The Philosophical Question of Violence

Violence is part of our fallen nature. If the world were more inclined to seek God’s favor and learn His revelation of how to live in a fallen state, there would still be violence. It cannot be quantified; there’s just something fundamental to the fallen state that makes violence an utter necessity. That’s why Biblical Law has rules about warfare; you cannot escape it even under the best circumstances.

So the question is not whether violence will have a part, but to decide what part violence plays. Not embracing this is by far the single biggest lie Satan has gotten churches into. The idea of “a just peace” is a lie from Hell; it is an artifact of Western mythology. It’s part of the false notion that we can bring Heaven down to this earth. It’s a horrible misreading of what the Model Prayer is trying to say in that line, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” Satan wants people to imagine a sterile and fixed situation in Heaven. He doesn’t want them to see that God tolerates a lot of variables. Sovereignty doesn’t work like they think it does; the ANE model of thinking on this is radically different from the West. There is combat in Heaven, as it were (Daniel 10:13; Revelation 12:7), so it should be the norm here.

Again: This life is not all there is, and certainly is not normative for human existence. However, it is where we are and the only hope for making anything work for us is to embrace Biblical Law. There is a distinct mission here to participate in divine revelation, and the only way to do that is to live by it. Driving forward with that mission of revelation — reflecting God’s glory — is the only reason He delays bringing us Home. The only reason we live is to die with glory, and getting yourself involved in glory typically takes time.

Once you ditch the idea that “peace” is equal to “lack of conflict”, you stand a good chance of understanding your mission better. Conflict is utterly necessary in this life, so the real question is discerning which conflicts are part of your mission. The fallen fleshly mind rejects this answer, just as the fallen mind refuses to admit that it is fallen. And it’s bad religion to promote an end to human conflict, versus promoting conflicts that are consistent with God’s glory.

And for sure, “just war” is not a trademark of the secular state. Nothing in Scripture teaches us that human government has a clue about this; any government not under a Law Covenant is always hopelessly wrong on everything. It cannot possibly do right, except by accident. The problem here is, this whole line of discussion can easily become technically illegal under US legal policy. It’s not actually illegal, but enforcement policy is the issue. The state demands control over all violence, insisting that it and its agents alone are permitted to use violence. The Beast is pretty intolerant on that score. But this is why we have a religious doctrine that violence is wrong — the state promotes bad religion.

This is also why we have so many agents of the state suffering from PTSD. When everyone grows up with that crazy doctrine, and then the state demands they do violence that clearly violates that doctrine, it tends to break stuff inside people’s heads. It’s not a sane situation at all. It doesn’t help much if you realize that the state is lying; that’s not going to fix delusions about what your moral duties are. When you realize that the state is not God, you still need to understand who God is and what He has revealed.

Under Biblical Law in broad general terms, violence is neither the last resort nor the first. There are contexts in which both of those have their place. Rather, violence must obey divine standards as a whole. You cannot make clean and neat rules about it. You have to learn how to handle it from the heart, to become familiar with your own convictions so you’ll know where violence fits into the picture of your own divine calling and mission. What it means for you may not be what it means for someone next to you, but you sin if you don’t walk in your own convictions.

God does call some of His servants to use violence. That’s a part of what it meant when God told King David that he was “a man of blood.” David’s mission was to crush the enemies of the nation, and that was impossible without a whole lot of killing. It wasn’t that warfare somehow stained David with immorality that kept him from being pure enough to build a House for God. You should realize that Solomon engaged in plenty of warfare, himself, completing the job his father started. The issue wasn’t violence, but mission and calling.

Don’t get lost in reflexive condemnation of violence. It has a place in God’s kingdom, even if it has no place in your divine calling. If there is no harsh torment and death of sinners, then revelations of Biblical Law mean nothing. There comes a point when some people in the community have to leave or die. It’s not as if God was unable to reveal some imaginary peaceful image of Himself to the Old Testament barbarians. He’s still the same God; the problem is Satan’s lies incorporated into Western Civilization. We aren’t the definition of “civilized”. Look at how much strife and destruction the West has wreaked or provoked in this world, trying to force non-Western folks to conform. Every civilization in history was just that arrogant, so it’s nothing new.

The only question left is whether violence is a part of your divine calling and mission. You are burdened with the task of deciding with whom you’ll fellowship and with whom you will pull in the gospel harness. But you don’t get to define what that gospel harness means for others. Don’t make a doctrine of your individual mission.