The things I learned while at Northwestern University

[agpreacher]

As someone who will likely spend the rest of their lives writing and teaching ethics in the university setting, I was greatly excited by the information received tonight while standing in line behind a fellow student and future world leader

Comments

Re: prof comments

[agpreacher]

you would need to see that this professor is thoroughly Augustinian. Which means that his doctrine of sin is that it will never be overcome. A sinful people will eventually always revenge with violence.

Plus, remember that a sense of justice is "natural." We all have it. A man punches his girlfriend. We naturally want to lash out and vindicate the injustice. So, pacifism is contrary to nature. Therefore, it would be "impossible" to avoid ever joining in a conflict. If that is true, then you certainly better have a sense of what a just response to the abuser in the above situation would be...otherwise you may take your natural sense of justice too far and become the oppressor/abuser.

So pacifism is temporary...until the eschaton (heaven) in which it peace will reign. Therefore, a pacifist position is only good in so far it gives witness to the coming peacable kingdom of god. Not entering the conflict actually allows the injustice to continue. Certainly this is undesirable.

So, is pacifism temporal? It certainly isn't sustainable and still retain justice on this side of the eschaton. We must decide to witness to the coming peacable kingdom, or fight for justice.

But our hope is in the ETERNAL peacable coming kingdom.

my .02 cents