“Holy War” in the Light of Thomas Aquinas’ Concept of “Bellum Iustum” (original) (raw)

The Ethics of War up to Thomas Aquinas

Oxford Handbooks Online, 2015

This chapter explores major developments in concepts of justified warfare and norms of military conduct over nearly 2,000 years. From at least the first millennium BC, ideas about the justice of war and customary norms regulating combat were developed by Western societies. Throughout the ancient and medieval worlds, war was subjected to varying degrees of ethical analysis, as well as being influenced by social pragmatism. Examining a variety of evidence, this chapter argues that the two branches of just war doctrine, jus ad bellum and jus in bello, developed hand-in-hand and should be seen as an integrated whole. This intermingling of jus ad bellum and jus in bello concerns produced a sophisticated and complex body of ethical thought about war—embodied in the systematic analysis of medieval canon lawyers and theologians—and ultimately provided the essential building blocks for modern just war doctrine.

The Double Effect Doctrine in Thomas Aquinas' Just War

Mirabilia Journal 31 (2), 2020

Abstract. The use of war to expand the limits of Christianity or the limits of the power of the Christian Church was, from an early age, regular. This theme, which over the centuries has been the subject of intense debates among intellectuals who tried to justify the morality of this war or, by contrast, served to develop various attacks on the Church, is the focus of the present work. In this way, we seek to understand here the development of the concept of just war in St. Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologiae, it's way of justifying the use of war, the moments when its use is legitimate, the applicability of the Double Effect Doctrine in this concept and also the influence that his thought exercised on chronologically closer thinkers, but also contemporary philosophy, using to this purpose, the work of Elizabeth Anscombe, a striking figure in twentieth-century philosophy, to understand the pertinence of the medieval theologian thought in this matter.

On the Use and Definition of the Term "Holy War"

Journal of Religion and Violence, 2015

After decades of discussion, historians have not yet managed to come to a generally accepted definition of the term “holy war.” There are several points of view, which can be classified into five groups: 1. the understanding of “holy war” as a war in which religion has the function of a specific cause; 2. critics of this position who fail to provide their own concise definition of “holy war”; 3. those who see holy wars from the perspective of just war theory; 4. others who define “holy war” as a war fought in the service of the Papacy; and, finally, 5. all those who seem to assume that a consensus about the meaning of this term already exists. In this article, the author’s definition, elaborated in a monograph on the significance of war in medieval Spain, is briefly presented. The Iberian Visigothic and Asturian-Leonese examples demonstrate that the author’s definition is suitable for explaining contemporaries’ ideas about the significance of war within the then-existing cosmovision. The author shows that the Iberian circumstances seem to be quite similar to the almost-simultaneous Byzantine understanding of war. Accordingly, some scholars on Byzantine warfare come to more or less to the same conclusion as proposed in this article and have had to face the same objections of their fellow scholars.

The Catholic Presumption against War Revisited

International Relations, 2020

One of the most contested arguments in contemporary just war thinking has been the question of the right starting point of analysis. On one side of the argument, one finds Catholic Church officials who argue for a ‘presumption against war’ as jumping-off point. On the other, one encounters critics of that position, led by James Turner Johnson, who defend a ‘presumption against injustice’ as the correct point of entry. Interestingly, both sides refer to St Thomas Aquinas, the key figure in the systematisation of the classical just war, as giving support to their respective position. While Johnson was vindicated as far as Aquinas’s historical starting point is concerned, debate about the contemporary purchase of the presumption against war has continued until the present day. Historical just war thinkers like Johnson have criticised the Church not only for turning the logic of the just war tradition on its head by reversing the inherited hierarchy between the so-called deontological and prudential criteria, but have also questioned the empirical evidence that has put the Church on this trajectory. In this article, I explain how the debate about the presumption against war continues to be relevant by engaging with the general direction the Catholic Church has taken up until Pope Francis and by investigating the particular example of its position on drone warfare. I point out that while the presumption against war runs counter to what Aquinas wrote during his days, Thomistic virtue ethics is generally open to development. The Church may thus claim a Thomistic patrimony in advocating for a presumption against war, but, as I demonstrate, the just war thinking that results, often referred to as modern-war pacifism, struggles to address important moral issues raised by contemporary warfare.

• "Holy war" in Byzantium twenty years later: a question of term definition and interpretation, in: J. Koder, I. Stouraitis (ed.), Byzantine war ideology between Roman imperial concept and Christian religion, Akten des Internationalen Symposiums (Wien 19.-21. Mai 2011), Wien 2012, pp. 121-132

The issue of the existence of an ideology of holy war in Byzantium has been the subject of debate since 1991, when my monograph, examining the relevant problem, was published. The detailed study of the Byzantine sources (4th - 12th centuries) resulted in the conclusion that Byzantium conducted a series of wars, the common feature of which was the emphasis put on the religious element, accompanied by certain specific characteristics. These wars – compared to those of Western Christendom and Islam – showed similarities with the latter, regarding their mentality and ways of propagation, while on the other hand there were differences in certain of their basic features. It was, thus, concluded that in Byzantium a special kind of war was conducted, quite similar to the above mentioned holy wars, though not identical to them. Since the term holy war was thought of, and still is, as the proper one for the crusade and jihad, a Byzantine war bearing the major part of their features should be also called a “holy war” (the brackets indicating the absence of identification despite the lack of some characteristics that have been considered as essential ones and the existence of certain other particular features. Views opposed to such a definition (which has been also supported by the thorough study of Tia Kolbaba) were based either upon an interpretation of the Byzantine conception of just war (Angeliki Laiou) identifying it with imperial war (G.-T. Dennis, N. Oikonomides) and of the text of the Eucharist, the main Divine Liturgy (R. Taft), or – recently – upon an attempt to present as dominant ideology in Byzantium, on the one hand the absolute rejection of killing in war as Devil’s work and, on the other, the notion of establishing peace within the former (4th century) boundaries of the Roman Empire, and a demand to set quite clear distinguishing limits between a just and a holy war (I. Stouraitis). Since, in my opinion, such clear-cut lines do not exist – and this is exactly the main reason, among others, for the misunderstanding of the proposed existence of a “holy war” notion in Byzantium – one should proceed to a new discussion on the definition of the term holy war, of its relation to and interaction with the term just war in the medieval Christian society (Eastern and Western, but especially the former) and to its interpretation in order to get at a lucid conclusion at last in respect of the meaning of “holy war” in Byzantium.