On Wars...and Wars of Ideas | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J. | September 14, 2007
All wars are first fought
out—or, better, argued about--in the mind. Because they are in minds and
not on battlefields these wars are not violent. They can even be friendly. Wars
are not caused by wars. They are caused by ideas. Ideas as such are good. We
could not eliminate ideas that cause wars if we wanted to, though we can
understand why they can be wrong. But we understand this wrongness only with
another idea. The adventure of the mind is to find out which ideas are true.
The adventure goes on all the time. The mind also needs to find what is true in
ideas that are false since no idea exists that does not contain some truth.
The ideas that cause wars
are not initially conceived as militant, but as an understanding of reality.
Even then, they do not cause conflict until put into effect and meet
resistance, ultimately from other ideas. The purpose of war is to establish the
truth or superiority of an idea. Ideas do not always win just because they are
true. One suspects that true ideas often lose. This is why, behind ideas and
their carrying out, lies divine providence, which can bring out the good that
is found in what is otherwise evil. Evil is ultimately to be rejected and punished
when chosen.
Read the entire article...
One of the ideas that the Bin laden view of Islam ignores is the one that is integral to Christianity, the one at the heart of Dignitatis Humanae, namely, the dignity of humanity contained in individual freedom, and in this context, freedom of religion in particular.
The question inevitably distills down to the barest issue of all. How do we maintain a society committed to freedom of thought and religion and at the same time defend that society against an aggressor whose ideas do not include that very freedom? Specifically the question becomes, is it possible to defend freedom in this case without sacrificing it, or severely compromising it? Can we defend against them without becoming them?
That is the issue that nobody wants to face. So they construct the relativist evasion that Fr. Schall points out. And he is absolutely right that we cannot evade the issue indefinitely. I think the longer we evade, the greater the cost if we do decide to defend ourselves. If we capitulate, the cost will be even higher still.
Posted by: LJ | Saturday, September 15, 2007 at 08:15 PM
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know
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Posted by: Bud Montoya | Tuesday, October 09, 2007 at 11:04 PM