In his paper, ‘All Things Considered: Making Moral Sense of the Wars in Ukraine and Gaza’, which he later discussed on the ABC Religion and Ethics Report, Nigel Biggar rightly says that Just War Theory is a good frame for thinking and arguing about the morality of war. Christians, like everyone who wants to think ethically, struggle with questions about war. On the one hand, we are called to be peacemakers, and the central figure of our tradition made no resistance to being unjustly tried, tortured and killed — in fact he criticised his own followers when they attempted to respond violently to his arrest. On the other hand, many of us think that while it might be alright to be a pacifist when I am attacked (as Jesus seems to advocate), it might not be right for me to allow someone else — an innocent child, for example — to be unjustly harmed when I could do something about it. When we magnify that concern to encompass an entire population or people group, we have the moral problem of war.
If we do not take a pacifist position, then it seems Christians have to do two things at once. We have to look at other humans as sacred—as loved and held in existence by God who is the mysterious but loving energy that sustains the universe. At the same time, we have to admit that under the right conditions, these very same humans may be legitimately shot, blown up, burned, injured to the point of unrecognisability, traumatised beyond measure, or killed. It is no wonder that many Christians throughout history have taken this to be an impossible cognitive dissonance, and adopted a purely pacifist position. It is also no wonder that for those of us who do not take the pacifist path, one of the criteria of ‘Just War Theory’ is that violence must be the absolute ‘last resort’. If it is ever the case that we can legitimately commit or support the kinds of horrific violations of other human beings that occur in even the most just of wars, then we had better be sure that these actions are absolutely necessary. Hence Just War Theory says that a war can be justified only if it has a just cause, if it is engaged in for the right reasons, if it is the last resort, if the violence is proportional to the ends to be achieved, and if it is waged by a legitimate authority.
Nigel Biggar describes Israel’s cause in the current war in Gaza as ‘taking military action to defend its people by rendering Hamas incapable of repeating what it did’. What Hamas did was ‘the intentionally and sadistically indiscriminate slaughter of more than 1100 men, women, and children on October 7.’ Biggar claims that ‘in response to such an attack, Israel was fully justified in taking up arms to uproot its malevolent cause.’ It is worth noting that he makes slightly different claims here: ‘rendering Hamas incapable’ is not necessarily the same as ‘uprooting’ them. But we will return to this later.
Biggar’s reasoning is that if Israel has a just cause, and if a certain violent set of actions is necessary to achieve that cause, then no secondary effect of that violence, foreseen or otherwise, can affect the moral character of what Israel does. This is the so-called ‘doctrine of double effect’: ‘a single, deliberate action can have two effects or consequences, a good or permissible one that is intended, and a bad or impermissible one that is unintended but, tragically, unavoidable in the circumstances.’ Biggar concludes that: ‘As for [Israel’s military action in] Gaza, notwithstanding the concerns by some over the convoluted origins of the State of Israel, I believe it to be legitimate.’
Biggar is right about the ‘sadistic and indiscriminate slaughter’ perpetrated by Hamas. If in Australia we sometimes seem to spend a disproportionate amount of time discussing the ethics of Israel’s actions rather than those of Hamas, it might be partly because Hamas holds itself to no standard we can recognise.
But it is worth noting that a cause can be good but not just. To take a trivial example: it is good for me not to be late for my dental appointment. If I am late I may inconvenience others and I may not get the dental care I need. If, due to circumstances beyond my control, the only way I can avoid being late is to drive well over the speed limit and run every single red light between my house and the dentist’s, then the good cause of my being on time is not a just cause. In fact I will have to forfeit this good cause because I cannot achieve it in a just way. The means are not proportionate to my (entirely good) ends.
Biggar notes that this concept of proportionality ‘can mean several different things’ when we use it to think about whether to go to war. It can mean that the benefits of going to war should exceed the costs; but Biggar thinks that ‘such a calculation is usually impossible.’ It can mean that fewer innocent people should be killed than the number we are trying to save; but Biggar notes that ‘the aim of a “just war” is seldom merely to save a certain number of lives, but to create new political conditions where the relevant grave injustice will cease and not easily recur to oppress future generations’ (he gives the example of the war against Hitler, which killed tens of millions of people yet is generally considered just). Given the difficulties in saying what ‘proportionality’ means, Biggar suggests that we should simply ask whether war is ‘a necessary or the most apt means to achieve the goal of overcoming a grave injustice.’
But what does ‘most apt’ mean in this context? When it comes to Gaza, Biggar notes that ‘appalling civilian suffering on a large scale’ is not in itself a sign that Israel has acted ‘disproportionately’; that is, beyond what is necessary to achieve their just cause.
'The evil done on October 7 was reprehensible, as is the reluctance of some in Australia to condemn it. Israel suffered a national trauma. It would be a good thing if Hamas did not exist. But this good cause is not a just cause if it cannot be achieved without perpetrating a greater evil than the one we are hoping to prevent.'
Perhaps; but surely the ‘appalling civilian suffering’ that he is talking about here—men and women smashed to pieces, bodies torn apart by bombs, children bleeding to death in their parents’ arms—must inform our thinking about what is ‘apt’ to achieving even the most just of goals? In describing the doctrine of double effect, Biggar says that ‘the desired consequence or effect is what we intend; the unwanted effect we accept with active reluctance.’ What does ‘active reluctance’ mean, if not a desperate effort to find a way to bring this ‘appalling civilian suffering’ to an end?
Surely one thing that our ‘active reluctance’ should do is prompt us to be relentlessly precise in determining exactly what cause might be considered just in this situation. Israel’s leaders have stated that their goal is the complete destruction of Hamas. We can understand why. The evil done on October 7 was reprehensible, as is the reluctance of some in Australia to condemn it. Israel suffered a national trauma. It would be a good thing if Hamas did not exist. But this good cause is not a just cause if it cannot be achieved without perpetrating a greater evil than the one we are hoping to prevent. Biggar may rightly point out that such a calculation is impossible; but if this is the case, should the default response be violence or restraint? If there is a way of protecting Israel that falls short of the complete destruction of Hamas, then this may be the just cause we are looking for. Certainly a just response to October 7 can involve nothing more than the bare minimum required to reasonably ensure Israel’s security.
Biggar admits that ‘crushing Hamas’s military capability now, while necessary and right, is no complete, long-term solution to the running sore of Palestinian displacement.’ He goes on: ‘It is a practical certainty that, in time, Hamas will rebuild itself, rearm, and strike again. And again. And again.’ If this is the case then the destruction of Hamas, being impossible, cannot justify Israel’s military action. To remove Hamas is a worthy goal. But not every worthy goal can be achieved in a just way.
Many world leaders, including our own in Australia, have affirmed Israel’s right to defend itself. This is correct. Nigel Biggar has noted that this may come at a cost to civilians. This is also correct. But a Christian who understands every human being as loved by God, as well as anyone else who holds that every human being possesses an inviolable dignity, must insist that ‘appalling civilian suffering’ of the kind we are seeing in Gaza (and, for that matter, in Sudan and other places) is never in any final sense acceptable: at the very least, our ‘active reluctance’ must prompt us to insist that one power hold itself to Just War principles, even when the other power refuses to.