Traditional Christians oppose torture based on their understanding of Divine Revelation and centuries of experience learning the corrosive effects torture has on the society that justifies its use.
Traditional conservatives should oppose torture because giving the government power to torture is dangerous. War is a public act and can be judged by the public. There is some level of accountability.
Torture is done in secret and the agency empowered to torture will find itself bound by less accountability.
Only angels could be trusted with the power to torture men in secret, but angels would not do the job of devils.
It might seem odd at first glance, but combat can be moral (under certain circumstances), but torture is not. Killing a man honors his choice to be our foe. Torturing him strips him of his choices and denies him the right to be a man. The man shot in battle dies our foe, which is why we can kill him. The man broken by torture has become our slave and so becomes our concern and an object of a Christian man’s pity.
You can kill a foe, but must be gentle to the broken.
Recently some conservatives have made the argument that torture (including water boarding) can be moral, because in some cases the good that will come of the torture (“saving LA”) outweighs the harm. These conservatives suggest that those opposed to torture argue like pacifists, but such conservatives have missed a critical point.
One cannot torture morally, because civilized men know that torture is an inherently base act.
Aristotle frames this issue well. In his Ethics, he posits his famous “golden mean.” A man should act with moderation, acting neither excessively or defectively. Aristotle knows community living, or politics, is an art and not a science. You cannot be sure most of the time about what is right and so you make your best guess about the outcome of your actions and do the best you can.
Somethings, however, don’t get measure by the golden mean. This actions are so wicked that no man can even consider doing them.
Aristotle does not believe that there is a “moderate” amount of adultery that would be acceptable. With perhaps more faith in education than a modern man can have, the philosopher believes that civilized men will simply know that some actions are inherently base.
A moral man cannot do an inherently base or wicked action under any circumstance and remain moral.
Let me give an extreme example. Suppose intentionally massacring non-combatants would end a war. No moral government would propose such a policy, because intentionally massacring non-combatants would make the cause evil. One cannot save the nation’s soul by first damning it!
My point is simple: everyone (I hope) agrees that there are somethings that cannot be done regardless of the cost. We cannot commit genocide. We cannot condone brutalizing non-combatents.
Torture is one of those actions.
One thing that separates a civilized man from a terrorist is that the cultured man will not do anything to win. Martyrdom would make no sense otherwise. A faith that would not condone a lie to the Romans (“Caesar is Lord!”) to save our mortal lives at the cost of our souls cannot tolerate easy morality that would save our nation at the cost of our innocence.
If torture is inherently base, then prudential arguments in its favor are useless. Unlike war, which can be moral under certain circumstances, torture cannot be moral.
Why?
Here is a simple argument for the inherent immorality of torture from a Christian perspective. First, men are created in the image of God. Second, the image of God entails that men must be allowed freedom in their own minds (“soul liberty”) from coercion from other men. Human civilization can control the actions of a man, but he must be allowed personal integrity.
Not for Christians, the Soviet experience of forcing the guilty to proclaim their guilt.
In a war we can honor our foes humanity and free choice by opposing him, but we cannot “break his will.” We can imprison him, but not fill him with drugs or torture him to destroy his mental integrity.
He has the right to defy us right to fire squad.
Torture takes away his human right to be our enemy by breaking his humanity. I believe waterboarding is torture, because it is designed to destroy the integrity of a man’s choice.
We can bribe a man, we can trick him, we can even kill him, but we must not breach the wall of his personal integrity. In his mind, we must let him remain free to serve his gods as he sees fit.
If this argument is correct, torture is an inherently base act and any “goods” that come of it are irrelevant.
Sadly, Christians learned this the hard way. We were tempted to think some great goods (salvation of souls, saving a kingdom) justified torture. It is blot on our history and a stink in our nostrils to this day. Men who meant well did more harm to the reputation of the church in the eyes of history than any good that might have come of their actions.
Thank God the Church has rejected torture and repented of its use.
Those of us who love America do not wish to see her lower herself to the same error. Patriots hope to see the flag wave for another hundred years and may we do nothing in our time to make future patriots ashamed of our actions.
January 8th, 2010 | 3:10 am | #1
I think it’s important to clearly define exactly what torture is before you condemn it. There are many peace-at-all-costs folks who believe sleep deprivation and loud music are torture. I disagree. I know it’s sometimes necessary to make a detainee uncomfortable and even fearful before he will provide information of intelligence value – information that might lead to the capture of his friends and family. There is a moral limit to what an interrogator should do, but when the lives of my family and friends are at stake I would be sure I’m doing everything within those limits to get the information I need. I would pray and seek council as to where exactly that moral limit is and I would approach the limit with determination if doing so would save their lives. We should pray we are accomplishing God’s will in everything we do, especially if we are at war. We should endeavor to sanctify our work, even if our work is that of an interrogator in war.
January 8th, 2010 | 6:37 am | #2
John, Joe Carter cited this argument of yours in the comments on a torture-related blog at First Thoughts. I responded as follows, but he did not reply. Truly, they are questions for you instead. So I will pose them again, even at the risk of repetition:
The moral justification for killing someone is that they accept the risk? Do you really want to be going down the road of “two consenting adults” in any area of moral theory?
And, since al Qaeda types come from unjust nations where torture is expected for revolutionaries, signing up for the revolution is equivalent to accepting the risk for torture (part of the accepted “rules of engagement”). Do we get a pass on torturing people from these countries because they knew what they were getting into?
January 8th, 2010 | 7:21 am | #3
“Suppose intentionally massacring non-combatants would end a war. No moral government would propose such a policy, because intentionally massacring non-combatants would make the cause evil. One cannot save the nation’s soul by first damning it!”
I agree. And we would call it Hiroshima.
January 8th, 2010 | 8:15 am | #4
War is horrible. People die in war. It is a tragic necessity.
In my opinion, based on my study of the history of the events, the use of the atomic bomb during WW II was entirely appropriate and justified.
January 8th, 2010 | 9:06 am | #5
Joe makes a few fatal turns in the essay (sorry Joe), but I wanted to focus on something specific:
This is sort of a sociological stew here which might tastes good, but it has all kinds of ingredients in it.
Is our goal really to be “civilized”? I thought our goal as Christians was to exceed the demands of the law thereby putting those who want to condemn us by law to shame. Our goal is in this world — from a real savior, and for real people, in the course of history — but not of this world: our goals cannot be realized until the end of all things as they are the final and forever establishment of Christ as king over all things.
Nobody is going to elect Christ. Nobody will be able to refuse his demands in the final account. His beloved will rejoice with him forever, and his enemies will be put under his footstool. And in this we rejoice, we don’t make excuses or apologies.
But that said, what about any government today? What is its purpose? The irony is that the NT tells us this explicitly: the role of government is to punish the evildoer. What kills me about having to say this is that Paul wasn’t referring to a government of, for and by the people when he said that: he was referring to a government which set itself up explicitly as an idol, with an explicit contender with YHVH on the throne.
It was Rome which Paul said was the punisher of the evil-doer, the bane of lawless men. You can “yeah, but” that for 100 pages, but in that fact lies something Joe’s statement, above, overlooks: there is something pre-Christian about the methods of government which may be necessary or proper to enact this charter.
That doesn’t make this role amoral, but it does point us to where the line for judging the government’s actions lie — which is in the decrees of God evident in the creation. Government is not founded on cheap mercy, or airy ideas of “civility”: it is founded on the idea of justice and order, on the idea that some issues are fundamentally evident among men, and that lawless acts are rightly punished but a just authority.
In this respect, we have to see clearly that while an individual person might be a disciple of Christ, the role of government is not the advancement of discipleship. It is not an inherently-Christian organ. It is a pre-Christian organ of justice and order. When it is inhabited by Christians we may find that we can offer some solace to society which it would not have found on its own — for example, the end of making government a competitor with God for man’s religious affections.
But the role of Government to punish the lawless — under which is its moral right and responsibility to conduct war — does not change. Government’s responsibility is not to rehabilitate the evil-doer, but to punish him.
Surely this is limited in some way by our view of imago dei — which may be another thing the Christian magistrate brings to the table for the good of all men — but it cannot and does not eliminate the function of government to administrate justice.
And I say all that to say this: justice is the end all policies about war must pursue, not civility. War is about the end of civility, when the lawless man says plainly, “I will not,” and those who ought to be protected from him by the law through government take action against him.
In that view of things, punishment is not merely deprivation of liberty. Punishment is the wielding of the sword.
I’d say more, but I have a full calendar today. I hope I can make it back to follow-up later today or tomorrow.
January 8th, 2010 | 10:47 am | #6
But, of course, there is also the God-ordained genocide in the Old Testament we might want to think about before making such sweeping pronouncements such as Mr. Davis has done.
January 8th, 2010 | 10:56 am | #7
Random thoughts.
National discussion of torture often assumes that certain practices (e.g., water boarding) indisputably constitute torture. But as Jeremy mentioned above, torture isn’t clearly and exactly defined. This lack of a definition is fatal for progress in this whole discussion.
“You can kill a foe, but must be gentle to the broken.”
This is ridiculous on its face. To whom is this imperative morally binding upon? It is totally incongruous to engage in war (an activity that in itself signals the breakdown of civility, as F.T. mentioned above) and to after the enemy has been subdued, short of killing, to treat him gently. What constitutes gentle treatment?
And if we fail to achieve sufficiently gentle treatment of captured enemy combatants, does THAT constitute a “breaking of his humanity”? Why or why not? And for that matter, what constitutes being “broken”? It takes more than defeat and capture to break the human spirit.
Whatever gentle treatment is, friends are treated gently, not enemies. Captured enemies mostly certainly should not be treated gently since their capture is still a part of the war effort.
But the fact that enemy combatants aren’t treated gently, doesn’t necessarily mean they are being dehumanized or brutalized.
Why should enemy combatants be treated gently when all of our own service men and women are not for the period of training they pass through? (As an aside, having served in the U. S. military, one of our great failures is in the military training becoming so soft and gentle during the past decades. This is primarliy due to civilian influence, not because the military itself has come to the conclusion that a kinder and gentler training regimen makes it a more effective. Many examples can be given, but that would be more appropriate for another thread).
I’ll end it there.
January 8th, 2010 | 11:20 am | #8
Three thoughts:
While I understand it, I do not support mass bombing of cities as was done with conventional weapons (Germany) and atomic weapons (Japan) in World War II. It can be justified as having killing civilians (non-war workers) as a secondary and unintended effect, but since it was so sure to happen, this justification fails.
Second, torture is well defined by international organizations (and waterboarding is torture according to those groups), but informally for this essay I was thinking of actions that had the intent of breaking the will of the prisoner. The moment a man is captured he is a prisoner and not an enemy combatant.
Frank’s comments miss the point. I am all for punishment, but torture is not punishment. There are also some punishments that a Christian could not mete out. As for “pre-Christian” punishment and the notion of a gentleman, I think Frank should pick up Cicero.
Let’s have a government that at least equals the civility of Cicero.
January 8th, 2010 | 11:30 am | #9
Adam:
A reason for a thing being licit is not to say it is the only reason it is licit.
You say:
“The moral justification for killing someone is that they accept the risk? Do you really want to be going down the road of “two consenting adults” in any area of moral theory?”
I say:
Yes, I do. The fact that an action takes place between two consenting adults removes two ways an action COULD be immoral. The participants are (arguably) free moral agents that have made a decision and competent.
But (for example), it is NOT enough. One could not draft adult, but severely mentally handicapped soldiers.
The fact that nobody consents to torture, training is not designed to break the will of the trainee, is all we need to know to see the action is bad.
It would not be enough (however) to establish that the action is good that a man consented to it.
So to repeat: “Yes, I do want to go there.”
January 8th, 2010 | 11:30 am | #10
Frank:
To clarify: if Roman we must be, then Cicero not Nero.
January 8th, 2010 | 11:32 am | #11
Roberto:
We should treat our prisoners as we wish our prisoners to be treated.
They can be restrained, but deserve basic human rights and dignity. They did not lose their humanity when they became our enemy . . . Christians are after all called to love their enemies.
John Mark
January 8th, 2010 | 11:38 am | #12
Cicero on torture (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text;jsessionid=C7CD635DFC979ED2E541A59F7F806393?doc=Cic.+Sul.+78&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0015):
“Our prosecutor threatens us with the examinations and torture of our slaves; and though we do not suspect that any danger can arise to us from them, yet pain reigns in those tortures; much depends on the nature of every one’s mind, and the fortitude of a person’s body. The inquisitor manages everything; caprice regulates much, hope corrupts them, fear disables them, so that, in the straits in which they are placed, there is but little room left for truth.
Is the life of Publius Sulla, then, to be put to the torture? is it to be examined to see what lust is concealed beneath it? whether any crime is lurking under it, or any cruelty, or any audacity? There will be no mistake in our cause, O judges, no obscurity, if the voice of his whole life, which ought to be of the very greatest weight, is listened to by you.”
It would be a great pity if the followers of Jesus (tortured by bad Romans) would be less civilized in government than the best of the Romans.
January 8th, 2010 | 11:39 am | #13
Though not in favor of mass bombings, my argument does not depend on it. You could justify mass bombings on the grounds that civilians allowed their government to continue . . . but I don’t think that works.
January 8th, 2010 | 12:05 pm | #14
I really wish I didn’t have such a full day today.
Undeveloped bullet-points:
- I’d be careful appealing to Cicero as dear Tully was an idealist about the Republic and a pragmatist when it came to his own self-interest. His exile around 60BC was because he executed those he saw as guilty of treason without a trial — surely this is not the Cicero JMR (whom I wrongly called “Joe” in my original comment; I swear I read Joe Carter’s name in the byline) is appealing to, is it?
- I’d be careful in interpreting Rom 13 and Paul’s broader teachings about government too narrowly either in terms of crime or punishment. I think many people think what JMR is expounding here — “Paul means what I mean by ‘government’.” Paul means those who rule and provide justice through public judgment — without reference to the system which places them there. In that, while we may see it as unjust to do this or that, clearly the Bible (the NT no less) sees it fit to cut off one’s hand rather than to sin and be cast into hell; the Bible sees it as fit that Pilate should judge Jesus; the Bible sees whipping as a suitable punishmient by government.
While I am not calling for a series of reforms to put those back into effect today, I think we could do worse than to reform our ideas of what is and is not a right use of the sword to punish the evil-doer.
- I’d be careful equivoating various acts of war as all the same thing. Army “A” and Army “B” are at war, and “B” captures someone from “A” who has information which will shorten the war by exposing a serious weakness in “A”. What lengths can “B” rightly take to get that information from their prisoner of war?
There are treaty-established rules governing this behavior, right? What if “B” is a UN-approved agency in charge of air safety and “A” is Al-Qaida? What if “B” is Al-Qaida and “A” is the US? Can we really make a moral equivocation to say that everything “B” is forbidden to do is the same in both cases?
There is a lot more to be said here, biut we cannot over-generalize or over-complicate this matter: we must see things for what they are, and not confuse being the church or being a Christian with being a magistrate or a king.
January 8th, 2010 | 12:11 pm | #15
I would never wish to confuse the church with the government.
However, if a Christian finds himself as governor (or king!), he does not get to leave his Christianity at the throne room door.
As for Cicero . . . the fact that a man is inconsistent with his best self is no more argument against admiring his better beliefs than the flaws in any saint make the saint’s good works or ideas bad.
I say: reject the Cicero who did not live up to his ideals and accept the Cicero who did!
January 8th, 2010 | 12:13 pm | #16
We cannot say that “everything A is forbidden to do B is forbidden to do.” I can flirt with my wife, but Frank should not do so.
However, nobody has a right (A or B) to do a thing that is inherently bad. Torture is inherently bad.
Why? It destroys soul liberty by inflicting permanent psychological pain.
January 8th, 2010 | 12:16 pm | #17
I will add that Frank is surely not such a bad reader of texts that he misses the hyperbole of Jesus’ words about cutting off hands to avoid sin.
January 8th, 2010 | 12:22 pm | #18
John, you say:
“The fact that nobody consents to torture, training is not designed to break the will of the trainee, is all we need to know to see the action is bad.”
And I say:
Nobody really consents to being killed in battle, does he? Soldiers accept a risk as part of the job, just as a firefighter accepts a risk. (Soldiers also accept a risk of being tortured–if they know anything at all beyond what the recruiter has told them.) But that’s not the same as agreeing to be killed.
How then is that an explanation for why it can be moral to kill someone but not to torture that person?
January 8th, 2010 | 12:31 pm | #19
JMR:
You have just cut off Cicero from his own hands in order to justify him. Let’s not give lectures about hyperbole when we are having trouble dealing with plain historical facts.
Cicero’s motivations for doing what he did were a direct result of his political reasoning and his idealization of the Republic. Is that really something you’d deny? So how can we say we should adopt the “best Cicero” when he himself sees this as the best of Cicero — the best thing for a man to do to preserve the order of things?
January 8th, 2010 | 12:46 pm | #20
I’m happy to agree with Mr. Turk. And, my history is rusty on Cicero-era Rome, but if I’m not mistaken, Rome seems to have taken a very pragmatic approach to all these issues. It was legendary for its brutal use of force, against any and all, until complete pacification was achieved by means of force. Only in the era of the later and declining Empire did Rome lose the will to use such brutal force.
January 8th, 2010 | 12:48 pm | #21
“Nobody really consents to being killed in battle”
You have not spoken to many of our men and women in uniform, have you? Talk to veterans and they will tell you all about consenting to, and be willing to die, even feeling guilty that they, not the other guy, weren’t killed.
January 8th, 2010 | 12:55 pm | #22
Father Paul,
Wasn’t the glory of Rome that for citizens the government could not do “just anything?” Wasn’t it a weakness (morally) of Rome that it could do so many things we now see as bad? Wasn’t another weakness that the “other” was just someone to be trashed?
I suggest we follow what was best about Rome and expand on it, not go backwards to what they did badly. As for the notion that the late Romans fell because they would not be brutal enough . . . I disagree. Rome fell for many reasons . . . including a refusal of Romans to fight . . . but more torture would not have saved the Empire.
January 8th, 2010 | 12:57 pm | #23
Cicero idealized the Republic, tried to save it, and sometimes used means inconsistent with his ideals. He also (sometimes) acted selfishly.
I agree with Cicero’s ideals (given the politics of the day) and with his pragmatism, but not with all his pragmatic decisions.
January 8th, 2010 | 1:03 pm | #24
“Talk to veterans and they will tell you all about consenting to, and be willing to die, even feeling guilty that they, not the other guy, weren’t killed.”
There are probably a couple of things going on in those kinds of statements, not least of which the horrible psychological trauma that combat would inevitably cause to all but the mentally ill.
I would not on that basis ignore the distinction between being willing to risk of death and consenting to one’s particular death. The requisite consent-to-death that would be required to have any moral force would be on such a level as the German man who advertised over the internet a desire to be killed and eaten: i.e., desire.
And even if that kind of desire existed, I say that it does not change the inherent immorality of torture, or killing.
And as an aside, would your men in uniform really have given their lives, but held back from being tortured? I doubt it. Trying to find some theoretical system in which killing someone is moral while torturing them is not, is bound to lead one to all sorts of such ridiculous conclusions.
January 8th, 2010 | 1:06 pm | #25
To die is not wholly bad this side of Heaven. We will all die and under certain circumstances it is moral for the state to hasten this process (in my opinion).
To torture is, however, wholly a bad thing for men to do. We are not worthy of it . . . as it dishonors God (in His Image in the man).
To put it another way: you can kill a man in battle as a Christian, but then are forbidden to desecrate his corpse. Not for us the revenge of Achilles on the body of Hector!
January 8th, 2010 | 1:08 pm | #26
JMR –
If this were the White Horse Inn, the word “gnostic” would be about 30 seconds from deployment for the over-idealization you are trying to advance.
Cicero wasn’t a pascific of any stripe, and didn’t hardly think the government should walk around with its hands tied when it was taking action against lawlessness or even dissent. But his view of the law resembles the ancient 12 tables of Rome — which has extraordinarily-severe punishments listed for all manner of crimes, and even codifies the judgment of death upon a seriously-deformed child.
The longer we talk about Tully, the more-obvious it will become that even at its most “civilized”, we would see it as crude and severe — but Paul plainly said its right to execute justice was declared by God.
January 8th, 2010 | 1:21 pm | #27
Our own soldiers in training are routinely deprived of oxygen for a period of time long enough for them to be gasping for breath choking and vomitting mucous from their throats and noses. And if they don’t do it to the satisfaction of their superiors, they have to endure that ordeal again. This oxygen deprivation certainly deprives them of their human rights and dignity. Don’t we all have the right to breathe? Continuously? And being subjected to an exercise that affects their bodily functions such that their mucuous membranes over-secrete to the point of vomitting deprives them of their dignity, doesn’t it?
These training exercises MUST, at least in spirit, violate international organizations’ standards for the treatment of soldiers.
January 8th, 2010 | 1:22 pm | #28
“To die is not wholly bad this side of Heaven. We will all die and under certain circumstances it is moral for the state to hasten this process (in my opinion). To torture is, however, wholly a bad thing for men to do. We are not worthy of it . . . as it dishonors God (in His Image in the man). ”
It’s not clear whether you realize that you’ve switched between the passive and active here. Neither dying, being killed, nor being tortured are wholly bad. (There are martyrs, for instance.) Killing and torturing are wholly bad actions for men to do. The two statements have no bearing on one another. Of course it isn’t morally wrong to be acted upon by someone without one’s consent.
January 8th, 2010 | 1:22 pm | #29
I prefer to think of this as the Bird and Baby not the White Horse Inn.
We are guided by our ideals, but live in the “real world.” This means accepting that nobody (including our leaders) are perfect and that they can make bad decisions without becoming illegitimate. It means accepting that in practice we will fall short (and may have to fall short) of our ideals due to frailty.
It does not justify intentionally doing an evil and then saying, “Well, I live in the real world.”
You keep confusing Cicero’s philosophy of justice and Roman rule of law with the actual implementation and practice. Romans thought that doing x, y, and z would good and encourage justice. They were wrong.
That does not mean that overthrowing Rome (given the realistic options) would have been better or that their ideals were wrong. God gave Rome the right to execute justice. Sometimes they did it well, sometimes badly. A citizen at the time had to recognize that doing it badly did not give him the right (as an individual) to revolt. It did not mean he had to commend crucifixion and other tortures.
January 8th, 2010 | 1:28 pm | #30
To torture another man is always bad. To kill him: no.
Adam: you can think of many examples where it is licit to kill a man.
January 8th, 2010 | 1:30 pm | #31
Roberto:
No. These exercises are entered into by our troops (blessings on them!) willingly to prepare them for war.
Surely you can see a moral difference between voluntary suffering and involuntary suffering?
January 8th, 2010 | 1:31 pm | #32
I should add that I am not a pacifist. I don’t think the state killing a man is always wrong. In some rare cases, I don’t think it wrong for individuals.
If a man breaks into my home to kill my wife and kids, I would be justified in using lethal force (if I had no other choice), but not then justified to mutilate his body.
A gentleman can kill, but he cannot maim.
January 8th, 2010 | 3:35 pm | #33
“No. These exercises are entered into by our troops (blessings on them!) willingly to prepare them for war. Surely you can see a moral difference between voluntary suffering and involuntary suffering?”
Correct. So, context matters. It cannot be a vague notion of actions deemed to be dehumanizing deprivation of rights and dignity that the person didn’t look forward to meeting with. All of our new recruits get A LOT more than they bargained for during training.
Not all of it pleasant, much less gentle. Not all of it envisioned by the recruit before he signed the dotted line or took the oath. So, their suffering is both voluntary and involuntary, but in differnt senses.
In the same way, the captured jihadist, for example, will confront a reality (if captured) he may not have envisioned before he took up arms against us. Whatever he experiences during his capture is, therefore, in some sense both voluntary and involuntary.
And that is my point. If certain acts which are deemed to result in the deprivation of basic rights and dignity are called torture, let’s call it torture whether it happens in some sense voluntary or involuntary. I hope and pray our CIA and military personnel aren’t being gentle to any jihadists in custody. But that doesn’t mean I pray or support their torture.
January 8th, 2010 | 3:38 pm | #34
Mr. Reynolds, I think the history of the demise of the Roman Empire is pretty convincing that as long as Rome was willing and actually did exercise brutal force, no matter what, and accepted no compromise, things went pretty well in terms of preserving the Pax Romana.
January 8th, 2010 | 3:40 pm | #35
Mr. Baker, the “moral system” in which war is an evil necessity is a good one, ultimately.
Unless I’m misunderstanding you, and that possibility is quite high, of course, I’m thinking I’m grateful you were not calling the shots, literally, when it came to destroying the Nazi regime.
January 8th, 2010 | 3:45 pm | #36
I would argue that Rome fell through a combination of things like:
1. lack of patriotism
2. failure to spread the Roman vision to new people groups
3. bad economic policies
4. a growth in big government
5. immorality.
6. bad external circumstances.
I don’t think a brutal group with those attributes would have done much better. I will point out that the Eastern Empire in fact survived and did not fall until the Turks . . . and did not fall to Islam as a result of being too nice.
“If only the Byzantines had tortured more folk, Constantinople would still be New Rome” is a good reduction on the general claim that Rome fell by stopping or minimizing the torture of people.
January 8th, 2010 | 3:48 pm | #37
Father Paul,
Most of us agree that we should have destroyed Nazism, but just don’t want to torture Nazis.
January 8th, 2010 | 4:37 pm | #38
Mr. Reynolds,
You frequently contrast killing with maiming a corpse, and assert that we may be justified in one but not the other. How does this bear on torture? One maims a corpse only out of spite. There is no imaginable benefit. One might torture to prevent the murder of innocents, and do so regretfully. Does your argument assume that torture must be spiteful or purposeless? Further, the OT commanded the maiming of living people as punishment for certain crimes. Was this immoral?
Second, you admit that in certain cases it might be permissible to use deadly force as an individual to protect others in immediate harm. Why is it permissible to save others through deadly force, but not through intentional infliction of harm?
January 8th, 2010 | 4:46 pm | #39
If your distinction is based on this …
“Killing a man honors his choice to be our foe. Torturing him strips him of his choices and denies him the right to be a man.”
… it’s hard not to see that killing just as certainly strips a man of his choices and denies him the right to be a man.
January 8th, 2010 | 4:47 pm | #40
Jeff,
One reason Christians don’t maim corpses (or traditionally cremate them) is that we honor the image of God. We do this even when caring for a dead body (in battle) may cost us a great deal. We honor what was a man as a man. A religion that advocates this makes it hard to imagine torturing the captive.
I assume that much torture is spiteful (or strongly so) and that much of it will be purposeless. After all, some people we torture (doing permanent damage) will be innocent, others will know nothing, as torture foe C.S. Lewis pointed out you also never know when to stop with torture. What if you had been just a tad more aggressive? What that have been o.k.? What if they really knew?
We will (of course) sometimes (often?) get good intelligence, but often we will not, but will have done some great evil to a person created in God’s image.
If I can stop an action (x) by doing (y), then it is permissible to do (y) if (y) is a permissible act. (Y), however, might be impermissible in principle, so not open to our choice. Surely Jeff you would agree that (at least in theory) there is some action so gross that a free man or gentleman simply would not consider doing it under any circumstance.
My argument is that “killing” (in certain ways) is not always evil, but that torture always is. Torture is not merely the “infliction of harm,” since killing inflicts harm. It is a particular kind of gratuitous harm that scars (forever) both the victim and the torturer.
January 8th, 2010 | 4:48 pm | #41
If you invade my nation, you chose to risk death. I can kill you and remain the man I am.
You did not choose to risk torture, because torture is not something a good man can do and remain a good man.
January 8th, 2010 | 4:49 pm | #42
Jeff,
I should also add that killing should only be done when it is the only way to restrain an EXTERNAL action. We cannot mess up with the INTERNAL state of a man. We can force him NOT to kill our people, but we should not force him to love us or help us.
January 8th, 2010 | 4:53 pm | #43
I think we would say biblically that killing another person is always wrong and absolutely destroys the image of God in man. Yet it is sometimes justified, and therefore God puts careful boundaries around how killing is legitimately done.
That some torture for pleasure does not mean there is no morally permissible torture anymore than some soldiers’ sadistic delight in killing the enemy makes war inherently unjust.
Having read the memoirs of combat veterans and talked with a few, I think we could just as easily say that even justifiable killing scars forever the soldier. And yet killing in just war is morally acceptable, in spite of the harm to soldiers.
January 8th, 2010 | 4:56 pm | #44
“torture is not something a good man can do and remain a good man.”
Some (Hitchens, for example) have voluntarily undergone waterboarding to demonstrate that it’s wrong. Did those who waterboarded Hitchens corrupt their souls?
January 8th, 2010 | 5:02 pm | #45
“We cannot mess up with the INTERNAL state of a man.”
Yet deception is also foundational to war. Are we not messing up the internal state of men by attempting to misdirect, mislead, confuse, and disorient enemy combat units? Why does intentional deception not scar the actor and the victim, and make the victim unfree?
January 8th, 2010 | 6:08 pm | #46
I am writing a response to JMR for the front page, but I’m a little stunned at how glib he is at summarizing the arguments against him.
“If only the Byzantines had tortured more folk, Constantinople would still be New Rome” is a good reduction on the general claim that Rome fell by stopping or minimizing the torture of people.
As true as that might be, I think Rev. McCain didn’t say anything like that. A guy with a rep like JMR should do better than that when we’re talking about a subject this serious — because forcing your adversaries to undo your false summaries of their psoition dtracts pretty seriously from the actual point.
In other words, if you really don’t believe in torture, start by not torturing my argument against you.
January 8th, 2010 | 6:19 pm | #47
Jeff,
For the same reason that somebody attempting a seduction is different than someone using a date rape drug.
January 8th, 2010 | 6:20 pm | #48
If Hitchens agreed to do it, then it is not torture . . . and proves nothing. If you get your prisoners to volunteer for torture, you may do as you please (I suppose).
Perhaps however a gentleman would not indulge such a prisoner, but turn from him with disgust.
January 8th, 2010 | 6:31 pm | #49
Frank,
I don’t think Rome fell because it failed to torture enough people. I don’t think more torture would have save the Western Empire. It was not more torture or brutality that saved the Eastern Empire.
That is my point.
John Mark
January 8th, 2010 | 6:57 pm | #50
And yet deception, which is normally condemned in Scripture, would be allowed in warfare (as is killing). Bodily integrity is an important concept tied to the image of God, yet acts which would normally be immoral — such as lying, killing, or even causing lasting psychological and physical harm by gouging out a man’s eyes or burning his flesh — may be morally permissible under very limited and controlled circumstances for very specific reasons (cf. Ecod 21:23-25).
I appreciate your legitimate and sincere concern that we respect others’ bodily integrity and not pollute our own souls. Unfortunately we live in world in which those goals are sometimes impossible to maintain, and we are sometimes sadly required to do what would otherwise be unjustifiable in order to maintain justice and defend the weak and innocent.
January 8th, 2010 | 7:06 pm | #51
biblically that killing another person is always wrong
No, in fact, we must not say that, for it is not Biblical. The Scriptures clearly do allow for killing under certain circumstances. “Murder” is what is forbidden, not killing.
January 8th, 2010 | 7:19 pm | #52
I totally agree with Father Paul . . . I hope he can survive it.
We cannot murder, but killing is licit to the state.
January 8th, 2010 | 7:21 pm | #53
Jeff,
I am more concerned about psychological integrity than bodily integrity.
Deception is, of course, not condemned in Scripture, but bearing false witness is. Killing is not condemned, but murder is.
I think Old Testament law was the best that could be given to an ancient people in the circumstances and given the times. I think it no model (in particulars) for us today.
John Mark
January 8th, 2010 | 7:59 pm | #54
Yes, and just as mutilation is wrong, killing is wrong yet justified and even commanded by God under certain, very limited circumstances.
Deception is not condemned in Scripture? How about Gen 3, 27; Lev 6, 19; Josh 9; Psalm 5, 32, 52, 101; Isa 30; Rom 3; Eph 4; 1 John 4; Rev. 22.
January 8th, 2010 | 8:14 pm | #55
Jeff,
Something can be wrong in one circumstance and not wrong in another. In this category, there are behaviors that are usually good, skipping rocks on a pond, but are sometimes bad, for example skipping rocks on a pond at your little brother. Sometimes an action is almost always wrong, but right under certain circumstances. Being tricky is I think like this . . . mostly bad, but under rare conditions good.
It is not that it is good to be bad in terms of trickiness (which would be a contradiction), but that the reason the behavior is bad does not obtain. Aristotle helps us with this sort of thing.
If all actions were in this category, then torture might be acceptable (like trickiness or rock throwing) in some circumstances. Sadly for advocates, however, there is a moral category for actions that are “always bad” that also exists according to the Bible (and Aristotle!). You can never ever do them.
I think torture fits this category. It is like murder, but not like killing. It is like bearing false witness, but not like trickiness (Rahab the Harlot).
It is always wrong.
You can kill under rare circumstances, but you can never murder.
You can be tricky under rare circumstances, but you cannot deny Christ.
You can deny your parents for a greater good, but you cannot torture.
I have tried to say why.
January 8th, 2010 | 8:15 pm | #56
We accept just war and Paul’s Romans 13 argument about the state wielding the sword, but do we really think about what that means?
Warfare was incredibly brutal and personal. You didn’t pull a trigger or drop a bomb from 10,000 feet. We’re saying that God has authorized and commanded people to stick a sharp piece of metal in someone else’s body until he dies (perhaps days later in the case of battle). That mutilation and violence, while morally repugnant, is understood to be sadly part of the establishment of justice and the prevention of evil in a fallen world.
Here’s a scenario: A GI liberates a concentration camp and finds a Nazi having just pushed the buttons on a control panel that will mix the chemicals to kill two dozens Jews in a gas chamber. The GI can’t rescue the Jews or stop the chemical interaction, but the Nazi can.
I disagree that killing the Nazi by repeatedly stabbing him with his bayonet is moral, while using that bayonet to inflict pain and coerce the Nazi to stop his murdering 24 people is immoral.
I simply am not convinced that we have to respect the psychological integrity of evildoers if we knew with that coercing them with physical and psychological harm would immediately prevent them from murdering innocent people.
January 8th, 2010 | 8:42 pm | #57
You asserted that deception is not condemned in Scripture, while it clearly is. Yet deception can be morally legitimate.
I understand that something can be normally immoral, but legitimate in very limited circumstances. That is, in fact, my point.
I think you’re confusing categories. Talking about “adultery” is not helpful because by definition it is already clearly condemned. Sexual activity is the issue. Scripture gives guidelines to regulate our sexual activity in all kinds of circumstances. Sometimes it’s right, sometimes it’s wrong. Same way with speech or eating or work or any activity.
So saying “murder is immoral, but killing isn’t” is a purely semantic distinction. Taking another person’s life is clearly prohibited. Yet there are guidelines established in Scripture to tell us when killing is justified. Justified killing is war or execution. Unjustified killing is murder. Saying “murder is unjustified” is saying “unjustified killing is unjustified.” In the same way, adultery is illicit sexual activity. “Illicit sexual activity is illicit” isn’t very helpful.
So is the real issue not torture but coercion? May we never coerce others to deny them their psychological freedom to choose? The Bible seems rather ambivalent about slavery, for example, at least as it was regulated in the OT. May we never use coercion to stop someone from doing evil against others? No, we may, because we kill in war execute by justice evildoers, in part to protect them from doing future harm (we kill enemy soldiers who may have never fired a shot, so war can’t just be about punishment but restraint).
So there are in fact situations and actions whereby we can legitimately restrain others in their declared intent to murder innocents. I think we’re agreed here. I am saying that killing someone to prevent a murder seems more serious and morally dangerous than hurting that same person for the same end.
January 9th, 2010 | 7:13 am | #58
“Unless I’m misunderstanding you, and that possibility is quite high, of course, I’m thinking I’m grateful you were not calling the shots, literally, when it came to destroying the Nazi regime.”
In fact I am a pacifist.
What would militant people do without the example of the Nazis? So easy to hate, so fun to kill. Just war theorists and Steven Spielberg should thank their lucky stars that they have such material to work with.
But my only point here is that, of the combinations of moral positions in which one condones/condemns killing, and condones/condemns torture, the only really consistent ones are the systems in which we approve of both or condemn both.
January 9th, 2010 | 7:45 am | #59
Adam, I was not making light of this point. I’m sorry you are. The only “consistent” position is one that maintains the truth. Yours it not a truthful position.
January 9th, 2010 | 10:53 am | #60
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January 9th, 2010 | 2:04 pm | #61
Mr. Shultz,
“You asserted that deception is not condemned in Scripture, while it clearly is. Yet deception can be morally legitimate.”
It seems to me that what you are saying is this: “killing/deception is never allowed by the Bible except when it is allowed by the Bible.”
Perhaps you are missing a distinction between murder and killing in the Scripture. God, the same God who in there is “no variation or shifting shadow” commands his people in the same law to kill and commands them not to murder. Is God being duplicitous or opaque? Or is there more of a nuance between the two then you are allowing? Or, put it this way, how can God “condemn” an action, but look approvingly on it in certain situations?
I think that the case for murder/killing is clearly more distinct than that for deception/lying. I’m not convinced that what Rahab did was not lying, but perhaps that should be saved for another day.
Adam,
Might I ask what gives you the right to be a pacifist? I am not asking lightly. You must have a ground and reason for taking such a position. After all, you are stating not just how YOU would act in any given circumstance, but that violence is NEVER allowable for ANYONE, correct? If someone is trying to rape a young lady on the street, or murder her, do I not have the right to violently end that violence? I have all the admiration in the world for someone who “so far as it depends on [him], live[s] peaceably with all” but would like to know why others are not allowed what seems to be justified violence. Please clarify, if for nothing else than my edification on the pacifist position.
January 9th, 2010 | 10:16 pm | #62
Doug,
Thanks for asking. It’s the typical passages: “Do not resist an evil man.” “Love your enemy and do good to those who persecute you.” Some people believe that you can lovingly kill someone. I do not. (It’s unbelievable the mental gymnastics that pacifism saves you from.)
People will say, “what if… what if… what if…” I don’t know what I would do in that situation, but as a practical matter I would have to trust for the grace of God at that time. (No one says “what if… what if… what if…” when a thirteen-year-old makes an implausible abstinence pledge, but we don’t reject abstinence as a virtue, do we?)
Clearly, there is an attendant belief that it is not the business of Christians to be running the government. I cannot think of the reference, but there is an early Church Father (Iraeneus? Justin?) who, summarizing the relationship of Christians to Rome said something like, “Well, we pay taxes and we use the ships and roads.” I think that’s about the right relationship to have.
January 10th, 2010 | 9:35 am | #63
Paul,
I would rather cheerfully and whimsically proclaim the truth that we are set free from the world’s system of violence, than consent with solemnity and gravity to young men being sent to kill and to die to serve some politician’s politician’s purpose. The message of peace is in itself good news. It is the role of the militant to mask the horror of his position with dignity and aplomb.
Adam
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