"Love your enemies"

The Sermon on the Mount - a guide to world peace?

Im Rahmen der Veranstaltung "The Sermon on the Mount", 03.04.2023

© GualdimG / Wikimedia Commons

As early as the 1980s, there was an initial peak phase in the public debate on peace ethics in the context of the NATO Double-Track Decision of 1979. The theological background to this debate was, in addition to all systematic considerations, above all the central call of the Second Vatican Council to give moral theology (and social ethics) a stronger biblical foundation.

Current events are once again raising such pressing questions. The war in Ukraine makes it clear that our understanding of non-violence and love of our enemies, which we have painstakingly gained on a theological and biblical basis, is extremely fragile. Our parameters, which we had almost taken for granted, no longer seem to fit when war suddenly breaks out in our immediate European neighbourhood and the question of the survival of the population of an entire state and of the state itself demands practical answers that nevertheless urge an ethically based decision.

What does the Sermon on the Mount have to say to us in such challenging contexts? Is it of concrete political and programmatic relevance or can it only have meaning for the private sphere? Is it an indispensable source of political impetus or merely a romantic ideal?

In order to answer these questions, (1.) the significance of the Sermon on the Mount in terms of peace ethics will be analysed in order to then (2.) identify elements of Christian social ethics theory on questions of war and peace and compare this with the results of the biblical considerations. (3.) The focus will then be on the issues of the current war in Ukraine and the significance of the peace ethics debate, which is also based on the New Testament, in order to draw a conclusion at the end with regard to the question posed in the title.

 

The significance of the Sermon on the Mount in terms of peace ethics

The Sermon on the Mount, as the centrepiece of the New Testament and the "Magna Charta" of Christianity, actually speaks of the "greater righteousness" (Mt 5:20), which becomes visible through the actions of Jesus' disciples and is supposed to be more than the fulfilment of the law. Even if a look at reality shows all too clearly that Christian churches and their believers repeatedly fall short of this claim, this in no way diminishes the ethical and moral claim of the Sermon on the Mount. It does not provide hasty and ready-made answers as political concepts or instructions for action, but rather unsettles and remains a thorn in the flesh.

For the current and systematic questions of a Christian ethic of peace, which can be summarised in the key words of non-violence, gentleness and love of enemies, the relevant passages of the Sermon on the Mount will be discussed below.

The commandment of non-violence or the "third way" to peace

One of the central demands of the Sermon on the Mount is that of non-violence in the fifth antithesis: "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, do not resist anyone who harms you, but if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." (Mt 5:38f) This demand means more than passive, defenceless acceptance of evil. "The offering of the left cheek is rather 'the surprising, disarming reaction of the "opponent", which wants to overcome his malice, not him, and bring about a peaceful agreement'" (with reference to Joachim Gnilka, Schockenhoff, p. 468).

The Old Testament law of Talion, which refers to the formula "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth", also articulates the endeavour to de-escalate. In contrast to unlimited revenge, revenge must not exceed the damage caused by the offence. Proportionality is required. While ancient Greco-Roman and Jewish ethics repeatedly call for the toleration of injustice, the content of the 5th antithesis of the Sermon on the Mount clearly goes beyond this in that it demands an active taking of the blame for injustice. The 5th antithesis is therefore about the active mode of disarming surprise: in turning the other cheek, in giving up the whole coat when the opponent wants to take the shirt in the process, and finally in going the extra mile, which means carrying additional burdens on this longer journey. A common feature of these examples is the "disarming reaction" (Schockenhoff, p. 469), which stands in contrast to the expectations of the opponent. According to Schockenhoff, this is the path Jesus himself chose through his voluntary death on the cross, with which he ultimately wanted to win the godless for God.

The decisive factor is not simply to offer no resistance, but the intention is to interrupt the spiral of violence through non-violent resistance to injustice. Because the reaction is unexpected for the opponent, the decisive factor is precisely this moment of irritation, which is intended to make the attacker pause and refrain from violence. What is meant here is not the assumption of the role of victim or martyr, but the hope that the opponent will change their behaviour. In this context, Eberhard Schockenhoff speaks of a "third way" (Schockenhoff, p. 469) to peace, which means neither passive acceptance nor violent revolt, but rather the "paradoxical attempt to prevail over evil in the end without using its means" (Schockenhoff, p. 470).

The same applies to the seventh beatitude of the peacemakers ("Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God"). Mt 5:9): Here, too, we can recognise this "third way": It is not a capitulation to evil that is meant, not an avoidance of conflict, but an active commitment to peace and its restoration.

The praise of gentleness

The praise of gentleness in the third beatitude also refers to an attitude that represents the other side of the coin of non-violence, so to speak. It describes a consistent lifestyle characterised by the renunciation of the use of violence to achieve one's own goals, which represents a middle way (or a third way) between an irascible flare-up and the aforementioned passivity of letting things happen.

The gentleness proclaimed in this beatitude and the renunciation of violence commanded in the antithesis naturally mean, as a first step, that the use of military force is excluded. But there is also a further meaning. It is about the demand for a fundamental attitude, which culminates once again in the commandment to love one's enemies.

The commandment to love your enemy

Jesus' highest commandment is the "supreme demand to love one's enemies" (R. Schnackenburg, Die sittliche Botschaft des Neuen Testaments. Band 1, Neubearbeitung; Freiburg 1986, p. 32), which stands at the end of the series of antitheses and at the same time forms its centre and climax. This is about taking the measure of Jesus, who in his behaviour shows people what God is like.

This requirement does not permit any limitation of validity or restriction of the groups of enemies. The claim to validity of the commandment to love one's enemies is to be read against a universal horizon, which means that it stands in contrast to all particularistic restrictions of the commandment to love, which were or are represented both in Judaism at that time and today. There can also be no limitation of its validity to the private sphere or to the personal, individual enemy, while the political enemy would not be covered by the commandment. This position is particularly prominent in the work of the constitutional law expert Carl Schmitt, for whom it seems clear that this can never refer to the public enemy (hostis), but only to the inimicus. However, if there is a tendency towards universalisation and God's unlimited love and devotion to all people, then a semantic differentiation found in only a few languages is not sufficient to interpret this commandment to love one's enemies in a limiting way. Rather, this commandment, which means the imitation of God's mercy, applies on all levels and in all relationships.

However, this does not mean supporting enemies in their activities against us as individuals or as a people as a whole. That would be diametrically opposed to the justice that is supposed to reign in the kingdom of God. Nor is it about loving the enemy for the sake of the evil he has committed. That would be a complete overreach. Rather, this commandment refers to our common humanity, which also connects us with the enemy (cf. Schockenhoff, p. 477). Here, too, the intention is to bring the enemy to a change of heart, to overcome his malice and ultimately to lead him to take a different path, that of reconciliation.

It is crucial that the love of enemies demanded by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount also implies a public-political dimension from the outset, which also points beyond national borders.

 

War and peace in the perspective of Christian social ethics

If we now ask about the significance of the Sermon on the Mount for the Catholic Church's doctrine of peace, a clear discrepancy can initially be observed. The doctrine of "bellum iustum", of "just war", which has been valid and constantly developed over many centuries, seems to breathe hardly any of the gentleness, the call to renounce violence and the commandment to love one's enemies.

The doctrine of just war

As a prerequisite for this doctrine, it should be borne in mind that it did not seek to legitimise every war morally and legally, but that its aim was to limit the arbitrariness of princes in the justification and conduct of war. The background here was also at least the avoidance of war, even if this by no means corresponds to the idea of peace in the Sermon on the Mount. The criteria for a just war are (1) There needs to be a legitimate authority or lawful force that declares war. (2) There must be a just, i.e. legitimate, reason. Bad motives such as greed, envy, hatred, revenge etc. should be excluded. (3) There must be an appropriate relationship between the damage caused by the injustice and the damage caused and accepted by the war. This is about the proportionality of means, which limits the use of military force to an absolutely necessary minimum. (4) War is the ultima ratio, the last resort to restore lost justice. (5) Finally, there must be a peace perspective. All in all, however, it should be noted that this is not about establishing a long-term and lasting peace order.

In Pope Francis' most recent social encyclical, Fratelli tutti from 2020, a doctrinal development can be seen with regard to this doctrine of just war: Francis refers to the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the doctrine outlined there "of the possibility of legitimate defence by military force" (FT 258), but it is precisely here that he formulates the need to change the doctrine, as it is evident that every form of warlike action is inadmissibly justified on flimsy grounds (cf. FT 258). A second reason for changing the doctrine is the "development of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons" (FT 258). This makes it all too easy for a war to get completely out of control. That is why it is actually impossible today to rely on the classic arguments of the doctrine of just war. "Never again war!" is his clear conclusion!

The doctrine of just peace

The terminology already signals a paradigm shift. Pope Francis does not mention the concept of just peace, but he takes up an essential impulse of this teaching when he proposes in Fratelli tutti that "the money used for weapons and other military expenditure should be used to establish a world fund to put an end to hunger once and for all and to promote the development of the poorest countries" (FT 262).

On the Catholic side, this paradigm shift was already initiated in the encyclical Pacem in terris (1963) by Pope John XXIII, in which human rights were emphasised for a just social order. It then found expression in two pastoral addresses by the German bishops: Justice Creates Peace (1983) and Just Peace (2000). There are also various texts from the Protestant and ecumenical side that develop and systematise the concept.

In his peace ethics, Eberhard Schockenhoff summarises the core elements of the concept in four pillars: (1) Worldwide protection of human rights, promotion of development and poverty reduction, implementation of the international common good and the global perspective of justice and solidarity, (2) Promotion of democracy and development of rule-of-law structures, (3) Economic cooperation, industrialisation and world trade, (4) Expansion of supranational integration. In doing so, important lines must be observed throughout: the fundamental priority of preventing violence, dealing with past conflicts as a precaution against the emergence of new centres of conflict, combating structural causes of violence and the role of civil society actors.

The development and concretisation of this concept of just peace was essentially inspired by pacifism, which was also based on the Bible and was intensively developed in the 1980s, particularly in the context of the NATO Double-Track Decision. With regard to the concept of just peace, the question of the connection to the Sermon on the Mount must now be asked again.

The transferability of core biblical statements to today's issues?

The plural formulation of the demands of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew shows that this is about attitudes that can only be adopted in a community of individuals - perhaps analogous to Friedrich Schiller's statement in William Tell: "The most pious cannot live in peace if the evil neighbour does not like it." The statements and commandments of the Sermon on the Mount are not about individual deeds, but about a lifestyle that primarily concerns the level of individual life. These demands and commandments of the Sermon on the Mount can therefore not simply be transferred to a structural or macro level in a next step. Nevertheless, such a lifestyle of non-violence, gentleness and love of one's enemies must not and cannot remain meaningless for social and political issues. To do so would be to advocate a complete diastasis of personal and public life (as in Carl Schmitt) or "normal" and special Christian life (as found, for example, in the monastic form of existence in the Middle Ages). "A distinction between individual and social ethics is not possible because Jesus' message has the comprehensive kingdom as its goal, i.e. it also concerns human society." (Schnackenburg, p. 123)

Against this background, the following socially and politically relevant conclusions can be derived from the Sermon on the Mount: The greatest possible peaceable attitude is to be adopted; the use of military force is to be avoided against this background. In addition, the peace-ethical commandments of the Sermon on the Mount stand for the "third way" between passive pacifism and violent revolt, i.e. it is not a question of tolerating injustice, but of a disarming reaction that interrupts the spiral of violence.

If we now apply these criteria to the concept of just peace, it becomes clear that it can certainly be read along the lines of the Sermon on the Mount: The crucial point is that the doctrine of just war seeks to curb but not eliminate the use of military force, whereas the concept of just peace pursues a more ambitious goal, namely the ultimate overcoming of violence (cf. Schockenhoff, p. 671). Numerous constitutional, economic and socio-political measures are implied in order to prevent or at least interrupt a spiral of violence. Peace does not only mean the silencing of weapons, but rather a more comprehensive concept whose aim is to spell out the biblical hope for peace and encourage steps that are already possible, even if only fragmentary and provisional (cf. Schockenhoff, p. 515).

 

And the reality of the war in Ukraine?

As early as 1986 - in the aftermath of the heated debate surrounding the NATO Double-Track Decision - the New Testament scholar Rudolf Schnackenburg formulated the tension that has caught up with us again right now, since 24 February 2022, as a dilemma in view of political reality: "Political action must not evade the radical nature of the renunciation of violence demanded by Jesus and yet must consider the risk of threatening the existence of states and peoples through unbridled violence." (Schnackenburg, p. 121)

On the reality-orientated readjustment of Christian peace ethics

This tension, which is once again highly topical, leads to the question in Christian social ethics discourse as to how much the peace ethics considerations of recent years are still worth in view of the new threat scenario. Markus Vogt, for example, notes "a significant gap in the ethical debate" (Christsein in einer fragilen Welt, 2022. Available online at https://www.feinschwarz.net/christsein-in-einer-fragilen-welt, 2), because the questions of peace ethics as security ethics should have been recognised as a topic in their own right.

What do these findings mean? In terms of realpolitik, the German Chancellor spoke of a turning point in his government statement on 27 February 2022, which is also reflected in the fact that Germany has now definitively changed its previous position and is supplying weapons to Ukraine. In terms of argumentation, the justification boils down to Ukraine's ability to defend itself so that it has any chance of survival at all - as individuals and as a state.

"Never again war" or "real pacifism"?

Has the ethical concept of just peace become obsolete with the decision to supply such weapons? Indeed, the idea of pushing back violence through violence goes beyond the original framework of the concept of just peace.

Pope Francis' encyclical Fratelli tutti (2020) contains a clear pacifist position on weapons: in view of the catastrophic humanitarian and ecological consequences of the potential use of nuclear weapons and the fragility of an order built on fear and deterrence, he believes that there is a challenge and a moral and humanitarian duty to completely abolish nuclear weapons (cf. FT 262). With his pacifist rejection of all warfare, as expressed in the three-word phrase "Never again war!", he remains true to the concept of just peace, but this papal view does not stand up to reality (cf. Vogt, p. 3).

On the one hand, it is important to bear in mind that the Pope's concern in Fratelli tutti is for people, for the universal common good and for the collateral damage that war inflicts on people and creation. From the perspective of ethical theory, the statement "Never again war" is a goal, not an instruction for action.

On the other hand, various statements by the Pope also contain specific comments on the war in Ukraine: although he continues to consider arms deliveries immoral, he also emphasises the right of every country to self-defence. Even the pacifist Franz Alt formulates this problem. His answer: "Perhaps we now need a diversion. In the short term, 'creating peace with weapons' in order to achieve the long-term goal of 'creating peace without weapons'. That would be a differentiated pacifism - I call it real pacifism." (Peace is still possible. The power of the Sermon on the Mount, Freiburg 2022, p. 46)

Renaissance of the concept of just war or further development of the concept of just peace?

In the ethical debate, the discussion about the two theoretical approaches of just war and just peace has flared up again, but ultimately it does not amount to a vindication of the earlier just war approach. There is certainly a need to integrate the hitherto underexposed element of necessary self-defence, including with weapons, into the just peace approach, i.e. to develop the approach further with the help of the distinction between the illegitimate and legitimate use of force. Answers must be developed to the current and new challenges, be it the war in Ukraine, humanitarian interventions or the war on terrorism. Arguments in favour of limited acts of war must be integrated into peace-making, but not without keeping peace-building, i.e. the shaping of a longer-term and more comprehensive peace order, in mind. It is never exclusively about military defence and the question of arms supply, but rather also about looking at the time after the war and - in view of the Ukraine war - hopefully also after Putin. The theological peace researcher Heinz-Gerhard Justenhoven rightly emphasises that it is just as crucial to remain in dialogue with Ukrainians and those parts of Russian civil society that reject Putin's war about the common (European) future (see Der Drang nach Freiheit. On the war in Ukraine, in: Herder Korrespondenz 4/2022, Vol. 76, pp. 13-15).

The concept of just peace developed in this way, which also integrates the element of defence with weapons that is committed to political reality, is not to be understood as borrowing from the theory of just war, because the goal from which it is conceived remains that of peace, not the justification of a (defensive) war. It is precisely in this perspective of the goal of peace that there is also an alignment with the Sermon on the Mount and its beatification of those who seek and establish peace. A decisive advance in this further developed concept of just peace is the realisation that the idea of the complete renunciation of the use of force is an ideal in which there can no longer be war. Without wishing to restrict the essence of the statements, the long-term goal of this ideal can be described as a regulative idea, i.e. a normative guiding principle that we as human beings cannot fully realise, but which is nevertheless necessary in order to orientate ourselves towards it.

Once again: the meaning of the Sermon on the Mount in these contexts

The Sermon on the Mount is not a manual for world peace, it is not a recipe book whose individual steps only need to be worked through one after the other in order to achieve world peace almost automatically. However, its impulses and regulative ideas are indispensable when it comes to questions of peace ethics for the modern world. This is because the Jesuit ethic of peace recognises the nature of human beings, who are capable of both bad and good. It has great faith in human beings (cf. Alt, p. 53): namely to be fundamentally ready for peace and reconciliation, to act as non-violently as possible, to always have the courage to take the first step and, last but not least, to never give up hope - in the knowledge that people cannot and do not have to achieve perfection through their own strength and actions, but that much has already been gained if a small step towards peace has been successful (Heribert Prantl once spoke of "small pacifism" in the Süddeutsche Zeitung). The fact that we are also called upon to do everything we can in the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount precisely because of this hope is also part of the message as the other side of the coin!

Ultimately and not least, it is the hope for a justice that transcends our horizons, the hope for eternal peace with and with God.

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