“For make no mistake: Evil does
exist in the world”. “Holy War
can ever be a just war.”
President Obama’s or Bush’s
words. Answer Tomorrow!
Last night I checked my computer for the malware the FBI has been keeping from our computers till midnight. I got the green okay, meaning I did not have the virus. To be on the safe side I checked again tonight using the same site but just got the message “Problem Loading.” So I guess I will just need to trust the new super antivirus software I recently put on my computer to do its job.
Trusting in software to do its job sounds strange but that is what we do everyday many times over. There is now talk of cyber warfare like the destructive virus launched on Iran. The two most like igniters of this software ‘war’, Israel and US, are not talking. I guess whoever started this war did not expect it to be detected since once detected the software can be engineered to attack the attackers. The present administration has launched drone warfare with Killer Drones and now cyber warfare. With all the new technology of making war it is easy to understand why people talk of ‘endless war’.
President Obama, Church and Military Leaders as well as politicians often use the Just War Theory to justified killing and making war. The Just War Theory in Christianity was developed by St. Augustine in the 4th century and expanded on by St. Thomas Aquinas in the 12th century. I have heard many arguments using the Just War Theory to justify or not justify our present wars.
When I step back and look at the Just War Theory one obvious fact stands out. The word ‘war’ had a completely different meaning in the 4th and 13th century than he does today. In those times, there were no automatic weapons, missiles, bombs, Apache Helicopters, killer drones, cyber weapons or even guns.
I have learned from my scripture studies that you need to put the scripture words in the historical time, place and culture to really understand the meaning of the words. For example when Jesus was talking about the Kingdom of God he was not using the word ‘Kingdom’ the same way as we would call the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
It seems obvious that war had a complete other meaning than in the 4th or 12th century. War of today is not the war of those times. The just war theory of those times cannot apply to war in our times. My philosophy professor friend of mine said that after the Atomic bomb was used in Japan there was no longer such a thing as a “Just War”. No Just War?
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