Walzer and Resistance, Take Two (Theory)

Let me try again briefly on the question of Walzer, resistance to aggression, and Christian theology of the just war.

Traditional Christian theology of the just war is a doctrine fundamentally about offering a justification before God for having done things that otherwise violate Christian commandments. And because it justifies what is otherwise an exception to natural law, it is also willing to accept that one might not fight - pace Elshtain's argument that war can be a form of Christian love. Even if the theory of the just war is seen as providing a genuine justification for fighting and not merely an excuse, such as necessity or duress, it is still something short of an obligation to fight.

Walzer's notion of resistance is much, much stronger than that, because it comes out of a different sense, that of the obligation to fight for one's rights and the rights of one's political community. As he says at the beginnng of chapter 4, the "wrong that the aggressor commits is to force men and women to risk their lives for the same of their rights ... Groups of citizens respond in different ways to that choice, sometimes surrendering, sometimes fighting, depending on the moral and material condition of their state and army. But they are always justified in fighting, and in most cases, given that harsh choice, fighting is the morally preferred response." (p 51, emphasis added)

It is hard to imagine, that is, the Christian theologian saying as a general matter that "fighting is the morally preferred response." Fighting is permitted, in some circumstances more than others, but "morally preferred"? It is hard to imagine that formulation. (Or is it that hard to imagine? I can actually more easily imagine Augustine or Aquinas saying it, far more than today's American or Anglican bishops, but maybe that is simply because I know, in advance, that they are what George Weigel has called "functional pacifists." Surely it is easy to imagine Niehbur saying exactly this.)

Again, what is the difference? The Christian theologian seems to be saying, under certain circumstances it is permitted - not sinful - to fight. Walzer, however, is instead saying something very strong about the nature of political community, the common life - so strong that he says that the defense of its rights to exist obligates one to fight, if necessary, to protect it. So maybe the difference is less in the view about war than it is a difference about the object of just war theory - individual justification or the political community. (Of course, I am exaggerating the difference here; there is a strong strand of Christian just war theory that also emphasizes the object of just war theory being defense of community. But it seems to me that Walzer has in mind something more narrowly, more secularly focused, on the rights of political communities, than Christian theology does.) Perhaps this is merely to say, no more and no less, that Walzer's theory is not concerned with sin, as such.

I still don't feel I have got this right.