Air University Review, March-April 1969
Chaplain (Lieutenant Colonel) Edward R. Lawler
Abraham Lincoln once claimed that knowing whether God is on our side is not so important as knowing that we are on God’s side. And whenever a war is at hand, Americans, at least, like to feel that it works both ways. While most do not claim to know God’s position with any degree of certainty, some, more secure in their opinions, have written books to state where they would like to think God is standing during the Vietnam war.
Commander John J. O’Connor, Chaplain, U.S. Navy, in A Chaplain Looks at Vietnam,* does not claim to know which side God is on in Vietnam. He settles for explaining which side John O’Connor is on and why and implies that he hopes he has guessed right John
Three other writers, however, have more definite ideas. Vietnam: Crisis of Conscience,** by a Protestant clergyman, Robert McAfee Brown, a Jewish rabbi, Abraham J. Heschel, and a Catholic layman, Michael Novak, describes what it is that troubles the consciences of the authors and implies that every American ought to have a crisis along with them. These three authors face the issue of Vietnam because they feel their religious convictions demand it of them. The titles of their essays, “Stumbling Into War and Stumbling Out,” by Novak, “The Moral outrage of Vietnam,” by Heschel, and “An Appeal to the Churches and Synagogues,” by Brown, indicate they think the churches ought to do something about a war that, in their opinion, was a mistake in the first place.
Novak reviews the events that marked the United States’ gradual military involvement, all the while indicating it is his opinion that poor decisions were made all along the line and therefore our presence in Vietnam is illegal according to international law, irresponsible according to human law, and incorrect according to both. Novak does not openly label the United States’ position in Vietnam as immoral. Perhaps he feels that only God can make that decision. As he puts it, “My aim, in short, is not to exhort or to plead, far less to condemn. My aim is to mark out the terrain clearly, and to advance step by step through it as I do so. . . . My aim, then, is not so much to persuade as to clarify.”
Heschel agonizes over the horrors of all war and especially of the Vietnamese one. Not as logical as Novak in the presentation of his viewpoint, Heschel writes his appeal for immediate peace on a high-pitched emotional level from start to finish.
Brown is more definite in his statements on “the immorality of the warfare in Vietnam.” After reviewing and disagreeing with the better-known reasons given by the State Department and the President for the present conduct of the war, Brown appeals to the churches of the United States. Christians and Jews alike have an obligation, he says, to call on all to repent for the sins committed in Vietnam. He confidently, if not arrogantly, claims that if church and synagogue members do not call on Americans to initiate new steps that will lead to peace, “God will judge us harshly.” “But. . . if we seek to undo. . . the wrong that has been done. . . God himself will be with us.”
O’Connor spends a whole chapter of his And whenever a war is at hand, Americans, at book reviewing and refuting in some detail the statements and positions of the authors of Vietnam: Crisis of Conscience. He sums up his opinion of the book by saying of the authors, “They bombard the emotions with half-truths, which, though multiplied by the hundreds, never become whole. They ‘hit and run’ -throw the most shattering statements on their pages, then rush on, without reasoned demonstration, clear evidence, scholarly support for their charges.” He goes on to say, “I think it a bad book.” And for anyone who holds O’Connor’s opinion about Vietnam, it is a bad book.
O’Connor’s opinion on Vietnam is based in great part on personal experience as a Navy chaplain with the Marines in combat areas. This experience, of course, enabled him to talk with South Vietnamese people of both high and low position. He records conversations with villagers as well as with Vietnamese government officials and journalists. The main strength of his presentation lies in the detailed treatment of the beginnings of the conflict back in the days of the Vietnamese-French war, and even before, to the early days of Ho Chi Minh as a budding Communist under his real name, Nguyen Ai Quoc. The author also discusses in some detail the Geneva Conference declaration. Another strong chapter discusses the sources of confusion about Vietnam in the minds of many citizens. O’Connor lays most but not all of the blame at the feet of the news media with an impressive list of inaccuracies and inconsistencies. One quotation from Marguerite Higgins is particularly strong in criticism of her fellow journalists’ misleading influence over a State Department Voice of America broadcast.
What Chaplain O’Connor’s book adds up to is an attempt to establish that the United States is on safe legal grounds in its involvement in Vietnam, for he feels that if we are on safe legal grounds, “we are probably on reasonably safe moral grounds. . . .” He states, “This approach gives us at least a reasonably concrete area of reference to examine.” And so he sets about to examine what legal contracts, treaties, pacts, charters, and other international instruments he thinks give the United States reasonably safe moral grounds for being in Vietnam.
The quest for reasonably safe moral grounds is an important concept to ponder, for here we are discussing the notion of certitude. How certain can any man be in his convictions that his actions are morally right or wrong? This is the area where man seeks to be on God’s side. To the man of religious faith, the most reliable criterion for arriving at certitude is the word of God. Sometimes this word is clearer than at other times. When it is clear, the religious man can proceed to do or not do with a conscience that is certain he is doing what is right and just. Most of the time, however, decisions have to be made without benefit of a clear-cut statement or criterion from God or man. So most of us proceed with the decision-making in our lives without the assurance which comes from complete, untainted certainty that what we are doing is right and just. We generally operate on what O’Connor calls “reasonably safe moral grounds.”
For anyone with any amount of Aristotelian or Thomistic background, whether obtained through formal study of these philosophies or by exposure to people and cultures influenced by them, a. reasonably safe moral ground is arrived at by some amount of reasoning. When we get into the area of the human conscience, we are dealing with the intellect at work making a judgment about the morality, or the rightness or wrongness, of a specific action. A conscientious objector is supposed to be someone who has made a judgment based on his reasoned examination of the morality of an act here and now. Likewise, a conscientious assentor is one who has made a judgment based on a reasoned examination of the morality of an action. The objector judges the action to be wrong; the assentor judges it to be right. But both use reason more than feelings to arrive at their decisions. An act of conscience is an act of the intelligence, an intellectual reaction-not a gut reaction.
In this day, when the so-called gut reaction is often considered as legitimate a decision-making process as an intellectual act, it is more difficult to appeal to reason and to reasoned judgments in matters of importance. Perhaps for the psychological peace of the individual, gut reaction is the more practical method by which to arrive at decisions. But for international peace, the forces of history and the demands of political philosophies do not permit such a luxury. Judgments must be based on reasoned reaction to the facts of the world situation at the moment.
Theologians are usually men of reason rather than feelings. This has nearly always been so until the popularity of the New Morality or Situation Ethics became widespread. Classic theologians leave very little room for the influence of feelings on the decision-making procedures of a man. They have always been more interested in telling it the way it ought to be rather than the way it is. The advocates of New Morality and Situation Ethics leave plenty of room for individual feelings when deciding on the rightness or wrongness of an action.
O’Connor has settled for the more classic approach to deciding the morality of the Vietnam situation. As he points out, “We are not asking whether we like or dislike, want or don’t want to be engaged in the conflict.” While he is familiar with the classic conditions for a just war given by theologians over many centuries, he does not review them one by one and apply them to the Vietnam war. Such an exercise, in view of the complexities of modern international relations and the massive destructive power of nuclear weapons, usually leads to diverse opinions and conflicting decisions that settle little or nothing. A review of the old but still modern conditions for a just war, introduced into Christian thinking by Augustine in the fifth century and refined by theologians since, will show what difficulty there is in applying them to a specific war in modern times. One theologian states these conditions thus:
That war may be just the
following conditions must be fulfilled: It must be declared by the State
itself; it must be necessary in the last resort after diplomacy has failed;
there must be a grave and just reason for it; the method of it must be just,
and in accordance with international law; an upright purpose must be intended;
it may not be protracted after due satisfaction has been given or offered; the
conditions of peace must be just, and may not be crushing, unless such severity
is necessary for present self-defence.1
Some theologians explain that the concept of a just method of waging war, and not protracting it after due satisfaction has been given, includes ( 1 ) the use of only that amount of force needed to defeat the enemy rather than enough to completely annihilate him, (2) weighing the overall cost of the war against what is to be gained. “Is it worth a fight?” is one of the most important of all questions that a nation’s leaders must ask before entering a war.
Neither O’Connor nor the authors of Vietnam: Crisis of Conscience have taken on the task of trying to apply all these classic conditions to the Vietnam war. This reviewer knows of no theologian, philosopher, church leader, or author who has. Theologians and other scholars, Christian, Jewish, and some without religious affiliation, have studied and arrived at different conclusions about the morality of nuclear war in general. Roland H. Bainton, John Ford, S.J., and Bertrand Russell are among them. In Christian Attitudes Toward War and Peace: A Historical Survey and Critical Re-evaluation, 2 Roland Bainton presents in some detail the variations in ethical opinions about war from antiquity to the present. James O’Gara in The Church and War3 has summarized the thinking of Christian thinkers on the subject of war and peace over the course of Christian history. But none of these men care to tackle the problem of labeling the Vietnam war one way or the other: just or unjust.
Nor have the leading church bodies actually released any official statements that give evidence of a point-by-point application of the classic conditions for a just war to the Vietnam conflict. In January 1966 the Synagogue Council of America issued a statement which said in part:
Our religious conscience compels us to exert every influence so that the action in Viet Nam can be moved from the battlefield to the negotiating table.
We do not lay claim to moral certitude and refrain from moral dogmatism in this complex and agonizing situation. Within the range of religious commitment and concern, differences as to specific policies can and do exist. We recognize that those who see the need for checking Communist subversion by military means are no less dedicated to the cause of a just world peace than those who believe the United States must cease hostilities in Viet Nam.
The General Assembly of the National Council of Churches said in a 1966 statement on Vietnam:
To keep the Vietnam war under constant moral scrutiny, widespread study, discussion and action are required. Much of this can and should be done together with each religious community adhering to its own convictions. Thus, may we join in our plea for peace, and express our common will for peace.
The American Catholic Bishops in a joint statement in 1966 wrote:
Americans can have confidence in the sincerity of their leaders as long as they work for a just peace in Vietnam. Their efforts to find a solution to the present impasse are well known. . . . While we do not claim to be able to resolve these issues authoritatively, in the light of the facts as they are known to us, it is reasonable to argue that our presence in Vietnam is justified.
These statements by the leading church bodies in the United States indicate that the churches do not claim to have complete moral certitude nor do they feel able to speak with authority on whether the Vietnam war is a just one in the sense of the classic conditions. What the church leaders are saying in effect is that the United States’ presence in Vietnam is on “reasonably safe moral grounds.”
When distinguished religious leaders, who are looked upon by many American citizens as reliable guides in matters of morality, state honestly that “we do not lay claim to moral certitude. . . in this complex and agonizing situation” and “we do not claim to be able to resolve these issues authoritatively,” it is easy to understand why the average morally mature citizen hesitates to condemn the Vietnam war as immoral. In the case of Vietnam, complete moral certitude is difficult to come by. The question is, “What’s an average Citizen to do?”
John O’Connor has tried to answer this question by carefully outlining the legal foundations on which the United States has built its case for being in Vietnam and waging the present conflict against the North Vietnamese and the Viet Congo. While the classic conditions for a just war may be too complex and even too antiquated to apply to modern warfare, the legal agreements between nations are more recent and less difficult to understand. O’Connor’s point is this: if these legal agreements, based on the Geneva Accords of 1954 and 1962 as well as on the actions of three presidents and the Congress of the United States, are valid, then we are on safe legal grounds; and if we are on safe legal grounds, “we are probably on reasonably safe moral grounds.”
Of course, whether we are on safe legal grounds depends on the integrity of Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson and their Administrations. If they have been dishonest in entering into legal agreements among nations, establishing the treaties and pacts which have committed the United States to the defense of South Vietnam, we are not on safe legal grounds and probably not on reasonably safe moral grounds. In the face of the violent and impassioned disagreement with the Administration, so often expressed with blatant viciousness and vulgarity, which frequently questions the moral and intellectual integrity of President Johnson, Chaplain O’Connor lets his anger show when he asks, “By what right do we assume or attribute either malice or stupidity on the part of the President of the United States, simply because we may disagree with his policy decisions?”
At the time of World War II, religious leaders of the major faith groups in the United States, while not declaring the war just according to the classic conditions for a just war, did assure their flocks that an American citizen would be justified in participating in the defense of his country. The religious leaders then and now have acted to help their people form their consciences on reasonably safe moral grounds. In an era of nuclear weapons, complex international relations, highly populated centers, and other complications unforeseen by the philosophers, theologians, and religious leaders who formulated the classic conditions for a just war, modern man must seek additional foundations for his moral decisions because the classic conditions continually become more difficult to apply. If the citizen cannot look with confidence for guidance to those men and women whom he has freely elected to office, where else can he look? The average citizen, and indeed the above-average citizen, unless he is privy to the government’s inner circles of decision-making and thus able to use firsthand information, must be able to trust the political leaders and their decisions.
To add further to the average citizen’s bewilderment about the morality of
Vietnam, the subject has been discussed by men and women of renown both in and
out of government. Distinguished scholars, politicians, scientists, both
retired and active-duty military leaders, clergymen, former and present cabinet
members, presidents, and vice presidents have all written and spoken their
highly varied opinions concerning Vietnam. It is interesting that O’Connor and
the authors of what he calls “a bad book,” Vietnam: Crisis of Conscience,
list at least eight of the same books and articles in their respective
bibliographies. This alone indicates that intelligent people arrive at opposite
conclusions after reading the same materials about Vietnam. The difficulties
encountered in arriving at a moral conviction on the rightness or wrongness of
the United States’ position in Vietnam have thus been compounded for the
citizen of average intelligence and sincerity.4
Chaplain O’Connor has painstakingly reviewed many of these conflicting opinions and carefully outlined the historical and legal grounds for the United States’ presence in Vietnam with the hope that:
Perhaps something of what I say will make enough sense to demonstrate that there is reason in what our country is doing, not madness; that there is much more honesty than there is duplicity, much more clarity than ambiguity, much more justice and sincere concern about the peoples of Vietnam and all of Asia and all the world than self-aggrandizement, or arrogance of power, much more humaneness than inhumanity, much-very much-more anguished determination to achieve a just, enduring peace than to protract war.
A Chaplain Looks at Vietnam comes very close to achieving the author’s ambitious aims as stated in the above words from his Introduction. While the book will never convince those who emotionally disagree with the United States’ presence in Vietnam, it will enable the thoughtful citizen to consider carefully the government’s position and to ponder seriously where his own conscience stands. The average citizen can say of himself, as the religious leaders of the country have said of themselves, that he does “not lay claim to moral certitude” about Vietnam. But he can say with them that he has “confidence in the sincerity of his leaders.” Having said this, the average citizen will still not know for certain on which side God is in this conflict. But he will know for certain that serious efforts are being made to be on God’s side. And that, after all, is the meaning of being on reasonably safe moral grounds.
Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama
*J. O’Connor, A Chaplain Looks at Vietnam (Cleveland: World Publishing Company, 1968, $5.95), xvi and 256 pp.
**Robert McAfee Brown, Abraham J. Heschel, Michael Novak, Vietnam: Crisis of Conscience (New York: Association Press, Herder and Herder, 1967, $3.50), 127 pp.
Notes
1. Henry Davis, S.J., Moral and Pastoral Theology, Vol. II (London: Sheed and Ward, 1945), pp. 148-49.
2. Roland Bainton, Christian Attitudes Toward War and Peace: A Historical Survey and Critical Re-evaluation (New York: Abingdon Press, 1960).
3. James O’Gara, The Church and War (Washington, D.C.: The National Council of Catholic Men, 1967).
4. The World Council of Churches Assembly at Uppsala, Sweden, and the pastoral letter of the American Catholic bishops in 1968 recognized the sincerity of those conscientious objectors whose objection is only to a specified war rather than to all wars.
Chaplain (Lieutenant Colonel) Edward R. Lawler (M.A., New York University) is a Member, USAF Chaplain Board, Hq Air University. He was ordained in 1944 and served in churches in Lubbock, Texas, and San Francisco, California, and at the Catholic Information Center, Boston, Massachusetts. Commissioned in 1952, he served as a chaplain in Texas before going to Korea in 1953 with the Fifth Communications Group, later with the 841st Aviation Engineer Battalion (SCARWAF). Other assignments have been at Chanute AFB, Illinois, Sheppard AFB, Texas, Eielson AFB, Alaska, and Dow AFB, Maine. He was editor-in chief, Book and Pamphlet Division, paulist Press, New York, 1958-60. Returning to active duty in 1960, Chaplain Lawler was at Hamilton AFB, California, and Albrook AFB, Canal Zone, before assuming his present duty.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.
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