MTS Thesis Proposal

Academic

Sep 3

By Vow and Virtue Alike; A Narrative Challenge to Just War Propositions

Thesis Proposal for Logan Mehl-Laituri

Duke Divinity, MTS ’13

War in Western Christian traditions was thought to be understood as a moral quandary, answered by applying various criteria from what is called “just war.” Such criteria might include that a war be entered only as a last resort, declared by a legitimate authority, and that the protection of noncombatants be secured without qualification. Some distinction has been made between criteria prior to war and within war, further formulaicizing the political expression we call war.

But there is another stream of tradition that has been left almost entirely out of theological considerations. The movement that has been called variously post-liberal/modern or neo-orthodoxy, has kept central in its focus the narrative nature of not just our faith, but meta-level methods for philosophical and theological consideration. War as a consideration in mainstream situational frameworks has been approached largely as a broader issues directing particulars. But what if we start with the particulars and apply them to the broader concerns of theological inquiry?

In my research, I try to apply narrative frameworks of Christian theological inquiry to reconsider the age-old question of war. Many modern scholars point to Saint Augustine of Hippo as the father of the just war traditions emerging out of the Constantinian era. But if we begin with narrative, Augustine looses considerable credibility. To take propositions that grew from his letters to Boniface and others is to respond to the question of war with just cause, proportionality, or last resort and is a fundamental marker of the modern martial imagination, which has proven profoundly ineffective. Instead, to answer the question of what narratives make the phenomenon of war possible for Christians, theologians must turn instead to the early military martyrs. It is in their lives that the ambiguities of war come into stark clarity; war is not about proportionality, just cause, or right intent, it is everywhere and always about widows, orphans, and dismembered bodies.

Martin of Tours proves a more than adequate study in Christian war precisely because he did everything soldiers before him did (refuse either to fight or to worship Caesar), and yet was not martyred. His life forces us to reconsider not only what Christian lives demand when martyrdom is not immediately apparent but also what it means to explore the life of a Christian as a theological treatise. After all, many of the most venerated members of our faith left no writings of their own, including Jesus himself.

Martin helps us to see, as those around him did (including his biographer and friend Sulpitius Severus), that faith is by vow and virtue alike. Making propositions and claims and creeds certainly has its value, but alone “it is not enough,” as Cardinal Jacopo Sadoleto said of Protestant claims in 1539. The vows and propositions we make about faith, as James McClendon would write 400 years later, are made good “only in the living of them.” If that is true, then war is ultimately better understood not through the claims Christians make about it, but the witness Christian lives leave therefor.

For my disserttion, I am exploring whether and to what extent narrative theological frameworks like Martin’s map onto doctrinal propositions of just war traditions and their foundation in Augustine. I begin by gathering historical accounts of Roman context within which the early Church emerged, with particular interest in the Roman military structures and offices. Alongside those readings I try to focus on martyrdom as the witness of a life lived on Christian terms. Martyrdom as (not just the death of, but) the life by which saintly death is made possible, is especially relevant for this project, since for narrative to work in conjunction with just war, the central question must be ‘what narratives constitute a Christian account of war?’