A reader pointed me to this interesting post on Pacifism and Just War Theory from Baylor University Philosophy Professor, Alexander Pruss. Interestingly Pruss offers an argument similar to the one I presented at a panel discussion on the ethics of war recently. In this discussion I suggested that traditional Christian Just War Theory follows from [...]
Entries Tagged as 'War Ethics'
Lawful Authority and Just Wars
June 16th, 2011 66 Comments
Tags: Alexander Pruss · Just War · Pacifism · War Ethics
Pacifism, the Bible and the Sin of Selfishness
May 27th, 2011 21 Comments
‘If someone wants something from us and we do not want to give it to them that is the sin of selfishness and the Bible condemns selfishness.’ This was one of the three points a Christian pacifist speaker made in defending his stance at the panel discussion on War Ethics that Matt mentioned in Pacifism and The [...]
Tags: Pacifism · Role of the State · War Ethics
Pacifism and The Golden Rule
May 26th, 2011 10 Comments
Last night I was part of a discussion panel looking at the Ethics of War; I defended classical just war theory. Speaking in defence of pacifism was one of the Waihope three who offered the argument that you cannot use force against an oppressor because of the Golden Rule, typically stated as: ‘do to others [...]
Tags: Golden Rule · Pacifism · Waihope Three · War Ethics
Internationalism is Dead: Boneparte’s Descendants
March 24th, 2011 13 Comments
OK, so we thought that you would want to hear it here first. Internationalism–the idea that nation states are subject to a higher “sovereignty”– is dead. The corpse is rotting. The Libyan “adventure”, called for by the UN, is growing madder than a March Hare. All the problems and faults of internationalism are now clearly [...]
Tags: International Politics · Internationalism · Libya · Muammar Gaddafi · Napoleon Boneparte · United Nations
God and the Genocide of the Canaanites Part III: Two Implications of the Hagiographic Hyperbolic Account
January 16th, 2011 20 Comments
This three-part blog series is a modified version of what I presented to the Evangelical Philosophical Society meeting in November 2010. In a recent Conference at Notre Dame Alvin Plantinga suggested that the commands to wipe out the Canaanites, recorded in the book of Deuteronomy, might be hyperbolic; they should be understood more like how [...]
Tags: Alvin Plantinga · Canaanites · Christopher J H Wright · Genocide · Gordon Wenham · Hagiography · Hermeneutics · Hyperbole · J McConville · J P U Lilley · Joshua · Nicholas Wolterstorff · Old Testament Ethics · Paul Copan
God and the Genocide of the Canaanites Part I: Wolterstorff’s Argument for the Hagiographic Hyperbolic Interpretation
January 7th, 2011 42 Comments
Around this time last year I wrote two posts Joshua and the Genocide of the Canaanites I and Joshua and the Genocide of the Canaanites II. These posts attracted a fair amount of attention and debate. I got offers to publish my ideas in several upcoming books and present them before both the Evangelical Philosophical [...]
Tags: Alvin Plantinga · Canaanites · Genocide · Hagiography · Hermeneutics · Hyperbole · Joshua · Kenneth Kitchen · Nicholas Wolterstorff · Old Testament Ethics · Selection
Commonsense Atheism and the Canaanite Massacre
September 23rd, 2010 25 Comments
Luke Muehlauser at Commonsense Atheism has written a review of my argument on the genocide of the Canaanites (Joshua and the Genocide of the Canaanites Part I and Part II). Luke’s comments are largely positive (and I appreciate that a critic of Theism and Christianity sees merit in my position) he does, however, raise a few issues [...]
Tags: Canaanites · Commonsense Atheism · Genocide · Luke Muehlhauser · Old Testament Ethics · William Lane Craig
Contra Mundum: Did God Command Genocide in the Old Testament?
August 1st, 2010 138 Comments
Perhaps the most perplexing issue facing Christan believers is a series of jarring texts in the Old Testament. After liberating Israel from slavery in Egypt, the Israelites arrived on the edge of the promised land. The book of Deuteronomy records that God then commanded Israel to “destroy totally” the people occupying these regions (the Canaanites); [...]
Tags: Alvin Plantinga · Canaanites · Contra Mundum · Investigate Magazine · James K. Hoffmeier · K Lawson Younger · Kenneth Kitchen · Old Testament Ethics
Inter-Continental Developments: Matt to Speak in the US
July 9th, 2010 19 Comments
When Matt wrote his blog series Joshua and the Genocide of the Canaanites Part I and Part II he had no idea just how far clicking the ‘publish’ button would end up taking him. It turns out that it will be taking him quite far; half-way around the world from Auckland, New Zealand to Atlanta, [...]
Tags: Evangelical Philosophical Society · Evangelical Theological Society · Society of Biblical Literature
Contra Mundum: Pacifism and Just Wars
July 5th, 2011 25 Comments
Comedian Bill Maher recently berated Christians for being hypocrites for supporting military action against terrorists in his “New Rules” segment on the U.S. TV show Real Time (transcript here). Jesus, Maher contended, was a pacifist; “Jesus lays on that hippie stuff pretty thick. He has lines like, “do not repay evil with evil,” and “do [...]
Tags: Bill Maher · Contra Mundum · Investigate Magazine · Just War · Pacifism · War Ethics