Just War Theory And The Book Of Jonah

Last month I looked at the objections of just war theorists, especially the neo-Thomist philosopher Edward Feser, to President Trump's threats against Iran in the runup to the raid on its nuclear sites. The fact that the raid proved closely targeted and didn't lead to further US involvement seems so far to have kept Prof Feaser from expressing further objections. But I keep running into scriptural problems that make me wonder if just war theorists have all the answers.

For instance, just this past Sunday's gospel reading, Luke 10: 1-12, 17-20 contains a reference to Sodom and Gomorrah, which I've compared in the link to the destruction of a nuclear attack:

8 And into what city soever you enter, and they receive you, eat such things as are set before you.

9 And heal the sick that are therein, and say to them: The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you.

10 But into whatsoever city you enter, and they receive you not, going forth into the streets thereof, say:

11 Even the very dust of your city that cleaveth to us, we wipe off against you. Yet know this, that the kingdom of God is at hand.

12 I say to you, it shall be more tolerable at that day for Sodom, than for that city.

But this reminded me of the task the Almighty put to Jonah when He sent him to warn Nineveh in Jonah 3: 1-4:

1 The word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time:

2 "Set out for the great city of Nineveh, and announce to it the message that I will tell you."

3 So Jonah made ready and went to Nineveh, according to the LORD'S bidding. Now Nineveh was an enormously large city; it took three days to go through it.

4 Jonah began his journey through the city, and had gone but a single day's walk announcing, "Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed,"

The NAB has a footnote here that makes the context plain:

[4] Shall be destroyed: the Hebrew expression reminds the reader of the "overthrowing" of the wicked cities, Sodom and Gomorrah, by a special act of God.

As it happens, both the citizens and the king of Nineveh saw the error of their ways, repented, fasted, and wore sackcloth and ashes. By the end of the chapter:

10 When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way, he repented of the evil that he had threatened to do to them; he did not carry it out.

As far as I've been able to determine, the only cities in scripture that the Almighty Himself destroyed were four of the five cities of the plain in Genesis 14, Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim. God spared Zoar, the fifth. This leaves out Jericho and an unspecified number of other Canaanite cities that God instructed Joshua to destroy, burning them to the ground and killing all the men, women, children, and animals.

But now we see at least two threats elsewhere in scripture, the one in Luke 10: 12 from Jesus Himself, and the one in Jonah 3: 2-4, from God through Jonah, promising destruction equivalent to Sodom and Gomorrah. But Prof Feser finds even threats of mass destruction immoral:

As they routinely do, Trump’s defenders may suggest that his words should not be taken at face value, but interpreted as mere “trash talk” or perhaps as exercises in “thinking out loud” rather than as final policy decisions. But this helps their case not at all. War is, needless to say, an enterprise of enormous gravity, calling for maximum prudence and moral seriousness. Even speaking about the possibility must be done with great caution. (Think of the chaos that could follow upon trying quickly to evacuate a city of nearly ten million people, even if there were no actual plan to bomb it.) A president who is instead prone to woolly thinking and flippant speech about matters of war is a president whose judgment about them cannot be trusted. (And as I have argued elsewhere, he has already in other ways proven himself to have unsound judgment about such things.)

In that paragraph, he links to an entry on his blog criticizing Trump's thinking-out-loud over annexing Greenland:

Even if Trump is merely bluffing, the point of the bluff would be to frighten Denmark and Greenland into making an agreement they would not otherwise be willing to make. But this is sheer extortion and gangsterism. Moral common sense and traditional natural law theory alike hold that an agreement cannot be licit or binding if made under such unjust duress.

But how do we differentiate the threat God has instructed Jonah to make to Nineveh -- straighen up or I will, in effect, nuke you -- from the putative, much vaguer threat Trump is making against Greenland and Denmnark, sell Greenland to the US, or else. Aren't both extortionate? Let's recall that to a Thomist like Prof Feser, scripture is inerrant, and God is perfect. God is threatening Nineveh with nuclear-equivalent destruction, as is Jesus, who threatens worse for any city that rejects His messengers. I can only assume Prof Feaser will argue that in these cases, God's cause is just, and the threats are justified,when they would be evil and immoral if made by Trump or Truman.

But isn't the whole point of the Jonah story the long and difficult struggle Jonah undertakes in recognizing both the underlying justice of God's cause and, more important, the need for him to play a role in bringing it about? And let's not forget that even though Jonah finally does what he's told, he goes to Nineveh and delivers the message, but then he gets angry when Nineveh hears the threat, cleans up its act, and God relents! A footnote in the NAB says,

Jonah is selfish in bemoaning his personal loss of a shady gourd plant without any concern over the threat of loss of life to the Ninevites through the destruction of their city. If God in his kindness provided the plant for his prophet without the latter's effort or merit, how much more is he disposed to show love and mercy toward all men, Jew and Gentile, when they repent of their sins and implore his pardon! God's providence is also shown here to extend even to animals.

By the end of the book, Jonah still hasn't quite figured out God's will. The only thing I can conclude is that on one hand, if you're destroying cities or even threatening to do it, if it's in a juat cause, it's neither evil nor immoral. God or His designees do this in scripture. On the other side of the coin, it's not a simple thing to recognize your cause is just. Jonah may well wrestle with all the implications of his own story for the rest of his life. Isn't this a major point of Jonah?

Just war theorists want to sit in judgment over Truman or Trump without recognizing that both are in difficult, highly ambiguous situations, certainly in Truman's case not far from being in the belly of the great fish. But also, in Trump's case, Prof Feser consistently criticizes Trump for seeming to be about to do things he never actually does -- and so far, he hasn't gotten around to analyzing what he may have missed in doing so.