ethical problems arise simply because intellect, intuition, and instinct are often at odds with each other, and, unless we are to embrace the sexual ethics of dogs and barnyard animals, then we are forced to take seriously those forms of knowing which do not emanate from the merely instinctual.
	Our Nature as human beings is not simply to follow our nature.  When in doubt, I would have to say, trust above all one's moral intuitions.

	10-40.  There is something within each of us, often referred to as "moral intuition," which is a reflection of our spiritual nature--and possibly of the ideas of God.  The insights gained from this side of our nature are the most intangible of all, and yet they are the most important for things of a tangible nature--such as relationships and the principles governing them.  They look both forward and backwards: they give us some forward-looking guidance in terms of ideals toward which we ought to aspire, and they give us a sense of meaning in reflecting back over past experiences.
	Indeed, to the extent that the intuitive "data" which we are examining are not merely present "experiences," they are data from our past: for purposes of moral analysis, all intuitive data can be viewed as memories of intuitions (the present becoming immediately the past), and we ought to revere our memories rather than disparage those who reflect a great deal upon the past.  It is splendid memories from the past which are often the corrective for a potential tawdry whirlwind infatuation in the present.  That which is not obviously tawdry but  merely comfortable also pales beside the memories of past glory and past splendor.  While it is true that "one cannot live in the past," one's own past has a great deal to teach, but it cannot teach anyone who is not interested in watching the development  of his or her own history.
	The past is not a guide to the truly "chaste," the inexperienced: in an essential sense, they have no past.  Their intuitions must be of the future.

	10-41.  Since those who are chaste by virtue of their inexperience have no past, it is their intuitive insights in the present (or for the future) which give them guidance.  That which is intuitively good provides the only reliable source of knowledge as to that which  can be expected to be of enduring intrinsic value in the future.
	Relationships which are of enduring value and whose value is intrinsic or inherent can thus be discerned through intuition: given the proper concessions to the emotions and to reason, we ultimately make the right decisions, when the ultimate ends of action are at stake, when we "listen" to our intuitive, spiritual way of knowing.

	10-42.  If we go with the purely practical defense of sexual exclusivity based upon reproduction and child-rearing, we do have to ask ourselves whether the nuclear family as we know it is indeed the best possible social convention for reproduction and child-rearing.  It may be argued, for example, that the exclusive family with it concern for the genetic heritage of children has produced only clans, and clans produce tribes, which in turn promote nations--and their wars.
	It could thus be argued that the exclusivity between one man and one woman is magnified exponentially through  the reproductive process into a kind of cultural exclusivity which is the foundation of ethnocentrism, persecution, and war.  These are not the prime conditions for the rearing of healthy children to adulthood.
	Exclusivity so interpreted would mean not only that one's sexual love for one person means the rejection or forsaking of all others, but it would also mean that the fruit of such a legacy is most of what is bad in human culture: cultural exclusivity which inclines persons to treat those in the family better than those outside.  Even the concern for the identity of one's own children might well betray less a concern for the welfare of the children than a concern for some kind of genetic immortality--as well as a tendency to coddle one's own children at the same time that one ignores the starving progeny of others.  Certainly Friedrich Engels, co-author of the Communist Manifesto, argued along such lines in his work on the family and its role in the capitalist order.17
	Upon such foundations one could argue for a sexual revolution on the basis of other concerns besides personal sexual fulfillment.  Yet, does the exclusive coupling and the primary bond with a small number of offspring really mean that children must be raised in an exclusive ethnocentric environment?  I doubt it: not every family has such tendencies, and those  who do have them seem to have gotten them from the larger culture more often than the reverse.

	10-43.  Most persons see adultery as a sin of commission.  It is certainly that, but it is also a sin of omission, a sin entailing opportunities lost and sensitivities damaged--sensitivities which are needed for the fullest appreciation and nurturing of the primal bond.  It is this primal sexual bond that we really refer to when we speak of the "right mate."
	Yet, sexual though it may be, this primal bond is ultimately a bond between persons, not bodies per se.  (Paul spoke an absurdity when he spoke of "becoming one" with a prostitute merely by virtue of having sexual intercourse with her.18  Unless one happens to be in love with that particular prostitute, that just is not possible.)  "Becoming one" is a matter of much, much more than sexual intercourse, and it involves more than the flesh.

	10-44.  One would like to think that, after all of our glorification of virginity and chastity, some essential component of both may yet be delivered untouched from the evil of this world into the perfect existence of the next life.  Otherwise, what can the next life mean but a continuation of the disappointments of this life? Where would be our final redemption from our own sinfulness? 
	In addition, what would our aspirations about such things as fidelity and chastity mean if they all turned out to be illusions, goals which were not only impossible of attainment in this life but which also could not be realized in their fullness in the next?
	Surely such goals are worthy, and surely we shall someday attain them in all perfection.  Otherwise, what's a heaven for?

	10-45.  Please allow me to indulge my mystical speculations:
	If the unique bond of a "right mate" comes from God, and if it is ordained between two persons and only those two (every couple's bond being qualitatively different, I presume), then it is perhaps not even logically possible for anyone else to share it.  It is such a bond which gives true meaning to a couple's relationship.  Coming from God as a spiritual blessing, God would surely not allow the experience of it to occur where it is not ordained to be--that is, between two persons other than the two for whom it is ordained.
	In mating more than anything else, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.  I do not mean this in the vulgar sense, in which it is also true.  I mean in the spiritual sense, in the sense of the identities of persons.  I believe that, when I taste this spiritual union, I glimpse what I am becoming, and what I perhaps cannot become without her: a new person in the fullest sense, a person in whose presence I gain a greater identity without yet losing my own.  Perhaps we would even become that person, although I suspect that that is too strong.  Were we completely redeemed of the evils and temptations of this world, then perhaps we could achieve that union, that new personhood, on a permanent basis now.  Perhaps our identities would virtually merge, and yet nothing significant would be lost, including personal identity.  Is that a contradiction?  The answer is "no," because in every moment of our true sharing I am even in this life the greater by the loss of myself in love for her.
	I feel a merging of my selfhood and of hers when we make love, and at other times as well.  Sometimes I lose myself in her, for it is in her personhood, not her body, that is the rest of my self.  By the grace of God, I should finally someday be joined completely and irreversibly with her: I am perhaps not ready yet.  I am not perfect yet; I am not complete.  God literally is not finished with me--with us--yet.
	To speak of such a degree of union of personalities may seem absurd, but at least it tells us why attempts to gain intimacy with other persons besides the right mate are not only so pointless and foolish, but bound to fail: there is no way that they could possibly ever achieve that total union of the primary pair which all intuitions of the "right mate" in this life point toward, the final union ordained of God.  All of this sounds mystical in the extreme.  It is.  It is the ultimate in mysticism, but it may yet be true.  I hope that it is true, for it is the embodiment of all of my dreams in this life.  
	To be able to identify with all beings and to love all beings as myself is also my goal.  But the total merging with another person is what I should like to have only with her alone.
	
	10-46.  "In the next life," you may quote the scriptures as saying, "men and women will not marry or be given in marriage."  Yet, marriage is but a contractual arrangement.  There is nothing to keep us from positing the possibility of a union that goes beyond marriage, beyond the conditional commitment to the unconditional commitment of pure agápe love in a sexual context. 
	"Men and women will be as angels in heaven"--yes, and even more besides: they will be complete, perfect, finally and irrevocably beyond temptation.
	What would be the point of being beyond sexual temptation unless one were still in love?

	10-47.  The bond between a man and a woman in heaven will transcend mere marriage, which is partly contractual and conventional.  It will be fully ordained of God, the completion of what he originally ordained in the beginning of time: he created them male and female, followed by their union in that which man cannot put asunder.  
	Surely God does not unite only later to put asunder.  If such unions represent the cornerstone of his master plan for the human species, a plan which he had in mind from the beginning, then such unions and the plan of which they are a part will finally be brought to completion.

	10-48.  When I intuit the good of our relationship, I intuit the will of God.  It would be unthinkable that the special relationship which I enjoy with my wife in this life should be any less special or unique in the next.  She is of a gender, but she as a person is not a "generic female."  Substitutions just will not do.
	Her soul is unique, in spite of her superficial resemblance to all other women.  She is indeed my destiny and always has been.  However much our relationship may be abused or frustrated in this life, it will finally attain the glory for which it was designed.

	10-49.  One hears another say that he does not see the value of abstaining from sexual relationships until he is committed to a lifelong relationship with another.  One hears him say also that he does not see the value of two people both coming to a relationship totally innocent and afresh, so that they might learn together all that there is to know about love.
	One has the sense that he has lost something, and that it is more than his virginity.

	10-50.  The riddle as to how we are to get things back "the way they were" with regard to the primal bond in spite of "water over the dam" and changed circumstances and relationships is really quite simple, although it is not likely to satisfy many who claim that their mate has changed, that they have outgrown her or him:
	The way--the only possible way--we get things back the way they were is to get ourselves back the way we were, and the only way that that is to be done is to recommit ourselves to what we once believed in with all our hearts and souls.  There is no guarantee that this will suffice, of course, since the other person may choose to alter or terminate the relationship.  Nonetheless, this a necessary condition for getting things back the way they were, and, in most cases of dissatisfaction, it is the dissatisfied one who has changed the most and who fails to see that the diminished appeal of his or her mate is a consequence of his or her own diminished spiritual and emotional capacity to love.
	In recommitting oneself to someone with all one's heart and soul, one has tapped once more into the secret of true love (often first love) with all of its promise--promise which has since diminished and grown old.  We must reaffirm the validity of the vision of that promise.  We must recommit ourselves with a faith that what we saw was not an illusion, but a true promise whose vision is yet, yet to be realized--but which will yet be realized if it is God's will, whether in this life or the next.
	If one may offer a polemic against war, may one not offer a paean for sexuality?

	10-51.  A study of sexual ethics in a book on pacifism?  What, you still want to ask, is this?
	But did I hear you say that you have lost the vision of the wife of your youth?  You do not know her anymore, or feel any affection for her?  Tell me, then, what have you done to yourself, to her, or she to you, to result in such a deadening of the soul?  Are there unrepented sins which might block your capacity for natural affection?  Are you carrying hostility over things that happened long ago, sins against you that remain unforgiven?  Do you think that agápe has no relevance for eros?
	And still you ask what the study of sexual ethics has to do with questions of war, betrayal, and the disposition toward forgiveness and peace?

					

CHAPTER ELEVEN

TOWARD PERFECTION:
BEYOND THE LIMITS OF PRESENT VISION

	11-1.  In explicating and defending the teachings and example of Jesus of Nazareth as a pacifist ideal, one affirms what one believes to be the purest ideal conceivable, far purer than existing pacifisms--not to mention the other dominant ideologies of the age which are more or less overt justifications for the use of force and violence.  I refer here to the "just war" doctrine, Realpolitik, utilitarianism, conventional democratic theory, and many other doctrines and ideologies.  Even some practices defended in the name of the free press, such as the excesses of "investigative journalism," fall short of the ideal.  The point is not to criticize what is good in most such traditions, but to show how even the most revered of ideologies and institutions still fall short of the divine ideal. 
	I hope that the conception defended here points toward the purity of the Christian teachings and example, although my own understanding obviously falls far short of the divine teachings. As for personal example, I take some solace from the fact that even Peter either did not see or was too weak in faith to live up to the fullness of the message of peace.
	Yet, we may be assured that none of us will be allowed to rest until we rest in the affirmation and attainment of the ideal of peace.

	11-2.  I shall not try in this last chapter to review the reasons why I have interpreted the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth in the most ideally pacifistic terms, except to reaffirm my faith in his divinity and all that such a claim must imply.  If I have not by now established an interpretation of Jesus' teachings and example which is clearly and thoroughly pacifistic, then I cannot hope to do so in one chapter.
	What can be done in this chapter is to show how existing ideologies, including some that even claim to be pacifistic, yet fall short of that required by the teachings and example of Jesus of Nazareth.  By showing in these the human propensity toward compromise in the face of limits to our present understanding and vision, one hopes to point up all the more clearly the uniqueness of the example of the Christ.

	11-3.  It should not surprise anyone to hear me claim that certain reformist ideologies, including utilitarianism and democratic theory, fall short of the purity seen in the life and teachings of Jesus.
	What might surprise some is the claim that even such inspiring teachings and examples as those of Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Albert Einstein, as noble as they may be in their affirmation of peaceful means, do not attain the purity and perfection seen in the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.  I have seen fit to demonstrate the departure from perfection in the teachings and methods of such persons only to show more clearly the perfection inhering in the example and teachings of Jesus.  The examples and commentaries given are not intended to be exhaustive, but illustrative and suggestive for purposes of further research.
	If one is going to promote moral perfectionism, then one certainly cannot be satisfied with any vision which is less than perfect.

	11-4.  One must not, at this point, shrink from criticizing some methods and ideologies that have come to be viewed with something sometimes approaching superstitious reverence.  (After all, everything that I have said so far has been a running criticism of the philosophy of the "founding fathers" of American constitutionalism.)  If one finally reveres only the teachings of the Christ, one cannot but admit the shortcomings of the views of his disciples.  That which I reluctantly had to do with the teachings of Paul and the medieval theologians in order to begin this work, I must finally do with the teachings of some modern and contemporary thinkers in order to complete it.

	11-5.  Were the teachings and methods advanced and employed by Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. perfectly pacifistic?  Were their actions manifestations of peaceful resistance, or instead merely passive forms of aggression?  Even if they were "peaceful resistance," were they of such purity as to appeal solely to the conscience, or was there a latent coercive threat manifested in at least some of their overtly political goals?
	The motives of either man are not my concern here.  Their ideas, methods, and goals are.  Much legal change implies, after all, not merely the repealing of unjust laws, but the veiled violence of coercive sanctions which may be used to enforce just legislative goals.  The realm of legal reform is thus a minefield for the pacifist, but it is a minefield that cannot be avoided: unjust laws must after all be modified, repealed, or otherwise brought to naught.  As for method, where these might be called into question is in those instances where actions might be deliberately employed for the overtly political goal of provoking adversaries to act in objectionable ways so as to provoke a public reaction.  Such reaction did in fact occur against both Gandhi and King, although it is not clear whether either ever staged demonstrations as anything other than public forums for the sake of propounding their own ideas and forcing explicit comparisons with the views of their adversaries.  Their more obviously political goals--Gandhi's goal of Indian independence and King's goal of legal reform in the area of civil rights--certainly were promoted by the public revulsion of their treatment at the hands of their persecutors.  It is not clear, however, that discrediting their enemies was their actual motive in provoking confrontation: a confrontation can be staged merely so that opposing viewpoints can be judged by either the adversary or the public, and such a pure motive must be clearly distinguished from the base political motive of deliberately baiting others to engage publicly in misdeeds.
	The line between baiting and teaching is a fine one, especially when one has a very good idea what the reaction of one's adversaries is going to be.  Yet, does the mere knowledge that one is almost certain to provoke an angry, ugly response serve to discredit the truly moral confrontation?  The answer is surely "no."  It is possible that both men did want the truly moral confrontation of opposing views in order to demonstrate the moral superiority of their own causes, and in this attempt both men were very successful--and justified.  Such a strategy is consistent with the Christian teaching, "I came not to bring peace but a sword," referring to the sword of truth which both clarifies issues and tends to polarize advocates of opposing viewpoints. 
	To confront evil with truth is thus not at all wrong unless it is conjoined with the devious political ploy to provoke others to misdeeds which they otherwise would not have committed, for the sake of discrediting them in the eyes of the public.

	11-6.  Did Gandhi and King play to public sympathies primarily for the purpose of gaining political advantage?  The evidence is mixed, since their motives might well have varied from time to time.  It is perhaps more likely that most of the time the immediate public was a group of local, hostile adversaries, and the confrontation was thereby only designed to make their adversaries, their persecutors, examine their own motives. 
	As for well-publicized confrontations, public political impact is hardly a meaningless goal if it is based on the goal of moral education.  Even where publicity for a cause is intended, this is not in the least evil if the point is an attempt at rational moral suasion on a grand scale.  Political goals are not in themselves evil, although political methods can be.
	With regard to the methods of civil disobedience, one may say that deliberate provocation to evil is always wrong, and "baiting" is especially reprehensible.  Staged civil disobedience for the sake of provoking a reaction is much inferior to civil disobedience for the sake of making a moral point with the hope of converting someone to one's cause. 
	Although both Gandhi and King were human and might have had mixed motives at times, and although their overtly political goals and their simple moral goals might well have been mixed together to some extent, this fact alone does not force one to conclude that their methods were not in the best tradition of sincere and responsible pacifism.

	11-7.  I think that it is fair to say that Jesus and Paul spoke the truth as they both saw it without attempting to provoke violence: violence did sometimes occur, but one can be certain that both men hoped that it never would.  One cannot ever imagine either of them hoping that the other side would show its moral bankruptcy through the use of force.  They came to show alternatives to force and violence.
	In every case they must have hoped that the other side would be persuaded, not provoked.  I believe that the same was true of Gandhi and King, even though they knew, as did Jesus and Paul, what the outcome was likely to be sooner or later.
	All four men not only provoked reactions but even provoked the violent reaction leading to their own deaths.  Although they knew that this was likely to be the outcome, they all prayed earnestly that it would not come to pass.  Though they might have "provoked" (in some sense) such a reaction, they were not culpable in any way for the misdeeds of their attackers. 

	11-8.  Was Martin Luther King, Jr. a militant?  Although he used the label at times to describe himself,1 I prefer other terms, at least as better descriptors of the larger significance of his struggle.
	Webster traces the origins of "militant" to the same root as that for soldier, warrior.  The definitions of "militant" as "fighting" and "combative" are only mildly tempered by the most moderate definition: "aggressively active."  Such terms can, of course, be used in a purely metaphorical way.  Given the etymology and the modern definitions of "militant," however, I think that we do better to characterize King as being more nearly an "activist"--not a true "militant"--leader against war and for civil rights.  Malcolm X, a great figure in his own right but no pacifist, more nearly embodied the characteristics we properly call "militant."  Yet, even his militance was quite mild: he never called for African-Americans to rise up against whites in any act of violence, especially not indiscriminate violence.2

	11-9.  What King did as an activist was to challenge both war and racism.3  With regard to racism, he actively challenged both oppression on the one side and complacency, fatalism, on the other.  One may plausibly claim that his actions and his motives at times may have crossed the line into militancy in some sense, by his own admission.  Even so, his demonstrations and his words were overwhelmingly a form of espousing positive ideals, not attempts to condemn or otherwise to deliver a moral indictment against whites.  He repeatedly emphasized that the point was not to "humiliate" the oppressor.4
	Since he was categorically opposed to the use of violence in his demonstrations and in his own life, the only sense in which he can be called a "militant" is in the discipline and organization of his "forces."
	
	11-10.  When King carried his ideals to the public, he held the mirror of truth up to the public.  The truth about itself forced white America to accept the indictment of its own conscience, its own self-accusation.  King's message was itself redemptive, not accusatory.5  It provided a standard for racists to use in elevating their own spiritual state from the depths of their ignorance or depravity.  King did not accuse or judge any person by his words or actions.  He offered a spiritual hand to the white oppressor,6 no less than to the oppressed.  He did not, that is, try to elevate African-Americans by putting down the most perversely racist oppressors.
	King's message was, in the main, a New Testament "gospel," not an Old Testament jeremiad.  It rested on the ethic of forgiveness and non-retribution, not judgment and revenge.
	King was also, let it be remembered, a pacifist, an opponent of the Vietnam War and of war in general.
	
	11-11.  Were Gandhi's and King's methods those of "passive resistance," as they have sometimes been labeled?7
	In spite of the "passive" label which they sometimes used to describe their own methods, their methods were activistic to the core.  Such methods are more correctly labeled as the methods of "non-violent resistance," or, even more precisely, "non-violent activism."
	There is nothing passive about pacifism.  "Pacifism" has its root in the Latin word for "peace," whereas "passive" has its root in the Latin word for "passion."  The two concepts have absolutely nothing in common, and those who think that pacifism implies passivity in the face of social injustice are seriously in error.

	11-12.  Relabeling "passive resistance" as "non-violent resistance" (or as "non-violent activism") has this advantage: such relabelings remind one of the perils inhering in both "passive" and "resistance."  Both terms are used in reference to activist pacifism, and both are not only inaccurate but also tend to give false impressions as to what pacifism entails.
	It is somewhat ironic that one should have to distance oneself from both terms, since "passive" implies "escapist" while "resistance" implies "militance" to many persons.  Such irony in the inherent opposition in the two terms reminds one that the pacifist often has to defend himself from two opposing and contradictory kinds of charges: some accuse pacifists of being too weak, and some accuse them (in demonstrations and the like) of being too aggressive.  An even greater irony is that sometimes both charges may come from the same persons.

	11-13.  It is always interesting to speculate as to what the perfect Christ would have done if he had been in certain situations.  Christ counseled us not to "resist evil," and he further said that, "If a man takes your coat, give him your cloak also."
	What do we say, then, of the action of Rosa Parks, when she peacefully "resisted" efforts to make her give up her seat on the bus in Montgomery on that fateful day in 1955, the day when she did not "give" the equivalent of the metaphorical cloak to those who "asked" her to give up her seat?8
	Although one can only speculate as to Christ would have done in a similar situation, one must emphasize that what Rosa Parks did that day did not materially deprive anyone of anything.  She certainly was not acting violently.  Her action was not born of greed or self-concern.  She certainly was not trying to provoke a violent confrontation.  If it had really been only her seat that the passenger and the bus driver had wanted, then maybe the "Christian" thing to have done would have been to have surrendered her seat, to make the personal sacrifice, even in the face of injustice, as a demonstration of Christian altruism and goodwill.
	Yet, the white passenger who demanded her seat, the bus driver, police officers, and other white spectators who harassed that noble woman were not at all tired, not at all in need of the seat: they went out of their way to get her off of the bus and off to jail.  Afterwards, they stood around for the longest time talking about what had just transpired.  If they had wanted her seat because they simply needed the rest, why did they work so hard for it?  No, it was not her seat on the bus that they wanted, nor was it her seat pure and simple that she refused to yield.  It was both her soul and her dignity, in both cases.  They wanted Rosa Parks to accept the legitimacy of racism and segregation by acquiescing in an essentially symbolic act of subordination.  This she refused to do.  Her action--or rather her inaction--was quite possibly the most powerful act of free speech imaginable in the situation.  Her symbolic utterance was an appeal to those who witnessed and those who would hear about it.
	Rosa Parks offered a powerful and direct challenge to the lie, in this case the lie of white supremacy, the practice of segregation, and all of their corollary practices and principles.  Imagine what would have happened if the High Priest had demanded that Jesus stop preaching in the temple.  Then, again, maybe he did deliver such an injunction, only to have it repeatedly ignored.  Maybe that is when he decided that the only way to stop Jesus was to have him arrested, and perhaps it was at that point that the whole civil rights/pacifism business got started in the first place.
	One can still ask, in a speculative vein, what Jesus of Nazareth would have done if the seat being demanded had been his that day in Montgomery.  Would he have resisted giving up his seat?  Would he have supported or led a boycott of the Montgomery bus lines?  I confess that I think that his response might indeed have been different, without having any idea what it might have been.  Is this to disparage Rosa Parks, or any member or leader of that boycott?  
	No, to compare Parks or King to the Christ it is only to remind us that it is never inappropriate to ask what the Christ would have done, never wrong to go once again to the ultimate standard of right and justice.  So doing does not impugn the motives or disparage those mere humans who acted with almost superhuman endurance, patience, and good will during their persecutions at the hands of white supremacists.  I wish that I could be sure that my own courage and good will might have been equal to theirs, had I been in the same situations.
	The "voice" of Rosa Parks lives on.

	11-14.  Some varieties of so-called "pacifism" unfortunately have as their goal disruption or sabotage, such as the destruction of weapons or military buildings.  Such action go far beyond symbolic expression or speech pure and simple.  If one's methods extend to disruptive resistance, whether passive or not, then one has moved into the realm of aggression rather than speech.  Whatever such methods may or may not accomplish, such methods are not, strictly speaking, pacifistic.
	This will no doubt be an unacceptable conclusion to many liberal-minded persons, but it is imperative that pacifism maintain its purity with regard to means, even if so doing seems to imply a resignation to slower social progress than one would like.  The span of two thousand years since the life of Christ should remind us that the battle against oppression will not admit of shortcuts or of manifestations of impatience, no matter how severe or enduring the injustice.
	The point is to be sure that all progress is real and enduring, not ephemeral.  Although I am a veteran of both anti-war and civil rights street demonstrations, many political victories born of street protest are often hollow and may even set back the cause of genuinely changing minds.  Such protests can only succeed, over the long term, where the means are as pure as the ends.  
	King emphasized these and many similar points repeatedly in the sources already cited, even though his own protests were effective because of the discipline of his followers.  He was also accused of achieving too little by the more militant activist of his era.  Yet, King's accomplishments have endured, whereas the more militant talk and actions after his death have often provoked a fruitless reaction. 
	Peaceful protest must be exactly that: peaceful.  Even there, one must ask oneself whether such protests are the most eloquent and effective way of expressing some rather complex ideas.  This is a practical problem, the answer to which depends upon the situation.  I once thought that they could be, and I still think that they can be, as long as the temptation to emphasize the number and potential power of protesters is not allowed to eclipse the idea which they represent.  Numbers are a matter of mere political significance.  Ideas are a matter of moral and political significance.  
	Those who are impressed by numbers might reflect upon the tiny band of itinerants who traveled through Galilee in the first century A.D.  Their message was pure and their impact enduring--and massive.  Their leader did not expect quick results--only lasting ones.
	They used only words, not demonstrations, boycotts, or physical resistance of any kind.  When we reflect upon perfection and purity, we do well to remember them and their enduring massive impact.

	11-15.  Was Martin Luther King, Jr.'s civil rights quest authentically "Christian," or did it owe a greater debt to Gandhi than to Christ?  This is a difficult question, since King said that he got his inspiration from the scriptures, but his "method" from Gandhi.9  I had always thought that Christian ethics should give us something more than good motives and inspiration.  In a pacifist vein, I always thought that its teachings were about method.  I still think so.
	Still, King's claim that we must find "creative"10 alternatives to violence must be taken seriously, and peaceful resistance was so effective with such a minimum of evil consequences (even to participants) that one cannot lightly dismiss King's claim.
	At stake, ultimately, is the whole issue of both the morality and political efficacy of peaceful mass demonstrations, in a variety of social contexts.  We cannot but question such practices, for they often do push moral confrontation very near to the breaking point for those on both sides--and sometimes beyond.  Yet, is it necessarily wrong to push moral confrontation to the breaking point, or is it the fault of peaceful demonstrators if it is the oppressors who "break" and who commit further injustices?  Would Christ have found a better way?  Would he have pushed his ideological opponents to the breaking point?  Did he?
	These are reasonable questions to ask.  They are also complex questions, not admitting of glib answers.

	11-16.  King sometimes argued that demonstrations should continue long enough to be "disruptive."11  In addition, whereas at some times he said that the point was to convert the white racist to his cause,12 at other times his language suggested that the way that this was to be done was to shame the racist into seeing the error of his ways.  One has to admit that there can be a fine line indeed between "shaming" and "humiliating."13  There is nonetheless a real difference, and it is this difference to which King referred. 
	Again I ask, would Christ have found a better way?  The question is reasonable (for King himself asked it many times), and the point of asking it is thus not to disparage King in the least, for, of all civil rights leaders anywhere, his methods have been the most pure.  Yet, it would surely be a mistake to think that King made no mistakes, or that his example was as perfect as that of the Christ.  It surely was not, but, then, neither was Paul's.  Each man did the best that he could with very difficult situations, and we should have to say that both did very well indeed.  
	If we suggest that King's ideas and methods might have fallen short of the absolute standard of perfection found in the Messiah, have we made some defamatory claim, or merely stated the obvious?

	11-17.  In subjecting King's ideas and methods to critical scrutiny, we do what he would have wanted us to do: he did not want to be worshipped.  One has not, in subjecting his ideas and methods to critical scrutiny, committed a sacrilege, unless one suffers from the delusion that King, Paul, and other religious leaders throughout history were Messiahs.
	It is reasonable to subject the teachings of all of our leaders to constructive scrutiny.  That is what philosophy is all about.  It is a grave error to think that subjecting a person's ideas and methods to critical scrutiny thereby defames a person or a movement, although I concede that the line can be a fine one.  When one starts attacking lifestyles or personal foibles (such as J. Edgar Hoover's investigations of King, Kennedy, and other personal and political enemies), then one can be sure that one has crossed far over that line in an ugly and deliberate manner.  One is then attacking the person, not his or her ideas or methods.

	11-18.  Boycotts qua boycotts are always coercive, always less than ideal as a moral means.  The issue of the morality of the Montgomery bus boycott notwithstanding, one may try in general to factor out the issue of the morality of civil disobedience from the issue of the morality of the use of a boycott.  
	I do, in fact, recognize the possibility of a boycott which is primarily symbolic rather than coercive, and the Montgomery bus boycott was definitely symbolic.  Even so, this does not change the essential point: boycotts qua boycotts are typically not so much symbolic speech as a method of using economic power to force someone else to do one's will.  In this sense they can be a form of economic violence.  
	As for civil disobedience, should one go out of one's way to get arrested?  I have personally never quite seen the point, since merely doing the right thing (or merely speaking out!) too often results in arrest or other adverse action by those who abuse their positions of power.  Now, whether it is either right or effective to do something in order to be arrested is quite another matter, for then one is no longer doing something merely because it is one's duty, but doing it in order to seek out a confrontation or even to cause disruption and thus to get publicity.  One is also thereby encouraging or tempting another to do that wrong which one believes that he or she has an existing propensity to do--to use the coercive force at his or her disposal.
	To bait or provoke is to tempt, and that is always wrong.  There can be no question but that some demonstrations (not King's) fall into this category, and it is possible that a perfectly ideal pacifism is always better advanced without the use of mass demonstrations.  
	My own belief is that solitary individuals, in their loneliness and vulnerability, make the strongest moral statements: the example of Jesus again comes to mind. 

	11-19.  Albert Einstein once said to a Swiss war resister: "Let me express my respect for your courage and integrity.  One man who is brave enough to refuse military service serves mankind better than thousands who do what they conceive to be their normal duty.  A man like yourself acts as a grain of sand in a machine.  It is my hope that by means of such grains of sand the war machine will be destroyed or, at least, the degrading system of conscription will be abolished."14
	I concede that Einstein referred to the actions of "one man" and that he did not suggest, by the metaphor of "grains of sand in the war machine," any acts of sabotage or deliberate attempts to disrupt.  The point seemed to be that the massive machine of war can be brought low by the completely moral actions of individual persons who refuse to do that which is immoral.
	Einstein's metaphor nonetheless reminds one that one walks a fine line between coercive disruption and rational persuasion when one makes principled stands using certain sorts of methods, especially using masses of people for the overt sake of preventing certain policies from being carried out.
	When in doubt, I prefer and recommend the methods of the Christ.  Then again, Jesus was quite a grain of sand in the war machine, as have been his followers after him.  The same can be said for King and Gandhi with regard to the machines of racism and imperialism.

	11-20.  Far from the philosophy of passive resistance advocated by King and Gandhi is the philosophy of utilitarianism, an originally reformist philosophy which has become for many persons synonymous with callous "practicality" and blind expediency--a philosophy which seems at times to promote moral ends while forsaking any concern for moral means (except by claiming that ends and means are all mixed up together in some supposedly moral amalgam called "consequences").
	Utilitarianism in its first English incarnation, that of Jeremy Bentham's Principles of Morals and Legislation,15 touted itself as an ethic of reform and social progress.  It has become the dominant moral ideology of this century, and perhaps something like it, less systematically expressed, has always been the ethic of those ostensibly "realistic" or "practical" persons who disparage moral principles in the name of ends or consequences--those impatient souls who prefer the convenience of cutting the moral knot by force in lieu of using their reason to untie it.
	Utilitarianism is unfortunately the Great Lie of ethical theory: if one makes it one's creed, it will always, sooner or later, let one down in practice.  As such, it merits attention as an example of that kind of elaborate rationalization which one should most want to avoid.

	11-21.  Utilitarianism has been defined most generally by J.J.C. Smart as a concern for consequences16 or as the philosophy built around Bentham's Principle of Utility: "Promote the greatest happiness of the greatest number."17
	In either way of expressing the idea, there is no explicit renunciation of the use of force or violence.  Indeed, although there is lip service to happiness, utilitarianism can best be viewed as a rationalization for taking away some happiness for the sake of some supposed greater happiness, or for taking some lives in the name of protecting a greater number of lives.
	Utilitarianism, that is, implicitly accepts compromise as a "moral" principle in itself through the infamous utilitarian trade-off of welfares of individuals.  Utilitarianism does not affirm the infinite worth of the individual.

	11-22.  Utilitarianism's original moral appeal against retributivist penal practices in Great Britain relied upon two primary tenets, both of which are related: first, it extolled a scientific concern for future consequences in lieu of a superstitious and irrational obsession with past evils and wrongdoing; and, second, it renounced retribution or any attempt to requite evil for evil so as to restore some mythical cosmic imbalance.
	So stated, utilitarianism does indeed sound attractive, and it has had many present and former adherents (including this writer).  Beneath the claims of abjuring retribution, however, utilitarianism has in fact defended retributive practices, albeit under another name: "deterrence."18  Indeed, to the extent that utilitarianism defends a de facto retributivism while claiming that its concern for consequences makes it non-retributivistic, utilitarianism is more dangerous than the most blatant retributivism.  It is veiled retributivism, a kind of philosophical wolf in sheep's clothing: it seeks to justify retaliation while yet denying that retaliation is always de facto retribution.

	11-23.  There is unfortunately nothing in the principle of utility itself which is necessarily non-retributive or anti-retributive.  Thus it is a grave logical error to speak in terms of "utilitarian versus retributive" theories of punishment and war, except as an allusion to the moral rhetoric of the campaign against barbaric punitive practices in the Great Britain of Jeremy Bentham's day.
	It is obvious that, if one wants to posit an alternative to retribution, then one must categorically defend a principle of non-retribution.  "Utility" cannot carry the burden of its claim to being a truly non-retributive principle, and it becomes a convenient rationalization for defending violence and punishment with the best of intentions.
	Utilitarianism does offer an inviting moral path, but it is finally nothing more than the philosophy of good intentions.

	11-24.  It is not too strong to say that the hidden a priori premise of utilitarianism is the Hobbesian premise: the world is a place where no natural harmony is to be found.19  Since no natural harmony is to be discovered, what order there is must be imposed or created.  On this view, one does not "find peace" but "make peace."  War or conflict is thus seen to be the natural condition.  
	A corollary of this view of the world is that compromise or trade-off of individual welfares is inevitable.  This corollary then becomes the operative utilitarian working assumption.  Utilitarianism sanctions a kind of moral complacency and even moral laziness.  It assures us that we have done the right thing, even when our intuitions tell us that there must have been a better way.

	11-25.  Since the utilitarian posits no likely discovery of harmonious solutions, a great deal of utilitarian thought is built around the problem as to when to curtail search for solutions--and how to rationalize the curtailing of that search.  Herbert Simon's principle of "satisficing"20 is one example in this regard, although Charles Lindblom,21 David Braybrooke,22 Victor Thompson,23 Aaron Wildavsky,24 and many others seem to be concerned with the same idea.  All seem to operate from the same general utilitarian premises of the unlikelihood or even impossibility of natural harmony.  An appeal to consequences determines how these theorists formulate the basic problem of decision-making.

	11-26.  Utilitarianism as a "science of ethics" was advanced in contradistinction to the presumably nonsensical natural law conceptions of justice ("nonsense on stilts," in Bentham's infamous phrase), whereas classical retributivism made an appeal to justice as a component of some versions of natural law, as the will of a wrathful and vindictive God.
	In spite of these great epistemological differences, what these competing traditions had in common was an attempt to justify the instituting of fear as a method of enforcing compliance with the demands of the state as expressed in legislation.  Fear had always, of course, been used to maintain social order, and the wielders of the sword had often invoked divine authority.  What the utilitarian-retributivist debate did was to use the cloak of respectability of modern science and philosophy to try to legitimize the well-established practice of using terror as the means of enforcing compliance with the laws of the state.  	Naked force now had two sets of refined legal-philosophical clothes, the Utilitarian and the Retributive, but underneath these new clothes the reality of naked force was still the same old excrescence of human rationalization for terror that it had always been.  Utilitarianism became the new retributivism, supplanting the old classical conception.
	An ancient philosophy had simply shed its old skin.
	11-27.  Utilitarianism implies, if not a deliberate and explicit disparagement of moral means, an embarrassing indifference to them.
	 Those who have tried to apply utilitarian ethical rationales to practical fields of endeavor (such as administration, management) have offered some rather elaborate rationales for dealing with the question of moral means.
	David Braybrooke and Charles Lindblom, in A Strategy for Decision, have offered an attempt to justify a utilitarian approach to decision-making in a practical administrative and political context.  Their response to the issue of the status of moral means is quite explicit: on their view, the means-end distinction is suspect, if not meaningless, because in reality means and ends are all mixed up together.25
	This consequentialist conflation of means and ends has become such an accepted canard that one wonders if most philosophers and empirical social scientists have not unwittingly accepted utilitarian premises.  This can hardly be a surprising outcome.  It might even be seen to be not a contingent development in the ideological movement of utilitarianism, but a necessary outcome required by utilitarian first premises.  As an ethic which offers a rather casual trade-off or compromise as the solution to difficult moral problems, utilitarianism is justifiably seen as an ethic in which "the end justifies the means."
	Perhaps it is not too strong to say that the dominant ideology of the twentieth century, on an operative day-to-day basis, was neither communism nor capitalism, but expediential Utilitarianism.  All else was rationalization for this glib justification for trade-off, compromise, and the general convenience of those in power.

	11-28.  Even if one should have to conclude that it might be necessary to make concessions to coercion or violence in extraordinary circumstances, "hard cases," it would be well not to jump to the conclusion that hard cases, rather than principles and ideals, should provide the basis for day-to-day decision procedures.26  Indeed, what makes hard cases "hard cases" is the fact that they are not thought to be ordinary or routine. 
	Ultimately, however, one wants to go further and ask whether "hard cases" constitute a moral category at all, or whether they are merely a residual category of justifications of the immoral and the amoral, not merely exceptions to the rules.
	As an elaborate system of rationalizations built on the quicksand of "hard cases," utilitarianism is a residual category of ad hoc justifications for the immoral and the amoral.  It is not a philosophy.

	11-29.  The state knows only the logic of compromise.  The state is utilitarian in that it would sacrifice one draft-age young man for the sake of the larger social order.  
	God, by contrast, would leave the ninety and nine sheep on the hillside to go in search of the one that was lost.27  The state's logic is the logic of simple arithmetic--the utilitarian calculus.  The divine logic defies human comprehension with its emphasis on the infinite worth of the individual.
	God is no utilitarian.

	11-30.  The emphasis on the value of the individual is what the distinction between the secular and the truly sacred reduces to in practice.  It is significant that, while Jesus relegated to the realm of the secular state ("Caesar") that which is decidedly unholy28 (money, for example), he himself chose to cast his own pearls before society through the medium of the unprotected exchange of ideas: his truths were too important to put into the hands of the organized clergy, much less the state.  Thus did he not even hold religious office, much less avail himself of the protection of the state.
	It was Caiaphas, the treasonous High Priest, who said, "It is better that one man should die than that the whole nation should perish."29  Caiaphas and the entrenched clergy were more like Rome than Rome itself: it is Caiaphas, not Pontius Pilate, who comes off as the ultimate hypocrite.  Pilate, after all, made no claim as to the truth30 nor to any higher conception of authority than that which comes through the coercive chain of command.  Hardly an innocent figure, he was nonetheless a more ethically consistent figure than the high priest, who sat in the "chair of Moses" and who made some claims about truth.  It was the latter who dealt in deceit.
	It was Caiaphas, two thousand years ago, who gave us the ultimate reductio of the utilitarian calculus: he would try to justify the sacrifice of one man for the sake of the many.  Although he inadvertently uttered a great prophetic utterance in his rationalization of betrayal, rationalization and betrayal it yet was.31

	11-31.  One wants above all to know what is in the mind of God.  Here I have built a book around an assumption as to what is in the mind of God: I have assumed above all that God affirms the infinite worth of the individual.
	This is a strong claim, in the same way that any claim about either the divine or the infinite is a strong claim.  To refer to God in the language of the infinite does not shock.  To use the language of the infinite to refer to the worth of human beings does shock.  It shocks us precisely because our typical actions do not demonstrate our belief in the infinite worth of individuals, much less our own infinite worth.
	One of the ironies of human existence is that, even when we are unworthy, we yet have infinite worth in the mind of God.  Or so I believe, and, if I did not so believe, then I do not think that a perfect God would have sacrificed his perfect Incarnation for the sake of a world of very, very imperfect human beings.

	11-32.  Can anything be salvaged from utilitarian thought?  One must first ask what utilitarianism is and is not: it is not, by any necessity, a philosophy built upon the premise of psychological hedonism, the idea that we are driven by the desire to maximize pleasure and minimize pain.  It is true that Jeremy Bentham began his utilitarian theorizing upon the basis of a hedonistic view of human nature.32  It is not true that he had to do so, as the later works of Henry Sidgwick33 and G.E. Moore34 have so clearly shown.  Only the most doctrinaire of modern utilitarians is likely to insist upon the defensibility of hedonistic premises, and this writer is certainly not inclined to think that hedonistic premises are the portion of the utilitarian tradition which can or ought to be salvaged.

	11-33.  If psychological hedonism and an ethic of compromise and tradeoffs are dismissed at the outset from considerations as to what can be or ought to be salvaged from utilitarian thought, is there anything left to salvage?  This writer believes that the answer is "yes," if only because so many other themes have occupied theorists who have labeled themselves as utilitarians. 
	Two types of themes come to mind immediately: non-retributivism and some kind of maximization criterion relating to future consequences.  That these two themes are closely related is obvious enough, and one can appreciate the linkage between the moral ideal of non-retributivism and a forward-looking orientation in the face of evil and misfortune.  To say this is hardly to say that the reduction of utilitarianism to an ethic of "consequences" is the most useful way of articulating an ethic of non-retributivism. 
	Indeed, if there is a meaningful "utilitarian problem" that seems to be worth addressing by those who find doctrinaire utilitarianism abhorrent, it is the problem as to whether an ethic of forgiveness and non-retribution is to be defended apart from some kind of teleological rationale based upon the presuppositions of (1) the primacy of human happiness as an end and (2) the moral necessity for taking the consequences of action into account in the process of trying to formulate those courses of action which can promote human happiness. 
	If an ethic of non-retribution cannot be formulated without the above two presuppositions, then there seems to be some sense in which all non-retributivists must accept some kind of teleological premise as an essential component of all moral decision-making.  Yet, the simple maximization criterion inherent in the principle of utility--"Promote the greatest happiness of the greatest number"--cannot bear this burden.  Nor should acceptance of the worthiness of the goal of promoting human happiness or the necessity of dealing with consequences be thought to suffice to define one as a utilitarian.  Otherwise, we should all have to be labeled as "utilitarians."  That would be too imperial a claim for any ethical system to try to impose.

	11-34.  When the state investigates, accuses, and judges persons, it frightens us; and well it should, for there is something truly threatening in the idea of the investigative state.  
	We should never think that the investigative state is any more benign simply because the state in question is democratic rather than oligarchical, or because the tribunal is either broadcast news or the printed page rather than traditional judge and jury.  
	Judgment is judgment, and it is not sanctified by numbers.

	11-35.  The prime investigative organ of the state under "the people" is not some secret police, but the most unsecret of police found in some conception of the free press qua the institution of "investigative journalism."  
	The problem is that "the people" can be as bloodthirsty, as judgmental, as cruel, and as vindictive as any modern dictator or the rulers of antiquity--and as retributive as any judge and jury.  The press in a democracy is rarely a philosophical forum: anyone who has ever examined the level of discourse on the editorial page of even the best newspapers can attest to that.  The press in a democracy is instead ever susceptible to becoming a tribunal, a forum of judgment.  
	The press, in its role as the "people's court," may indeed do more good than harm, to be sure, but such a justification is utilitarian to the core: the investigative press is still an investigative entity, and investigative entities exist in order to expose, accuse, judge, and punish persons.  They promote the greater happiness with considerable indifference to the happiness, welfare, or rights of specific individuals.

	11-36.  Whatever the press is, it is also a weapon, and woe to the person who uses this weapon not against the evil that is ignorance but against other persons, for in so doing one is committing the ultimate sacrilege of invoking the Spirit of Truth as the justification of one's holy war--one's attacking of persons in the name of something supposedly higher, the people.

	11-37.  Should there then be limits on free expression?  If one means "external" limits, the answer is surely "no."  (I am still a civil libertarian to the fullest.)  If one means "internal" limits, however, then the answer is surely, "yes": there must be self-imposed limits on expression.
	Under the rule of God, the internal constraints would preclude an end to judgment and accusation of others.  The press would be as free as before--freer.  It would not be a licentious press, however, growing fat on scandal, crowing about the governments--and public figures--it has made and destroyed.
	The press as a philosophical and scientific forum--has a higher conception of the free press ever been advanced?  Could it ever be institutionalized other than as a parallel development of the quest for moral perfectibility on the part of individuals?

	11-38.  Even those most liberal in opposition to external limits upon press power are not particularly enamored of what the press often is in fact.  What it can become and is becoming is something noble indeed.  That something can only be achieved, however, if the less noble purposes to which free expression are now being put are abandoned.
	No member of the press need therefore claim that, if he or she does not do some daring exposé, no one will; and let no one in the press complain of an absence of noble challenges, or claim some need to fight some holy war against persons.
	War is war and judgment is judgment, whether waged and executed with swords or words.

	11-39.  Those who like to rule and evaluate others often learn how painful it is to be evaluated by being subjected to the same treatment.  As two wrongs do not make a right, however, two moral judgments of persons are in the end worse than one.  The essential point is that no one has an obligation, much less the right, to evaluate, judge, or expose others.  There are alternative, problem-solving ways to deal with evil.
	Jesus came to teach the sons of the proud, not to humiliate them into forswearing their proud ways.  When the press glories in humiliating the proud governors, it stoops to the same level as such tyrants.  As warriors in their delusions believe that they are fighting to end war, so investigative journalists in their delusions believe that they are humiliating the arrogant so as to end the arrogance of power among those in high places.
	Nothing could be more arrogant, nor more pessimistic as to the efficacy of moral means.  Those rulers who exhibit the humiliating propensity to judge can surely be reformed without being subjected to humiliation themselves.  Otherwise, "We, the people" may wind up being no better than our oppressors.  Indeed, we become the new oppressors.
	Lord Acton's maxim contains no exemption for the masses.35

	11-40.  Even the free press, in its more twisted forms, can be a retributive institution.  The idea of a free press derives from the true right of freedom of expression.  Insofar as the press takes upon itself the goal not merely of expression but of investigation and accusation, however, it may begin to imitate the more obviously retributive practices of the state.  That the state police may stake out the homes of individuals may not surprise us, but when the press does this, it would seem that the behavior of the press has crossed over an important boundary.
	It is naVve and disingenuous to say in this context that the press is merely  going to "let the facts speak for themselves."  This has about as much validity as a petty gossip who deliberately exposes to public ridicule the wrongdoing of a friend (or a friend's spouse), all the while knowing that doing so will cause pain.  Intent and consequences are relevant to the morality of an action, and the moral standards governing the actions of the press must also take into account intent and consequences: members of the press, as well as publishers, are not exempt from the moral standards which restrain all other human beings.
	It is fatuous to offer the ultimate defense of the disclosure of any piece of information--by the press or by mere rumor--in the name of "the public's right to know."  Is this "right" an absolute?  Persons who think so should first publish a full account of their own failings.

	11-41.  Moral self-restraint on the part of reporters and publishers is necessary unless one wants to argue that the very idea of a "free press" means that the press should be free from all restraints.  Such a press would no longer really be deserving of the label "the free press," but "the licentious press."  If liberty is not the same as license in any other realm of human endeavor, can the press be exempt from such a distinction?  

	11-42.  To the extent that the intent (or the consequences) of press action is punishment or injury of any kind, then the press is part of a retributive network that is not separate from the state but intimately tied to its functioning.  If one can defend retribution as a moral ideal, then one might want to defend the investigative functions of the press which border upon the prosecutorial, for accusation is logically prior to retribution.  As one who abjures punishment in all realms, I have to say that the prosecutorial press is perhaps to be feared as much as the prosecutorial state.
	Punishment or retribution is not confined to state actions, since every individual has to make the choice as to which evils to rectify and which means are believed to be justifiable for the sake of promoting that rectification.  It is well to remember that "rectify" comes from the same root as "right" or "justice," and if divine justice precludes accusation, judgment, and retribution, then justice and rectitude in all realms of human action are limited by the will of God as to what persons may justifiably do to other persons, regardless of the forum or social context.

	11-43.  One may arm oneself (and be prepared to injure others) in a myriad of ways.  One may arm oneself with a filed copy of a memo, injure with a word.  The state is founded upon the principle of retribution, and it is thus the most self-consciously retributive institution in society, with its police, its courts, its penal institutions, and its armed forces the instruments for executing its retributive judgments.  The agents of its retributive decisions are the courts, in the case of criminals, and the legislature and the executive (including the military) in the case of external aggressors.
	The press does not typically think of itself as retributive because it is fond of holding up its banner of "Truth!" in contradistinction to the machinery of coercion employed by the state.  The distinction is an important one indeed.  Yet, as ideas lead to actions, the decision as to whether or not to publish the "facts" cannot but be founded upon some awareness of the outcomes likely to result from such publication.  In addition, to the extent that the method of gathering the facts begins to approach the methods used by secret police, or as indifference to consequences to persons is exhibited, the press demonstrates that much evil may lurk behind the seemingly innocuous claim of the absolute rights of the pursuit and dissemination of truth.

	11-44.  If the intent of the press, in making the claim of the near absoluteness of the First Amendment, is to protect itself against governmental interference, then the claim is understandable and defensible.  If, on the other hand, the intent is to protect a province and mode of inquiry and action which more nearly resemble than to differ from the actions of the state, then the claim of absolute press freedom is fatuous and self-serving--and above all duplicitous.

	11-45.  The boundary between the state and the press is more complicated and problematic than is commonly believed.  To emphasize the boundary is to emphasize to some extent the adversarial relationship which often exists between the two.  Although the press usually defines itself as the chief critic of the state (a valid function, to be sure), it may also be the tool of the state.  This is so not only when a given newspaper or network is friendly to the regime in power; it can also be so when the newspaper covers a trial or investigation or otherwise engages in or promotes a retributive practice.  It seems clear that the role of the press is a multifaceted one--it can challenge the official policy of the government, it can expose the ineptness or scandalous use of official power, it can attack private individuals, and it can serve as the rallying ground of large political or social movements.  
	The press can even serve as an educational or a philosophical forum, but in this regard it seems to be sadly deficient in practice.  Perhaps it has thereby forsaken its greatest birthright.

	11-46.  There is a myth commonly held to in the military that the reason that we have free speech is that someone has "fought and died" (killed) for it.  In fact, the reason that we have free speech is that someone was (or is) brave enough to say what he or she meant, whether it was popular or not, whether it was a prudent thing to do or not--whether it was protected or not.
	The tradition of free speech has come to us through the blood of martyrs who spoke out when they had only the right to speak, not when there was a recognition of that right by the state.
	We have free speech not because someone was prepared to kill to "preserve" or "protect" such a right, but because some were prepared to die in the unprotected exercising of it.

	11-47.  Although one should not have to say it, it is well to remember that the right of free expression does not come from the state.  The right exists whether the state recognizes it or not, whether anyone recognizes it or not--except God, from whom all rights come.

	11-48.  There have been a few moments in my life when I have been chosen to be included in groups which either were perceived by others or by their own members to be elites.  I confess to having felt a sense of brotherhood and belonging in such contexts--for a short period of time.  I did enjoy the comfort of not feeling rejected for a while.  Yet, the feeling did not last: I soon came to realize that I really did not belong there after all.
	The most meaningful times in my life have been when I have felt brotherhood and sisterhood among society's outcasts.  Such moments convince me that the Spirit of God truly dwells in the excluded community, or perhaps most of all in the excluded individual who nonetheless succeeds in maintaining a sense of reverence for the community, regardless of how the community views or treats one in return.
	11-49.  Is there nobility in poverty and exclusion?  No, but the greatest possible nobility comes, I believe, from being excluded and still being able to respond with compassion to all persons, excluded and established alike.  We see the most noble of actions typically coming from those who are excluded.
	The power of the image of Jesus being executed on the cross is that his concern at that moment went out not only to the handful who had supported him throughout his entire ministry, but even to those who were responsible for his persecution and death.  Even in the state of being excluded, he yet revealed a concern for those who would have excluded him, if they but could have.

	11-50.  James Turner Johnson has offered an interesting and useful history of the development of pacifist thought within the Christian ethical tradition.36  A complete critique of Johnson's view is not possible here, but several points are worthy of note.  A very brief summary of Johnson's perspective is necessary at the outset.
	Johnson identifies what he considers to be three main currents of pacifist thought in the history of Christian ethics: first, the view that claims that the early Christians were absolute sectarian pacifists, "escapists" from the world; second, the utopian view of a world state based on Christian ethics; third, the view of Christian ethics as being compatible with the so-called "just war" tradition, the idea that force must sometimes be used to protect values which, if unprotected, will not survive.  To call all of these views "pacifist" or "Christian" is, of course, to make a claim that stretches the limits of common usage, but such is Johnson's typology.  To say that these are the only three pacifist currents worthy of note is the real problem with Johnson's view, however, since this tripartite analysis of pacifist thought becomes the basis for setting up and knocking down some straw men--except, of course, for the so-called "just war" tradition, which Johnson wants to defend in the name of both "pacifism" and "Christianity."
	My view is that the "just war" tradition is not only a contradiction in terms, but that such a tradition is neither Christian nor pacifist.  None of this new to the history of ideas, of course, nor to Johnson, who is familiar with such a stance.  As for the idea of a world state, I should have to make a similar claim--such an idea is neither Christian nor pacifist.  It is not Christian because of the inevitability of coercive and retributive schemas in any state, and it is not pacifist because the essence of Christian pacifism, as I see it, is the renunciation of retributivism in all of its variants.
	Johnson also errs, I believe, in suggesting that pacifists typically renounce not merely force and violence, but the world.  One wants to remind Johnson that pacifists are not typically of either the sectarian or the "escapist" variety.  Indeed, the whole thrust of modern Christian pacifism is its overtly activistic emphasis, albeit without resorting to force or the threat of force.  The idea  of "going out into the world," not retreating from it, has been a strong theme in much pacifist literature, dating back to the story of Jesus and his small band of disciples.
	Johnson's three-part typology thus leaves out the most vital group of pacifists within the Christian ethical tradition, those whom one might call the "interstitialists," those who work within the interstices of society without relying upon the sword, those who believe in the compatibility of the idealism of peaceful means with the requirements of practicality.
	Johnson also commits another fallacy by presuming to answer his own questions by looking at the history of the early church and the evolution of its values.  That is almost akin to  taking a public opinion survey to ascertain the truth of an ethical doctrine.  There is no real point in being anchored to a concern with Christian ethics unless one is at least as strongly anchored in a concern for the views of Jesus of Nazareth.  
	A successful reconstruction of Christian pacifist thought cannot succeed by asking, as Johnson does, what the early church believed.  It can only be accomplished by asking what its founder believed.  We shall not find the essence of true Christian pacifism, that is, by examining the thought of those who came after Jesus, whether Paul, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, or any other disciple or theorist.

	11-51.  One scriptural account of Jesus' teachings has him recommending to his disciples that they arm themselves with the sword.37  This particular passage is surely apocryphal, and only the most close-minded biblical literalist must feel constrained to accept its validity.  Other accounts make no such mention, and what is agreed to in more than one account is that Jesus told his followers to lay down their swords.
	Is it plausible that he told them to go out and buy swords?  Would he have told them to wear the swords and to use them only so that he could then reprove them for using them?  The notion is absurd.
	As for the reason for the inconsistencies in the various accounts, the four gospels were probably not written down until after Paul's letters were written.  If this is so, then the fact that there are errors and inconsistencies in the various written accounts is not surprising.  What is surprising is that the gentle message survived at all, a fact which is testimony to the power of gentle ideas.

	11-52.  Soldiers are at best the victims of society, not its benefactors.  We should find some way to memorialize them as persons without simultaneously honoring them as instruments of violence.

	11-53.  What else can one say by way of commenting on von Clausewitz's aphorism: "War is the extension of diplomacy by other means"?  It needs no further rebuttal than the point already made: war is shooting at people; diplomacy is threatening to shoot them.  Yet, more can be said. 	
	Von Clausewitz's aphorism reminds one of the moral bankruptcy of Realpolitik.  Indeed, Realpolitik is an elaborate system of rationalization for violence and domination.  On von Clausewitz's definition, there is no room for a distinction between violent coercion and pure moral suasion.  Indeed, to speak of "persuasion" in the context of Realpolitik is to succumb to another fork-tongued euphemism: persuasion is called persuasion, on such a perverse usage, whether one appeals to reason or whether one puts the gun to someone's temple in order to extort agreement.

	11-54.  When Michael Corleone made the point to Kay in the Godfather that his father was not very different from presidents and other politicians,38 most of us tended to write off that kind of talk as the worst kind of rationalization--certainly Kay did, calling it "naVve."  Yet, even though Michael Corleone's view became later a rationalization for the evil excesses of power, it contains more than a grain of truth.  When we say, in the name of diplomacy, "Come, let us reason together," when what we clearly mean is "Let me make you an offer you can't refuse," we are making the same point: do as we say or we will destroy you.
	Michael Corleone was wrong and right at the same time: wrong because there was nothing respectable in the way his father enforced compliance, and right because the same may often be said about the relations between the ostensibly civilized men and women who call themselves statesmen, who wear suits, who eat nice state banquets together, and who then sit down across beautiful wooden tables to exchange veiled 
threats in language of urbane style and genteel tone--and who then call for the sacrifice of their young people in war.
	It is time we took seriously the claim that those "statesmen" and administrators who routinely deal in violence and extortion are nothing but mobsters, men and women who are capable of justifying anything in the name of their particular national or institutional "family."

	11-55.  Ultimately, perfection requires remembering at all times the infinite worth of the individual.  This seemingly absurd proposition stands, in spite of the fact that some persons obviously live lives of more worth than others do. 
	This is merely to say, however, that by their actions persons may add to or subtract from their inherent--and infinite--worth as children of God.  Yet, if persons perform only finite acts of either goodness or evil, they are merely adding to or subtracting from infinity.
	By the immutable laws of mathematics, the result--the worth of either the most depraved person or of the most virtuous person--is still infinity.  God has so ordained, and we must so affirm by our actions and our thoughts.  What God has created and exalted as a creature of moral choice let no human being destroy, despise, or defame.

				

EPILOGUE:
PEACE AND FREEDOM

	If the basic premise of pacifism is non-retributivism, then it is a simple ethic indeed.  If, however, pacifism is not only a simplistic non-retributivism, but a social ideal or vision of the ideal society, then it is indeed a general social theory or philosophy.
	As the expression of a social ideal, the impulse toward pacifism comes from trying to imagine a perfect society and then analyzing that perfect society in terms of the duties which would have to be upheld on a general basis if that society were to persist.  According to the requirements of unconditional or agápe love, such duties are binding on the individual in the non-ideal world, where other persons do not generally do their duty.  This fact is perhaps the ultimate theoretical premise behind a coherent pacifism: pacifism presumes the requirement of ideality in the face of the non-ideal.  It presumes an obligation of non-violence in the face of violence, as well as an obligation of non-judgment in the face of judgment, and it presumes both of these as derivative of the requirement of unconditional altruism, not merely non-retributivism. 	The agápe concept admittedly does not seem to be a promising place to start in terms of formulating a political philosophy.  In and of itself, it would not seem to be saying anything about freedom or coercion.  Yet, to the extent that the non-retributive component of agápe is a repudiation of retaliation and its concomitant violence, then it is also a repudiation of any practice which would imply or threaten violence, including the monstrous myth of the "rule of law."  State coercion is, after all, founded in the threat of violence: the state claims a monopoly on the use of violence when it invokes sanctions to enforce its edicts.  The state does not, after all, merely try to control or coordinate by making mere pronouncements about law.  It also stands prepared to enforce those laws, to escalate the use of coercion if its legal edicts are not obeyed.  Its last recourse is overt violence.  It also becomes its own violent defender of its claim to a right to use violence.
	The pacifist, in criticizing the state's propensity toward violence, criticizes not only war but the presumed right of the state to threaten or use violence in general.  In abjuring war and overt violence, that is, one necessarily abjures those coercive institutions and practices which the threat of violence supports and maintains.  This seems like a rather backward way to attack the problem of coercion versus freedom, but it is not necessarily misconceived.  It reminds us that the pacifist cannot honestly embrace non-violence while continuing to threaten violence through appeal to coercive legal machinery: to threaten violence that one could not use in good conscience is either hypocrisy or overt lying.
	A pacifist stance admittedly implies what many persons mistakenly call "anarchism."  A coherent pacifism does, after all, imply belief in the efficacy of a social order held together solely by truth and its persuasive power rather than by coercion.  This is hardly the advocacy of anarchism, however, if the providential hand of God is believed to rule both individual consciences and external contingencies of the divine creation.  Traditional pacifisms, of course, do not face this problem squarely.  They overtly abjure violence, while continuing to revere the coercive rule of law.  There is a contradiction here, and a consistent pacifism must attempt to resolve it.  Doing so results in the expansion of pacifism from a private ethic to a general political philosophy, but this expansion obviously requires the theological underpinning of belief in a providential, omnibenevolent God as the basis and source of social order in the absence of the coercive legal order of the state.
	The purpose of the above reflections is to see how pacifism fits into the larger tradition of social and political theory.  One wants to understand pacifism, that is, not as being merely some ad hoc absolute prohibition against violence and retribution, but as being in and of itself the very defining theme of an theoretical architectonic which encompasses a regard for both "peace and freedom."  It is not meaningless to exalt these in the same breath, for it is clear that the really powerful forms of pacifist argument do not merely express opposition to war but to all kinds of domination.  (It may also be worth noting that most wars are fought in the name of "freedom," whereas pacifism denounces war in the name of freedom.)  As in all large-scale social theory, it seems reasonable that many different social values permit entry into the theoretical edifice of a coherent pacifism: the various values are not merely conclusions, but congruent underpinnings for understanding the overall conception of society which a given social theory wants to defend as being the ideal.
	So seen, pacifism is a theoretical architectonic, or at least has the potential to be an architectonic: a pacifist political theory is a relating of the various concepts and principles which support the larger structure, in this case a particular vision of what society ought to be, not merely some list of categorical "thou-shalts" and "thou-shalt-nots" which are deduced from some central principle of obligation, agápe.
	This is to say that the central core of pacifist thought need not be derived solely by deducing from some central monistic theory of moral and legal obligation derived from unconditional altruism, non-retributivism, or some other social ideal (as I have tried to do in the foregoing).  The architectonic of grand social theory can indeed be glimpsed in this way, but it can also be derived more or less inductively as well.  One might, that is, well be able to work backward into pacifism from one's intuition of the goods of peace and freedom.
	Thus, to depart temporarily from the deductive paradigm based on altruism and non-retributivism, to come down from the pinnacle of a monistic pacifist theory derived from the agápe premise and to take a detached look from outside at the societal image which it envisions, is to see a number of interlocking ideals which, if not held together by the Rawlsian notion of "reflective equilibrium," are yet held together because they do interface and interlock in a vision which is both intriguing and inspiring.
	The fullness of the pacifist vision evokes an almost pastoral image of the good society--a society devoid of the hierarchy of bureaucratization, of the excessive specialization of labor, of economic competition, and of the practices of judgment and punishment.  In their place it posits the rule of divine reason qua Providence governing persons in a society whose mortar is neither coercion nor any kind of retributive practice, legal or otherwise.  The utopian vision which is thus evoked is noteworthy not only because it, like so many other visions, offers freedom and abundance, but because it elevates a particular kind of freedom: freedom from the prying and judgmental eyes of others, freedom in the context of both responsibility and tolerance, self-governance in the very real sense of day-to-day, moment-to-moment personal autonomy in decision-making.
	Perhaps such a vision is most inspiring and elevating because it presumes the basis of order to lie not merely in human coordination and convention alone, but in a divinely coordinated interplay of rational human actors, all of whom are both individually autonomous and collectively responsible.
	Having offered a glimpse of the ideal, pacifism nonetheless impels one back to the real world wherein war, hierarchy, domination, and exploitation are commonplace.  The vision which it leaves thus becomes not a goal which one expects to achieve for society as a whole in one's lifetime: it simply becomes the basis for determining whether or not one wants to, ought to, act in a certain way consistent with the vision of the ideal which one has glimpsed.  It encourages one to ask whether or not one would act in a violent or coercive way in the perfect utopia of one's vision, and, if not, what compelling reason is there for acting in that way here and now, in an imperfect world?  To what extent the answer to this question must be "never" is the extent to which pacifism is an absolutist ethic.  Even so, the problem of ethical absolutism may not be the core theoretical problem of pacifism.  It may rather be an ancillary issue which has generally been thought to define pacifism.  Perhaps it no more defines pacifism than it does any other social ideal or theory.  What defines a social theory is both the complex of particular values which it espouses as well as the grand vision of its theoretical architectonic.  To what extent a pacifist architectonic implies absolutism is perhaps a separate and factorable issue from the construction of the architectonic itself.  I admit, however, that the appeal of the pacifist ideal seems to be much reduced once one starts offering qualifiers: if the ideal is not absolute, what kind of ideal is it?  All of this is problematic territory, however, and it is problematic precisely because the pacifistic ideal as formulated in Christian ethics reduces to an emulation of God, or at least God Incarnate: one does not expect God to compromise on right and wrong.  One expects that of utilitarians and advocates of Realpolitik.
	Pacifism as theoretical architectonic does require one to examine the role of political theorist: is the theorist a would-be architect of a social ideal not yet in existence, or is the political theorist the student of a grand architectonic already existing in the mind of God?  In the tradition of Christian ethics, the answer is quite clear: the political theorist is not the architect, but the student of the architecture.  The political theorist is thus fully and finally political philosopher, lover of wisdom and potential discoverer of truth, not spinner of webs nor designer (much less creator or fabricator) of the perfect social order.  He or she is more, much more, than an ideologist or system builder.
	Far from being the designer of the architectonic, the pacifist is one who thinks that he or she has glimpsed it and its Creator and, having done so, feels compelled to translate that ideal vision into the practical requirements of living such an ideal as an individual in a non-ideal world.

	Finally, of course, pacifism must be lived if it is to have any meaning.  Lest my repeated admonitions about forgiveness make anyone forget, the message of the Cross was not only forgiveness, but self-sacrifice.  Indeed, if one refuses to retaliate for the sake of personal protection or survival, one's forgiving attitude is manifested as a disposition to sacrifice oneself for another: for the attacker, the aggressor.  The virtue of forgiveness may thus be nothing more than the final expression of the most perfect altruism.  If we are unwilling to sacrifice ourselves in order to demonstrate to the aggressor or transgressor our sincere belief in his or her absolute worth, then we may fail to convert that person to the cause of peace, either in this life or in the life to come.

NOTES

INTRODUCTION

1.  Augustine, Civitas Dei (The City of God).  Numerous editions are available.  Most libraries have the popular translation by Marcus Dods in Great Books of the Western World, Volume XVIII, ed. Robert Maynard Hutchins, William Benton Publishers, Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1952.  
	Augustine's writings about war and peace, as well as state authority, are scattered throughout this massive work.  It is interesting that he refers to peace only in terms of some end state, never as the means employed.  (This is most obvious in the first sentence of Chapter 12, Book XIX, but the usage is more or less constant throughout, especially in chapters 10-13 of Book XIX.)  Viewing peace as an endstate rather than as means  or mode of action, he can therefore say quite glibly, "For what else is victory than the conquest of those who resist us?  and when this is done there is peace."  (Book XIX, chapter 12, which appears on p. 517 in Great Books of the Western World, volume 18)  Is this not an ethic of domination rather than of peace?  Perhaps it is not too strong to say that Augustine's defense of the "just war" is flawed precisely because his conception of peace is flawed. 
	Civitas Dei was written between 413 and 426 A.D., near the end of Augustine's thirty-five-year tenure as the Bishop of Hippo.  As Bishop of Hippo, Augustine was not only an official of the church, but a secular ruler as well--one who waged war.  He died in 430 A.D. in the third month of the siege of Hippo by the Vandals.
	For a concise compendium of views of both pacifists and advocates of the "just war" tradition, see War and the Christian Conscience: From Augustine to Martin Luther King, Jr., edited by Albert Marrin, Henry Regnery Company, Chicago, 1971.  Some of the entries predate Augustine and give examples of very early Christian pacifists who refused military service for Rome--at the price of death.

2.  Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae or Summa Theologica.  (Both spellings can be found.)  A translation by the Dominican Friars can be found in edited form in Great Books of the Western World, Volumes XIX and XX, ed. Robert Maynard Hutchins, William Benton Publishers, Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1952.  See also the translation of the Summa Theologiae by the Blackfriars, in conjunction with McGraw-Hill, 1964.  Albert Marrin in War and the Christian Conscience (Henry Regnery, 1971) also cites the translation by the Fathers of the Dominican Order (London: Burns and Oates; New York: Binzinger, Inc.).  Numerous edited paperback editions are available.
	Although the phrase "the divinely-sanctioned state" nowhere appears in  Aquinas' writings, I have used it because I think that it is an accurate descriptive label of his philosophy vis-B-vis the relationship between the realms of God and Caesar.  No point-by-point rebuttal of Aquinas could possibly be attempted here, and anything less would be a disservice.  May it suffice to say that his assumption has become that of nominal Christianity in both the Catholic and Protestant traditions, although such a doctrine is hardly universally accepted by all Christians in either tradition.
	Aquinas treats political philosophy most explicitly in Volumes XIV ("Divine Government"), XV ("The World Order"), and XXVIII ("Law").  See especially Question 96, "Of the Power of Human Law."  (The volume and question numbers referred to in this paragraph are those used by Aquinas and do not vary from translation to translation).
	One cannot either critique or defend Aquinas's political philosophy without critiquing or defending his theology.  Since both are retributive, I have, in offering a non-retributive conception of both, thereby implicitly critiqued both.  Yet, in so doing I am really critiquing the theology of Paul, for Aquinas' work is, in my opinion, more nearly Pauline than Christian (if by "Christian" we mean in accordance with the ideas of Jesus of Nazareth). 
	Aquinas' conception of the relation between law and divine Providence, although not entirely adequate, deserves very careful consideration.  It seems clear that a providential God can use the state to achieve much good, but God is capable of salvaging good from much that is evil.  Therefore I think that it is an error to endorse the state, as Aquinas and Paul do, simply because much good is achieved through the state.  The state is still a coercive and violent entity or mode of action, and therefore inherently evil.  In any case, I do believe that Aquinas' obvious appeal to the coercive and even threatening aspect of law is not entirely consistent with some of his own utterances, but proving this point is beyond the scope of the present work.

CHAPTER ONE

1.  Romans, chapter thirteen, written by Paul, is the only real statement of this doctrine of the state in the New Testament.  If taken at face value, it seems to be contradicted by the overall thrust of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.

2.  Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976).  See p. 69 and p. 605.

3.  The original reference to Leviathan is in the book of Job, chapter forty-one.  The name became the title of Thomas Hobbes' work, in which the name apparently refers to the coercive sovereign, or to what I have simply called the "coercive state," regardless of its form or scope. (Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan [reprinted from the edition of 1651], Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1909, with numerous reprints to the present).  
	Some have speculated that the original Leviathan referred to in the Bible was either the crocodile or the whale.  The forty-first chapter of the book of Job ends with a reference to Leviathan as "King of the Proud." 

4.  Peter Kropotkin, The Conquest of Bread, ed. Paul Avrich (New York: New York University Press, 1972).  See especially chapter three, "Anarchist Communism."  Other English titles by Kropotkin cited in Avrich's introduction include In Russian and French Prisons, Fields, Factories, and Workshops, Mutual Aid, Ideals and Realities in Russian Literature, The Great French Revolution, and Ethics: Origin and Development.  See Avrich, p. 25, for a complete bibliography, including some titles heretofore unavailable in English, as well as some shorter works.

5.  See Bakunin on Anarchy: Selected Works by the Activist-Founder of World Anarchism, edited, translated, and with an introduction by Sam Dolgoff (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972).  The works of Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin may also be found under "Michael Bakunin."  Dolgoff says that, apart from Statism and Anarchy, Bakunin's major works were written in French.  These include Oeuvres (Paris: P.V. Stock), as well as Response B l'UnitB Italiana and Circulaire B Mes Amie d'Italie.  Dolgoff's bibliography (pp. 401-405) is superb, and the entire volume is critical for understanding the dialog between Bakunin and Marx.  Dolgoff quotes Burton Hall (New Politics, Winter, 1968) as saying, "[I]t is most uncomfortable for a devout socialist to look over the argument exchanged between Mark and Bakunin and reflect that maybe it was Bakunin who was right all the time. . . ." (Dolgoff, p. 23)

6.  See Saul K. Padover, The Complete Madison (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1953) pp. 178-82.

7.  "[I]f one decides to have laws then one has decided on something whose working in particular cases is retributive in form."  John Rawls, "Two Concepts of Rules," The Philosophical Review, Volume XLIV, No. 1, January, 1955, p. 7.  If Rawls is correct, then the total abjuring of retribution would mean the end of law, conventionally defined as legislation backed up by punitive sanctions.  (Would the same apply to the moral law?  I have assumed not, since I do not see the sanctions of God through conscience as being inherently punitive or retributive.)

8.  "Redefining National Security," Chapter Eleven of State of the World 1986, Lester Brown, et al. (Washington, D.C.: Worldwatch Institute).
	This work also anticipated the radical restructuring which has been occurring in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe since the fall of 1989.  The core of the argument presented in 1986 was that the economies of the two superpowers are hurting at the same time that the economies are flourishing in those countries which are not spending a high percentage of GNP on defense (such as Japan and, to a lesser extent, West Germany).  The point made is that those nations which are in fiscal trouble can in large part blame that sad predicament either on the fact that they are spending too much money on defense or because they are being adversely affected by the worldwide arms buildup in terms of available credit or resources that could be used more productively in other sectors of their economies.  	The severest indictment was not reserved for the United States: the Soviet Union of all the major powers was far and away the biggest spender on arms in terms of percentage of GNP, and the Soviet economy was therefore the first to collapse.  Brown (writing in the mid-1980's) even went so far as to concede the possibility that many of the Soviet problems could be alleviated if there were "basic reform, specifically a shift to a more market-oriented system." (p. 202)

9.  "Judicial punishment . . . can never be inflicted simply and solely as a means to forward a good, other than itself . . . .  [I]t must at all times be inflicted on him [the criminal], for no other reason than because he has acted criminally . . . .  The penal law is a categorical imperative, and woe to that man who crawls through the serpentine turnings of the happiness doctrine [utilitarianism], to find some consideration, which, by its promise of advantage, should free the criminal from his penalty, or even from any degree thereof." Immanuel Kant, Die Metaphysik der Sitten, quoted in F.H. Bradley, Ethical Studies, p. 28 (2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1927).  Quoted by permission of Oxford University Press.

10.  Alfred Marshall's literal English translation from the Eberhard Nestle Greek text can be found in The Interlinear Greek-English New Testament, Samuel Bagster and Sons, London, 1966.  In this work, the King James Version appears in the left-hand column, with the Nestle Greek equivalent in the right-hand column.  The more or less literal "translation" into English runs between the lines of the Greek.  Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Ltd.

11.  Matthew 5:38-39.  The systematic nature of the Sermon on the Mount can be seen in noting that the basic framework for the Sermon is a recounting of several of the ten commandments, together with his own perfection of them:  "Ye have heard. . . Thou shalt not kill. . . , but I say unto you that whosoever is angry with his brother [without cause] shall be in danger of the judgment."  (Matthew 5:21-22.  Any referent to "without cause" is totally absent from the Greek, suggesting that giving oneself over to anger was seen by Jesus to be always wrong.)  Note also, "Ye have heard. . . Thou shalt not commit adultery. . . , but I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with already in his heart." (Matthew 5:27-28)  It is also possible that the reference to taking oaths (Matthew 5:33-37) was originally drawn from the commandment not to take the Lord's name in vain.  Perhaps most significantly of all, Matthew 7:1, "Judge not, that ye be not judged," might well have been an extension of the commandment, "Thou shalt not bear false witness." (Emphasis supplied.)  Jesus conceivably might have been recommending against making any moral accusation against another, even one that was true.  This is speculative, but it seems to be supported by his own example of keeping silent before Pilate: defending himself would have required counteraccusations against those who conspired against him.  He may also have had a general aversion to using legal processes to promote his "kingdom" or justify himself, since virtually all legal processes require some kinds of accusations and counteraccusations.  If so, then his greatest aversion to judgment might have been to those forms of judgment which are most destructive: formal accusation presupposing a judgment of moral worth before the legal tribunal or humiliation in front of the community.  From such speculations one may argue in support of the premise of this book that Jesus was not friendly to the state.
	In any case, there appears to have been a much more systematic basis to the Sermon on the Mount and other teachings than is obvious from a casual reading of the fragments which have come down to us.  The bases of this system might be of at least two types: first, the organizational structure (at least in Matthew) is built around showing the "completion" of the commandments; second, showing that the completed teachings are corollaries derived from the non-retributive and perfectly altruistic golden rule (Matthew 7:12 and Luke 6:17-49).

12. See Genesis, chapter twenty-two.  In spite of my citation of this story, I can hardly take it literally, or endorse its message without severe qualification.  Although the passage is often cited as a statement of the necessity of doing what we believe that God requires, it is even more important as a reminder that God is not cruel in the demands that he makes upon us.  

13.  "If something can go wrong, it will."

CHAPTER TWO

1.  George H. Sabine and Thomas Landon Thorson, A History of Political Theory, Fourth Edition, Dryden Press, 1973, p. 176.  

2.  Plato's Crito.  Citations by page number are from the anthology, Plato: The Collected Dialogues, eds. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, Bollingen Series LXXI, Princeton University Press, 1961.  The translation of the Crito used here is by Hugh Tredennick.  In the Crito, the obligation to obey the law is defended in overtly contractualist language: one is obligated to obey the laws of Athens because one has received all that one has from her. (See Crito, 50-51.)  The reciprocal nature of obligation inherent in contractualist arguments can be seen as clearly in Plato as in Rawls.  For a more general discussion of legal obligation, from the Crito to the present, see articles by H.L.A. Hart, Hanna Pitkin, John Rawls, and Richard A. Wasserstrom in Concepts in Social and Political Philosophy, ed. Richard E. Flathman, Macmillan, 1973.

3.  This and subsequent citations of the Apology by page number are from the anthology, Plato: The Collected Dialogues, eds. Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, Bollingen Series LXXI, Princeton University Press, 1961.  The particular translation of this dialog used here is by Hugh Tredennick.  I have used the Tredennick translations throughout for the Apology, the Crito, and the Phaedo.  (See notes two and eleven.)

4.  Apology, p. 16, or 30d.

5.  Apology, p. 15 or 29d.

6.  Apology, p. 15 or 29b.  

7.  Apology, p. 5, or 19a.

8.  Apology, pp. 20-21 or 35c.

9.  Apology, p.25 or 41a.

10.  Apology, p.26 or 41d

11.  Phaedo, translated by Hugh Tredennick in the Bollingen anthology cited above in notes 2 and 3, p. 97 or 117d.

12.  Apology, 37c,d or p. 22.

13.  Crito, 45e-46b, or pp. 30-31.

14.  This interpretation comes throughout the four gospels as well as throughout the book of Acts and the Pauline letters.

15.  Crito (p. 34 or 49c,d).

16.  Crito, 49b.

17.  Crito, 50b.

18.  Crito, 50c.

19.  Crito, 50e.

20.  Crito, 51a-c. 

21.  Crito, 51d-e.

22.  John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Harvard University Press, 1971, p. 490.

23.  Ibid., p. 494.

24.  Ibid.  See p. 499 and p. 102.

25.  Crito, 49a-d.

26.  Charles Fried, Contract as Promise, Harvard University Press, 1981.  The opposing idea, that a contract is better viewed as a threat than a "promise," points to a higher conception of the social order than contractualism can provide.  On such a view, which is the essential political insight of the Christian agápe concept, one is obligated to do the right thing without the conditions implicit in all contracts, and regardless of what others do or do not do in return.

27.  Robert Paul Wolff, In Defense of Anarchism (New York: Harper and Row, 1970), p. 4.  Wolff goes on to say that all such beliefs in coercive authority may be wrong (p. 10).  One gets the sense, however, that he does not really mean it and thus this book is far from being a categorical defense of anarchism.

28.  Jessica Mitford, Kind and Usual Punishment: The Prison Business (New York: Alfred A. Knopf), 1973.

29.  Lincoln Allison, Right Principles: A Conservative Philosophy of Politics (Basil Blackwell, 1984).

CHAPTER THREE

1.  Mario Puzo, The Godfather (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1969).

2.  See note one.  I cannot find these precise quotes in the book, but something very close to them appears in the movie of the same name, released in 1972 (Paramount Pictures).  The novel does contain the statement by Kay, referring to Don Corleone, "Of course, his methods are not exactly constitutional." (p. 43)  In the context of the novel, however, the words appear to be playful, not reproachful, and it is Michael who seems to be speaking reproachfully of his father, whereas Kay seems almost to be defending him.  The movie version definitely has Kay making implicitly reproachful remarks in essentially the same conversation.

3.  Amitai Etzioni, A Comparative Analysis of Complex Organizations: On Power, Involvement, and Their Correlates (New York: The Free Press), 1961.  See especially chapter one for an introduction to Etzioni's typology of compliance.

4.  City of God, Book IV, Chapter 15.  Cited in "The Just War and Non-violence Positions," the May, 1983 pastoral letter of the U.S. Catholic Bishops, from War, Morality, and the Military Profession, Malham W. Wakin, ed., 1986, Westview Press.

5.  This passage is from a paper by Lieutenant Colonel Leo Kowatch, United States Air Force.  The passage was written while he (then a captain) was both a graduate student at Midwestern State University, Wichita Falls, Texas, and an instructor pilot at nearby Sheppard Air Force Base.

CHAPTER FOUR

1.  See note 6, chapter one.

2.  Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which is available in many places, including the Great Books of the Western World, Volumes Forty and Forty-one, William Benton Publishers, Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1952.

3.  R. M. Hare, "Euthanasia: A Christian View," Philosophic Exchange, Summer, 1975, pp. 42-52.  Hare's discussion in this article comes at the outset and is not the central focus of the article.  Even so, Hare does discuss some problems of interpreting the golden rule.  He does not refer to the golden rule in primarily substantive, non-retributive terms.  Perhaps he sees the non-retributive focus in Christian ethics as being a corollary of some kind of procedural interpretation of the golden rule. 

4.  Paul Weiss, "The Golden Rule," The Journal of Philosophy, Volume XXXVIII, Number 16, July 31, 1941, pp. 421-430.  Weiss' argument is hardly pacifistic:  "An isolated individual, perhaps, could find no better guide for developing an adequate sense of sympathy for the misery, distress, and human nature of those he would be inclined to despise.  There is an enviable nobility in him who can overlook the follies and vices of others and see them as fellow men, and there is no doubt but that such a view is essential to prevent men from turning into beasts because another has ceased to be human or merely social.  But every man has obligations towards his family, society, the state, and civilization.  What right has he to sacrifice the protection of the innocent and neglect the improvement of those who are comparatively without fault?"  (Emphasis supplied.)  A full explication and critique of Weiss' view is beyond the scope of this work, even though the view set forth in the present work is an attempt to offer an alternative view.  
	See also Weiss, "The Golden Rule," chapter nine of his larger study, Man's Freedom, (New Haven: Yale University Press), 1950.  A procedural interpretation underlies Weiss' analysis, although it seems clear that he at least glimpses the possible non-retributive interpretation and rejects it, at least as being categorically binding.

5.  Alan Gewirth, "The Golden Rule Rationalized," Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 3(1979): 133-147.  This is the most sophisticated analysis of the golden rule (interpreted procedurally) which I have found.  Unfortunately, I do not think that Gewirth gives sufficient attention to the non-retributive content.  Along the same general lines, see also Marcus Singer, "The Golden Rule," Philosophy 38 (October, 1963): 293-314.  I believe that it is correct to see Singer's analysis as an interpretation of a procedural conception.  Singer sees the golden rule at best as incomplete as a universalizable principle, and he says that "[I]t requires interpretation, and is consequently no substitute for an ethical theory, or other moral ideas, in the light of which it must be interpreted." (p. 313)  It is hard to disagree with this statement.

6. All four gospels contain references, but the two passages most suggestive of the concept of a "beast of burden" are in Matthew 21:5 and John 12:15.  The New English Bible (Oxford and Cambridge, 1970) actually uses the phrase "the foal of a beast of burden" for the non-literal translation of that portion of Matthew 21:5.

7.  Matthew 14:24-30.

8.  Elton Trueblood, The Incendiary Fellowship (New York: Harper, 1967).

9.  Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan.  Perhaps I err in suggesting that Hobbes made explicit reference to "King of the Proud."  My point, in any case, is the same.  As for a phrase suggestive of "King of the Proud," see the book of Job, chapter forty-one, where Hobbes got the title of his book.  That chapter ends with, "He beholdeth all high things.  He is the king of the children of pride."  (Job 41:34)  Hobbes surely noted this entire passage, and this culmination in the reference to something like the "king of the proud" could not but have convinced him of the appropriateness of the Leviathan metaphor as a name for the state.

CHAPTER FIVE

1.  Kant, Foundation for a Metaphysic of Morals.  In Brendan E. A. Liddell's translation and commentary, the Categorical Imperative is rendered as "Always act on a maxim which you can will to become a universal law of nature" (Kant on the Foundation of Morality: A Modern Version of the Grundlegung, Indiana University Press, 1970, p. 140).  Some translators omit "of nature."

2.  See note 11, chapter one of the present work.  Kant never shows exactly why the general Categorical Imperative (note 1, above) should give us a categorical imperative of retribution rather than, say, forgiveness.  The larger part of Kant's ethical and political system rests upon a defense of the "rule of law," of course, and thus perhaps the inevitable retributive emphasis.  (Rawls thought so: see note 9, chapter one of the present work.)  It is ironic that a man who spoke so much about the "moral law" should in practice have given us a system based ultimately on the workings of the legal system for its substantive basis.  Secular philosophies since Plato have exhibited this tendency, but one wants to emphasize that religious philosophies founded upon the assumption of a retributive God do likewise.  Thus is it important to see the significance of an interpretation of Christian ethics in which God is not in any way a retributive being.

3.  John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Belknap Press of  Harvard University Press, 1971).

4.  See note 3, chapter four.

5.  See note 5, chapter four.

6.  "Promote the greatest happiness of the greatest number."  It was John Stuart Mill, not Bentham, who made the most explicit claim with regard to the similarities between the golden rule and the principle of utility: "[T]he happiness which forms the utilitarian standard of what is right in conduct is not the agent's own happiness but that of all concerned.  As between his own happiness and that of others, utilitarianism requires him to be as strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectator.  In the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth, we read the complete spirit of the ethics of utility.  `To do as you would be done by' and `to love your neighbor as yourself,' constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality."  Mill then goes on to state how the principle of utility would "provide the means of making the nearest approach to this ideal."  Mill clearly believes that the golden rule itself would not provide a decision procedure so much as a mere ideal, and thus utility is a better principle for making moral decisions than is the golden rule.  (John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism [Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1979], pp. 16-17.  Utilitarianism was originally published in 1861.)
	It is also  noteworthy that Mill thinks that utility requires that one should be a disinterested spectator who thinks of his welfare as being of no lesser or greater consequence than the welfare of another: no more and no less.  (Perhaps he sees this as following from the injunction to "Love your neighbor as yourself.")  I personally believe that the norm of sacrifice implicit (and sometimes explicit) in the Christian view would actually place one's welfare behind the welfare of another, at least in certain situations.
	It might or might not be noteworthy that Mill immediately goes on to speak of changing the laws as the means of achieving the greatest harmony between the welfare of the individual and the welfare of all.  I believe that the ethic of Jesus of Nazareth, by contrast, recommends universalized altruism and a propensity toward personal sacrifice, possibly in lieu of legal reform, at least in those instances where passing a law means putting into place the penalties for enforcing compliance.  This would not mean, of course, that Christians would be indifferent to the task of repealing or modifying unjust laws.  Even so, it is well to remember that utilitarianism, for both Bentham and Mill, was primarily a guide for legal reform.  Christian ethics, if carried to its logical conclusion, would make the state and its punitive laws obsolete.  What this would imply about voluntary social arrangements and conventions is not clear.

7.  See Michael Bayles, ed.,  Contemporary Utilitarianism (New York: Anchor Books), 1968. 

8.  "All ethical doctrines worth our attention take consequences into account in judging rightness.  One which did not would simply be irrational, crazy."  John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p. 30.  One has to ask whether or not this is necessarily true, however, since in the most problematic of ethical situations one often has no basis for predicting consequences.

9.  "Nothing in the universe--in fact, nothing whatsoever--can we possibly conceive as absolutely good except a good will."  See the work on Kant's Grundlegung by Liddell, cited in note 1 above, for this particular translation of Kant.

10.  Matthew 7:12.

11.  Plato's Crito 49 c-d.

12.  John Rawls, "Two Concepts of Rules," The Philosophical Review, Volume XLIV, No. 1, January, 1955, p.7.

13.  Feinberg, though correctly labeled a retributivist, nonetheless denied that moral desert or retribution was the only component of justice.  He said that it is time to "lay to rest the philosophical myths that desert is a single factor to be weighed against other ('utilitarian') considerations in ethical decisionmaking and that it represents uniquely the claims of justice.  It is high time that this simplistic account, an offspring of another period's quarrels between intuitionists and teleologists, retributionists and utilitarians is rejected once and for all.  The claims of justice are hardly exhausted in the vacuous principle that everyone ought, ceteris paribus, to get what he deserves."  Joel Feinberg, Doing and Deserving: Essays in the Theory of Responsibility (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970).
	One wants to ask whether any rational person would want to get what he or she deserves.  I would prefer to have mercy and forgiveness in my own case.

14.  "[O]ne feels the force of both arguments and wonders how they can be reconciled."  Rawls, "Two Concepts of Rules," p. 15.  (See note 12 above.)

CHAPTER SIX

1.  John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 503n.  Rawls acknowledges R.B. Trivers for the origins of the phrase "reciprocal altruism," while admitting that he (Rawls) prefers the term "reciprocity."  In other passages, he suggests that reciprocity strikes a balance between self and other.

2.  Ibid., p. 11.  See also p. 102, where Rawls refers to "reciprocity. . . [as] a principle of mutual benefit."  In yet another passage, the veiled retributivism of the foundations of Rawls' system is revealed when he says that "The basic idea is one of reciprocity, a tendency to answer in kind." (p. 494) 

3.  Amendment IX: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

CHAPTER SEVEN

1.  Karl Menninger, Whatever Became of Sin? (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1973).

2.  Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra, trans. Thomas Common (London, George Allen and Unwin, 1967, rev.).

3.  Stephen Ambrose, Rise to Globalism:  American Foreign Policy Since 1938 (London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 1971). 

CHAPTER EIGHT

1.  The most clearcut distinction between the "teleological" and the "deontological" can be found in Frankena, Ethics (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall, 1963) p. 13.  Frankena is cited in Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p. 24, as part of his general critique of classical utilitarianism.  See also W. D. Ross, The Right and the Good (Oxford, 1930).

2.  At least in the writings of John Rawls, the Kantian doctrine about inherent good is defended as being within the natural law tradition.  As elaborated by Rawls, however, the doctrine rests upon weak metaphysical assumptions.  In this sense, both Kant and Rawls are more nearly in the modern secular tradition rather than in what is commonly called the natural law tradition.

3.  Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, translated by T. M. Green and H. H. Hudson (Harper, New York, 1960). 

4.  See note 9, chapter one.

5.  In reviewing these accounts, I was struck by how very near to the beginning of the Book of Genesis is the story of Noah.  This passage comes right after the biblical account of creation and the story of Adam and Eve.  Such accounts are not only legends or folklore, of course.  They are also early speculative attempts to explain the mysteries of the universe.

6.  The origin of the term "priest" goes at least as far back as the Greek presbyteros, "elder."  Something of the excessive respect for priesthood can also be found in Paul's need to refer to Jesus as being in the "order of Melchizedek," a priest-king in Jerusalem ("Salem") to whom the legendary early biblical accounts say that Abraham gave tithes. (Genesis 14:18)  Paul's confusion as to the nature of Jesus' "rule" might also be evinced by this passage.  Why is there such concern with rule by elders unless one is above all obsessed with rule?  Indeed, one may argue that this is Paul's legacy to the denominational society.  It is not, in my opinion, an authentic Christian legacy.

7.  J.B. Phillips, foreword to The Interlinear Greek-English New Testament (London: Samuel Bagster and Sons, 1966), p. i.  Quoted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Ltd.

8.  Robert K. Merton, "Bureaucratic Structure and Personality," from Reader in Bureaucracy (New York: The Free Press, 1952), p. 365.  Although Merton is talking about a particular orientation to bureaucratic rules and procedures, the concept of "displacement of goals" has general applicability to the problem of the human tendency to make means into ends: "Adherence to the rules, originally conceived as a means, becomes transformed into an end-in-itself; there occurs the familiar process of displacement of goals whereby `an instrumental value becomes a terminal value.'"  The work cited gives a number of references to analyses of this general phenomenon by such persons as Max Weber, Gordon Allport, Harold Lasswell, and others.  Merton cites his own earlier but more general study, "The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action," American Sociological Review, I (1936), 894-904.

9.  Karl Menninger, Whatever Became of Sin? (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1973).  I cannot find this precise quote in Menninger, but the assumption--or something like it--seems to be implicit throughout.  Menninger does paraphrase a quote from O. Hobart Mowrer: "[M]any functional `neuroses' are indications of a hidden (but not forgotten) history of serious misconduct--which had not been adequately acknowledged, atoned for, propitiated, or otherwise `canceled out.'"  (O. Hobart Mowrer, The Crisis in Psychiatry and Religion [Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1961], p. 57.)  In another place, Menninger quotes Mowrer directly: "So long as a person lives under the shadow of real, unacknowledged, and unexpiated guilt, he . . . will continue to hate himself and to suffer the inevitable consequences of self-hatred.  But the moment he . . . begins to accept his guilt and sinfulness, the possibility of radical reformation opens up; and . . . a new freedom of self-respect and peace." (pp. 54-55 in Mowrer)  See p. 182 and p. 195 in Menninger for these quotes from Mowrer.
	Yet, one has to ask: how "serious" (by the usual standards) must the "serious misconduct" be which, if not repented of, may produce very serious psychological (and sometimes further moral) problems?  Are not resentment and lust (or greed and envy) sufficient?  The emphasis on motive in Matthew, chapter five, may be instructive.  My own guess is that resentment and a failure to forgive others for their abuses to us must be considered to be equally, if not more, devastating.
	A note of caution is also called for with regard to "expiation," however, since many of the gravest acts cannot possibly be atoned for or otherwise "canceled."  (The very phrase smacks of a retributive theology and ethics.)  Thus do I see the key word as "acknowledged," which I see to be essentially equivalent in this context to "repented of," provided the acknowledgment is to God, along with, one assumes, the necessity of a concomitant request for forgiveness--or is that implicit in full acknowledgment?
	One might want to ask, B la Menninger, "Whatever Became of Repentance?"  I do think that this is the essential point that both Menninger and Mowrer want to make: it is repentance which saves us from our sins, and it is a failure to repent and to forgive which causes most of our psychic anguish.  I am assuming that "stopping something" is not quite the same as repenting of it: one may momentarily cease doing something by becoming a workaholic or by distracting oneself in other ways.  Unless one has fully repented of, acknowledged, the evil of the deed and recommitted oneself to a higher course of action, however, then that which one has merely stopped doing will continue to haunt one, even if one should never succumb to that particular temptation again.  I think that it goes without saying, however, that the unrepented sin is almost certain to be repeated.

10.  Acts 7:59.  While it is impossible to take the stories in Acts at face value, the story of Stephen asking for the forgiveness of his tormentors is noteworthy as a moral ideal, regardless of the truth of the entire account.  The story has obvious parallels with the story of Jesus' execution and his own propensity to forgive his own tormentors.

11.  Matthew 8:23-33.  Both stories appear together in the space of only eleven verses, with emphasis on divine control over material forces in the first story and emphasis on divine control over psychological or spiritual forces in the second: God, that is, is the God of heaven and earth, of spirit (psyche) and the natural realm which includes our physical bodies.

12, 13.  See Matthew, chapter 28, and Luke, chapter 24.

CHAPTER NINE

1.  It would be equally true to say that Weber derived his conception of bureaucracy from his observations of the rationalized mode of production implicit in capitalism.  For a better understanding of Weber's writings in the context of his vast personal experiences, see "The Man and His Work," the introductory chapter of From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, translated and edited by Hans Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946).

2.  Jesus was largely silent not only before Pilate, but also before the High Priest.  See Matthew 26:62, 27:12, 27:14, Mark 14:61, Mark 15:5, and Luke 23:9.  The accounts differ, but in none of them is there any indication that Jesus said anything by way of self-defense or counter-accusation.
	What also comes through in all of these accounts is not only that Jesus did not offer any words of self-defense or counter-accusation, but that he was completely alone, with no one to defend him with affirmations of his worth or the worthiness of his cause, much less of evidence of his divinity.  His silence is made all the more poignant because of this fact of having been completely deserted.  I think that we are being taught, in all of our frustrating attempts to attain "justice" for ourselves in social dealings, to imitate the divine model.  Thus do we learn to opt for "the peace that surpasses understanding" rather than for personal vindication, which is a false and meaningless quest: our only hope is for redemption, not vindication.  Our appeals to the secular law for vindication are likely to be particularly frustrating and disappointing.

3.  Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976).  See p. 69 and p. 605.

4.  See chapter three, notes one and two.

5.  Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Program, found in Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, ed. Lewis S. Feuer (Garden City, N.J.: Anchor Books of Doubleday and Company, 1959), p. 119.  This quote is often mistakenly thought to be in The Communist Manifesto.

6.  See Robert C. Tucker, "Marx and Distributive Justice," in Nomos VI: Justice (Yearbook of the Society of Political and Legal Philosophy), eds. Carl J. Friedrich and John W. Chapman (New York: Atherton Press, 1963), pp. 306-325.  See especially pp. 312-313, where Tucker takes exception with such writers as E. H. Carr and Harold J. Laski, who are among those who contend that Marx was driven by a passion for "justice."  I think that it is nonetheless fair to say that Marx had a sense of justice, even though he disparaged the concept as the product of bourgeois philosophical rationales for inequality.  Does not the talk of "exploitation" reflect, after all, some prior sense of justice, for what is exploitation but a particular kind of injustice?

7.  Rawls' precise wording in one definition of reciprocity is "a tendency to answer in kind."  (A Theory of Justice, p. 494)

8.  Mark 12: 41-44.  See also Luke 21:1-4.  A passage with a similar message is Luke 12:48: "Of those to whom much is given, much will be required."  The parable of the talents may be found in Matthew 25:14-30.

9.  Luke 16: 19-31.

10.  "[B]y directing that [domestic] industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. . . .  By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.  I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.  It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need to be employed in dissuading them from it."  (Emphasis supplied.)  Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, ed. Edwin Cannan (New York: The Modern Library, 1937), p. 423.
	It is interesting that Smith offers this polemic for egoism in a passage which started by emphasizing gain in domestic industry.  Smith fails to concede that the altruistic thing to do is not to protect domestic industry against foreign competition, for one could argue that in not looking out for one's own advantage as a merchant in the domestic industry, one winds up promoting the good of all through free trade.
	In other words, Smith's recommendation in favor of free trade is correct, but not for the moral reason of egoism that he thinks: it is not self-interest but a regard for the good of all, altruism, that finally impels one to want to support free trade.  One's own personal interest might in fact over the short term (which might be one's entire life) be enhanced by tariff restrictions, to the detriment of the larger world society which can only be benefited by free trade.  This might be a Smithian conclusion, but it is hardly a Smithian rationale.

11.  F. H. Bradley, Ethical Studies (2nd ed.; Oxford, 1927), p. 26.  Quoted by permission of Oxford University Press.

12.  "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."  (See John 8:1-11 for the entire account in the King James Version.  The translators of the New English Bible express difficulty in placing this passage in the gospels.

13.  See note 9, Chapter One.

CHAPTER TEN

1.  Matthew 5:32.  See also Mark 10:11.

2.  Matthew 19:4-6.
3.  Matthew 19:4-6.  There is no error in the repetition here, for the same passage which absolutizes the sanctity of a union formed by God implies, I believe, the illegitimacy of one which is not sanctioned by him.  This is only to say that a ceremony and an exchanging of vows does not a marriage make.  The union must already have been ordained of God for the exchange of vows to have any hope of success--or so I believe.  If it is indeed the vows alone which sanctify the bond, then I have erred greatly, but I do not believe that this is so, for persons vow and agree to do all sorts of things that they have no business doing: two adulterers may agree never to betray their "love" for each other, or they may agree never to betray a vow of confidentiality.  It seems clear that God may have other ideas, and thus his will can supersede the mere exchange of vows between human beings in any realm of human activity.  Vows are yet important, of course, for affirming the validity of that which is thought to be worthy.  It is also possible that the mutual exchange of vows can be considered to be a necessary but not a sufficient condition for a "wedding" to have occurred.  Yet, even if this is so, do the vows have to be made publicly, much less be administered by some "official" cleric or functionary of the state?  The idea seems preposterous.  It is at least conceivable that two persons may be "wed" in some ultimate sense even if no explicit vows are exchanged.

4.  Although the immediate reference is to Genesis 2:24 and preceding passages, this literal passage as stated comes from the same passage cited twice above: Matthew 19:4-6.

5.  I Corinthians, 7:39.  Paul does, however, base his view on "the Law," and he goes on to warn that remarriage might not be the most blessed course of action, suggesting some higher guide besides the Law of Moses:  "But she is happier if she so abide [unmarried], after my judgment: and I think also that I have the spirit of God."  (Emphasis supplied.)  Paul's striking counterpoint of "the Law" and "the Spirit" is especially noteworthy.  As in so many passages, Paul's "wisdom" might well have transcended his intended meaning.

6.  The music and lyrics in Kismet are by Robert Wright and George Forrest, adapted from the music of Alexander Borodin.  The screenplay and book are by Charles Lederer and Luther Davis, and the entire work is founded on a work of the same name by Edward Knoblock.  The movie version was produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.  

7.  Matthew 19:4-6.

8.  Matthew 16:19.

9.  At least two passages are relevant here:  Matthew 15:19 and Matthew 5:31.  The first, Matthew 15:19, clearly counterposes something called "adultery" against something called "fornication."  A very common inference has been that adultery refers to illicit sex in which at least one partner is married, whereas fornication refers to illicit sex where neither of the partners is married to another.  I have accepted this usage, although it is possible that it could be challenged on etymological grounds.  Matthew 5:31, by contrast, says that the only valid ground for divorce is fornication.  It seems significant to me that what is not said is that adultery is grounds for divorce, unless the Greek word used was a general term referring to sexual immorality.  Yet, if adultery were grounds for divorce (in the New Testament, not in the secular law), then this would be a very legalistic way of looking at the bond between a man and a woman: it would have become viewed as a contract and nothing more.  It is not at all clear that Jesus wants to say that adultery or other unfaithfulness vitiates the force of the bond between a man and a woman.  Such an interpretation would seem to fly in the face of the agápe concept, which teaches unconditional love and faithfulness, even where such are not reciprocated.
	By choosing a reference to fornication (probably as wrongful premarital sex) as the only valid grounds for divorce, I do not think that Jesus simply meant that one can divorce one's mate if one found out that he or she engaged in wrongful premarital sex, for, if the person is the right person, then such failures before persons met would hardly change the fact that they were divinely ordained for each other and that the relationship should continue.  I believe that what is coming through these passages is indeed a genuine respect for premarital chastity, not in the form of some absolute prohibition which forbids sexual contact between those who are absolutely committed to each other and whose union is sanctioned of God (but who simply have not gone through some ritual or ceremony), but because in the ideal case one's first and only sexual experiences should be with the person whom one is divinely ordained to be with.  I believe that, in some essential sense, Matthew 5:31 is simply telling us that, if one discovers that one's mate is not who one thought that he or she was, then one is justified in divorcing that person.  
	The temptation is strong for many scholars to go back to a legalistic and contractual basis for finding grounds for divorce, rather than to look for the answer to the essential question: should the couple have been married in the first place?  If the discovery of fornication, in combination with other insights, indicates that one married the wrong person, then it would seem very, very possible that one is justified in getting a divorce.  If, on the other hand, one's divinely ordained mate "merely" had premarital or extramarital sex with another, then that fact alone would not suffice to justify seeking divorce.  The essential question in all such cases, then, is perhaps whether the couple should have been married in the first place, whether their union was divinely ordained.  Or, at least, this is the interpretation closest to my deepest intuitions about sexual union, intuitions deriving in large part from my own experience of having known (and still knowing) a transcendent love, one qualitatively different from other "loves."  
	I do believe that there is a "right person" ordained of God, and that sex with anyone besides that person is wrong--wrong because it hurts the capacity for the primary bond to achieve its full glory and significance in our lives.  But this is far from saying that such a mistake, whether premarital or extramarital, is grounds for divorce--for we are to return good for evil, and this requirement is surely binding not only in ordinary human interaction, but in that area of human activity which is most sublime and most nearly in accordance with the divine will in creation.  For, if one would not return good for evil with the one for whom one is divinely ordained, then for whom would one likely be capable of such forgiveness?  If one cannot forgive where something of the highest significance is at stake, then what motivation would there be to forgive in a social setting of lesser significance?  The requirement of forgiveness is thus absolute in all realms, but nowhere with more emotional and spiritual force than in a divinely-sanctioned sexual union.

10.  Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (New York: Viking Press, 1963).  See especially chapter two, "The Accused."
	In an entirely different vein having to do with other themes, one absolutely must take note of Arendt's justification of punishment: "Criminal proceedings, since they are mandatory and thus initiated even if the victim would prefer to forgive and forget, rest on laws whose `essence'--to quote Telford Taylor, writing in The New York Times Magazine--`is that a crime is not committed only against the victim but primarily against the community whose law has been violated.'  The wrongdoer is brought to justice because his act has disturbed and gravely endangered the community as a whole, and not because, as in civil suits, damage has been done to individuals who are entitled to reparation. . . .  [I]t is the general public order that has been thrown out of gear and must be restored, as it were.  It is, in other words, the law, not the plaintiff, that must prevail." (pp. 239-40)  Quoted by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Books USA.
	I hope that it is obvious that what Arendt offers is a retributive conception of justice, a conception not only quite different from what is being offered in the present work, but similar in many ways to a Kantian rationale attempting to justify punishment.  Arendt, like many retributivists, seems to assume that the public order could be restored by something as simple and primitive as retribution, as if some cosmic imbalance could somehow be restored by one evil's negating another evil.   See note 9, chapter one.  The parallels with Kant, although hardly perfect, can be seen in the rather chilling respect with which the law is defended as a virtual end in itself.  What if it should be the case that the only truly moral community must be founded upon the law of forgiveness, through which the welfare of the community can never be meaningfully discussed apart from the welfare of particular individuals whose worth--even in gross error--can never be factored out from the welfare of all?
	What a "principled retributivism" seems to require, by contrast, is that the "community" must always be referred to as some abstraction above and apart from the welfare of individuals.  For, once the community as a factorable entity is posited, individuals can thus be sacrificed to it out of some kind of superstitious reverence founded in a retributive cosmogony.  This is really rather primitive stuff, and one feels that the philosophies of punishment of Kant, Hegel, Arendt, and other retributivists, so far from deserving our respect, ought instead to be subject to the greatest scepticism and critical scrutiny.
	In the case of Arendt, the retributive cosmogony is that of some presumed "divine justice" on the retributive model, based on the idea of a "last judgment" in which persons who have "deliberately" sinned finally get that which they truly deserve.  See Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1958), p. 240.  Arendt is these passages does some violence to the ethic of forgiveness, even as she seems to be defending certain elements of the Christian view (pp. 238-242).  It is in this passage that she also refers to those "radical evils" which we cannot either punish or forgive (p. 241).  (Does such a category of evil truly exist?  Why?  Is the power of forgiveness so puny?  What would this imply about the power of God to forgive?)
	A telling passage can be found in the closing pages of The Human Condition: "[The] intermediary position which the Hebrew legal code occupies between pagan antiquity and all Christian or post-Christian legal systems may be explicable by the Hebrew creed which stresses the potential immortality of the people, as distinguished from the pagan immortality of the world on one side and the Christian immortality of individual life on the other." (p. 315)  This passage, although not without its difficulties, does seem to be congruent with the remarks about justice for the community in Eichmann in Jerusalem, quoted above, pp. 239-240.

11.  Matthew 22:32.  The entire passage, Matthew 22:23-33, is worth close examination, not only for the message of the resurrection, but for the possibility that here is also a commentary on the significance of the primeval vision of Eden in the Genesis allegory: a vision of eternal and undying love between a man and a woman as an essential component of God's creation (and ultimate will).  Such a vision is important, even if it is imbedded in a passage that is otherwise little more than legend or folklore.  See also Mark 12:18-27.

12.  See also footnote number nine above.

13.  Again, see footnote number nine above.

14.  This is a line from "Brown Eyes," a song traditionally sung by the women of Furman University, Greenville, South Carolina.  It has now been adopted by the Furman Singers (through which I met my wife on Easter Sunday, 1964, at the beginning of spring tour).

15 & 16.  Matthew 22:23-33 and Mark 22:23-33.  See also footnote number eleven above.
17.  Friedrich Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State (New York: International Publishers, 1972).  Marx and Engels offered similar remarks about family loyalty--as well as sexual community--in The Communist Manifesto.

18.  I Corinthians 6:16.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

1.  King's statements with regard to the issue of militancy are confusing, indicating that King was not overly concerned with the varying possible implications of the term.  As examples, see his usages of the term "militant" or "militancy" in various essays included in  A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr., ed. James Melvin Washington, Harper and Row, New York, 1986.  Specifically, see "The Social Organization of Nonviolence," p. 31; "Showdown for Nonviolence," pp. 64-65.; "Our Struggle," p. 76); "Black Power Defined," p. 308.  See also Washington's editorial remarks on p. 126 of the same anthology.
	What is the point?  One issue which arises is whether or not the term "militant" as used by King really is militancy in the stronger sense sometimes attributed to Malcolm X or the Black Panthers.  Another question is the issue of whether there are degrees of militancy implying degrees of coerciveness.  A "demand" in the context of a boycott, for example, suggests the possibility of threat or sanctions, in the way that pure moral suasion does not.  Yet, what did King threaten, and what real economic damage did the boycott of the Montgomery Bus Lines threaten to do, if any?  Was not the boycott more nearly symbolic speech than threat of economic sanction in that immediate context?
	I have noted other places that boycotts are typically a form of economic coercion.  Yet, I think that we err if we overemphasize the militant side of King's activities, or if we see the Montgomery Bus Boycott as a coercive or militant activity.  Or, at the very least, if this is militancy, it is yet quite a mild form of militancy.  King received criticisms both from those (such as Malcolm X) who thought that he was too timid, as well as from those who thought that he was too militant--and whom he thought were too timid.

2.  While Malcolm X was not categorically opposed to violence and often said that the social progress of blacks should be promoted by "any means necessary," he did not, contrary to much popular opinion, call for widespread, much less indiscriminate, violence.  Malcolm did disparage the strategy of King at times, as well as whites who chided him for not adopting King's methods: "But I don't accept any non-violent liberals.  This doesn't mean that you've got to be violent; but it does mean that you can't be non-violent."  Malcolm X Speaks (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1965), p. 136.  (Reprinted by permission of Betty Shabazz and Pathfinder Press.)  This is not doubletalk: what Malcolm means is that a categorical renunciation of violence is not justifiable, but that he is not necessarily calling for violence.  From this one can only conclude that he was not a pacifist.  One cannot conclude that he was a man with a propensity toward violence, such as that exhibited by, say, George Washington or Thomas Jefferson, who sanctioned wars against both the British and native Americans, among others.

3.  King chafed when criticized by those who said that his anti-war activities weakened his struggle for civil rights.  He correctly noted that the same principles of protest were appropriate to both issues--and he emphasized that war and racism were intimately related in the American context.  His linkage of the civil rights struggle to the anti-war movement was frequent and explicit, emphasizing the non-violent principles guiding both, as well as the social costs of the Vietnam War in its impact on African Americans--both in terms of its use of them as "cannon fodder," as well as the social programs that were not funded as a result of military expenditures.
	See the selections in Washington, ed.,  A Testament of Hope (general citation in note 1 above): "A Time to Break Silence" (especially p. 232 and pp. 234-241), "Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution" (pp. 275-277), "The Social Organization of Nonviolence" (p. 34), "Nonviolence: The Only Road to Freedom" (p. 59), and "Showdown for Nonviolence," p. 67 and p. 69.

4.  King actually emphasizes repeatedly that the point is not to humiliate the white oppressor but to win his support and understanding.  See "The Power of Nonviolence," from A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr., ed. James Melvin Washington, Harper and Row, New York, 1986, p. 12.  See also "An Experiment in Love" and "The Current Crisis in Race Relations," from the same source.
	The point is not to criticize King, whose methods were the gentlest of all activists, but to ask whether Jesus of Nazareth might have advocated a different strategy in the same circumstances.  Although that question is perhaps unanswerable, it derives from the very real question as to whether or not a higher form of pacifism than that employed by King or Gandhi is conceivable. 

5. King chose non-violent methods as means of redemption, not confrontation. See "Nonviolence and Racial Justice," from Washington, ed., A Testament of Hope, p. 9.

6.  See notes 4 and 5 above.  King also says in another place that the Southern Christian Leadership Conference adopted as its motto in 1957, "To Save the Soul of America."  (Washington, p. 233.)

7.  See Washington, ed., A Testament of Hope: p. 16, p. 18, p. 22, p. 25, p. 45, and p. 143.  From these passages from various of King's writings, one finds that sometimes King used the phrase "passive resistance" (p. 143), but at other times he said that what he was promoting was not passive resistance (p. 18).  Overall, the phrase which he seems to have preferred was "nonviolent resistance."

8.  One account is in Washington, ed., A Testament of Hope, p. xviii.

9.  Washington, A Testament of Hope, p. 38.

10.  See Washington, A Testament of Hope, p. 20, p. 25, p. 33, p. 41, and p. 64 for a variety of related quotes.

11.  Again, see the Washington anthology.  King usually phrased his strategy as carrying on the demonstrations long enough to make things "inconvenient" (p. 60), although he also refers to "pressure" (p. 58), and he says that action should be "persistent and unyielding" and that Gandhi said that one should "never let them rest" (p. 33).  He also said that Gandhi's efforts "disorganized and demobilized the British."  On page 60 he refers to both boycotts and demonstrations as "weapons" of change.  Whether the usage is purely metaphorical or not the reader may decide.  The general point seems to be that, if such actions were not at least somewhat disruptive or inconvenient, then the press would not notice and the necessary public awareness of the cause would not be attained. (Washington, p. 60)
	There is a vast difference, I dare say, between disruption or inconvenience for the sake of publicizing the issues, on the one hand, and for the sake of coercing the opponent, on the other.  King seems always to have used his methods solely for the sake of reaching the white oppressors, as well as for appealing to the national community at large, as well as Congress.
	Would Christ have done differently?  What is the significance of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem (albeit on a donkey), or his overturning of the tables of the money-changers in the temple?  Surely Jesus, like King, did no one any material harm, but he did draw attention to certain moral and theological claims.  Yet, their motives might have been different, since King sought legal changes that have in fact involved a coercive or punitive component.  In any case, I cannot consider the issue of disruption a closed issue for anyone who is searching about for perfectly peaceful means. The question, of course, is what one means by "disruption," which can range from overt sabotage to that which merely provokes persons to examine their own consciences.  When King refers to "disruption," he seems to refer solely to the latter.  

12.  See Washington, ed., A Testament of Hope, p. 18 and p. 39.

13.  See note 4 above.

14.  Otto Nathan and Heinz Nordern, eds.,  Einstein on Peace (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960), pp. 143-44.  See also pp. 141-42 on the issue as to whether or not Einstein advocated disruption.  The point seems to have been to bring the machine to a halt by refusing to participate in it.  Disruption of a de facto nature this may be, but if one sees this as disruption in the same way that sabotage is disruption, I believe that one errs greatly.  Again, as with King, the question of shortfall from the divine example is the real issue for the pacifist.

15.  Jeremy Bentham, The Principles of Morals and Legislation (New York: Hafner Press of Macmillan Co., 1948).

16.  J. J. C. Smart, "Extreme and Restricted Utilitarianism," The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. VI (1956), p. 344.  This article can also be found in Michael Bayles, Contemporary Utilitarianism (New York: Anchor Books, 1968), 99-115.

17.  Bentham, p. 1n.  See citation in note 15 above.

18.  The words "deterred" and "terror" do actually appear in Jeremy Bentham's The Principles of Morals and Legislation (New York: Hafner, 1948).  See the marginal notes on p. 173 ("deterred") and p. 177 ("terror").  These and other usages indicate that Bentham was quite blatant about the use of fear as a social regulator, albeit in the name of a greater happiness.  This is nothing if not casuistry on stilts.  

19.  Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan  Part I, Chapter 13.

20.  See Organizations, by James G. March and Herbert A. Simon  (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1958), pp. 140-41.

21 & 22.  David Braybrooke and Charles E. Lindblom, A Strategy of Decision: Policy Evaluation as a Social Process (New York: The Free Press), 1963.

23.  See Victor Thompson, Modern Organization (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1961), p. 22.  In many ways, this work is among the greatest works of all time in organization theory. 

24.  See Aaron Wildavsky, The Politics of the Budgetary Process, 4th ed. (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1984).  Wildavsky has applied many of the ideas developed by Lindblom and others to the budgetary decision-making process at the federal level. 

25.  "[I]n actual practice continued contemplation of alternative means is often empirically inseparable from continued contemplation of values."  Braybrooke and Lindblom, A Strategy of Decision, p. 52.  (Italics supplied.)  See also the reference to the "mutual adjustment of ends and means" on p. 135.  Other relevant passages include those on p. 93ff and 119f.

26.  I do not know who first made this observation.  I heard it for the first time from Richard E. Flathman of Johns Hopkins University during a 1982 NEH Summer Seminar on "Political Freedom."  Insights gained during that seminar finally led to my final break with utilitarianism and suggested the fruitfulness of pursuing something like a categorical imperative of non-retribution and altruism as the substantive foundations of the golden rule.  Although Flathman would probably disagree with a great deal (if not most) of what I have said in this book, he had a great deal to do with motivating me to make an attempt at a comprehensive reappraisal of Christian ethics as it is commonly interpreted.  He, like Thomas Jefferson, also found the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth to be at odds with those of Paul, and he found the writings of Paul to be very nearly worthless.

27.  Matthew 18:12.

28.  Matthew 22:21.

29.  John 18:14.

30.  "What is truth?"  (John 18:38)  Pilate's remark is actually quite cynical, and I do not wish to defend it in the least.  Yet, it still seems that he was less culpable than those who claimed to believe in truth and who turned Jesus over to him.  Perhaps this fact accounts for the rather garbled account of Jesus's saying to him that "You would not have any power at all if it were not given to you from above.  Therefore the greater guilt lies with him who turned me over to you." (John 19:11)  I say that this is garbled because it would not seem that either God or Caiaphas could be consistently claimed to be the one referred to, if Jesus' quote is taken literally.  I think that here we have a classic case of fragments of conversations getting mixed together but coming down to us in the Bible as if they were complete and coherent.  It seems clear from the context that Jesus is referring to the religious leaders' handing him over to Pilate.
	I do not think that one is on safe ground in assuming that Jesus was endorsing the view that the ecclesiastical hierarchy is morally superior to the secular hierarchy.  I do not think that he was endorsing human hierarchies at all, which the confused and confusing quote in John 19:11 suggests if taken at face value.

31.  Counterposing John 18:14 and 19:11 is interesting.

32.  See Jeremy Bentham, The Principles of Morals and Legislation (New York: Hafner Press of Macmillan Publishing Co., 1948), p. 1.  See also chapters three, four, and five, among others.

33.  Henry Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, 7th ed. (London: Macmillan and Company, 1907).

34.  G.E. Moore, Principia Ethica (Cambridge, 1903).  It is not clear that Moore should be subsumed under the utilitarian tradition.  His theory of the good is certainly of a seemingly transcendental nature.  See Chapter Two, "Naturalistic Ethics," as well as other passages dealing with what Moore calls the "naturalistic fallacy."

35.  "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."  The author, typically cited simply as "Lord Acton," was John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton.

36.  James Turner Johnson, Quest for Peace: Three Moral Traditions in Western Cultural History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987).  Johnson believes that neither Jesus nor the early Christians were pacifistic.  Johnson's errors (as I believe them to be) come from two sources: first, presuming that there is anything escapist about pacifism; second, presuming that arguments about the direction of the church after Christ could have any possible bearing on the question of whether Jesus was or was not a pacifist.  The book, although extremely useful in many particulars, is finally a rather orthodox defense of the "just war" doctrine (albeit superbly done).
	Johnson's research was supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Guggenheim Foundation at a period of time (1983-84) during which I unsuccessfully solicited funding from the NEH for a work on pacifism.  Without being aware of other projects being funded on related topics during that period, I confess that for a while I nonetheless wondered, given the funding dilemma of the NEH during the Reagan years, whether or not my own proposal might have fared better had I been defending rather than attacking the "just war" tradition.  This is not to disparage Johnson or the NEH in any way, and Johnson's reputation as perhaps the foremost scholar in this field is secure.  Johnson's work is excellent and is very useful, especially to pacifists seeking to understand the "just war" doctrine as defended by one of its most distinguished advocates.  I am delighted that Johnson's research was funded, even if I have to disagree with portions of it.
	As for my own predicament vis-B-vis funding after the 1982 NEH Summer Seminar with Richard E. Flathman at Johns Hopkins University, I finally had to conclude that, if this work were ever going to come into being, it would have to be without official support.  The truth of that assumption has been reinforced with greater and greater force the nearer the book has come to completion.  I say all of this only to warn those who want to do work on pacifism, even those with much better scholarly credentials than my own, that they might have to be prepared to incur most of the costs of their own research. 

37.  Luke 22:36 is the only such reference of which I am aware.  It seems rather incongruous that Jesus should have made such a recommendation, only to recommend against the use of the sword very shortly thereafter.  

38.  Such a conversation appeared in the movie version, but I am not sure that it is in the original novel.  See notes one and two, chapter three.

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INDEX

Abraham, 36, 195, 257
absolutism, 23, 206, 405-407
accusation, 63, 78, 134, 203, 204,
	244, 378, 393
act versus motive, 24
Acton, Lord, 395
Acts, book of, 60, 69
administrative pacifist, 308
administrator as white collar law
	enforcer, 304
"administrator" as euphemism, 303
adultery, 367, 425-426; as opposed to 	fornication, 350-351, 356-357, 	359, 426n-428n; woman caught in 	act of, 29
agápe, 2, 61, 64, 113, 122-124, 127, 	153-187, 156, 159, 160, 167, 173, 	175, 326-327, 356-357, 360, 403-	405; in sexual matters, 360, 371
aggression, diversion of, 206
aggressive disposition, 289
aggressor, absolute worth of.  See 	"individual, absolute worth of"
agnosticism, 233, 263, 278
Air Force.  See "U.S. Air Force"
Allison, Lincoln, 74
altruism, 34, 60, 61, 63, 64, 113, 	123, 153-187, 158, 179, 182, 189, 	190, 191, 203, 205, 213, 223, 253, 	283, 403-408
altruism-egoism dilemma, 191f
ambition checking ambition, 121
Ambrose, Stephen, 252
anarchism, 11, 88, 135, 142, 404
anarchy, 10
angels, 29, 230, 243, 277, 292, 369

anger, 240, 241, 245, 296; nursing 	of, 240
anthologies of political philosophy, 	absence of teachings of Jesus in, 	231
Apology (by Plato), 47f, 51
Apostle Paul.  See "Paul"
Aquinas, 1, 2, 67, 138, 180, 231, 	255, 266, 314, 400
Arabs, 196
architectonic, theoretical, 275, 405, 	407
Arendt, Hannah, 353
Army.  See "U.S. Army"
assassination of heads of state, 315
assumption of coherence in Jesus' 	teachings, 2, 264, 266.  See also 	"coherence"
assumption of divinity of Jesus, 263-	265.  See also "divinity of Jesus"
assumptions, a priori, 263-265
atheism, 263
Augustine, 1, 2, 25, 101, 180, 231, 	255, 266, 314, 400
authoritarianism, 110, 284
authority, 46, 67-75, 78
autonomy, 171, 189

baiting, 385.  See "provocation" and 	"demonstrations"
Bakunin, Mikhail, 142
"banality of evil," 307, 353; in sexual 	matters, 353
banishment, 203, 302
basic unit of society, primal sexual 	bond between two persons as, 337
Being of God, 236
"being" versus "becoming," 287
benevolence, 11, 291
Bentham, Jeremy, 165, 166, 167, 	177, 267, 386, 387, 388, 392
"best country," 207
betrayal, 204, 205, 206
Bible, the, 7, 159, 253, 264, 273, 278
biblical: exegesis, 9; fragments, 3, 	46;	inerrantism or literalism, 110, 	117, 232, 233, 234, 237, 245, 264, 	272, 273
Bill of Rights, the, 130
blueprint of society, i, 24
boycotts, coercive versus symbolic, 	384
Braybrooke, David, 388-389
brotherhood and sisterhood of 	humankind, 198
Brown, Lester, 16
Brown v. Board of Education (1954), 	111
bureaucracy, 73-74, 82, 85, 299-309, 	406; as cancer on society, 305;
	in religion, 18, 221
"bureaucratic pacifist," 306
bureaucrats:	as victims, 309; 	educators as, 31-32, 307
bureaupathology, 308
burden of proof, for use of violence, 	18

Caesar, 44, 52, 69, 254, 390
Caiaphas, 13, 187, 380, 391
Calvin, John, 231, 255, 400
capitalism: abolition of, 318; as 	legalized extortion, 321; purpose 	of, 317; versus socialism, 317-331
categorical imperative, 160, 161, 162, 	165, 167, 171-172, 174, 268, 270;
	of non-retribution, 163;
	of retribution, 161, 166, 270
Catholicism, 126, 133-34, 220, 221, 	314, 399-400
centurion, 30, 31
Challenger disaster, as public rela- 	tions debacle, 312
"channels of communication," as 	euphemism for control, 316
chastity, 347, 351-352, 366, 368;
	suspicion or sexual jealousy over, 	347, 351
checks and balances, 15, 120, 121, 	136, 152
Christ, ii, 9, 38, 79, 85, 105, 146, 	157, 160, 182, 185, 192, 195, 196, 	205, 206, 247, 250, 286, 379, 380, 	382, 383, 385.  See also 	"Messiah"
Christian: ethics, 10, 17, 33-34, 117, 	119, 160, 163, 172, 173, 176, 192, 	208, 229, 278, 280-282, 356, 399-	400, 403-408; flag, 215; 	stewardship, 216; teaching, 	changes in, 158;	theory of 	obligation, 43, 330
Christianity.  See "orthodox 	Christianity"
church, 50, 113, 114, 115, 116, 124, 	125, 129
church and state, 10, 15, 113-116, 	124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 	131, 134, 113-152
citizen(s), 209, 223-225; killing one's 	own, 13
citizenship, 189-225, 217, 223
civil disobedience, 73, 376, 384
civil religion, 36, 121, 136, 232
Civil War, 88
class interest, 95
Clausewitz, von, Carl, 8, 87, 121, 	314, 401
coercion, 1, 11, 82, 113, 114, 119, 	127, 131, 163, 189, 203, 256, 278, 	299, 389, 390; efficacy of, 283
coherence, 2, 264, 266, 267, 275, 276
Cold War, the, 17, 192, 105, 252
commodity, employee as, 302
communism, 88
Communist Manifesto, 367
compliance, organizational, 89
compromise, 167, 386, 392
conflict resolution by bureaucratic 	coercion, 318
conscience, 159, 228, 329
conscientious objectors, i, 308
conscription.  See "draft"
consensus, 217-219
consequences, psychological, 281
consequentialism, 94, 106, 166, 167, 	178, 260, 267, 289, 389, 392.  See 	also "utilitarianism"
conservative maxim, the, 107
consistency.  See "coherence"
constitution: of the Kingdom of 	Heaven, 16, 113, 116, 117, 119, 	120, 123, 124, 152, 153
Constitution, U.S., 16, 72, 116, 210
contingency plans for the use of 	violence, 41
contract, 61, 62, 64, 65, 66, 158, 191
contractual tradition, 2, 19, 162
contractual theory of obligation, 44f, 	55, 60, 191, 212, 224; view of 	marriage, 61, 349, 369
control, organizational, 299-336
Corleone, Don, 87, 314; Michael 87, 	402
counteraccusation, 78, 205, 245
courtship, 363
crapshooting, nuclear deterrence as, 	92-93
creative alternatives to violence, 382
criminals, officers of the state as, 189
Crito, the, 44f, 50, 51, 52, 53, 57, 	177
Cross, the, 123, 399, 407
Crusades, the, 5

Dark Ages, 235
Darwinism, 341.  See also "social 	Darwinism," 341
death and remarriage, 349
"Defense Department" as euphemism,  	316
"democracy" as euphemism, 310
democratic theory, 66-67, 75, 248
"demons," casting out of, 291
demonstrations, 381; political 	efficacy of, 383
demythologization, 19
deontological ethics, 164, 172, 173, 	186, 224, 267
deontological-teleological dilemma,  	173, 267
deployment and use (of armies, 	weapons), 185
depravity, 294
desert, just or moral, 125, 154, 168, 	253-254
destruction, pride in power of, 335
deter, deterrence, 7, 81f, 103f, 166, 	168
diplomacy, 8, 87, 314, 401
direct theocracy, 135, 138, 139
"displacement of goals," 278
disposition, moral, 281-282
disruption, morality of (in 	demonstrations), 383
divine chastisement, 156
divine constitution, 113, 150-152, 	113-152
divine inspiration, 278
divine intervention, 162
divine law, 269
divinely-ordained or sanctioned state,  	2, 7, 8, 68, 119
divinity of Jesus, 231, 274-275, 374
divorce, 61, 345-350, 357-359; of 	"right person," 357
domination, 10, 125, 189, 230, 299
donkey, entrance of Jesus into 	Jerusalem on, 20.  See also 	"Jerusalem, entry into"
double-or-nothing, 92
doubts, 247
draft, the, 302
dual loyalty (church and state), 210, 	222
early Christianity, 192
economic violence, 301-302
Eden, compared to heaven, 294-295
egoism, 61, 113, 190, 199, 204
egoism-altruism dilemma, 190
Eichmann, Adolph, 353
Einstein, Albert, 374, 385
emotional feedback as possible 	verification of moral claims, 275, 	287
empathic identification, 153, 164, 	165, 170, 171
empirical verification and moral 	insight, 267, 279, 280
employees, employers, 251
emptiness, 235
ends and means, 85-87, 113-114, 	125, 156, 164, 201, 220, 223, 227-	229, 246, 250, 251, 280, 381, 389
Engels, Friedrich, 367
epistemological burden: of the use of 	terror, 94-95;	of the use of war, 	94
epistemology, 232, 263-297
eschatology, 59; ethical implications 	of, 157
eternal damnation, 187
eternal life, 236
ethical reductionism, 24
ethnocentrism, 193, 209, 222
Etzioni, Amitai, 89-90
euphemism, 97, 126, 299-336, 303
euthansia, 32
evaluation.  See "judgment"
evil, 121-122, 137, 152, 172, 174, 	249, 250, 258, 271, 295
evolution, 265
example of Jesus, 232, 248
exclude, exclusion, exclusivity, 12, 	119, 189, 191, 196, 198, 207, 208, 	209, 211, 220, 399
exclusive mutual benefit association 	(EMBA), 208, 209, 212, 217, 221
exclusivity, sexual, 366-367
expediency, 386, 389, 391
exile, 51
exploitation, 326
extermination of individuals and 	groups, 203
extortion, 35-36, 66, 128, 402; 	capitalism as legalized variant of, 	321
"eye for an eye," 32, 125, 245

fair share of the killing, 196
fair trial, 134
fairness, 324; as giving or doing the 	most or best that one can, 325-	326, 328
faith, 264, 265, 281
family: as basic unit of society, 337;
	Engels' argument against, 367;
	protection of one's, 36, 194, 206
Family of Humankind, 12-13, 193, 	206-207
fascism, 100
Faustian bargain, 224, 309
fear, 7, 81f, 99, 106, 159, 235, 323, 	388
Feinberg, Joel, 181
First Amendment, 397
flag, U.S., 147-148, 215
"following orders" as euphemism, 	316
following orders, morality of, 105, 	316
force.  See "coercion"
forgiveness, 34, 48, 50, 119, 124, 	153-187, 154, 176, 227, 238, 242, 	246, 248, 249, 250, 255, 261, 286-	287, 335, 403-408
fornication.  See "adultery"
Franklin, Benjamin, 15
"free market" as euphemism, 323
free press: as more than 	"investigative journalism," 393-	398
free will, 258
freedom, as it relates to peace, 403-	408
Fried, Charles, 66
fundamentalism, religious, 278.  See 	also "biblical inerrantism"

Gandhi, Mohandas, ii, 19, 276, 374-	378, 382, 385
Genesis account of creation, 271, 346
gentleness of Jesus, 232
Gethsemane, 29, 123, 230, 253
Gewirth, Alan, 123, 166, 177
Gibbon, Edward, 122
God, 3, 10, 66, 70, 79, 85, 99, 102, 	113, 114, 115, 119, 120, 121, 124, 	131, 137, 142, 144, 150, 152, 155, 	156, 160, 164, 169, 170, 187, 190, 	196, 198, 201, 207, 209, 210, 216, 	222, 227, 231, 232, 237, 240, 241, 	244, 250, 251, 256, 257, 260, 262, 	263, 264, 268, 269, 270, 278, 281, 	290, 291, 300, 302, 331, 334, 345, 	347, 352, 353, 354, 359, 368, 369, 	370, 388, 390, 391, 396, 402, 404, 	405, 407; as God of heaven and 	earth, of spiritual and material 	realms, 292; as non-retributive, 	155, 169; as providential, 250, 	255, 256, 260, 310, 331, 356.  	(See also "God, rule of" below); 	as redemptive, not punitive, 156;
	as retributive, 270-271, 333;
	children of, 193, 198, 201, 202;
	example of, 185; existence of, 	233; faith in, 233;	fear of, 99, 	121, 240, 292; judgment of, 243;
	omnibenevolence of, 176, 227, 	229, 263, 405; omnipotence of, 	14, 71, 227, 255, 263, 294;
	omniscience of, 234, 255, 263;
	rule of, 10, 11, 127, 138, 139, 	140, 144, 145, 254; Spirit of, 101, 	128, 398; thoughts of, 233, 391;
	trust in, 240; 	two conceptions of, 	235; will of, 73, 164, 169, 172, 	173, 203, 204, 234, 235, 236, 239, 	243, 245, 250, 261, 270, 287, 292, 	370, 371 (in sexual pairings, 345, 	350, 371); word of, 7; will of, 73, 	164, 169, 172, 173
God Incarnate, 3, 10, 97, 201-202, 	236, 258, 264, 266, 275, 407
Godfather, the, 402
golden rule, the, 2, 52, 53, 61, 64, 	123, 124, 153-187, 160, 161, 164, 	168, 171, 172, 174, 176, 177, 184, 	189; as ethical abolute, 163;
	corollaries of, 162-164, 179;
	procedural interpretation of, 153;
	substantive interpretation of, 153. 	See also "agápe"
Good, the, 268
good will, 5, 23, 174, 268, 289
goods, inherent, 171, 174
grace, divine, 236
greed and capitalism, 323
Greek political theory, 44, 61
Greek texts (of Bible), 27, 241
group egoism, 204-205
grudges, 289
guilty, saving the, 39

Hanoi, 121
"hard cases," 22, 167, 184, 390
Hare, R. M., 123, 166, 177
heaven, 138, 157, 293-295, 368;
	as final, irreversible triumph over 	temptation, 293
hedonism, psychological, 391
hell, 122, 187, 290
"heroes" (military) as euphemism, 	313
hierarchy, 10, 59, 189, 280
High Priest.  See "Caiaphas"
Hillel, Rabbi, 177
history, lessons of, 266, 267;
	impossibility of historical proof of 	the justness of war, 266-267
Hitler, 21, 82, 99, 100, 119, 200, 	254; as child of God, 200
Hobbes, Thomas, 141, 149, 179, 208, 	387
Hobbesian premise of natural conflict 	in utilitarianism, 387
holidays, holy days, 136
Holy Trinity, 256
honoring warriors, 197
Hoover, J. Edgar, 384
hostile disposition, 281
house divided, 7
human nature, 176, 265, 287, 288
human sacrifice, 13, 34, 37
hypocrisy in sexual ethics, 364
hypothetical situation, 185-186

IBM, 83
ideal means, i-ii, 1, 3.  See "ends and 	means"
idealism, ethical, 14, 24, 38, 403
ideas, power of, 299, 390
idolatry, Biblical inerrantism as, 234
ignorance, as prime cause of sin, 154
immigration, 212
impartiality, 324
implied contract, 54
inaction, 184
incarceration, 25, 203, 336
"incendiary fellowship," 130
incomplete knowledge, 259
independence of thought, 234
indifference, 295
individuals: absolute or infinite worth 	of, 13, 50, 134, 164, 175, 186, 	386, 391, 402, 408; versus 	institutions, 13.  See also 	"mathematics of infinite worth"
infantry, 37, 90
Infinite Set of Benign Contingencies, 	260.  See "providence" and "God, 	providential" and "God, rule of"
infinite worth of individuals:  See 	"individuals, absolute or infinite 	worth of"  See also "mathematics 	of infinite worth"
innocence, fall from, 278; regaining 	of, 294-295, 370-371
innocent victims, 89
instinct, survival, 203
institutional stripping, 90
interrogation, 134
intuition, 174, 204, 279, 280, 360, 	360, 365, 366, 370; of "right 	person" in sexual ethics, 360, 365-	366
investigative journalism, 393-398
Invisible Hand, 128, 331
"invulnerable intuitionism," 280
Islamic Jihad, 5, 83, 85
James, book of, 241
jealousy, sexual, 351
Jefferson, Thomas, 280
Jerusalem, entry into, 52, 58, 59, 	125, 229
Jesus, i, ii, 1, 2, 9, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 	23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 37, 	37, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 	51, 52, 53, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 	63, 64, 70, 78, 117, 119, 121, 122, 	123, 124, 127, 132, 141, 146, 154, 	156, 158, 159, 160, 161, 176, 178, 	187, 194, 195, 196, 203, 204, 220, 	229, 230, 231, 232, 236, 241, 242, 	243, 245, 247, 251, 253, 257, 258, 	263, 264, 266, 272, 274, 276, 277, 	292, 307, 331, 334, 343, 345, 347, 	361, 374, 377, 380, 385, 390, 395, 	399, 400, 401; as anarchist, 266;
	as communist, 266; as pacifist, 	266; as political philosopher, ii;
	as radical Jew, 266; example of, 	276
Jesusmobile, 20
Jewish: holocaust, 254;
	nation, 50;	tradition, 44, 177
Jews, 9, 159
jihad.  See "Islamic Jihad"
John, gospel of, 26
Johnson, James Turner, 399-400
Judaism, 138, 237
Judas, 119, 123, 230
judgment, 39, 68, 73, 75, 117, 134, 	157, 192, 203, 207, 243-245, 393, 	394, 395; of groups, 207, 393;
justice, 7, 35, 47, 48, 62, 68, 85, 	119, 	125, 127, 151, 154, 158, 159, 176, 	179, 324, 335; divine, 7
justice as forgiveness, 153-187, 227;
	as mercy, 227
just desert.  See "desert"
"Just War," 1, 2, 5, 8, 25, 29, 37, 38, 	41, 95, 151, 235, 314, 399-400
justifiable punishment,  2
justifiable terror, 94

Kant, Immanuel, 23, 160, 161, 163, 	165, 166, 167, 171, 173, 176, 177, 	183, 267, 268, 269, 270, 332, 334.  	See also "categorical imperative"
kill (or killing) for one's country, 12, 	54, 56, 148, 199, 225
kindness, of Jesus, 232
King, Martin Luther, Jr., ii, 19, 374, 	375, 376, 377, 378, 379, 381, 382, 	383, 384, 385; as activist, 378-79
King James Version, 26, 240
King of the Jews, 59
King of the Proud, 141, 208
Kingdom of Heaven, 116, 117, 123, 	131, 137, 158, 220, 241, 243, 283, 	356
Koiné, 61
Kropotkin, Peter, 11

labor violence, 88
law: coercive, 16, 120; retributive in 	form, 16; retributive machinery of, 	15  
"law and the prophets," 176
Law of Moses.  See "Mosaic Law"
Laws of Athens (personified), 53-55
lawsuits, 245
Lazarus, story of, 330
legal obligation, 43-79, 228
legal reform, 375
legal-rational model of organization, 	bureaucracy as, 307, 311
legalism, 16, 269
Leviathan, 8, 11, 120, 136, 141, 147
lex talionis, 161
limited government, 136
limiting ideal, pacifism as, 184-185
limits, throwing off, 257
Lindblom, Charles, 388-389
litigious society, 16
logos, 187
love, 9, 11, 12, 238; of money, 317.  	See also "agápe"
loving one's enemies, 11, 12, 59, 	162, 192
Lord's Prayer, 241, 249
Luke, gospel of, 28, 46, 63, 164, 242
Luther, Martin, 179-180, 231, 255, 	400
lying as coercion, 302-303

Madison, James,  15, 120, 121, 310
Malcolm X, 377
Mammon, 137
Manichean heresy, 101
manipulation, 278
market, 128
Marine Corps.  See "U.S. Marine 	Corps"
Mark, gospel of, 242
marriage, 19, 337-371, 360, 369;
	as contract, 349; as made in 	heaven, 338
Marshall, Alfred (translator), 27
Marx, Karl, 289, 319
Marxism, 103, 324
mate, one right,  338.  See also "right 	person"
mathematics of infinite worth, 402
Matthew (selected quotes from), 9, 	242
means.  See "ends and means"
medieval Christian tradition, 3, 7, 	235, 375
"member," 209
memorial, war, 89, 197, 208
"memorials" as euphemism, 313
Menninger, Karl, 250, 281-282
mental health, 297.  See also 	"Menninger, Karl"
mercy, 227
Merton, Robert K., 278
Messiah, the, 9, 25, 117, 124, 196, 	229, 230, 246, 253, 263, 264, 274, 	277, 384.  See also "Christ"
metaphysical premises, 175, 176, 	227-262
militant, Martin Luther King, Jr. as, 	377
militarism, 20, 22, 33, 81f, 97
military, 30, 76-77, 81f, 96, 97, 163;
	as lowest occupation, 3
"military service" as euphemism, 313
military virus, 98-99
militerrorism, 81-111
minister, "ordained," 132
Mitford, Jessica, 73
mobsters, administrators as, 402
Moffatt translation of Bible, 85
money, value of to Jesus, 390
money changers, 26, 259
monism, ethical, 181
Montgomery bus boycott, 379-381, 	384
Moore, G.E., 392
moral autonomy.  See "autonomy"
moral desert.  See "desert"
moral faculty or insight, 281
moral psychology, 263-297, 280
moral sovereignty, 74
moral suasion, 300, 382, 401
Mosaic Law, 125, 154, 158, 159, 	177, 244, 245, 334, 361
Moses, 125
motivations, 233
motive, 178  
Mount of Transfiguration, 236
movements, pacifist, 286
murder, 32
mutual advantage, 64, 190
mutual benefit association, 129, 199, 	212
mutual obligation, 162
mutual security, 195-196, 198

NASA, 312
nationalism, 103, 191, 193, 199, 206, 	208, 211
natural law, 74, 179, 255, 268, 269, 	287-288, 337, 365, 388; of 	monogamy, 337; of rule (that 	some should rule over others), 269
Navy.  See "U.S. Navy"
Nazi(s), 102, 152
New Testament, 235, 244
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 231, 250, 293
"ninety-nine sheep," parable of, 390.  	See also "individual, absolute 	worth of"
Ninth Amendment, 210
Nixon, Richard, 314
nominal Christianity. See "orthodox 	Christianity"
non-exclusive society, 217-218
non-retributivism, 34, 60, 113, 122, 	123, 124, 127, 140, 153-197, 158, 	159, 161, 165, 176, 177, 179, 181, 	184, 227, 259, 267, 270, 283, 329, 	392, 403-408; on consequentialist 	grounds, iii
non-violent means, 2, 22
non-violent resistance.  See "passive 	resistance"
nuclear: deterrence, 38, 84, 92, 103f, 	122, 123; war, 92; weapons, 16

obligation, 43-79, 210, 227
"offer you can't refuse," 314, 402
office-holding, 127
"official secret" of bureaucratic 	theory, 317
"Old Law," 235, 244, 344-345.  See 	also "Mosaic Law"
Old Testament, 32-33, 207, 271, 272, 	378
omnibenevolence.  See "God"
"opiate of the masses," religion as, 
	289
oppression, 94, 200, 378
order, the problem of, 256.  See also 	"God, rule of" and "God, as 	providential"
orthodox Christianity, 7, 9, 18, 37, 	45, 55, 57, 68, 82, 85, 89, 114, 	117, 133, 139, 159, 219, 220, 221, 	232, 255, 262, 399-400

pacifism, pacifist, ii, 3, 5, 9, 19, 21, 	23, 24, 33, 34, 35, 39, 40, 41, 56, 	76, 81, 87, 97, 100, 135, 142, 143, 	196, 202, 205, 248, 251, 252, 256, 	263, 267, 281, 289, 374, 379, 381, 	399, 403-408; philosophical 	implications of pacifism, 5-6, 403-	408
pacifist polemic, 5
parallel loyalty.  See "dual loyalty"
paramilitary organization, 81f
Parks, Rosa, 379
"partners," as opposed to "mates," 
	348
passive resistance, 375, 378, 379, 385
paternalism, 272
patriarchy, 9
"patriotic duty" as euphemism, 315
patriotism, 191, 199, 202, 213-215, 	216, 222
Paul, 2, 6, 7, 9, 45, 46, 68, 70, 75, 	85, 151, 157, 237, 245, 253-255, 	367, 375, 377, 383, 384, 400, 401
Pauline revisionism, 1
Paulinism, 139
peace, 7, 8, 20, 35, 40, 50, 85, 95, 	117, 119, 124, 280, 403-408; 	through deterrence, 16; through 	military preparedness, 16
"Peace is our profession" as 	euphemism, 312
peaceable disposition, 281
"Peacekeeper missile" as euphemism,  	312
"peace officers" as euphemism, 316
penal reform, 387
penitentiaries, 259
"penitentiary" as euphemism, 336
"people," the, 393-394
Perfect Being, 3, 114
perfect means, 156, 169, 384, 402.  	See "ends and means"
perfect society, imagining (or 	universalizing individual virtue 	from the ideal society), 403
perfectibility, 138, 156, 247, 258, 	373-374, 402
persecution, 254
persons, as having infinite worth.  	See "individual, infinite worth of"
Peter, 124, 185, 195, 206, 276
Phaedo, 49, 51
Pharisees, 237
Phillips, J.B., 273
Pilate, Pontius, 28, 146, 307, 391
Plato, 45, 49, 71, 293
PLO, 83, 105
polemic, 5
police, 91, 92, 95, 163
polis, 61
political theory (philosophy), i, 39, 	50, 119-120, 229-231, 255, 403-	408; as justification of war and 	punishment, 231
polygamy, 337; and exploitation of 	women, 337; polyandry, 337;
	polygyny, 337
Popemobile, allusion to,  20
"positive incentives" as euphemism, 	321
power checking power, 121
power of ideas, 299-300
pragmatism, 179
pre-Satan, 258
president, U.S., 76, 87
priesthoods, 272
Prince of Peace, 3, 11, 29, 85, 101, 	121, 185, 248, 307
prison, visit those in, 57
private property, 252
privilege, 220
profane, 106
protection, protection racket, 35, 189, 	209, 224, 225
Protestantism, 126, 133-134, 179-	180, 220, 221, 314
protests.  See "demonstrations"
Providence, providential rule, 11, 51, 	128, 135, 138, 139, 143, 144, 145, 	187, 250, 255, 256, 260, 310, 338, 	404.  See "Infinite Set of Benign 	Contingencies" and "God, rule of" 	and "God, as providential"
provocation, deliberate, 385
prudential tradition, 16
pseudo-pacifism, 256
psyche, as mind or soul, 297
psychological consequences, 281
psychopathology, 281
public and private morality, 5, 6, 53, 	55, 62, 63, 155, 179, 180
public relations and euphemism, 312
public's right to know, 396
"public servant" as euphemism, 304
punishment, 2, 8, 20, 24, 37, 38, 39, 	53, 73, 85, 120, 124, 125, 159, 	160, 162, 179, 181, 227, 235, 262, 	267, 331-336
purgative nature of repentance, 239

rationalism, 279, 280
rationalist experiment, 2-3, 264
rationality, golden rule as principle of 	165, 169
rationalization, 10, 29, 62, 94, 203, 	254
Rawls, John, 16, 63, 162, 167, 176, 	181, 186, 326, 406
"realism,"  38, 314.  See Realpolitik
Realpolitik, 8, 314, 401, 407
reason, 132, 268, 278, 279, 294
"reciprocal altruism," 190
reciprocity, 61, 63, 64, 113, 162, 	201, 213, 295, 326
redemption of the aggressor, 182, 	378
reductionism, 24
"reflective equilibrium," 406.  See 	also "Rawls, John"
reified morality, 141
relativism, 174, 268, 269
religious freedom, 78
repentance, 25, 169, 236, 238, 239, 	242, 259
Republic, Plato's, 71
resentment, 239, 289, 330
resignation from organization, 32
retaliation, 5, 8, 38, 99, 100, 104, 	123, 151, 159, 162, 166, 181, 407; 	war as routinized, 38.  See also 	"retribution" and "retributivism"
retribution, 5, 6, 7, 8, 35, 85, 113, 	134, 140, 141, 154, 166, 168, 181, 	227, 239, 242, 270, 327, 335.  See 	also "retributivism"
"retributive in form," law as, 181.  	See also "Rawls, John"
retributivism, 63, 64, 65, 128, 139, 	158, 159, 161, 177, 245, 246, 261, 	285, 331-336, 355, 387, 395.  See 	also "retribution"
returning good for evil, 187, 193, 	206, 231; as "madness," 231
revenge.  See "vengeance"
revisionist Christianity, 6
revolution, 88
Revolutionary War, 88
rewards and punishments, 321-322
right, the Christian, 151
right judgment, 67-69
"right of self-defense," 202-203, 205
right person, 337-371, 345-350, 353, 	360, 364, 368-370; epistemologi-
	cal problem of identifying, 364
"right to do wrong," a, 203
rights, 72-73, 78, 101, 210
Romans, chapter thirteen, 2, 6, 44, 	55, 68, 69, 70, 75, 85, 151, 245, 	254
Rome, fall of, 25, 122, 133
rule, 125, 135, 140
rule of law, 120, 158, 311
rule utilitarianism, 186

sacrifice, 183, 195, 203, 237, 246, 	247, 408
Saducees, on marriage and the 	resurrection, 361-362
salvation, 222, 230, 237, 240, 261, 	302
sanity of Jesus, 275
Satan, 258
"satisficing," 388
science and religion, 272-273
SDS, 82, 83
secular concept of obligation, 44
secular humanism, 15
secular reduction of Christian ethics,  	157, 176, 229, 230, 232
secular: authority, 58; law, 62; 	power, 7; rulers, 6, 230, 251-252
self-defense, 101, 123, 202-203, 205, 	245, 246, 336
self-esteem, 284, 288
self-evident truth, 279
self-government, self-rule, 66, 248
Sermon on the Mount, 8, 53, 63, 	116, 117, 163, 164, 208, 241, 244, 	357, 361
serve, 125
sexual ethics, 337-371; and study of 	pacifism, 337-338, 371
sexual revolution, 338-345
sexuality, 269, 337-371; and 	emotional well-being, 341; and 	evolutionary theory, 340; and 	God's will, 341, 353, 356; and the 	merging of selves, persons, 369; 	and the resurrection, 354; as end 	or purpose of creation, 346; 	reverence for, 340; sacredness of, 	343
"service, military" as euphemism, 	313
shalom, 85
"shaming" versus "humiliating" (in 	M. L. King's thought), 383
Sidgwick, Henry, 392
significance of Christianity, 86.  See 	also "orthodox Christianity" 
silence of Jesus, 47, 146, 307
Simon, Herbert, 388
sin, 154, 240, 250, 258; and absence 	of natural affection, 371;	ultimate 	and irreversible triumph over, 157, 	258; unrepented, and mental ill-
	ness, 281-282, 296, 371
Sixties, the, 285
slaves, 70
Smart, J.J.C., 386
social and political theory.  See 	"political theory" 
social contract.  See "contract"
social control, 299-336
Social Darwinism, 341
socialism: Christian foundations of, 	320; maxim of, 325-328; versus 	capitalism, 317-331
society versus the state, 45
society without force, a, 310-311
Socrates, 19, 46, 47, 48, 49, 51, 52, 	53, 56, 57, 60, 62, 64, 177, 200, 	276
Socratic view of legal obligation, 43
soldiers, 91, 92, 401
Son of God.  See "God Incarnate"
southern culture, 107-111
sovereignty, moral, 32, 146, 228
Soviet Union, 93
speculative theoretical experiment, 3
Spirit, spiritual, 114, 123, 233, 238, 	239, 241, 250, 256, 294, 347, 394, 	398
Spirit of Truth, the Holy, 300
spiritual health, 297
state, the coercive, 1, 5-41, 65, 79, 	113-114, 115, 116, 124, 127, 129-	30, 135, 142, 143, 145, 147, 189-	225, 227, 251, 254, 267, 270, 303, 	390; as God, 55, 209, 210; as god 	of retribution, 12;	as organized 	crime, 224-225; divinely-ordained, 	1, 2, 5-6, 7, 8, 68, 119; officers 	of, 35; personified, 24
statist conception of society, 45, 149
Stephen, story of, 286-287
strong versus weak premises, 176, 	264
suffering of the innocent, the, 271
"supernatural selection,"  342
superpowers' sins of omission, 17
supererogation, 161, 224
survival instinct, 203
suspicious disposition, 281
Swiss war resister, Albert Einstein's 	words to, 385
sword, 29, 124, 148, 230, 401

Taoism, 177
taxes, 45, 127, 141
teleological ethics, 106, 164, 172, 	173, 186, 267, 393.  See also 	"utilitarianism"
telos, the divine, 287
temptation of Christ, 54, 276, 277
temptation, ultimate victory over, 157
terror, 6, 7, 81, 111
terrorism, 81-111, 88, 96, 103, 123, 	256 
theistic premises, 190
theocracy, 10, 135, 138, 139
theology, 227-262, 403-408;
	ethical implications of, 157
theoretical experiment, speculative, 	2-3, 264
Thomism, 138
Thompson, Victor, 388
Thrasymachus, 71
threat, i, 1, 6, 8, 20, 66, 101, 278, 	299
toleration, 218
translators, errors by, 240-241
transnational community or society  	50, 191, 217, 267
treason, 9, 12, 26, 40, 140, 205
"trickle-down" theory, 331
Trinity, Holy.  See "Holy Trinity"
trinkets, 91
Trueblood, Elton, 130
Truman, Harry, 315
truth, 239, 279, 294, 391
"turn the other cheek," 33, 101, 116-	117, 162, 166
"Two Concepts of Rules," 181, 186

un-Americanism, 98
unconditional altruism, benevolence, 	or love  61, 64, 124, 153, 162, 	168, 191, 194, 202, 227.  See 	"agápe"
unconditional forgiveness, 242
United States, 88, 121, 122, 123, 	135; Air Force, 20, 82, 97, 103, 	215, 216, 312; Army, 97; Marine 	Corps, 97, 208; Navy, 97
"Universal Code of Military Justice" 	as euphemism, 316
universal goods, 170
universal values, 219
universality, 160-161, 209
universalizability, 172, 201
unrepented sin, 281-282.  See also 	"sin" and "Menninger, Karl"
utilitarianism, 94, 165, 166, 167, 173, 	178, 179, 183, 186, 260, 267, 289, 	385-395; and sexual ethics, 353-	354
utilitarian-deterrence conception, 99
utilitarian-retributivist debate, as false 	dilemma, 387-389
utopia, 35

"value-neutral" bureaucracy, 311
veiled retributivism, 178-179
"velvet glove" of euphemism, 304
vengeance, 5, 70, 239-240
veterans, 197, 208
victims, 89
Vietnam, lessons of, 266-267
vindictiveness, 289-291.  See also 	"vengeance" and "retribution"
violence, 1, 6, 7, 39, 57, 66, 95, 113, 	114, 119, 127, 140, 230, 256, 386, 	390; justification for, 29; 	organizational, 299-309; 	routinized, 23; state monopoly on, 	6; threat of, 299; veiled, 299-336
virginity.  See "chastity"
virtue, 159, 244
voluntarism, voluntaristic society, 13, 	56, 137
voluntary socialism, 319
von Clausewitz.  See "Clausewitz"
voting, 127
vows, marriage or wedding, 362
vulnerability of the Messiah, 246

war, 8, 21, 37, 38, 39, 55, 73, 85, 92, 	95, 101, 125, 159, 160, 198, 227, 	262, 267, 299, 314, 388, 394, 401; 	three types of, 300-302.  See also 	"just war"
warrior, Messiah as, 9
weak premises, 176, 261
Weber, Max, 159, 301, 311
Weathermen, the, 81
wedding versus marriage, 360
Weiss, Paul, 123, 177
widowhood and marriage, 361-362
widow's mite, parable of, 330
Wildavsky, Aaron, 388
will of God.  See "God, will of"
will, free, 281
wisdom, final triumph of (over sin), 	293 
wisdom, Jesus' increase in, 154, 158, 	237, 242-243, 259
Wise Men, the, 57
wives, injunction to obey husbands, 	70  
Wolff, Robert Paul, 67
world state, 253
worth.  See "individual, absolute 	worth of"
"wrath of God," 89

X, Malcolm.  See "Malcolm X"

Zarathustra,  250