Leonard Cheshire on the error of pacifism
Title
Leonard Cheshire on the error of pacifism
Description
Leonard Cheshire talk at St Lawrence Jewry on the error of pacifism. Discusses interrelationship between going to war and Christian faith. Goes on to discuss pacifism, morality, natural and moral law, society development, responsibility and freedom of action. Long discussing on pacifism, Christianity, the right of self-defence. War in the modern world with historical analogy and faith. More on problems of pacifism. Submitted with caption 'Original container labelled "The Error of Pacifism 10.1.79". Leonard Cheshire talking on pacifism, drawing on his own personal experience of war and faith, at St Lawrence Jewry Church in the City of London, part of a series of talks published as a book by Reverend Basil Watson "Peace and the Bomb: St Lawrence Jewry Talks" 1983'. Two versions of the same talk.
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Date
1979-01-10
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Type
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Audio recording 00:43:12
Audio recording 00:42:40
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This content is property of the Leonard Cheshire Archive which has kindly granted the International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive a royalty-free permission to publish it. Please note that it was digitised by a third-party which used technical specifications that may differ from those used by International Bomber Command Centre Digital Archive. It has been published here ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre.
Identifier
SCheshireGL72021v20002-0001,
SCheshireGL72021v20003-0001, SCheshireGL72021v20002-0001-Transcript
SCheshireGL72021v20003-0001, SCheshireGL72021v20002-0001-Transcript
Transcription
Leonard Cheshire Resonate Project
File Title: GLC talk at St Lawrence Jewry on the error of pacifism 10.1.79
Duration: 43:16
Transcription Date: 10/03/20
Archive Number: AV-S_005
Start of Transcription
00:00: Group Captain Leonard Cheshire: Well first I would like to thank my old friend Basil Watson very much indeed for the privilege that he's given me today. There's a side of me that doesn't really thank you because it's bit of a difficult task. But it is a very great privilege for me to be amongst you on this occasion and to open this series.
00:29: I would like – if you would permit me – to suggest that we start by making, each in our own way, a small prayer because we all know that it's impossible to arrive at the truth of a complex and difficult matter except for the help of almighty God. And so perhaps we could just together say a little prayer asking for his guidance.
01:08: Lord Jesus, who did say that when 2 or 3 are gathered together in my name, there am I. Be amongst us today and by the power and strength of your Holy Spirit guide and enlighten our minds, cleanse our hearts from any prejudice or misconceptions and open our minds to see the truth as best we can.
01:53: Now I embark upon this talk with, on the one hand, a sense of urgency, precisely because it is such an important and vital matter to us all as members of the one human family, and on the other hand, with a sense of misgiving because it is a very sensitive, complex question: the use or the non-use of violence to repel attack and aggression. It's an area in which I think certain basic principles may be asserted but an area in which none of us can afford to be too dogmatic. We must set out genuinely wanting to discover the truth, not trying to make a predetermined point. And both sides – if I may put us this way – are in difficulty.
03:11: The Christian who says, 'Yes, there are occasions when I have to go to war' has to ask himself 'How can I reconcile my Christian beliefs in a God of love who has called us to love our fellow men and in loving our fellow men, to love Him... How can we reconcile that with wide-scale killing?'. The pacifist who says that he will renounce all use of violence has then to ask himself 'Can I really reconcile this with my responsibilities as a citizen of this country and also as a citizen of the world community of man?'. Both of us have a very real difficulty to face.
04:19: The first prerequisite in any discussion – particularly on this subject, pacifism – is to be very sure that we acknowledge and respect the sincerity of the other man and of his views. I've many times witnessed what I would call the military man discussing the subject with a pacifist and losing the discussion, the debate because he has failed to make it clear at the outset that he too wants to be a man of peace, that he too is willing to go to extreme lengths to resolve a dispute if possible by peaceful means. And so the debate becomes polarised: one man appearing to say, ‘We must fight whatever the situation’ – which isn't what he means – and the other man saying, 'No, don't let's fight'.
05:37: Now, it is such a wide subject that I… And there is so much to be said that my difficulty is to know what to select and how to get through the essence of it in the time I have. My terms of reference are the error of pacifism. Well now, I don't hold that pacifism is entirely wrong and, equally, pacifism is a very broad, comprehensive term that covers all sorts and shades of opinion and it would be impossible to deal with all of those. There are what I might call negative pacifists who merely say it is wrong to take up arms and take another man's life but substitute no alternative course of action. There are conditional or selective pacifists who say up to a point you may fight but beyond that you may not. There are also, I think, those who merely don't want to get into the firing line. But there are, in addition, those who have thought about it very deeply, believe in all sincerity and in conscience that it is wrong to take up arms and do have an alternative non-violent suggestion to make. And it is to that school of thought that I want to address myself and to that school only.
07:28: In order to do so, I would like very briefly to set the scene, as it were. That is to say, to speak briefly about morality, how is it that we judge what is right and what is wrong, given the fact that we belong to a nation that has all kinds of religious and non-religious views, let alone the world itself. And also a few words about the war convention as we know it in the contemporary world.
08:17: On the subject of morality, there are two points that I'd like briefly to cover – first, law and then, conscience – because these are crucial to an understanding of how we arrive at what is right and what is wrong. Law, in the ideal sense, is defined as an ordinance of reason made fo r the common good and promulgated by the person or body of persons responsible for the community in question. In this country, that would be Parliament. In the police it would be… I don't know, whoever's the… in charge of the police force. We all recognise and every society from the beginning of prehistory has always made laws, or at least mores, customs to keep society in harmony and to help it attain its end. Those are what we call the positive laws, the man-made laws for what man considers to be the good of his particular society, which may in fact have a bad end and not a good end.
09:48: In addition – though I know there are dissenting… a few dissenting voices –there is what we call the natural law, the moral law, analogous to the physical laws that hold the physical creation in harmony. The difference between the natural law and the positive law is that the natural law arises out of the essential being of man. Ever since the first attempt of the early Greeks to think out and systematise the natural law, man has studied it and worked at it and tried to arrive at a satisfactory, systemised body of laws which he calls the natural law. You might define it as a system of rules of right and honourable conduct accepted by the majority of mankind as applicable to all of us. If you came down to the concrete and said 'What is it?' probably the most we could say – but it's still a lot – is to use the golden rule: do unto others as you would they do unto yourself. At all events, it is a law that upholds and tries to define the dignity of man, that tries to define his rights and his duties and to give them validity in society. We find it most particularly in the contemporary scene in what we would call human rights or civil rights. Man has a feeling that there does exist a body of law quite independent from what society likes to think or conjure up, which applies to us all. Those who believe in the existence of a creator will also see that natural law as having an eternal or divine dimension. The Christian sees it as having a dimension of salvation. It is aimed at bringing us towards our eternal end.
12:40: One thing has to be said about law, though, and that is that it is historical, there is a historicity about it. That it is to say, there isn't a list of dos and don'ts that we can refer to because man lives in history – you might say he is history. He changes, he develops, society changes and develops as steadily we approach our predestined end ordained by almighty God. Therefore, what was right in one historical situation cannot too quickly be stated as a universal law applicable to all future generations. We have to apply general principles to the particular situation in which we find ourselves. And this brings us directly to conscience. Again, there are dissenting voices about the nature of conscience but universal experience tells us that somewhere inside us is a voice or whatever you will that warns us of something that we ought to do or something we ought not to do which gives us a feeling of wellbeing if we've done what we felt was right and a feeling of unease if we've not done it. In other words, each man has to make his own personal decision in the moral field as to what he is going to do. And in making those decisions, he builds himself up as a person or, if you like, he gives a direction to his life.
14:57: There can be no responsibility – and man is a responsible being – without a measure of freedom of action and a knowledge of the implications of that action. Conscience is not a faculty separate to our other faculties. It is a function of the intellect. When faced with a given situation, our conscience comes into play and warns us according to our likes what is right and what is wrong. It is defined by some people as the voice of God in the very depths of our being. The Christian is distinct from members of other religions, sees himself not under a regime of law, of obligation, but under a regime of grace and covenant. That is to say, God calls to us, requires us to do something and we respond or fail to respond. It is a personal, intimate relationship. And the Christian church totally upholds the inviolability of the human conscience. If a man truly feels in conscience he must not take up arms, then his conscience must be upheld. But conscience obviously is not the final arbiter. We have to inform our conscience. We have to learn from other people. I would say as a definition that where there is an honest and upright search for truth and for what is right, where there is a true openness of mind and where, in addition, there is an acceptance of our co-responsibility for the entire human family, there is morality.
17:25: Well now, coming to pacifism itself, to the pacifism that says… that rejects violence or the use of force as a solution to any form of dispute. For a moment we just have to look at pacifism. I'm not qualified to give a complete history and description of the different forms of pacifism. But one can say with truth that except in classical antiquity, there has always been an element of pacifism throughout history. We can also say that there has always been an element of pacifism – a fairly strong one – throughout the history of Christianity. But in practice, in the secular world, pacifism has never been found viable except by a minority group – an elite, you might say – who are dedicated to the fulfilment of their beliefs in this basic principle. We can also say that however continuous the thread of pacifism through Christianity, the church has never condemned war. From the time of St Augustine, the church evolved a doctrine which became known, particularly under the [unclear 19:26], as the Just War. Unfortunately, I think we can say that many Christian states use this doctrine to go to war more or less when they want to. Human practice – as in so many fields – did not really measure up to the theory. I think it is true to say that although the church has asserted that man has the right to self-defense when he really is being attacked, it has done so only reluctantly – as it were, as the last resort. And that really is the difficulty.
20:26: If we look at the contemporary scene and what I would call the war convention – bearing in mind, as I said, that man lives in history and that what we may declare today will not necessarily be right tomorrow – we find that international society, to simplify it, is made up of a number of sovereign states. And those sovereign states are accorded by international agreement certain rights: in particular, the right to territorial integrity and the right to political sovereignty. In other words, the right to determine how they are going to be governed and what kind of life they want to lead. We are permitted – at least I assert that we are permitted – to use what is often called the domestic analogy. This is important that we recognise the validity of the domestic analogy which, in some ways, will operate against the pacifist view but, in one respect at least, will operate in his favour. This means that you equate the sovereign state to a household. We, as members of a country, have the right to be secure in our own houses and to decide how we're going to lead our family life. Fortunately, there is a police force and a whole system of justice to safeguard that right. In international affairs as yet there is no international police force. Therefore, when a country has one of those basic rights violated, it has to become the policeman. I think we can say that it is a fair assumption that built into the natural law is the right of self-defence. At any rate, ever since man has existed he has considered that he has the right to self-defence if there's nobody else to come to his rescue.
23:25: Now, the situation that I want to consider is this: in this modern world, today, what would be our duty if a Hitler – because I have to draw on historical analogies, examples, what else can we draw on? We can't talk about purely hypothetical cases – if today, transposing Hitler 30 years forward, were to embark upon the schemes that he did embark upon in 1937 onwards with the intention of invading us and other European countries, eliminating certain elements of the community like Gypsies, Jews, the helpless and so on, what is our duty? Now, the pacifist says that in this modern age, given modern weapons, the destruction that would be caused in a total war of that kind is so great that you cannot reconcile it with basic Christian teaching or perhaps more precisely with the example that our Lord gave us and His particular teaching. So, we have to ask ourselves, I think, two questions: firstly, is there a fundamental principle of Christianity that forbids us to take another person's life, no matter what the circumstances? I'm talking not of our doing it privately but of the state doing it by decision of its government. I think I have to answer that question quite categorically: no. There is nothing in scripture that unambiguously asserts that we may not take life under any circumstances. To the best of my knowledge, there is only one text that bears directly upon the right to take up arms as a soldier, and that is the incident with St John the Baptist when he was… when he had violently condemned the [unclear 26:41] and people came to ask him what they should do, 'What am I to do?'. The soldiers came, he said, ‘No intimidation, no extortion, be content with your pay’. He did not say, ‘You should not be a soldier’. You may quote against that our Lord's words to Peter who took up the sword to cut off Malchus's ear, but Peter was doing that as a private individual against the authorised police of the state. It was a different situation.
27:27: So we can at least say: number one, that Christians are divided on this point, number two, that the church has never totally condemned all war, that there is no clear statement in scripture that we may not defend ourselves when that defence means taking life. It is argued that the early church, until the time of Constantine when the Roman Empire became Christian, was pacifist. I think, with respect, that is reading more into the history of the situation than is justified. The Christian community was a small community being persecuted and the prohibition that was undoubtedly put on them was not to become a Roman soldier, not to join… not to become a soldier because that was incompatible with Christian doctrine. Leaving aside the fact that the early church could well be over-enthusiastic – as it was with its community sharing scheme – being a Roman soldier meant, amongst other things, Emperor-worship. There were aspects to military service that were not compatible with Christian doctrine. I do not think that we can build a watertight case on the example of the early church.
29:20: If, then – as I feel one is justified in asserting – there is no fundamental principle that forbids us irrespective of the consequences, then we have to take our decision, our moral decision, in the same way that we make every other moral decision in life. We have to consider: one, the dictates of the natural or the Christian law or teaching as we understand it, and on the other, the concrete historical situation with which we are faced. And in that respect we have to work out which is likely to do the greatest harm or which of the two courses open to me will do the most good? Now, how are we going to assess the alternative long-term repercussions of being occupied by a Nazi Germany ruled by Hitler or the loss of life which would be caused by fighting him in the contemporary scene? I think it is very, very difficult for anybody to come up with a cut-and-dried answer to that. If there is doubt about it, we then have to look at the alternative proposal put forward by the pacifist.
31:17: Now, before I do that, remember pacifism is an untried project, activity. It has never been tried anywhere except of course within the non-violent movement context, but those are minority groups operating within a country, of which the most impressive and by far the greatest and the most systematised was that of Gandhi. But Gandhi was operating within the confines of the then British Empire and I think we can fairly say that the British authorities pretty well recognised the same rules of the game as Gandhi did. If Gandhi had tried to do it in Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia, what hope would he have had? He himself acknowledged that in order to succeed you had to be highly organised, to have a good strong leadership and to be able to publicise your intentions and keep everybody in touch. But a totalitarian state would deprive you of all means of communication.
33:04: Secondly, pacifism has always been only a minority view – in the last war, I believe, 2 percent. And of that 2 percent, there was a wide spectrum of view. In order to make it succeed, it would have to become a majority belief. So, what we are presented with is this: that we as a nation renounce the use of force. Presumably that means we do it now and we disarm and we make it known that we will not use arms, unless – which I can't believe – the pacifist is saying, 'No, we go on arming but we never intend to use those arms'. That, I think, would be trading with a principle. Secondly, we organise ourselves for non-violent resistance, meaning we allow the enemy to occupy ourselves but we confront him with silent hostility, non-cooperation, boycott, general strikes and everything. In other words, we let him come in but we make ourselves ungovernable. Now, we have to ask ourselves the question, ‘Is that viable? Is that viable against Hitler as we know Hitler?’. He would not – as the British did with Gandhi – just put somebody in jail for a few months. The leaders would disappear overnight without warning. He would have no hesitation at all in eliminating whoever he wanted to. Many historians will testify to the fact that he looked upon non-resistance as cowardly weakness, which merely incited him to become the more aggressive. You would have no access to the press, to the radio, to public meetings, nothing. Now, we know that even when a country accepts the right to defend itself, knows its life is at stake as in the last war, has a highly trained army, air force and navy, when faced with heavy opposition over a prolonged time has considerable job in maintaining its morale and its fighting determination. But how could you expect to maintain morale and your non-violent ideals under such provocation? Not only would the effective members of the community be eliminated but the undesirable members of the community would be bribed, so to speak, to take positions of responsibility. And we know that every nation is made up of all sorts of people and some of them are only too happy – as we know from the last war – to collaborate, particularly if they are given enough inducements to do so. So, I cannot honestly see that policy working even if it were sold to the nation here and now and agreed upon as a national policy.
37:17: But now, further than that, consider the effects upon our allies. Because we are now at a stage where the world is integrated. I would argue that the ultimate destiny of man – the point to which we are travelling and which however impossible it may seem today is still destined and guaranteed by God – is that finally the entire human family becomes one integrated body, so integrated that it to all intents and purposes becomes a person capable of collective thinking but without detriment to its individual members – we being the body, Christ being the head. Not only that, but that our job is to integrate in a similar way the entire physical creation, giving it a meaning and a purpose, giving it an eternity, eternalising it. So, we can see the human family under the divine plan of evolution gradually integrating more and more closely, the result of which is that we have enormous possibilities and hopes opened up to us but, equally, tremendous responsibilities and risks. If we, Britain, for instance became pacifist tonight and said, 'If anybody attacks us we can't help it, we are occupied', we can safely assume that no-one would attack us and occupy us unless they had world conquest designs. We would be a stepping stone. And so, what would happen to other countries that do not share those views?
39:51: So in the contemporary scene, I simply cannot see, either on… from the point of view of fundamental Christian principle or on grounds of practical success, that the non-violent resistance plan is viable. On the other hand, it is perfectly clear that in all other aspects the claims of the pacifist – that we must work for peace, that we must extend the options to armed confrontation – are absolutely right. And it is here that we all have common ground. And to me the great tragedy of war is not so much war itself – if I'm not misunderstood – but the fact that between the wars, we do so little to stop war, to remove the causes of war. When we look at all the injustice in the world, all the things that have gone wrong, the state of the poor by comparison with ourselves, and ask ourselves, 'What have we done?', we can't really give a very satisfactory answer. If we had done even half of what we should have done, those who were oppressed and poor would be looking towards us as their helpers, as their saviours, but they don't. I'm not saying the position is easy, it's very complex, but that truth still remains: that in war we sacrifice everything, there are no limits to what we are not prepared to do, and in peace – what? So my answer insofar as an ordinary human being I am able to give it is this: that our efforts should really be directed to all aspects of making this world a more livable world, eliminating the causes of war throughout the whole spectrum, building up the institutions of peace, working towards the establishment of a non-vetoed controlled international police force and finding every way we can of settling a dispute before it gets to the point of armed confrontation.
43:06: I think I've talked over my time and I thank you very much.
43:11: Presenter: Ladies and gentlemen...
43:15: Speech ends
43:16: End of recording
End of Transcription
File Title: GLC talk at St Lawrence Jewry on the error of pacifism 10.1.79
Duration: 43:16
Transcription Date: 10/03/20
Archive Number: AV-S_005
Start of Transcription
00:00: Group Captain Leonard Cheshire: Well first I would like to thank my old friend Basil Watson very much indeed for the privilege that he's given me today. There's a side of me that doesn't really thank you because it's bit of a difficult task. But it is a very great privilege for me to be amongst you on this occasion and to open this series.
00:29: I would like – if you would permit me – to suggest that we start by making, each in our own way, a small prayer because we all know that it's impossible to arrive at the truth of a complex and difficult matter except for the help of almighty God. And so perhaps we could just together say a little prayer asking for his guidance.
01:08: Lord Jesus, who did say that when 2 or 3 are gathered together in my name, there am I. Be amongst us today and by the power and strength of your Holy Spirit guide and enlighten our minds, cleanse our hearts from any prejudice or misconceptions and open our minds to see the truth as best we can.
01:53: Now I embark upon this talk with, on the one hand, a sense of urgency, precisely because it is such an important and vital matter to us all as members of the one human family, and on the other hand, with a sense of misgiving because it is a very sensitive, complex question: the use or the non-use of violence to repel attack and aggression. It's an area in which I think certain basic principles may be asserted but an area in which none of us can afford to be too dogmatic. We must set out genuinely wanting to discover the truth, not trying to make a predetermined point. And both sides – if I may put us this way – are in difficulty.
03:11: The Christian who says, 'Yes, there are occasions when I have to go to war' has to ask himself 'How can I reconcile my Christian beliefs in a God of love who has called us to love our fellow men and in loving our fellow men, to love Him... How can we reconcile that with wide-scale killing?'. The pacifist who says that he will renounce all use of violence has then to ask himself 'Can I really reconcile this with my responsibilities as a citizen of this country and also as a citizen of the world community of man?'. Both of us have a very real difficulty to face.
04:19: The first prerequisite in any discussion – particularly on this subject, pacifism – is to be very sure that we acknowledge and respect the sincerity of the other man and of his views. I've many times witnessed what I would call the military man discussing the subject with a pacifist and losing the discussion, the debate because he has failed to make it clear at the outset that he too wants to be a man of peace, that he too is willing to go to extreme lengths to resolve a dispute if possible by peaceful means. And so the debate becomes polarised: one man appearing to say, ‘We must fight whatever the situation’ – which isn't what he means – and the other man saying, 'No, don't let's fight'.
05:37: Now, it is such a wide subject that I… And there is so much to be said that my difficulty is to know what to select and how to get through the essence of it in the time I have. My terms of reference are the error of pacifism. Well now, I don't hold that pacifism is entirely wrong and, equally, pacifism is a very broad, comprehensive term that covers all sorts and shades of opinion and it would be impossible to deal with all of those. There are what I might call negative pacifists who merely say it is wrong to take up arms and take another man's life but substitute no alternative course of action. There are conditional or selective pacifists who say up to a point you may fight but beyond that you may not. There are also, I think, those who merely don't want to get into the firing line. But there are, in addition, those who have thought about it very deeply, believe in all sincerity and in conscience that it is wrong to take up arms and do have an alternative non-violent suggestion to make. And it is to that school of thought that I want to address myself and to that school only.
07:28: In order to do so, I would like very briefly to set the scene, as it were. That is to say, to speak briefly about morality, how is it that we judge what is right and what is wrong, given the fact that we belong to a nation that has all kinds of religious and non-religious views, let alone the world itself. And also a few words about the war convention as we know it in the contemporary world.
08:17: On the subject of morality, there are two points that I'd like briefly to cover – first, law and then, conscience – because these are crucial to an understanding of how we arrive at what is right and what is wrong. Law, in the ideal sense, is defined as an ordinance of reason made fo r the common good and promulgated by the person or body of persons responsible for the community in question. In this country, that would be Parliament. In the police it would be… I don't know, whoever's the… in charge of the police force. We all recognise and every society from the beginning of prehistory has always made laws, or at least mores, customs to keep society in harmony and to help it attain its end. Those are what we call the positive laws, the man-made laws for what man considers to be the good of his particular society, which may in fact have a bad end and not a good end.
09:48: In addition – though I know there are dissenting… a few dissenting voices –there is what we call the natural law, the moral law, analogous to the physical laws that hold the physical creation in harmony. The difference between the natural law and the positive law is that the natural law arises out of the essential being of man. Ever since the first attempt of the early Greeks to think out and systematise the natural law, man has studied it and worked at it and tried to arrive at a satisfactory, systemised body of laws which he calls the natural law. You might define it as a system of rules of right and honourable conduct accepted by the majority of mankind as applicable to all of us. If you came down to the concrete and said 'What is it?' probably the most we could say – but it's still a lot – is to use the golden rule: do unto others as you would they do unto yourself. At all events, it is a law that upholds and tries to define the dignity of man, that tries to define his rights and his duties and to give them validity in society. We find it most particularly in the contemporary scene in what we would call human rights or civil rights. Man has a feeling that there does exist a body of law quite independent from what society likes to think or conjure up, which applies to us all. Those who believe in the existence of a creator will also see that natural law as having an eternal or divine dimension. The Christian sees it as having a dimension of salvation. It is aimed at bringing us towards our eternal end.
12:40: One thing has to be said about law, though, and that is that it is historical, there is a historicity about it. That it is to say, there isn't a list of dos and don'ts that we can refer to because man lives in history – you might say he is history. He changes, he develops, society changes and develops as steadily we approach our predestined end ordained by almighty God. Therefore, what was right in one historical situation cannot too quickly be stated as a universal law applicable to all future generations. We have to apply general principles to the particular situation in which we find ourselves. And this brings us directly to conscience. Again, there are dissenting voices about the nature of conscience but universal experience tells us that somewhere inside us is a voice or whatever you will that warns us of something that we ought to do or something we ought not to do which gives us a feeling of wellbeing if we've done what we felt was right and a feeling of unease if we've not done it. In other words, each man has to make his own personal decision in the moral field as to what he is going to do. And in making those decisions, he builds himself up as a person or, if you like, he gives a direction to his life.
14:57: There can be no responsibility – and man is a responsible being – without a measure of freedom of action and a knowledge of the implications of that action. Conscience is not a faculty separate to our other faculties. It is a function of the intellect. When faced with a given situation, our conscience comes into play and warns us according to our likes what is right and what is wrong. It is defined by some people as the voice of God in the very depths of our being. The Christian is distinct from members of other religions, sees himself not under a regime of law, of obligation, but under a regime of grace and covenant. That is to say, God calls to us, requires us to do something and we respond or fail to respond. It is a personal, intimate relationship. And the Christian church totally upholds the inviolability of the human conscience. If a man truly feels in conscience he must not take up arms, then his conscience must be upheld. But conscience obviously is not the final arbiter. We have to inform our conscience. We have to learn from other people. I would say as a definition that where there is an honest and upright search for truth and for what is right, where there is a true openness of mind and where, in addition, there is an acceptance of our co-responsibility for the entire human family, there is morality.
17:25: Well now, coming to pacifism itself, to the pacifism that says… that rejects violence or the use of force as a solution to any form of dispute. For a moment we just have to look at pacifism. I'm not qualified to give a complete history and description of the different forms of pacifism. But one can say with truth that except in classical antiquity, there has always been an element of pacifism throughout history. We can also say that there has always been an element of pacifism – a fairly strong one – throughout the history of Christianity. But in practice, in the secular world, pacifism has never been found viable except by a minority group – an elite, you might say – who are dedicated to the fulfilment of their beliefs in this basic principle. We can also say that however continuous the thread of pacifism through Christianity, the church has never condemned war. From the time of St Augustine, the church evolved a doctrine which became known, particularly under the [unclear 19:26], as the Just War. Unfortunately, I think we can say that many Christian states use this doctrine to go to war more or less when they want to. Human practice – as in so many fields – did not really measure up to the theory. I think it is true to say that although the church has asserted that man has the right to self-defense when he really is being attacked, it has done so only reluctantly – as it were, as the last resort. And that really is the difficulty.
20:26: If we look at the contemporary scene and what I would call the war convention – bearing in mind, as I said, that man lives in history and that what we may declare today will not necessarily be right tomorrow – we find that international society, to simplify it, is made up of a number of sovereign states. And those sovereign states are accorded by international agreement certain rights: in particular, the right to territorial integrity and the right to political sovereignty. In other words, the right to determine how they are going to be governed and what kind of life they want to lead. We are permitted – at least I assert that we are permitted – to use what is often called the domestic analogy. This is important that we recognise the validity of the domestic analogy which, in some ways, will operate against the pacifist view but, in one respect at least, will operate in his favour. This means that you equate the sovereign state to a household. We, as members of a country, have the right to be secure in our own houses and to decide how we're going to lead our family life. Fortunately, there is a police force and a whole system of justice to safeguard that right. In international affairs as yet there is no international police force. Therefore, when a country has one of those basic rights violated, it has to become the policeman. I think we can say that it is a fair assumption that built into the natural law is the right of self-defence. At any rate, ever since man has existed he has considered that he has the right to self-defence if there's nobody else to come to his rescue.
23:25: Now, the situation that I want to consider is this: in this modern world, today, what would be our duty if a Hitler – because I have to draw on historical analogies, examples, what else can we draw on? We can't talk about purely hypothetical cases – if today, transposing Hitler 30 years forward, were to embark upon the schemes that he did embark upon in 1937 onwards with the intention of invading us and other European countries, eliminating certain elements of the community like Gypsies, Jews, the helpless and so on, what is our duty? Now, the pacifist says that in this modern age, given modern weapons, the destruction that would be caused in a total war of that kind is so great that you cannot reconcile it with basic Christian teaching or perhaps more precisely with the example that our Lord gave us and His particular teaching. So, we have to ask ourselves, I think, two questions: firstly, is there a fundamental principle of Christianity that forbids us to take another person's life, no matter what the circumstances? I'm talking not of our doing it privately but of the state doing it by decision of its government. I think I have to answer that question quite categorically: no. There is nothing in scripture that unambiguously asserts that we may not take life under any circumstances. To the best of my knowledge, there is only one text that bears directly upon the right to take up arms as a soldier, and that is the incident with St John the Baptist when he was… when he had violently condemned the [unclear 26:41] and people came to ask him what they should do, 'What am I to do?'. The soldiers came, he said, ‘No intimidation, no extortion, be content with your pay’. He did not say, ‘You should not be a soldier’. You may quote against that our Lord's words to Peter who took up the sword to cut off Malchus's ear, but Peter was doing that as a private individual against the authorised police of the state. It was a different situation.
27:27: So we can at least say: number one, that Christians are divided on this point, number two, that the church has never totally condemned all war, that there is no clear statement in scripture that we may not defend ourselves when that defence means taking life. It is argued that the early church, until the time of Constantine when the Roman Empire became Christian, was pacifist. I think, with respect, that is reading more into the history of the situation than is justified. The Christian community was a small community being persecuted and the prohibition that was undoubtedly put on them was not to become a Roman soldier, not to join… not to become a soldier because that was incompatible with Christian doctrine. Leaving aside the fact that the early church could well be over-enthusiastic – as it was with its community sharing scheme – being a Roman soldier meant, amongst other things, Emperor-worship. There were aspects to military service that were not compatible with Christian doctrine. I do not think that we can build a watertight case on the example of the early church.
29:20: If, then – as I feel one is justified in asserting – there is no fundamental principle that forbids us irrespective of the consequences, then we have to take our decision, our moral decision, in the same way that we make every other moral decision in life. We have to consider: one, the dictates of the natural or the Christian law or teaching as we understand it, and on the other, the concrete historical situation with which we are faced. And in that respect we have to work out which is likely to do the greatest harm or which of the two courses open to me will do the most good? Now, how are we going to assess the alternative long-term repercussions of being occupied by a Nazi Germany ruled by Hitler or the loss of life which would be caused by fighting him in the contemporary scene? I think it is very, very difficult for anybody to come up with a cut-and-dried answer to that. If there is doubt about it, we then have to look at the alternative proposal put forward by the pacifist.
31:17: Now, before I do that, remember pacifism is an untried project, activity. It has never been tried anywhere except of course within the non-violent movement context, but those are minority groups operating within a country, of which the most impressive and by far the greatest and the most systematised was that of Gandhi. But Gandhi was operating within the confines of the then British Empire and I think we can fairly say that the British authorities pretty well recognised the same rules of the game as Gandhi did. If Gandhi had tried to do it in Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia, what hope would he have had? He himself acknowledged that in order to succeed you had to be highly organised, to have a good strong leadership and to be able to publicise your intentions and keep everybody in touch. But a totalitarian state would deprive you of all means of communication.
33:04: Secondly, pacifism has always been only a minority view – in the last war, I believe, 2 percent. And of that 2 percent, there was a wide spectrum of view. In order to make it succeed, it would have to become a majority belief. So, what we are presented with is this: that we as a nation renounce the use of force. Presumably that means we do it now and we disarm and we make it known that we will not use arms, unless – which I can't believe – the pacifist is saying, 'No, we go on arming but we never intend to use those arms'. That, I think, would be trading with a principle. Secondly, we organise ourselves for non-violent resistance, meaning we allow the enemy to occupy ourselves but we confront him with silent hostility, non-cooperation, boycott, general strikes and everything. In other words, we let him come in but we make ourselves ungovernable. Now, we have to ask ourselves the question, ‘Is that viable? Is that viable against Hitler as we know Hitler?’. He would not – as the British did with Gandhi – just put somebody in jail for a few months. The leaders would disappear overnight without warning. He would have no hesitation at all in eliminating whoever he wanted to. Many historians will testify to the fact that he looked upon non-resistance as cowardly weakness, which merely incited him to become the more aggressive. You would have no access to the press, to the radio, to public meetings, nothing. Now, we know that even when a country accepts the right to defend itself, knows its life is at stake as in the last war, has a highly trained army, air force and navy, when faced with heavy opposition over a prolonged time has considerable job in maintaining its morale and its fighting determination. But how could you expect to maintain morale and your non-violent ideals under such provocation? Not only would the effective members of the community be eliminated but the undesirable members of the community would be bribed, so to speak, to take positions of responsibility. And we know that every nation is made up of all sorts of people and some of them are only too happy – as we know from the last war – to collaborate, particularly if they are given enough inducements to do so. So, I cannot honestly see that policy working even if it were sold to the nation here and now and agreed upon as a national policy.
37:17: But now, further than that, consider the effects upon our allies. Because we are now at a stage where the world is integrated. I would argue that the ultimate destiny of man – the point to which we are travelling and which however impossible it may seem today is still destined and guaranteed by God – is that finally the entire human family becomes one integrated body, so integrated that it to all intents and purposes becomes a person capable of collective thinking but without detriment to its individual members – we being the body, Christ being the head. Not only that, but that our job is to integrate in a similar way the entire physical creation, giving it a meaning and a purpose, giving it an eternity, eternalising it. So, we can see the human family under the divine plan of evolution gradually integrating more and more closely, the result of which is that we have enormous possibilities and hopes opened up to us but, equally, tremendous responsibilities and risks. If we, Britain, for instance became pacifist tonight and said, 'If anybody attacks us we can't help it, we are occupied', we can safely assume that no-one would attack us and occupy us unless they had world conquest designs. We would be a stepping stone. And so, what would happen to other countries that do not share those views?
39:51: So in the contemporary scene, I simply cannot see, either on… from the point of view of fundamental Christian principle or on grounds of practical success, that the non-violent resistance plan is viable. On the other hand, it is perfectly clear that in all other aspects the claims of the pacifist – that we must work for peace, that we must extend the options to armed confrontation – are absolutely right. And it is here that we all have common ground. And to me the great tragedy of war is not so much war itself – if I'm not misunderstood – but the fact that between the wars, we do so little to stop war, to remove the causes of war. When we look at all the injustice in the world, all the things that have gone wrong, the state of the poor by comparison with ourselves, and ask ourselves, 'What have we done?', we can't really give a very satisfactory answer. If we had done even half of what we should have done, those who were oppressed and poor would be looking towards us as their helpers, as their saviours, but they don't. I'm not saying the position is easy, it's very complex, but that truth still remains: that in war we sacrifice everything, there are no limits to what we are not prepared to do, and in peace – what? So my answer insofar as an ordinary human being I am able to give it is this: that our efforts should really be directed to all aspects of making this world a more livable world, eliminating the causes of war throughout the whole spectrum, building up the institutions of peace, working towards the establishment of a non-vetoed controlled international police force and finding every way we can of settling a dispute before it gets to the point of armed confrontation.
43:06: I think I've talked over my time and I thank you very much.
43:11: Presenter: Ladies and gentlemen...
43:15: Speech ends
43:16: End of recording
End of Transcription
Collection
Citation
G L Cheshire, “Leonard Cheshire on the error of pacifism,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed June 14, 2025, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/collections/document/40100.