Moral Health #2

Conscience In War; Moral Fragmentation

• “War stamps the soul with an indelible imprint, and makes it its own. The soul that once went to war is forever transformed.” – Tick, p.285
  • Cain had his own ‘imprint,’ but it, like the mark that veterans bear, is not for condemnation, but protection.
    • The curse was to wander, which lasted exactly three verses (v.12 = curse, v.14 = settled in Nod)
    • God’s mark on Cain was a physical manifestation of his promise to protect and defend the first murderer.
  • Knowledge of good and evil heightened exponentially in combat, like we’re eating the fruit of the forbidden tree all over again.
    • Combat brings to stark clarity the overwhelming extent of sin, NOT merely in the world, but particularly in oneself.
• We must be able to call war evil in order for it to be dealt with theologically (evil = not a positive good, sin = active violation of God’s law)
  • War is a limited evil executed with restraint; Just war frameworks depend upon war being called a temporary suspension of peace/ the common good, etc. War is only to restore justice, not for peace.
  •  “Where is God in Iraq/Afghanistan?” The American god of war.
    • Right there pulling the trigger with them; Macho Jesus
    • Absent Without Leave; Derelict Jesus
  • Has god failed his promises to deliver us from the evil of war, failed in promise to protect our lives and those of our battle buddies? Theology says no; God does not fail
    • Both are wrong; God exists despite the presence of evil
• The soldier does not direct the war, and war must not define the soldier, for “The trigger is always part of the gun, not part of the [person]” (Walzer, p.195)
  • Do not make the mistake of assuming the absence of a draft means that moral complicity rests upon soldiers shoulders
    • Economy drives enlistment. Service not a privilege; it’s never having to even consider service (reaping without sowing)
  • Must distinguish between jus ad bellum (before war) and jus in bello (in war)
    • Jus in bello is “a backdrop against which to set one’s own personal war story, for the [soldier] is not [their] own moral universe” and it “liberates the soldier from a narcissistic retreat into the purely private domain of their own feelings”.  (Mahedy, p.128)
  • In combat, time must be carved out in order to reflect, a solemn time to ask forgiveness and say goodbyes. “Compassion must be elicited consciously in warfare.” (Marlantes, p.77)
    • Rituals, like a liturgy. Burying the enemy dead, do not dishonor. Roman Catholic rite of “Mass for the Dead”