Insofar as the need for defense provides a just cause, it does so on the basis of the sovereign’s responsibility to protect order and justice. On the contrary, Thomas makes a greater allowance than Augustine for private self-defense.īut, in the classical just war view, the defense of the common good is the central rationale for just war as a whole. It is not that he does not believe a sovereign has the right to defend his realm against attack. When commenting on just cause, Thomas explicitly lists only recovery of what has been wrongly taken and punishment of evil. It would be insufficient to declare-as positive international law states-simply self-defense, as such, as a just cause. The reason can be most easily seen by examining the first cause. The qualifier in each of these causes-‘innocent,’ ‘wrongly,’ ‘evil’-is crucial. In light of the fall and of human responsibility to maintain the conditions of justice, order, and peace, the fundamental question before us is, “when might just societies have to employ force against those who violate order, justice, and peace?” In response, the just war framework, taking its cue from Thomas Aquinas, envisages three causes: protection of the innocent, recovery of what has been wrongly taken, and the punishment of evil. From that moment onward, stewardship-dominion-has to account for the fact of ongoing human rebellion. I presume it is not a spoiler to observe that humanity did, in fact, rebel. One of those costs is risk, including the risk that human beings might choose not to love God. Love, however, must be freely given or it is not, in fact, love. God made mankind in order that He might love mankind and that mankind might love him. Immediately following the mandate to exercise stewardship is the human refusal to do so. That, of course, is merely part one of the Edenic plotline. Human authority is a vehicle for the proper exercise of stewardship.
Instead, human authority is always marked by responsibility and a participant in Divine Law. Human beings were never meant to simply lord over creation and to bend it arbitrarily toward their will. Some of it, however, is quite plain and can be found in the clause that immediately follows: “Let us make mankind in our image and let him have dominion over all the earth.” Dominion is not domination. God says to Himself, “Let us make mankind in our image.” Precisely what this means is multi-faceted and complex. We see this at the very beginning, in the cradle garden. The previous essay on proper authority took its bearings from the fact that human beings, as human beings, have a divinely appointed responsibility to care about order and justice.
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